April 2013 by SouthSide Media

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ROCK

The Title I preschool located in the basement of RBHS offers families opportunities. p. 9

Rock Bridge High School » 4303 S. Providence Rd., Columbia MO, 65203 » Vol. 40, Issue 7 » April 18, 2013 » bearingnews.org Up in lights:

Nation

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Squirrels in the Attic, one of 21 groups to perform at CAPERS, rehearses their cover of ‘What is Hip?’ by Tower of Power on stage Monday night.

A pair of bombings at the end of the Boston Marathon on Monday afternoon left over 150 injured and three dead. The bombs went off within 13 seconds of each other. The Senate will likely vote on the gun law proposal at the end of the week, CNN reports. Sen. Joe Manchin and Sen. Pat Toomey drafted the bill as a compromise. Although the two senators individually have high NRA ratings, the NRA opposes the bill. the

State

The Missouri Senate passed SB87 Thursday, April 11, allowing nursing mothers to opt out of jury duty. Brian Long, Missouri Department of Revenue Director, resigned Monday amid a controversy over the handling of concealed gun permit documents. The Callaway County nuclear plant is down for a routine refueling. The refueling created 800 temporary jobs in Callaway County.

City

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The American College of Physicians announced University of Missouri School of Medicine Dr. David Fleming the new president-elect. Many Columbia residents are outraged after the vandalism of the local landmark, the Big Tree. The oak was found Thursday spray-painted with orange letters reading, “PROM?”

School

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Bruin Girl tryouts begin on Monday and will run from 3:30 p.m. until 5:30 p.m. Students can sign up tomorrow for the Mud Volleyball fundraiser. The event is on May 2 at 3:30 p.m. Proceeds go to the junior and senior classes. the

Rock

Academics 4 Community 5 Features 7 Profiles 11 In-Depths 12 Commentary 15 Editorials 17 Sports 20 A&E 23

CAPERS prepares to entertain, fundraise photo by Aniqa Rahman

alyssa » Sykuta

f all goes as planned, at 7 p.m., the parking lots will overflow, the ticket box in the Performing Art Center lobby will be nearly sold out, and the auditorium will be overflowing with students, teachers and families sitting anxiously in their seats. The pit band, dressed in black, will sit in front of the stage, blowing air through their instruments. The lights will dim; the band will play. Emcees Troy Guthrie and Sam Keller will waltz out on stage to introduce RBHS’ 32nd annual talent show: CAPERS. Founded in the early 1980s by Music and Film Analysis teacher and thenband director Rich Hadfield, assistant band director and CAPERS spear header Robert Thalhuber said Columbia Public Schools’ longest-running talent show has always been called CAPERS, to “give it a title rather than just a generic talent show, because we try to make it more than a talent show.” All money collected from ticket sales directly benefits the RBHS band program. Because money from the district starts running low as second semester wears on, CAPERS serves as a fundraiser to hold the band’s bank account over until next fall, bringing in a couple thousand dollars each year.

“This time of year, money gets tight bunch of bands and female vocalists because we have to spend our budgets because we want to make it a variety by a certain day, so there’s a period of show,” Thalhuber said. “So sometime where we don’t have money in times, if something’s different, [acts] our instructional budgets, so this sort have a better chance of getting in, even of gaps us until we have our next year’s if they’re not as talented, because we budget,” Thalhuber said. “So anything want to keep the audience engaged.” that comes up — we need[ed] to buy a Though there is always a chance for rain stick, for example, for [the district] rejection after auditions, junior Daniel festival [in March]. So that money is Shapiro was not surprised to see his going to have to come out of our ECA act made the cut. Shapiro compiled a that we had from CAPERS last year. So group of nine musicians to perform the it gets us through.” funk tune, “What is Hip?” by Tower of Thalhuber and student teacher Alex Power. Never having participated in Higgins held audian act before, the tions for the event trumpeter seized March 12 and 13. the opportunity to [CAPERS] sort of gaps us More than 40 stuplay for an audiuntil we have our next dents auditioned, ence this year. year’s budget.” comprising rough“I like playing ly 26 acts. March music, and I really 15, Thalhuber Robert Thalhuber like playing music posted the results » assistant band director in front of a lot of in set order, admitpeople,” Shapiro ting 21 acts to persaid. “I knew that form at the actual event tonight. This this would be a time where I could play is unusual, according to Thalhuber; in front of a huge crowd, a lot of which normally only 15 to 18 acts perform be- who I know, so I thought it would be cause of time restraints and the desire cool if I put a group together.” not to bore the audience with hours of Not only do the acts make each year similar acts. of CAPERS a different experience, but “We try to strive for a variety. ... We the night’s hosts add their own special have a lot of female vocalists that come twist each year to the event as well. out every year, and so we can’t have a Last year, alumnus Charlie Davis and

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foreign exchange student Joseph De Bony embedded jokes about France and a sung invitation to prom between acts. This year, Guthrie and Keller hope to put their own spin on things. “One thing we’re doing is we’re going to have videos in ours. ... I think it’s going to be a little bit more inappropriate this year, but it’s going to be really funny,” Keller said. “You’re going to see a lot of Troy and I making fun of each other, so that’s going to be fun.” For $5, anyone can purchase a ticket for tonight’s entertainment. From singing to dancing to funk bands and comedic relief, Keller says the talent show is sure to be just as thrilling as it has proved in previous years. Anyone is welcome to attend this event, support the band program and witness a slice of the talent RBHS has to offer. “There’s a lot of talent at Rock Bridge, and CAPERS gives a lot of the kids that ... don’t really get a chance to shine on their own, it gives them an opportunity to show their talents to an audience in front of however many people can fit in the PAC, because it’s always packed,” Keller said. “It’s just a fun evening.”

Learn how tonight’s performers conquer stagefright p. 20.

Organization spreads awareness, hopes to change vocabulary raj » Satpathy

igh school can be a torrent of teenage angst, drama and the everpresent nasty teasing. Despite the mainstream attention last year after the release of Bully, RBHS teacher Rachel Victor believes others still make an undue amount of fun of students with disabilities. Victor enlisted senior Abby Spaedy and Bruins United to expedite a campaign. As it would be impossible to completely eradicate bullying, Victor is focusing on the usage of demeaning language, especially the word “retarded.” A victim of the word herself as a child, she understands how much this word can hurt. So throughout April, Victor and Spaedy are educating students about the degrading nature of such terminology. Outreach activities meant to spread awareness about the offensive word are taking place throughout the month.

This involves everything from selling T-shirts to an all-inclusive bowling tournament. “These activities are planned just to make everyone feel welcome at school and feel as though we’re a community,” Spaedy said. “We want to be supportive of everyone.” Too often one can hear the “R word” echo in the halls. It’s used in jest, for the most part, but it is hurtful to those who suffer from learning and cognitive disabilities. Senior Vikram Arun recognizes this disconnect, believing many students don’t think about the real meaning behind the word before using it. “I feel like retard is one of those terms that [is] thrown out loosely without actually knowing what they mean,” Arun said. “And even those who know what it means don’t actually think about it before they say it.” The unique aspect of Spaedy and Victor’s approach is the “I will...” pledge they

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photo provided by Laurel Critchfield

want students to take while participating in their activities. Victor hopes the pledge will ensure that no student who takes it will use the word. But the pledge is not meant only to dissuade further use of the word, but to foster friendship between individuals with disabilities and the rest of RBHS. Even then, in Victor’s mind, the program has a far-reaching goal: acceding to the equality of all people, regardless of faith, creed, race or disability. The use of the “R word” is comparable to other terms which belittle people. Victor hopes the universal implications of the program can be spread. She envisions a future where groups advocate this message throughout the school district. “I want this to go further than Rock Bridge. It’s just going to take time and effort,” Victor said. “It’ll happen; I know it will.” Though some may not believe the campaign will have

Issue

Culture affects ideas about luck

some call it fate, others call it karma. Many beliefs exist as to why things happen the south of Columbia, a 350-year- way they do. Whether founded in religion or old tree serves as a landmark culture, people hold different beliefs about and local destination spot. the idea of luck around the world.

Nature holds meaning

photo by Aniqa Rahman

Spread the word to stop the word: Bruins United dedicated the month of April to stopping the use of the hurtful ‘R word.’ much of an effect on the student population, Victor already saw it affect one of the students. She believes it will continue to make a difference far into the future as well. “I talked to the individual the other day, someone who I didn’t know at all. She just came in and she said, ‘Thank you for tackling this problem.’

If I got that one person, then we did it. We did something,’” Victor said. “Maybe someone doesn’t get it now, but maybe two years down the road ... they’re going to get it, and they’re going to hear someone be called that and they’re going to say, ‘Hey, that’s not OK.’ And we’ll have made a difference.”

Quality battles affordability Music plays a part in everyday life. With an expansion of technology and photo by Asa Lory portable music devices, the headphone market with a lack of ice rinks in town, grows and students find it junior Keegan McGonagle transfers more difficult to obtain the his hockey skills to lacrosse. perfect pair.

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photo used with permission from Associated Press photo by Asa Lory

A new groove: Senior Ben Bergstrom, junior Stephanie Bonham and senior Kaleb Jacks rehearse with the jazz ensemble. Next year, all performing arts groups will increase in size with the arrival of freshmen. However, staffing numbers will remain similar for the program.

Performing arts programs accommodate freshmen manal » Salim

ith the move to a four-year high school system next year, the influx of freshmen is expected to alter classroom sizes and structures at RBHS. This holds true for the performing arts program, where the increased number of new students has already led Columbia Public Schools and RBHS to take preliminary steps in preparation for the upcoming change. CPS and RBHS anticipate the increased number of students in the performing arts programs will require an additional number of instructors for some groups, while for others, the change in size will be the only difference. “Next year choir is adding another teacher, but band and orchestra ensembles will grow in numbers, but not show an increase in teachers,” CPS Fine Arts

Coordinator Dr. Deborah Jacobs said. “The choral teacher will be half-time, and for orchestra, the ensemble might be larger, but there will be only one teacher. The same holds true for band, where there will be one director and one assistant director, as usual, but a change in size.” All across the board, choir, orchestra and band plan to have a higher number of members next year, and there will be a new total of three bands and four choirs. Sophomore band member Claire Simon believes the negative aspect of having less-experienced freshmen is far outweighed by the positives that RBHS band and all of the performing arts will face with the large addition of students. “I know when people drop band, it’s usually after freshman year. ... Once they’re part of the program, they’re more likely to stay in band,” Simon said. “The

negative effects of incoming freshmen that have less experience, over time, could change as freshmen are expected to keep up with upperclassmen.” Choir and orchestra will undergo similar adjustments said senior Grant Flakne, a member of all three performing arts groups. Choir will have an ensemble mandatory for freshmen, and orchestra is considering a second ensemble along with audition requirements for the top ensemble. “All around, we will probably just bump in size ... and that’s always positive,” Flakne said. “Not a lot should actually change ensemble-wise because orchestra, band and choir are adding ensembles to compensate.” Despite the addition of groups, Jacobs foresees a challenge in coordinating freshmen. But she believes the challenges can be overlooked because of the positive effect of having larger ensembles

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Read the full investigation of the issue on Bearing News

onday, April 15, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry reiterated the conditions for holding diplomatic talks while North Koreans celebrated the birthday of Kim Il Sung, the first leader of North Korea. Current leader Kim Jong Un paid respects in what may have been his first appearance in two weeks. Kerry’s comments come at the end of his three-day tour through South Korea, China and Japan, where he attempted to secure commitments from the three countries to try to persuade North Korea to return to negotiations. The United States has made the conditions for holding talks clear “many times,” and Kerry said they have not changed. “The conditions have to be met where the North has to move towards denuclearization,” Kerry said, “indicate a seriousness in doing so by reducing these threats, stop the testing and indicate it’s actually prepared to negotiate.” This follows weeks of threats from North Korea towards the United States and South Korea. To sophomore Veronica Fuhlage, the ordeal the past few weeks has been pointless. “I think [the North Korea situation is] kind of silly that they’re just posing all these threats and it’s just … unnecessary,” Fuhlage said, “and we should all be peaceful about it.”

Bill reinforces science, math

Sequester affects Title I preschool, special education program funding ccording to the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP), the United States Department of Education faced a loss of nearly $1.5 billion from its budget from the 2011 fiscal year, without considering the newly instated sequestration reductions. Education was “only two percent of total federal budget outlays,” according to their website, and therefore “not the cause of our deficit.” Even if education funding is not to blame, the second deadline for sequestration has now passed, and according to the NAESP, an estimated 5.1 percent cut in educational funding is now necessary. This $2.6 billion cut in funding would require across-the-board reductions, including $740 million from Title I programs, $644 million from special education and $406 million from Head Start. Columbia Public Schools, however, may not feel these cuts, at least not this year. Though the sequester has been in effect for nearly three weeks, CPS Chief Financial Officer Linda Quinley said CPS has been able to postpone the loss of “just under $480,000 totally to our operating budget” into next year. “All of the items paid for with those funds today are being absorbed into (not eliminated) the local funding of your budget,” Quinley said in an email interview. “What it means is that we will keep providing those things. It doesn’t mean other things get cut, but rather that new programs/improvements won’t get added as these become a priority to the system.” Even if the sequester continues and financial burdens increase, some items, such as those provided by special education, will never disappear, according to Lou Ann Tanner-Jones, special services director. Special education services “are dictated by the individual needs of students,” she said, and these needs are documented as Individualized Educational Plans, or IEPs. “CPS is obligated to provide the required services,” TannerJones said. “If there is an impact to Special Education due to sequestration, local monies would need to be used to provide the legally required services to students with IEPs.”

and more opportunities. “With students being at the high school for four years, this should help build the overall programs at each high school,” Jacobs said. “The fine arts programs at RBHS are strong, and freshmen are really looking forward to joining the excellence that has already been established.” Similar to how Jacobs expects freshmen to be excited to join the programs, Flakne believes current RBHS students will make the best of the revisions in store. “With the change, we get more time to inundate players and singers to the style that RBHS employs, and a larger selection of performers allows the directors to be a little choosier,” Flakne said. “And the top ensembles should all improve eventually, if not immediately, so I see no reason why freshmen shouldn’t be a part of the senior high performing arts program.”

North Korea conflict continues

issouri graduation guidelines as to how to obtain the mandatory 24 credits became stricter with the introduction of requiring a half credit of personal finance in 2007. Now, high school students at RBHS and across the state might see another change. Missouri House Bill 136, which had its first public hearing in February, states that all students must take “two full semesters of science and two full semesters of math ... immediately preceding a student’s graduation from high school.” Though students still to take a math and/or science class their senior year, state requirements only ask for three math and three science credits. This allows students who have met the requirements to omit these classes from their schedule senior year. Senior Carmel Shaka started out the year with Calculus AB as well as Anatomy and Physiology on her schedule, even though she had already met the math and science requirements. However, Shaka, who wants to study theater, dropped her Calculus class to focus on her personal priorities. “This semester would have been a whole lot harder. ... I concentrated a lot on getting prepared for different theatrical things, like I had the winter play to take care of, I had district competitions in my acting class [and] I also have work, so ... taking that math that was re-

ally hard along with other classes ... would have been a whole lot of stress on me that I had last semester,” Shake said. “I couldn’t really handle that as much.” While Shaka does think having a continuous math and science exposure could help students when it comes to those classes in college, she doesn’t think it’s necessary for the state to require those classes. “It seems like a good amount of zpeople actually want to go into a career that requires either [math or science] so it’s not a problem of getting people to take those classes,” Shaka said. “I don’t think it would be fair to force other people to take them whenever they would want to take other classes in a profession that they’re going to go into.” Honors Chemistry teacher Barry Still said his senior year of math and science exposure made his math and science classes his freshman year of college easier. However, Still, said taking on a schedule like his should be up to the students. “I am not going to sway someone to take a math or science class because a lot of people who aren’t taking the math or science class are like, ‘Well, I’m not planning on going into math or science career,’ and on some level, [as a science teacher] I don’t think that’s necessarily inappropriate,” Still said. “But would it be beneficial to take a math or science? Probably, but I can’t force them to take it and I’d rather them take something that’s really interested to them.”

continued on p. 5

photo used with permission from Associated Press

New virus spreads through China

his weekend, two more people in China died from a rare strain of bird flu, which has infected 60 people thus far, Chinese state media reported. This brings the total death toll to 13. For the first time, the virus showed up beyond Eastern China, with two cases in the central Henan province and one in the capital, Beijing. The virus, H7N9, is typically in birds, but infected humans the first time last month. The World Health Organization (WHO) said that there is no evidence for ongoing human-to-human viral transmission and cited this as a new variation of the bird flu and will search for the infection’s source. “Investigations into the possible sources of infection, and reservoirs of the virus are ongoing,” the WHO said. “Until the source of infection has been identified, it is expected that there will be further cases of human infection with the virus in China.” Sophomore Ashwini Mantrala does not believe the virus will be a problem in the United States, in regards to health. While “it might spread here in small trace amounts,” Mantrala is more focused on the economic impacts. “In a sense that a large amount of our imported goods come from China, yeah, I’m worried slightly, but honestly, I don’t think it’s that big of a concern for me, right now,” Mantrala said. “If there [are] some problems with any factories, I might be a little worried, but right now, not too much.” art by Richard Sapp source: cnn.com stories by Atreyo Ghosh

Alcohol consumption increases as graduates begin college laurel »Critchfield

ith 84 percent of college students reporting consuming alcohol in the past year, according to a Core national survey, and 45 percent of college freshmen reporting engaging in binge drinking at least once during the two weeks prior to the study it may seem high schoolers leave their parents’ house, go to college and toast their newfound freedom with a shot. The damage that comes from inebriation, however, may last longer than a hangover. Adriene Beltz, a psychology graduate student, and her colleagues at Penn State University released a study in March that showed consuming alcohol during late adolescence can damage connections in the brain and impair decision-making and judgment into students’ adult years. Alcohol, as a depressant, was already known to affect nearly every neurological system while in the body, but the Penn State

study confirmed long-term effects. “I think it’s rare that some would consider the effects of alcohol, especially those in high school and college,” MU freshman and 2012 alumnus Paul Leonard said. “In my experience, these age groups drink because it’s believed to be cool. They drink because everyone else is. And in that mindset ... it’s safe to assume no harm will come.” The environment at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where 27 percent of RBHS graduates attend, may encourage alcohol consumption, RBHS learning diagnostician and psychology teacher Tim Dickmeyer said. He said MU’s Division I status elevates student exposure to alcohol since sports is a major focus on campus. “Personally, I believe that students’ perceptions of alcohol change when they enter college because of the easy accessibility to alcohol and its ever presence at certain events,” Dickmeyer said. For example, “alcohol is so tightly

ingrained in the tailgating experience and the result is that some students come to see alcohol as inseparable from the football experience.” College Prowler, a college review site, seems to underscore Dickmeyer’s assertions. MU received all A grades on their nightlife and Greek life, which contributes to students, especially freshmen, consuming alcoholic beverages. In 2009 Missouri ranked 19th in percentage of alcohol consumed underage, according to ACT Missouri. In fact, the University of Missouri-Columbia is rated by Newsweek as the 11th party school in the nation. The school acquired 880 alcohol violations in 2009 alone, and even students are concerned about the effects alcohol will have on their lives. “Students are more susceptible to drinking alcohol in college because they are exposed to this type of environment,” MU freshman and 2012 alumna Alyssa Mulligan said. “College students are more likely to have a job than in

high school [students]. This work experience can sometimes be a negative environment in which students are exposed to people of the older crowd that are of [legal drinking] age.” MU does have programs to combat the issues of alcohol abuse and drunk driving, including National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week and Supportive Tigers Riding In Pursuit of Ensuring Safety (STRIPES). STRIPES is a student-run sober driving organization that provides free, safe, confidential rides home to MU students and their guests. “At the beginning of my first semester I was looking for a fun club to join with a friend, and STRIPES somehow came about,” Leonard said. “I signed up for my first night, went in and had a blast. I think I’m going on my eleventh night now volunteering for STRIPES, and I couldn’t be more pleased with it. All of the other volunteers are so kind and fun to be around and I have not, as of yet, come across any difficult patrons.”

« Academics

April 18, 2013 « The Rock « www.bearingnews.org

Science, math requirements could change

ADEMIC HON AC O

Story continued from page 3 art by Maria Kalaitzandonakes

Female students receive recognition

olumbia Area Career Center and RBHS students, junior Kristen Buster, junior Najeebah Hussain, senior Shelby Richardson and senior Michelle Zhuang received the 2013 Missouri and Kansas National Center for Women & Information Technology Award. The award, sponsored by Microsoft and the Motorola Solutions Foundation recognizes young high school women for their computing-related achievements and interests in an effort to encourage more young women to choose careers in technology. Awardees are selected for their computing and IT aptitude, leadership ability, academic history and plans for post-secondary education. source: www.ncwit.org By Manal Salim

Seniors named Top Missouri 100 scholars

issouri Association of Secondary School Principals named seniors David Wang and Lily Qian as Missouri Scholars 100. Candidates for the award participate in an Academic Decathalon — made up of 10 events or criteria — that will reveal the top 100 scholars across Missouri. Finalists for the award must have an ACT or SAT score of 29 or 1900 respectively, a GPA of 3.75 or higher and rank in the top ten percent of his or her class. He or she must have taken and received an A in a higher level math, English, social studies and language class. He or she must also volunteer, hold a leadership position of a school organization or play a varsity sport. source: www.moassp.org By Daphne Yu

Personal Finance team to compete at state

fter beating out other teams in the region through an online test, the RBHS personal finance team is one of the two top teams in the region that will compete at the state level tomorrow. Seniors Jonathan Ackmann, Jacob Freyermuth, Dima Rozenblat and Charles Shang beat out other RBHS students earlier in the year for a spot on the team. The four will take multiple rounds of written tests tomorrow morning. Tests are usually 25-30 questions long and ask problems over material learned in personal finance, ranging from economics to budgeting, investing to insurance. If the team ends up as one of the top two teams based on written test scores, they will then compete in a quiz-bowl style finale to determine the state champion. By Daphne Yu

Scholar bowl finishes districts with honors

he scholar bowl A team competed at the Missouri State High School Activities Association district tournament this past weekend. The varsity team, comprised of seniors Vikram Arun, Jacob Freyermuth, Monica Greenleaf, Dima Rozenblat and junior Salah Daghlas took home a second place finish, losing only to Hickman High School. The team started off their day with three morning games to decide their seeding, then continued on into the elimination playoffs as one of the top four teams at the competition. Out of six teams from around the district, RBHS played against five of them and won four of the five rounds. Along with the second place finish, Freyermuth and Daghlas were named members of the first team all-district, or one of the top four players in the district. By Daphne Yu

photo by Asa Lory

Standing ovation: Principal Mark Maus shows his school spirit at girls basketball championship game March 16.

Maus hands off principal position maria » Kalaitzandonakes

s six inches of snow covered Mid-Missouri and many Bruins tanned in Florida, enjoying their spring break, principal Mark Maus made a decision that changed the future of RBHS. Maus received an offer for the position of principal at Oak Park High school — the school he left to come here — during spring break. He said after first rejecting the offer, an interview and spending time with his aging father gave him a new perspective. After much internal debate, he decided to return to Oak Park. The position is closer to his family, which allows him to take care of his father and have more family support, as Maus has a third child on the way, he said. Maus balanced his life as a father and as a principal well, said media center specialist Gwen Struchtemeyer, who was on the original committee that chose Maus as principal three years ago. Struchtemeyer said Maus’ old office will be a little plainer next year without his daugthers’ Barbie clothes strewn about in the corner. “Mark is a terrific fellow. He has an excellent sense of humor. He’s a good family man, and I will just miss him as a person,” Struchtemeyer said. “I think he genuinely loves us here at Rock Bridge. He is reluctant to leave, but there come times in your life when you have to do what’s best for your family ... and I completely understand that.” After Maus announced his departure to the district, central office administrators began to look for a replacement, and they didn’t have to look too far. RBHS Athletic Director Dr. Jennifer Mast accepted the position as RBHS principal next year. Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Education, Dr. Jolene Yoakum, said the district talked to several people considering what would be best for RBHS, and they are very happy with their selection. “We just felt like Dr. Mast has been here ... and we’ve been pleased with the job that she does here ... and we felt like she was a great fit for the students and staff at Rock Bridge,” Yoakum said.

thing, and he just really seems happy to “We’re very excited to have her.” Mast said the decision process was be a part of this school and be here. It quick. Yoakum said the speed of the doesn’t seem like he’s here just for a job. He’s here for the kids,” Krogman said. choice was because of many factors. “I think the pace for making a de- “I don’t really know [Dr.] Jen Mast very cision in this situation was based on well, but I’m hoping she does a good many factors, including, but not lim- job picking up everything and the tranited to the timing of the resignation, the sition is good.” Struchtemeyer said she believes the many changes our district is expiriencing through seconday reorganization, transition will be seamless, since all the the fact that we had a strong leader changes are in line for next year. She with extensive leadership experience said Mast is a “great leader and a great and many other factors too numerous role model,” and she is excited to see her as a leader next year. to list,” Yoakum said. “I honestly think it’s fair to say that Mast said though the process was fast and a tad overwhelming, she’s ex- [Mast] bleeds green and gold because cited for the opportunity to be the lead- she’s been here long enough. ... I think er of such a great high school and her there is something very special about alma mater. this school that makes us want to come “It’s emotional because I went to back,” Struchtemeyer said. “I think it’s school here, I started my teaching ca- a perfect fit that she be our leader in the reer here. I coached future because I think she here ... so it’s emotiongenuinely cares about every al because it came out aspect of this school and evof the blue, but it also eryone in it.” feels like a really natuMaus said he is glad to ral fit,” Mast said. “It leave RBHS in such capable means a lot, and I’ve hands, and he is confident always seen whatever Mast will protect the RBHS I do here as kind of a education style. He hopes service to give back RBHS will always have a to this place that is so culture of trust and respect. much about me.” “[RBHS] is special and Maus, too, is excitunique ... the way everyone photo by Lifetouch ed for Mast’s appointtreats each other. ... There’s New identity: Current ment, saying she has a lot of trust given to stuhis “full support.” He athletic director Dr. Jen dents, and students meet said Mast was the per- Mast will return to RBHS those expectations,” Maus son who came to his next year as principal. said. “They go above and mind for the job. beyond the expectations. ... “She is smart. She is someone that I [The relationships here] are second to confide in and talk to constantly. She’s none.” also a blast,” Maus said. “I absolutely Mast wants to maintain the school’s love Rock Bridge, and it will always mentality through transitions. Struchtehave a place in my heart, but I have full meyer said, Mast is capable of handling confidence in Dr. Mast taking over.” all of the changes being thrown at it The transition has been quick, and next year with grace. some students, such as junior Hannah “We talk about keeping Rock Bridge Krogman, are still finding out. She said the same, and when we say that, what the news came as a surprise. we really mean is keeping Rock Bridge “I was a little bit shocked at first. I changing, because I think that’s what’s mean, [Maus] is a great principal. ... ultimately made us a little bit different,” He’s always smiling, doing everything Mast said. RBHS has “this culture of he can for the kids. ... I just feel like he’s learning in all levels and changing for always trying to do what he can to help the best, changing for growth, changing the kids. He’s participating in every- for learning.”

Early blocks change schedule dynamics, capabilities daphne » Yu

ata collected from current RBHS students indicated students were interested in the idea of taking a wider variety of early hour classes. Traditionally, RBHS has only consistently offered marching band and show choir before school, starting at 7 a.m. and ending in time for the 7:50 a.m. school start time. With a new transportation system starting next year, high schools will begin at 9 a.m., prompting RBHS principal Mark Maus and Columbia Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Chris Belcher to dance around the idea of offering students more flexible scheduling through a greater range of early classes. Along with this new proposal comes guesswork and information head guidance counselor Betsy Jones says is not all true. “There are a couple of myths out there right now. [First,] the early block class cannot be the ninth course a student takes. It has to be one of their eight courses because we don’t get paid for the attendance, and it’s not cost-effective for us otherwise,” Jones said. “The other

... myth is that if you take an offered [fourth] hour,” Jones early block, you have fourth said. “And we have to have block off [that day]. … The school fourth block. We can’t goal is if you have an early not have school that hour block, you get out fourth because there are 1,600 kids block, but at this point, I still here taking classes.” don’t know if I can say that’s For sophomore Emily going to be the reality.” Franke, the idea of a “zero Jones said though no de- hour class” seemed to fit her cisions have been made on needs. She wanted over eight which classes courses and, with There are a couple of will be lacrosse myths out there right offered in the now.” early, spring, they will Franke p r o b thought Betsy Jones she could ably be » head guidance counselor use the courses that usuafterally require 16-18 sections noon to finish homework beeach year, such as personal fore practice. However, Franfinance, health and biology. ke is rethinking her schedule In the process of trying to now that early blocks aren’t honor all course requests, what she expected. Jones said, that will mean Having five classes a day some students might have “sounds like it could end a five-block day every other very badly. I may still do it, day if they decide to go with but depending on the classthe early hour classes. es, that could be really diffiPart of the reasons are sin- cult to keep up with,” Franke gleton classes, or classes that said. As for informing the are offered a limited number student body, Franke “feel[s] of times, such as higher level like they could have had an language courses or Ad- assembly for such a huge vanced Placement courses. change or had a mandatory “Number one is the sin- guidance meeting ... that just gletons. … It may be that the got the word out. Everything course they want to take or with Bruin Block and zero their dream course is only hour classes seems so secre-

“

tive and behind closed doors to students who will be affected by it.” Jones says schedule changes next year are still possible, but students in general will have a tougher time changing their schedules because of the transition. In addition, if a student takes an early block, he or she should try to stick with it because teachers will be expected to teach full classes. Through an e-mail Maus sent out, to which interested teachers responded, Jones now has a pool of teachers willing to teach early classes. Along with deciding teachers’ hours next year, Maus and the administration are also working out secretarial and their own work schedule to accommodate the early-bird students. “Secretarial support is really going to depend on the number of students we have. We don’t know what that magic number is, but we may stagger hours of some of our secretaries,” Maus said. “If there are five classes here, that may mean only one person here, [but] we have talked a little bit about what it would look like if we staggered ourselves administratively.”

Junior class guidance counselor Leslie Kersha is OK with students not taking a science class senior year, but no matter which career path they are going down, Kersha said the guidance department tries to promote math classes. She said when students come in to finalize their course requests, they usually have already thought about their future path and know which classes fit on that path. “We always recommend they take a math class for sure because almost every post-secondary endeavor does require math,” Kersha said, “and if you take a year off of math, it gets really hard to kind of get back into it because they lose a lot of skills they’ve developed.” Although Advanced Placement Calculus BC teacher Burke McCray said math and science are important and beneficial skills to have in life, he understands it is not for everyone, and he supports the idea of fulfilling a certain number of credits to graduate. “Well, I think it’s important, obviously, as a math teacher [to take] math and science ... but I understand that not everyone has the same interest as I do,” McCray said. “I think the state should decide on how many credits a student needs to graduate and then make them get those credits and not necessarily take math and science their senior year if they already have taken care of those credits. They should be able to go on and take other classes that they are interested in.” McCray said that taking a year off from a math or science course can not always be the best idea, yet it is still the student’s own decision. “Taking the year off would affect a student because you would forget a lot of things, so that would be for the student to decide,” McCray said. “Some people take all the math they need by their junior year and won’t have to take it in college at all if they take a high enough level of math. But if you know you’re going to take a math class in college, you may want to take a senior year math class just so you don’t lose all of those skills, but in that case, I think it’s up to that student to decide individually.” Junior Karina Kitchen knows she wants to pursue an art career versus a science and mathematical one. She was able to mesh together a schedule of classes she took interest in, she said, which will make for a more exciting school year. “I haven’t decided exactly what I am going to major in, but I know for a fact that I don’t want to do anything in math and science,” Kitchen said. “And since I’m on the math track that is one year ahead, I’m finishing pre-calc now, and that’s enough for me to do well enough on the ACT to be able to get out of it in college.” Kitchen understands lawmakers’ fear that a year with no math or science classes can make it harder for some students to get back in the game, but she says that type of experience happens every summer when kids get out of school. In addition, while the bill does state that those who “are taking a course of study that does not require math and science courses are exempt,” Kitchen says she, along with many others, want to use their last year of high school to experiment with classes they otherwise couldn’t take and really find what interests them. “I don’t think they should be passing the bill just because I don’t think it is necessary for everyone to be in math and science through their senior year,” Kitchen said. “I think it should be an option, because by senior year, most people are deciding what direction they want to go with their education and what areas they want to go into, and if math and science [don’t] fit into that, then they shouldn’t be required to take unnecessary classes.”

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www.bearingnews.org » The ROCK » April 18, 2013

Cavers traverse state’s hidden depths jake » Alden

t’s been nearly six months since last summer, and sophomore Michael Vu still can’t get the mud from Connor’s Cave off of his shoes. Vu was a member of last summer’s Outdoor Science Exploration team, a summer school science class sponsored by RBHS’ Biology and Geoscience teacher Rex Beltz. The science department designed OSE several years ago to let students learn what it’s like to be a field biologist in the real world through activities like hiking, wilderness camping, wildlife identification and underground cave exploration. “The cave exploration portion of the program cannot be simply answered with just [one] adjective,” Vu said. “It was messy, dirty and wet. After a few hours of wading through water and army crawling through tight spaces we emerged from the cave dirtied, banged up and satisfied.” Beltz and the students visited two caves over the course of last summer’s program: Connor’s Cave in Rock Bridge State Park and a privately owned cave near Boonville, Mo., a more secluded location students hiked to while picking wild blackberries and observing the landscape and environment around them. Prior to the actual underground excursions, the students learn about cave biology, ecosystem interactions and the geological history and structure of the limestone caves classified as karst topography. Later, during the caving, OSE’s members have the special opportunity to follow professional guides into nooks and crannies that, to the untrained eye, are completely hidden from view. These hidden areas are behind a gap in the rock, only a handspan wide, and lead to a wall where guides encourage visitors to carve their name and the date they visited. In addition to visiting the wall, climbing out of a sinkhole and experiencing what complete darkness is firsthand, the participants also get a special chance to meet some of the cave’s permanent inhabitants face-to-face in their natural environment 150 feet underground. “We got the chance to hold a bat that the guide was able to get a hold of, and she taught us a little bit about them and we were able to hold it and got to look at its wings and skin up close,” sophomore and OSE member Codey Brazeau said. “It was really cool, and I don’t think there are many other places

where you are able to hold a wild bat in its natural habitat.” Former RBHS General Biology and Environmental Science teacher Nathan Harness created the OSE program. The class is worth a semester’s worth of general science credit and lasts 10 days. Vu first learned about the program while attending Jefferson Junior High School. During enrollment for summer classes, he was busy looking to schedule a seat for himself in the 10-day personal finance program when he stumbled across the course offering for OSE. “I knew I was going to take the 10day personal finance class,” Vu said. “Since I wanted to have a wee bit more freedom in my class decisions later in the year, I decided to take another class to follow it up.” Very little of the time OSE encompasses is spent in the classroom. However, not all of it is spent in caves, either. “We will have expert guest lecturers come talk to the class and then we go into the field and incorporate what we learned,” Beltz said. “We hike a lot, identify plants and animals ... test water quality, all the things a field biologist would do.” The class concluded with a camping trip to Rock Bridge State Park. During the campout, the students attended on-location lectures instructing them on wildlife safety, how to build campfires, make shelters, conserve water and roast the perfect marshmallows for s’more purposes. However, among all of the diverse activities offered, the caving segment stands out from the rest as one of the most memorable activities for participants like Brazeau. “The whole cave excursion is something that everyone needs to experience,” Brazeau said. “It is loads of fun and you do learn a little bit on the way.” Beltz said the intended purpose of OSE is to assist students in building long lasting memories of exploring the outdoors. Its job is not just to prepare the participants for a week of adventures or provide knowledge needed for pursuing a career in field biology. Its goal is guiding students toward living a life of interacting with nature, regardless of career choice, in a safe, healthy and enjoyable manner. “It is a great way to get students to not only learn about their environment but to do it in an interactive manner,” Beltz said. “Without an understanding of our world and our place in it we can do nothing but destroy that which gives us life.” photo illustration by Aniqa Rahman

Missouri champion tree stands tall as local landmark

The Burr Oak of Boone County lives as the biggest tree around, represents emotional importance atreyo » Ghosh

or more than 350 years, it has stood resilient and weathered mighty floods and sweltering droughts. The Big Tree, as the locals call it, is the champion Burr Oak of Missouri, which designates it as the largest tree in the state on several measurements. It also holds the title of co-champion Burr Oak for the country as a whole. This gigantic tree, located near McBaine, Mo., is on the property of John Sam Williamson, dubbed the “Keeper of the Tree” by the community. Last summer, Missouri faced a substantial drought, which caused some concern for the tree’s health. Although not entirely necessary, Williamson decided to water the Big Tree as a precaution, an act that caught the attention of a few visitors hanging around at the tree. When Williamson left town for a few days, some people watered the tree in his absence. After the Columbia Daily Tribune and other pub-

lications wrote stories about his watering the tree, Williamson said he received a vast array of correspondence. “We got letters and calls and emails from all over the country, East coast, West coast, Florida, about the tree, and people who remembered the tree and thanking me for taking care of it,” Williamson said. “Somebody who — the letter was from Columbia, but they didn’t put their name on it — sent a $5 bill to help with expenses, although there really weren’t any expenses, just some electricity to pump the water.” The Big Tree, Williamson said, enjoys a lot of warm public sentiment. While some people suggest he build a fence around the tree for its protection, he doesn’t want to prevent people from getting near the tree or tarnish the natural look of the area. A number of people have an attachment to the tree and ask Williamson to hold funerals or weddings there. Williamson said a neighbor held a funeral at the tree, although he was ada-

photo by Asa Lory

Branching out: The champion Burr Oak of Missouri, known as ‘The Big Tree,’ basks in the new spring sunlight, reguvinating itself with fresh rainwater, accompanied by common visitors.

mant about not letting anyone be buried there, not wanting the area to become a graveyard. Williamson’s own daughter became engaged under the tree; the couple even returned to the tree after their wedding at Williamson’s house to take wedding photos near it. In addition to the community as a whole, RBHS students are also fond of the Big Tree. Other students may not have strong sentiments about the tree but drive down to it just to hang out with friends in good weather and enjoy the ambiance. Junior Alex Griner goes to the tree about once a month in the spring and summer and said it’s a good place to spend time with friends. The tree is isolated, Griner said, and a place where few people disturb others. “It’s just a place where we can go. We all know about it, so it’s fun; [we] just relax there,” Griner said. “It’s isolated and far away, and there’s not a lot of people around that will bother you, and you can just get away from the city.” Blankets in hand, Griner and his group of friends piled in his Prius late at night and went down to the tree early during first semester. They lay there and looked at the stars, an experience Griner said was nice, quiet and peaceful. While the tree isn’t a place of too much personal value for Griner, it serves as a fun place to go and as a landmark. What makes the tree special is “that it’s still around. A lot of old trees are knocked down for construction and everything, and that’s what’s so cool. It’s isolated out there, and it’s not torn down for the land or anything like that,” Griner said. “I like how big it is, of course, and it’s cool that they have a tree that old and everything around still … but anything specific, significant that it does, that I get from it? Not really.” While the Big Tree may be the largest tree around Columbia, it isn’t the Missouri champion tree nearest the city. There are a total of eight champion trees in the Boone County region, however smaller than the Burr Oak. Some of these trees are located near the downtown area, on the University of Missouri-Columbia’s campus. To senior Maddy Roland, the Big Tree is an escape from the city and represents the way things used to be. If the weather is nice, she might go to the tree every other week or so. Roland said the tree is a sign of security to people and shows that there are places where you can

step back, instead of living in a fast-paced society. The tree is “a place to relax and [feel] serenity, and it’s surrounded by all flatland, and it’s in the country, so it’s like a place to … just get away from the city life, even though Columbia’s a small … city,” Roland said. “I don’t live in the country. I live in a neighborhood, and I’m more of an introvert, so I like being in the area, in a big open area, where I’m the only one, or just with very few people.” Williamson’s family bought the farm the tree is on in 1835, but the tree has been there much longer than his family. He said the tree is a part of his family. However, the tree’s age is starting to show. The tree “means an awful lot, and there’s some sentimental things ... [but] it’s on its decline. It’s like an older person,” Williamson said, “It’s still alive. It’s still producing acorns in good years and leaves and things, but it’s on a decline.” Williamson lives a mile from the tree and sees it every day. If something bad occurs, he can take care of it immediately and tend to the tree. Events the tree face range from droughts to litter to the recent spray-painting of “PROM?” on its trunk. An unknown person spray-painted the word in orange in the middle of the tree, five feet wide. The tree carries other wounds as well. Carved out in one corner of the tree is a heart with initials gouged into it. Near the bottom of the tree, concrete plugs a medium-sized hole, which is also riddled with graffiti. Sometime in the near future, Williamson plans on clearing out the brush near the tree and smoothing out the large dirt mound that deters parking from one side of the tree. However, Williamson accepts the fact that the tree will not always be there and maintain its resilience. “We have to realize that someday it’s going to die; something will happen to it, or it’ll die a slow death with disease or something. I hope that doesn’t happen while I’m here, but you don’t know. It’s kind of like pets: you have pets, and you love them, but pets don’t live as long as we do,” Williamson said, “and you know that eventually, you get a puppy, he lives to be 10 or 15 years old, he’s going to be an old dog, so he’s not going to make it, and you just have to realize that. I would hope that this tree would outlive all of us.”

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www.bearingnews.org » The ROCK » April 18, 2013

art by Yasmeen El-Jayyousi

Long distance relationships present miles of obstacles for couples to traverse jacqueline » LeBlanc

enior Shelby Richardson first met her boyfriend, Jesse Wellman, her freshman year at her first high school drill meet in November 2009. They resided in South Carolina at the time, and they both participated in the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program at her high school when she was a freshman and he was a junior. They quickly grew to know each other and began to spend more and more time together. Richardson said they never explicitly asked each other out, but two weeks after they met they were “definitely dating.” After a few months of being together, Richardson discovered she would be moving to Columbia, Mo. The move didn’t surprise her, since her father was in the Navy and she was used to moving. However, at this point in her and Wellman’s relationship, the couple was incredibly close and the thought of a long distance relationship didn’t appeal to either of them. “Jesse said he didn’t want a long distance relationship, so he wanted to move to Columbia with me,” Richardson said. “We sat down one day and he said that he couldn’t make the move. I thought he was going to break up with me. [But] he said that breaking up wasn’t an option for him and that he wanted to be with me forever. So we [decided] we would stay together long distance.” Nearly 1,000 miles separated Richardson and Wellman from each other. Both were determined to make their long distance relationship work. Richardson had to deal with her move to a new high school and a new town, and also figuring how to still be with Wellman. “The first few weeks were tough. I had to deal with more than just leaving Jesse in the move,” Richardson said. “He was so patient and supportive as I adjusted to Columbia and as we adjusted to being apart. … We had to adjust to each other’s routines and figure out how to do couple stuff even though we were apart. … We kept in touch by texting and calling each other. … We still love each other all the same.” And three years later, Wellman and Richardson are still together and have proven that distance did not affect their relationship. However, other couples don’t always succeed. According to www. missyourmate.com, 40 percent of long distance relationships end in a breakup, and 70 percent fail when couples are separated unexpectedly.

Senior Joe Pratt began dating his then tance relationship] was really like super girlfriend, Annie Murphy, in May of last hard. It definitely was not like she just year when he was a junior and she was a left and everything just changed. It was senior at RBHS. Pratt said when they first just like a gradual thing,” Pratt said. “The began dating he was unsure of where she problem with us is that we didn’t really would attend college, but he ultimately stay in contact because we were both so learned that she decided to attend Wil- busy and we didn’t really know each liam Jewell College in Liberty, Mo. other anymore when we started hanging “I knew she was going to college, I just out.” didn’t know where,” Pratt said. “I knew An estimated four to four and a half she was going away. Like after the first million college couples in the U.S. are in couple of weeks where we were starting a non-marital long-distance relationship to get to know each other, I knew where according to the aforementioned website. she was going to college. We kind of just Teen and Social Issues teacher Deanna played it by ear after she left.” Fancher believes teenagers in high school When Pratt’s girlfriend still lived in and in college are too young to make the Columbia, he said that they would “hang decision if they want to be committed to out all the time, take her out for dinner one person for an extended amount of every night or take her to a movie all the time, especially if the two people are septime.” He described their relationship as arated from each other. “pretty close.” “Well, I feel that teenage years, even “When she early college was in Liberty years, is too we would just young to comSkype and she mit yourself to Right now we’re kind of would come one individuignoring it because it back like a al, especially weekend or a if you’re not brings up really intense month or so. even going to feelings.” We wouldn’t be in the same [text] much, town or the we were both same environElizabeth Suhler really busy ment. I think with school,” its just ‘what’s » senior Pratt said. the point,’” “Every once Fancher said. in awhile she “I think it’s would come back and it would be hard hard on them because emotionally they’re to hang out because we hadn’t seen each immature. They are tying their life and other in a while. ... Whenever she left it attaching their life to one individual. kind of sucked.” They’re going to miss out on the bigger However, Pratt and his girlfriend soon scheme of things of what’s going on, esrealized that staying in touch and trying pecially if they’re just graduating or if to be a couple was harder than they imag- they are still in high school. They’re not ined. Since Pratt was still in high school going to want to do those kind of things and his girlfriend was in college, it was because they’re going to be missing that difficult to line up their schedules. individual and they’re going to want to “Long distance relationships, they’re Skype, talk to, text or whatever so they hard,” Pratt said. “Especially when one might not be as involved in school activiperson’s going through high school and ties as they would be if they did not have the other is going through college; you’re that commitment.” just at two different points in your life. But in Fancher’s opinion, long distance It’s hard to stay in contact especially when relationships are difficult at any age. you have so many things going on in your “I think [at] any age, long distance is life like college classes and the other per- hard because you have to be very mature son is really busy with high school and and very committed to do your life but their senior year.” still keep that person in it,” Fancher said. Pratt eventually learned that the dis- “I just think you can begin growing apart tance between him and his girlfriend put and become two individuals and then an undue strain on their relationship. The try[ing] to come back as a couple [won’t distance grew to be too much and they work].” broke up after feeling like they no longer Unlike Richardson or Pratt, senior Elizknew each other. abeth Suhler and her boyfriend, senior “I wouldn’t say [having a long dis- David Brubaker, are undecided about

“

their relationship in the future. Suhler plans on attending the University of Colorado-Boulder next fall, while Brubaker will attend Columbia College. Suhler and Brubaker have been dating for two and a half years and met at Jefferson Junior High School when he was on the football team and she was a football manager. Going into their senior year, they both knew that Brubaker was planning on staying in Columbia and that Suhler was interested in going somewhere out of state. When she recently visited the University of Colorado-Boulder, she knew it was the perfect fit for her, since her family lived near the campus. “Yeah, we kind of both knew that he knew he was going to stay in-state and I wasn’t sure if I was going to go either way. If I was going to stay in-state we knew that we were going to stay together, but if I was going out of state it was kind of undecided, but we hadn’t officially decided,” Suhler said. “For the longest time I thought I was going to go to Mizzou and just stay here and make it work. But, I mean, Colorado has a lot to offer and I guess college is the time to explore and find yourself truly.” Although Suhler and Brubaker have discussed their future together, they have agreed that it would be better to decide the status of their relationship closer to the beginning of the fall semester of college and just enjoy the rest of their senior year together. “Right now we’re kind of ignoring it because it brings up really intense feelings, and I guess that we’re trying to enjoy the rest of senior year while we can,” Suhler said. “When the time comes, I guess this summer, we’ll discuss it further and make a concrete plan.” Richardson, Pratt and Suhler all agreed that regardless of the situation, although long distance relationships may be difficult, they are doable and couples should not give up immediately. “Communication is key. Understanding and dedication are also a given. You can think up ways to do ‘normal couple’ stuff,” Richardson said. “Jesse and I have dinner dates over Skype, and we are planning a movie night over Skype also. [You] find ways to still be involved in each other’s day to day life. Jesse and I text 24/7, and talk anytime we can. I’ll call him on my way home from work. We even webcam while I do my homework. We don’t say much, but it’s just another way we spend time together. If you truly care about a person and you make a good team, then as a couple you can make anything work.”

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April 18, 2013 « The Rock « www.bearingnews.org

Graduating early opens new avenues

Bet you can’t just eat one manal » Salim

carleigh » Thrower

hile most upperclassmen are starting their last grueling decisions for college and further education, some students choose to bypass this often long and dreadful process and take a year off after graduating high school. According to a study by the Higher Education Research Institute, an estimated 1.2 percent of first-time college freshmen in the United States deferred their admission to take a gap year in 2011. The top two reasons for making the decision to take a gap year are a burnout from the competitive pressure of high school and a desire “to find out more about themselves,” according to a survey from the American Gap Association. RBHS 2012 alumna, Bess Goodfellow, graduated after her junior year of high school in order to take a gap year before starting college in order to spend some time studying abroad. She has spent the past year living in Turkey, which is helping her discover more about herself. “Taking a gap year has been a really positive experience for me,” Goodfellow said. “I’ve gotten to explore myself and the world. I’ve learned so much about culture, life and a totally different part of the world. I understand myself better, and it’s helping me figure out what I want to do with my life.” Though Goodfellow does not regret her decision to take a gap year, she said it’s not for everyone. In addition to losing friendships back home, Goodfellow said immersion in a foreign culture can be very stressful. RBHS guidance counselor Lynne Moore agrees that there are negatives to taking a gap year, including losing motivation and slacking off; however, she said depending on the person and situation, taking a year off can be a much needed change. “As with most things, it really depends a lot on the individual person. I think that taking a year off can be a positive thing for a student if they are doing something worthwhile, like study abroad, a volunteer program, a mission for their church, etc.,” Moore said. “These kind of experiences can mature a student and help them be more ready and focused in college. They can also help them determine what career they want.” RBHS 2012 alumna Sarah Miera chose to take the year off after graduating in order to work full-time and save up for college in the following years. After taking the year off, she worked full-time at Arby’s and got the chance to have a more leisurely lifestyle that she might not have had otherwise if she would have gone straight into college after high school. “I’ve gotten to do other things since being off school,” Miera said. “I’ve gotten to work more and just have more free time that I didn’t have while I was in high school.” Taking time off might provide a more quiet lifestyle, but it also might be harder to get back into the swing of things by the time you are ready to pursue higher levels of education, Moore said. Straight out of high school, students have 12 or more years of continuous education under their belt that help prepare them for college; however, those students who take a year off after high school might find it harder to maintain the same study habits they might have once had, Moore said. “I think that students that take a year off to work and save money for college need to be very motivated to go to college,” Moore said. “It is sometimes hard to quit working and start the routine of going to school and having to study again.”

Sugar stimulates the brain’s reward centers like other addictive drugs.

Food scientists use technology to calculate the “bliss point” of sugary beverages or enhance the “mouthfeel” of fat by manipulating its chemical structure.

Frito Lays created a machine to simulate chewing and concluded that customers prefer a chip that snaps with “four pounds of pressure per square inch.” Humans experience “withdrawal” when suddenly cut off from sugar.

lancing at the pile of food before her classmates, junior Crystalyn Wyatt notices meals different from what she is used to. Mountains of rice, combined with a hefty amount of fruits and vegetables, make up a significant portion of Wyatt’s diet. But according to www.abclocal.go.com, 58 percent of teens ages 12 to 17 drink soda or other sugarsweetened beverages every day, and 46 percent eat fast food at least twice a week. Unlike more than half the teens her age, avoiding junk food was a lifestyle choice Wyatt had to make. Wyatt is allergic to gluten and sugar, both of which are commonly present in junk food. But Wyatt has learned to look at her condition not as a constricting factor but rather as a guideline on the path to healthy eating. “Not only because I’m allergic do I eat healthy, but our food industry is a mess. Half of the stuff we eat consists of everything but that what it’s supposed to be,” Wyatt said. “Junk food companies advertise it that way for money. This hinders the public with false advertising and making things look good when they really aren’t good for you.” However, this form of misrepresentation with junk foods doesn’t always go unnoticed. Senior Emily Thomas, a vegetarian, said her restricted diet has encouraged her to attempt to eat healthier. Thomas said she, like many others, does notice the misleading information but fails to restrain from purchasing unhealthy foods because of the way it’s presented toward the public. “I think the commercialization of junk food poses a public health risk, and advertising changes our habits. A lot of times, junk food advertises itself as health food, like PopTarts that say ‘Good source of calcium,’ on the packaging,” Thomas said. “That calcium doesn’t cancel out all the sugar and fat in the Pop-Tarts, too, but it might make people eat Pop-Tarts more than they otherwise would.” Thomas is correct in her conclusion of increased public consumption of junk foods, but false advertising isn’t the only factor to blame. According to www.huffingtonpost.com, new discoveries prove that industrially processed sugar, fat and salty foods — basically anything made in a plant rather than growing on a plant — are biologically addictive. Though the concept of addictive foods may seem absurd, Dr. Mark Hyman, a practicing physician and an internationally recognized authority in the field of functional medicine, said most teens don’t realize their addiction is prevalent on a daily basis. “Imagine a foot-high pile of broccoli or a giant bowl of apple slices. Do you know anyone who would binge broccoli or apples? On other hand, imagine a mountain of potato chips or a whole bag of cookies or a pint of ice cream,” Hyman said. “Those are easy to imagine vanishing in an unconscious, brain-eating frenzy. Broccoli is not addictive, but cookies, chips or soda absolutely can become addictive drugs.” In fact, researchers from Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity confirmed the similarities between processed junk foods and drugs such as cocaine, heroin and nicotine. According to their research, the similarities are perilously close. Research states that substances being consumed in large amounts and over long periods of time are a classic symptom in people who habitually overeat. Also, with drugs, there is the persistent desire or repeated unsuccessful attempts to quit, similar to the recurring attempts at dieting so many overweight

people go through. Nutritionist Rakiya Khaleel explains how she observes the increase to the addictive properties of junk food when individuals consume it in large amounts. Khaleel said “junk” food, such as chips, cookies and candy offer no nutritional value but are calorie dense and contain addictive ingredients, including high levels of fat, sugar and sometimes sodium. “An excessive amount of any type of food isn’t healthy. But if a person doesn’t eat a balanced diet, they will not get the nutrients they need,” Khaleel said. “If a person becomes obese, they can develop problems associated with obesity, including heart disease, type-2 diabetes and hypertension.” According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, sugar stimulates the brain’s reward centers through the neurotransmitter dopamine, exactly like other addictive drugs. Because of the stimulation junk foods provide, brain imaging scans show that obese people and drug addicts have lower numbers of dopamine receptors, making them more likely to crave things that boost dopamine like addictive drugs. And just like drugs, after an initial period of “enjoyment,” users don’t consume foods to get high, but to feel normal. Thomas describes how the addiction to junk food can sometimes go unnoticed by teens, merely because they consume unhealthy products on a regular basis. She said busy schedules largely contribute to the lack of attention teens pay to what they eat. “It definitely gets hard [to avoid junk food]. I’m really busy and spending a lot of time away from home, for example during show choir or marching band season. At competitions, they don’t offer a lot in the way of health food. I always notice that I perform worse on a meal of pizza and soda than a balanced meal,” Thomas said. “I think convenience is the main reason teens eat junk food. It’s fast and tastes good. We all live such hectic lives, and a lot of times there isn’t time to think about getting a balanced diet.” Though teens may lead hectic lives, Khaleel explains how when consuming foods, moderation is the key. Khaleel said when teens fill up on the right food, with high quality nutrition for their bodies and brains, they will naturally have less room for junk food. “I would encourage them to allow themselves this certain junk food that is their favorite once a week,” Khaleel said. “I think that all foods can fit in a healthy diet in moderation, but this would vary ... because one healthy way to eat isn’t the same for everyone. But it is important to lower intake of foods that are rich in saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium and added sugars because too much intake ... may have serious health implications.” Despite the negative implications of eating junk foods and the addictive properties they possess, Wyatt also believes that every once in a while, a teen has the right to have a cookie. However, she describes that with giving into cravings periodically there needs to also be a sense of responsibility kept in mind. “Teens need to know healthy foods really do improve your overall well-being. They make you feel better and improve you physically and mentally. [Teens] are harming the public with their health because they aren’t bettering themselves,” Wyatt said. “You also have to be able to defeat the norm and improve your overall well-being, and one way to do that is simply eating healthy, and that’s that.” Infographic information from www.huffingtonpost.com

Photo by Paige Kiehl

CAPERS acts announced, participants handle anxiety Performers look forward to displaying talents on the stage, still face nervousness luke » Wyrick

tudents have utilized hours upon hours to practice talents they plan to display this year at the RBHS CAPERS talent show. The 22 performances will contain an array of singing, dancing and even a barbershop quartet. The show will take place at 7 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center at RBHS on April 18. Senior Jaynell Lardizabal told what she plans to do for the talent show and her courageous desire to perform at CAPERS for the first time. “Well, I didn’t do CAPERS before so I just decided I was going to do it because YOLO [You Only Live Once],” Lardizabal said. “I just asked Dalton [Maggard] and everyone else if they wanted to make a cover of something, so we jammed and just decided to do

‘Crazy.’” With the combination of a bellydancing act and a jazz cover of a popular song by Gnarls Barkley, Lardizabal said her preparation has been more calm than stressful. Maggard, Joel Pruitt, Jashawn Linwood, Grant Flakne and Lardizabal built strong relationships as they worked together to find their “sound” through trial and error. “We’ve been preparing for about a week and a half before the audition, and it’s just a really chill rehearsal, like we don’t really have any agenda,” Lardizabal said. “It’s just like, ‘Let’s try this,’ and there’s a lot of improv and jazz stuff, and with my band, that was completely improvised, too.” A member of show choir at RBHS, Lardizabal said her willingness to perform in front of a large crowd improves her ability to perform well and confi-

Photo by Asa Lory

Sing out: Junior Claire Herndon auditions for CAPERS by singing “Titanium” by David Guetta and Sia. Senior David Wang will accompany her on piano.

dently while on stage. “No, [I don’t get nervous] really. I love performing, so it’s just another performance,” Lardizabal said. “It’s honestly never registered when I’m performing. I guess being in show choir all these years and just being a part of regular choir [has helped me], so it’s not really a big deal.” Although Lardizabal is a seasoned performer, many CAPERS participants are new to the spotlight. Junior Claire Herndon, though in show choir, has never had an on-stage solo before. “I’m pretty used to crowds because I’m in show choir and stuff,” Herndon said. “I’ve never done it alone with as big a crowd that will be there, but I think I’ll be OK.” Herndon’s performance is a cover of the song “Titanium” by David Guetta and Sia. She practiced for months and eventually asked senior David Wang, a pianist, to see what he thought of the song. “I called him into the practice room, and I had him listen to me and see what he thought and if he thought it was worth doing and something he could learn,” Herndon said. “So soon, we’re going to pick out the music for him, and we’re going to meet two to three times a week and just practice it.” Being live on stage comes with stares from audience members and indirect tension which adds to the stress that Herndon plans on encountering. In usual acts of nervousness, Herndon explained what she believes may happen and how she plans to satisfy herself despite any judgment that may occur. “When I’m nervous, I tend to take it up an octave, so I’ll sing it really high, and when it gets to a high part, I won’t

be able to sing it,” Herndon said. “I’m not really worried about judgement from other people, it’s just me not living up to my own standards.” While the audience will be able to spectate the show, the performers will not get a chance to view the other acts or themselves until rehearsals and will get a preview of what is to come to the auditorium at RBHS. “I’m a little sad that I don’t get to sit and watch it from an audience’s perspective since I’m in it,” Herndon said. “But I am excited for the rehearsals, because I get to see everybody’s.” Activities Director David Bones is also enthusiastic about seeing CAPERS, as it is one of the many RBHS traditions. He thinks it is a simple way to broadcast talents that other students and teachers may not have previously been aware of. “We’ve got so much great talent at Rock Bridge, whether it be academic or athletic or in the performing arts and on and on. I think it’s just cool that we ... celebrate that by providing opportunities for students to get to show off their unique talents and gifts,” Bones said. “I think it’s an awesome part of Rock Bridge culture.” With the addition of the freshmen next year, changes such as Bruin Block and adjusted school schedules will be put into effect. But Bones said CAPERS won’t be affected by this. “I don’t think [CAPERS] will change at all. We could get, obviously, some younger students participating,” Bones said. “But what I can say is I think it’s more important next year than ever to continue these great traditions like CAPERS because they are really a part of what Rock Bridge is all about.”

Features » www.bearingnews.org » The ROCK » April 18, 2013

Preschool offers kids opportunity to improve learning

Title I program provides children with early introduction to RBHS culture, traditions anna » Wright

B 1.

2. photos by Maddy Jones

eneath the bustling halls of RBHS exists an entirely different realm of education, one which favors finger paint over black ink and peanut butter crackers over Bosco Sticks. Tiny bodies fidget in their miniature plastic chairs and high-pitched giggles bounce off of the brightly decorated walls. RBHS is home to one branch of a Title I Preschool, an early education program that operates through Columbia Public Schools and has 26 classrooms in various schools throughout the district. According to the preschool’s website, this federally funded program offers “developmentally appropriate early education through which young children actively build their individual potential in a positive, nurturing, culturally diverse environment.” Title I Preschool teacher Christine Beck said the program is free of charge for all children who are eligible to participate. “They qualify for Title I by going through a screening and showing that they have developmental needs,” Beck said. “Often these fall in the areas of concept, language or motor skills.” The children are broken up

into different classes which attend school at separate times. Although the program serves over 675 children across Columbia, individual classes are kept small in order to ensure a more personalized form of education, which caters to the individual needs of all the children. “We have two groups of children that come. The morning class comes Monday through Thursday and the afternoon class comes Monday through Friday,” Beck said. “I have 15 in the morning and 15 in the afternoon, so 30 families.” Not only are Title I students provided with the benefits of high quality, specialized education, but they also enjoy the privilege of learning from the older high school kids who go about their day in such close proximity to the preschool. Beck said the unique location allows the children much more interaction with RBHS students and their classes, therefore allowing them to get a feel of the school. “We have a creative writing class that comes in and shares books that they write, and I have A+ kids in here all the time,” Beck said. “They’re used to having grown-ups in here to play with during work time or [to] read books with.” Junior Garrett Zyk said that

the preschool adds a sense of liveliness and fun to the school atmosphere. He sees the day care as a special part of the RBHS experience. “The kids look so peaceful and cute playing around on the playground outside,” Zyk said. “I think it’s a great thing for this school to have. It makes Rock Bridge more friendly.” Zev Simmons, age five, says getting to see the bigger kids is one thing he enjoys about going to school. It doesn’t, however, quite match up to his favorite school activity, “playing with Legos.” Beck and the other teachers offer a variety of fun activity options to the children throughout their daily schedule. Simmons’ classmate Kenadie May described a regular school day as being both busy and exciting and filled with different opportunities. “We usually [go] outside first,” May said. “Then feeding time, large group time, small group time, story time and go home.” When faced with the dauntingly specific task of describing her experience at Title I Preschool in one word, May responded enthusiastically, without missing a single beat. Her round, rosy cheeks turned upwards in a beaming smile, as she replied confidently. “Fun.”

1. Collecting Treasure: Laith Shtieh gathers a variety of colorful dominoes during playtime. 2. Story Time: Teacher Christine Beck reads a book with Abdel Nawar (left) and Zev Simmons (right). 3. Playing in the sandbox: Laith Shtieh dumps out a bucket of rocks into a sandbox, entertaining himself during his free time. 4. Young architect: Kenadie May enjoys her playtimes by using her creativity and imagination to build structures with plastic tiles.

Allergies complicate teenagers’ lives, interfere with daily routines sam » Mitchell

hen senior Frank Rae was in kindergarten, his allergies set him apart from other students. While they ate their hearty spaghetti smothered in marinara sauce, Rae had to eat plain noodles. While other students ate pizza, Rae ate peanut butter sandwiches. He is allergic to an ingredient in tomato sauce which causes his throat to contract, restricting his breathing. “My allergies as a kid sometimes made me feel like an outcast,” Rae said. “I had to eat apart from the other kids. And kids aren’t always the most accepting.” According to the Centers for Disease Control, an estimated four to six percent of people 18 and under have severe food allergies. Dr. Ulus Atasoy, an allergist at the University of Missouri-Columbia, said during the last 30 to 40 years, there has been an increase in both allergies and asthma diagnoses. Though the reason for this increase is unknown, there

are several theories. According to fooddrugallergy.ucla.edu, potential reasons include excessive cleanliness that interrupts the natural development of the immune system or a delayed introduction to foods that have a high risk of triggering allergic reactions. The site also said factors such as family size, environment and drug use can also have an effect on the likelihood of developing allergies. The most common food allergies are milk, peanuts, tree nuts and eggs, according to the CDC. In 2012, the United States had over 1,500 deaths and one million instances of people seeking emergency help for allergies, Atasoy said. Sophomore Anmol Sethi faces an extreme peanut allergy. Sethi learned of her allergy in second grade, and it has affected her ever since. “The very first time my parents learned how life threatening my allergy was during second grade on Valentine’s Day,” Sethi said. “I had a bite of a cookie that had peanut butter in it, and as soon as I got home, symptoms of anaphylactic shock started to appear. My parents rushed

me to the emergency room, and I spent the rest of Valentine’s Day getting treatment.” People such as Sethi who have severe food allergies are not only endangered upon ingesting the food. For some people, even inhalation of the allergic substance can be dangerous. Restaurants, family gatherings and school dances can all be treacherous. Anytime Sethi travels by airplane, she has to make sure that the hostesses have not served any peanuts on board for the entire day. “There are major impacts upon people’s lives who have severe food allergies,” Atasoy said. “For little kids, going to social events ... is akin to walking across a minefield; one never knows if they will be offered food that contains the offending substance and have a life-threatening reaction.” Though there is no cure for allergies, devices are used by people to combat symptoms. Inhalers, EpiPens, allergy shots and immunotherapy are all possible treatments. “The best way of treating allergies is avoid-

ance,” Atasoy said. “One can receive allergen immunotherapy to desensitize the patient to the offending allergen. However, there are medical centers which have developed desensitization protocols for severe peanut allergies … they can work and build up tolerance so that the patient can go from eating 0.5 peanuts, which would cause anaphylaxis, to 10 without problems.” Immunotherapy, or allergy shots, “is a method for increasing the allergic patient’s natural resistance (tolerance) to the things that trigger the allergic reactions,”according to the American College of Allergies, Asthma and Immunology. Scientists are exploring the future of allergy treatment with vaccines. While treatments can reduce some risks of allergies, they will always remain a part of life for most. “I have to be careful, which can mean not being able to eat some of the things my friends can, but I can still enjoy many types of foods,” Sethi said. Allergies “will always be part of my life, but as I get older, I have learned how to accommodate [them] and live with [them].”

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April 18, 2013 « The Rock « www.bearingnews.org

Personality Profiles »

www.bearingnews.org » The ROCK » April 18, 2013

Religious assignment replenishes brittany » Cornelison

art by Michelle Zhuang

Japanese teacher integrates undead with philanthropy alyssa » Sykuta

hen it comes to learning a foreign language, teachers often argue that embracing the culture backing the language is just as important as the words and verbiage. It’s why language courses often incorporate a full year devoted to culture. So when the Kissinger Project, funded in part by the United StatesJapan Foundation, offered Shawn Beatty, one of many Japanese teacher applicants, a fully paid trip to Japan for 23 students and two chaperones, he happily accepted. Beatty and 10 students journeyed to the Tohoku area of Japan, torn apart by the tsunami and earthquake of 2011. The point was “to see what’s going on, see how the recovery’s going, see what they’re going through and bring that knowledge back and share it with everybody,” Beatty said, “because they’ve come a long way but they still have some needs.” One of the students who went, junior Cole Gallagher was one who took advantage of the opportunity. Gallagher sought out to learn more about the tsunami and the culture he has only learned from a distance in a classroom in Columbia. “I learned a lot about the reconstruction efforts and that most of the problems are mental now, and that there’s been a lot of suicides, an increase in that,” Gallagher said. “Also I learned a lot about the culture; they’re very polite, and I love their food.” The trip included much sightseeing, such as general tours around Tokyo and of an elementary school where the disaster wiped out 80 percent of the school’s population. The group also visited a middle school where 14 students died in the same catastrophe, “a powerful moment for the students and everyone,” Beatty said. “We went to a city hall, and we saw a video someone had taken from city hall the day of [the tsunami], and in 10 minutes we watched the whole town kind of wash away in front of him,” Beatty said. “The guy had been up on the third floor filming, and then they had to go to the roof because [the water] came up that high. We got to go to the actual building and go to the roof and look down. … Looking up is not as powerful as looking down and seeing, wow, that’s a lot of water, that’s a mind boggling amount of water.” Though the Kissinger Project trip

was a one-time deal, Beatty hopes to start taking students to Japan more often in the future, through an exchange program or a summer camp. Beatty appreciates the chance to immerse oneself in a new culture, having traveled to Japan as an exchange student the summer after his freshman year of high school. Although he went through a fiveday crash course, the trip came with its challenges as Beatty’s host family spoke no English, and he spoke very little Japanese. Upon returning to the United States, Beatty brought his grades up, graduated early, studied abroad for nine months in Tokyo and then majored in Asian languages and literature at the University of Iowa. He is now in his 15th year of teaching language. In his eyes, becoming fluent in a foreign language opens doors and allows people to become more culturally aware and wellrounded, and it is also a fun experience. “I have 126 million more people I can talk to. Literally,” Beatty said. “Learning any language is so much more fun than being photo by Asa Lory monolingual.” Known to his students as “Sensei,” Beatty strives to bring excitement and a passion for learning into his classroom. From walking around the school giving each other directions to practicing phone conversations on their cell phones all over the school, Gallagher said Beatty always keeps the students’ attention. What he appreciates most about Beatty is the emphasis on understanding; if a student needs help, they can meet up on their own time for problem solving. “He’s very focused on not so much your grade as whether you learn the material,” Gallagher said. “And if he doesn’t feel that you learn the material, he lets you retake it and meet with him during lunch and after school.” While he keeps the classroom filled with fun, Beatty incorporates the same excitement into his life outside of the school day. Since its series premiere in 2010, The Walking Dead has captivated viewers nationwide with its zombie apocalypse theme and vivid look into life “after.” The Zombie Defense League harbors a unique love for zombies at RBHS, as members chase each other around the school after hours with nerf guns in hand. Beatty sponsors the club, but according to senior Zombie Defense League member Bradley Beckmann, Beatty demonstrates his shared love for zombies as well as his students.

Beatty “actually does participate in zombie tag and brings movies and things. He just participates in the club actually as much as the members do; being a sponsor he doesn’t technically have to, but he just chooses to,” Beckmann said. “We actually just recently had our lock-in [April 6] here at the school from three to 11, and just seeing him participate and going around shooting everybody, it was kind of fun.” Beatty isn’t afraid to shoot students with foam nerf darts in zombie apocalypse enactments, but he also isn’t afraid to bring zombies into the world outside the walls of RBHS and its ZDL members. For Beatty, the fascination with the undead gives basis for a larger humanitarian cause. Donating all proceeds to charity, Beatty organized his seventh Iowa City Zombie March this past October. The event offers people a chance to dress up as zombies and parade through city streets in the name of charity and diversity. According to his website, zombiemarch.org, “zombies are the most diverse group out there. While they may be mindless, they are not voiceless. Also, diversity truly is their strength … and we want to use their numbers and voice to spread the word about charities in need.” Beatty created the event after missing a similar zombie march in Madison, Wis. The first year, he said, was a test run. But every year since the March, more sponsors have supported it, such as the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Red Shamrock Foundation. The Zombie March receives support from sponsors such as Anime Iowa, Gamicon, kingzombie.com and Alter Ego Comics of Marion. Though finding sponsors proved difficult in the beginning, Beatty said support for his fundraiser has steadily grown during the years. “People come and help out; we have a lot of volunteers that come and show up the day of and do makeup and help with that. So it does get a little easier,” Beatty said. “There are always little snafus and little things that don’t work well, but, oh, well.” While clearly a zombie enthusiast, Beatty doesn’t truly believe an undead apocalypse is in store for the world. Instead, he thinks a viral pandemic could incite an apocalypse of sorts. To him, this would be “even worse” because a virus is much less predictable than the stereotypical zombie, shuffling along, focused on eating brains. However, Beatty believes one should always be ready for a disaster and thinks the idea of a zombie apocalypse is a good starting point for knowing how to prepare. “Get a bug out bag. Look online,” Beatty said. “There’s a list of things, like two days of water, food, first aid, blankets — get all that stuff in a bag so you’re ready because if you’re ready for the zombie apocalypse, you’re ready for pretty much every disaster.”

very morning of her freshman year, sophomore Haley Birk would grip her coffee mug tightly and race out the door. It became habitual for her to use this drink as a way to start her day. However, Birk took on one of the biggest trials of her life last summer that caused her to give up this daily comfort. While attending Christ In Youth-Move, Birk she accepted an opportunity to grow in her faith. CIY-Move is a Christian youth conference event that specializes in connecting young people with Jesus Christ, according to CIY’s website. One way of challenging these teens is through kingdom worker cards. These cards are a way for students to make their experience at Move go “beyond the event … to change their church, family, school, community,” according to Move program director, Chase Allcott. “Our church goes to the youth conference every year, and at the end of the week you get this card. ... You don’t know what it is whenever you get it, [but, accepting it is] saying that you’re going to put your fate of what the card is into God’s hands,” Birk said. “[My card said] drink nothing but water for an entire year ... and pray for those that need clean water.” Throughout the week at Move, Birk attended worship sessions, sermons and small group gatherings that pushed her to develop a closer relationship with God. She said the week at Move was so influential to her beliefs that she was prepared to take the challenge. Accepting the kingdom worker card was a huge decision in itself, as it would push her to take a step that would require complete trust in God, Birk said. Justin Keith, Birk’s youth minister at Forum Christian Church, led the group at Move, and described the cards as not required, but “voluntary challenges that students receive to make a commitment to influencing the world or their peers in a practical way.” Those who took the cards were committing to completing them, no matter how practical or impractical the task. “I had grown so much in my faith that week so I figured, ‘Why not? It can’t be anything too bad,’” Birk said. “It was kind of funny though because whenever they were explaining to you the card, [one example was] drink nothing but water for a year. As they said that one I was like, ‘Oh gosh, I bet I’m going to get that one just because it would be so hard for me.’ And then I did.” There were other cards that encouraged the students to read their Bibles more often, start up small group studies or coordinate an event to raise money for an organization. However, Birk’s card was very specific; it stated that she wasn’t allowed to drink anything but tap water – even bottled water was off limits. Birk

was worried that she would give into peer pressure and compromise her decision to commit. “I’m a huge coffee drinker ... so I was afraid that one day I would just break,” Birk said. “Also, I knew my mom would be on me about getting calcium and stuff like that. She makes me take pills, which I’m really horrible about doing.” Birk’s sister, junior Raven Birk, can attest that her sister has been greatly challenged by this card. But, she has seen how this kingdom worker card has helped to increase her younger sister’s motivation when it comes to even the smallest tasks. Raven is able to sees the struggle Haley goes through each day, but also the unique ways she has accepted it. “She’s decent in the summer, but when it’s really cold you can tell she really wishes she could have [coffee],” Raven said. “She just likes to smell other people’s coffee and beverages [now].” Haley agrees she has struggled to stay on track because it’s hard “seeing people around you drinking all these things that you want.” It’s been more than eight months since she gave up all liquids, except for tap water, so she’s gotten used to it. The real challenge has been remembering to constantly think and pray about those in desperate need of clean water to drink. “The hardest thing is remembering to pray,” Haley said. “I know that for me it was hard to give up drinking everything but water, so for them, not to even have that is terrible. So I guess you could say it’s just made me more appreciative of having even that much.” According to the United Nation’s Children’s Fund, 783 million people across the globe do not have access to safe, clean drinking water, and nearly 4,000 children die each day from the lack of basic sanitation facilities and unclean water. Diseases such as HIV, AIDS, malaria and diarrhea are oftentimes results of drinking this unsanitary water. During the past eight months, Haley realized that she should be thankful that she has been blessed with such an abundance of safe water, unlike so many other countries across the world. In addition to a newfound compassion for those in desperate need of clean water, this unique experience has been beneficial to Haley both physically and spiritually. She sees improvements in her health, as well as a strengthening in her personal connection with God and plans on taking another card this coming summer. “Personally I think it’s gotten me a lot healthier because I was drinking coffee and soda a lot,” Haley said. “But as far as my faith goes, it just shows me that God can give me strength to do something like this. Whereas before I even went to or did this challenge, I mean, I had faith and I knew God could, I just wasn’t able to put my trust in him fully.”

feature photo by Asa Lory

H20: Sophomore Haley Birk accepted a year-long challenge from a Christian youth conference event in Lincoln, Neb., that she attended through her church last summer.

« In-Depths April 18, 2013 « The Rock « www.bearingnews.org

Cultural evil eye leaves lasting jinxes maria » Kalaitzandonakes

Aegean Region where light eyed people were very uncommon and usually lmost every language has a visitors from other lands. word for it. In Persian it’s These newcomers didn’t under“chashm zakhm”; in Spanish stand the custom of not gawking at it’s “mal de ojo”; in Greek it’s someone or giving them comments on “to mati.” In Arab nations, it’s known their beauty and would unintentionas the “ayn al-hasud,” and in Hawaii ally curse the person they just compliit’s called the “maka pilau.” mented. It translates to the evil eye, rotMany knock on wood, spit to get ten eye, stink eye, bad eye, hot eye, rid of the spirits in the area, perform eye of envy rituals or get or even, in blessed by an Portuguese, older family I do believe in the evil (olho gordo) member. Dolaeye, and, in fact, I’ve had the fat eye. tshahi partakes several experiences with Somehow, a in some of the evil eye. ” single superthese methods. stition has “I do believe traveled into in that wearing every corner Saba Dolatshahi a necklace with of the world, white eye is » junior ahelpful crossing over to keep cultural, rethe devil and ligious and curses away. language boundaries. Also, knocking on wood is a very This word refers to the power that popular thing in my country, and I do people wield when they look at an- it here too,” Dolatshahi said. “I believe other with envy or dislike. Many bethat luck does not define your future lieve this brief stare bestows a curse but can have a part in it.” on others, causing them to have bad But the evil eye is not Dolatshahi’s luck, injury and even death. Junior main belief. She is Muslim, but she Saba Dolatshahi, a foreign exchange feels such superstitions are culturally student from Iran, is no stranger to the important and widely held. Humanievil eye’s wrath. ties teacher James Meyer said more of“I do believe in the evil eye, and, in ten than not, superstitions are not gotfact, I’ve had several experiences with ten rid of when a major religion comes the evil eye,” Dolatshahi said. “There to a nation, but rather, a mixture of the was this time that I was going to go on two emerges. a trip for my whole summer vacation, “It’s a tricky game, and it’s very and this news spread around school. much a part of this dynamic syncreSo when I went to the trip after only tism, in which it seems as throughout one week, I got chicken pox, although history. People have been introduced I had the vaccine for it already. It is to new spiritual ideas that they either very unusual, and I felt bad the whole found compelling or were compelled trip. I believe that this happened to me to follow that there has always been because of the evil eye. We believe that room for flexibility,” Meyer said. “In the evil eye can ruin your life.” which, we don’t abandon one tradiBut as Dolatshahi and many oth- tion to adopt another, but we do some ers worldwide believe, there are a compromising and some melding of few cures. One popular method of traditions. I think the people who have preventing the evil eye is wearing a been exposed to convincing explananecklace with a blue and white eye in tions to why the world is the way it is the center. This belief comes from the hang on to those very tightly.”

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Junior Inas Syed, like Dolatshahi, is a practicing Muslim, but she strongly disagrees with the idea of luck. She believes that as religion becomes a more crucial role in one’s life, previous superstitions become unimportant. “In my religion, we believe that your life is already laid out by God, so there is no such thing as luck shaping your fate or future,” Syed said. “My grandmother and the older generation definitely believe in the evil eye. The belief is really cultural. There are some accounts of our prophet and the black magic, but it’s not as big as the older generation makes it out to be.” Syed’s grandmother was “superstitious,” she said. She believed one should never tie shoes while upside down, cut one’s fingernails while it is dark outside, step on books or look down into the water at night. But she doesn’t believe many of these things. She thinks widespread education in the United States makes the country less superstitious. “From my experience, the U.S. is less superstitious than the rest of the world,” Dolatshahi said. “They do not believe in certain things. For example, we believe in that seeing a black cat on your way to somewhere means that you won’t be lucky for the day, but no one believes that here.” Meyer said this change of beliefs for newcomers is unique because there are few historical precedents. But the lack of superstition in America isn’t a lucky coincidence, he said, it’s a unifying standard for U.S. citizens. “Part of the understanding of the American experiment is that we compartmentalize anything like an ethnic or cultural source, so we can come together and be kind of equal participants in the American project,” Meyer said. “So it’s almost as if for one of the first times historically that people have been asked, at least in part, to leave their old cultural assumptions behind and join into this new optional, shared, cultural assumption, which is the American experience – the American dream.”

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In-Depths »

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www.bearingnews.org » The ROCK » April 18, 2013

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ost season: where one loss ends it all. For the soccer team at the sectional game Nov. 12, time was ticking, and the scoreboard still showed the neutral zero, zero after the first half. Going up against the formidable neighboring high school Jefferson City Jays, all the RBHS boys needed to advance to the quarterfinals was one goal. And then, it happened. Eight minutes into the second half, the Bruins were coming off of a corner kick, and in an attempt to block the ball from getting near senior Eli Sherman, two Jays simultaneously leapt in the air to head it away. “Because of the guys in front of me knocking each other out of the way, I wasn’t quite expecting to get the ball, so the header was mostly reflexes. So I didn’t get much force behind it,” Sherman said. “The ball moved pretty darn slowly towards the far post – it was actually kind of funny how slow it was going – and somehow it hit a seam where no one was at, and no one could get to it. And it bounced just inside the far post for a goal. So it was a pretty lucky goal.” The scoreboard now read 1-0, and it stayed that way for the rest of the game. The Bruins were sectional champions. While the RBHS boys soccer team was top-ranked in Missouri last season, the win was, uncharacteristic for the team, based on a “lucky” shot. However, according to RBHS goalie junior Greg Kelly, who was named the National Soccer Coaches Association of America player of the week back in September, soccer game flukes don’t normally decide the outcome of a game in sports. “Practice makes perfect,” Kelly said. “You can’t just fluke a soccer game and win it off of some lucky goal. That happens, but usually, the better team wins; whoever practices more wins.” As a goalie, Kelly works at every game to make seemingly “lucky” saves to the untrained eye. But before stepping out on the green for competition, hours of practice go into perfecting the saves. Starting in the summer, RBHS head soccer coach Alex Nichols holds goalie camps, which Kelly attends, along with workouts and training during playing seasons, which allow him and other goalies to build the skills and in-

stincts needed to make saves. “Most of the time if we save [a goal], it’s skill. Because you can’t guess whenever they’re shooting when it’s not a penalty kick – you can’t just guess because you’ll look stupid and go the wrong way,” Kelly said. “[Coach] Nichols would make me run five miles for doing something stupid like that. You can’t guess at all. It’s just instinct. It just happens in the moment and you react.” Advanced Placement Statistics and Algebra II teacher Amanda Dablemont, who also coached the girls basketball team for several years, including taking them to the final four and winning the state championship in 2008, understands the power of a lucky moment. In one of the games that season, one of her girls made a half-court shot, and “from there it was like, ‘We’re good to go,’” Dablemont said. “We can’t lose. It was crazy.’” However, for Dablemont, luck plays a miniscule part in her belief system. Starting in elementary school, she has been involved in music and sports, playing piano, clarinet, bassoon and oboe, as well as basketball in college. From her experiences, she values hard work above everything else. “I hate the term, ‘good luck,’ and I kidded with the [basketball] coaches last year [that] I would rather you say, ‘I hope you worked hard because it really isn’t about luck,’” Dablemont said. “I just don’t think it is. Both [music and athletics] take hours and hours and hours of practice, and when it comes down to it, if you gave it everything you had before your performance, you’re probably going to be OK … because you have worked so hard for so long to perform.” Senior Ben Bergstrom has little experience in athletics, but he has devoted just as much energy in perfecting something else – the musical arts. Bergstrom picked up the saxophone in 6th grade band and has since gone on to make it into the prestigious Missouri Music Educators Association’s All-State ensemble twice, in addition to this year’s second chair position for concert band. “It’s hard to have something like [music] be completely comparable to sports where it’s two teams, but with something like state band, where so many people audition … no one’s going to win who wasn’t good enough to

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win,” Bergstrom said. “Maybe there are five people who are good enough to win, but depending on how they performed that day and how the judge interpreted it ... there’s all sorts of different things that judges take different ways.” Although Bergstrom understands sports and music are very different activities, he still believes hard work is one of the keys that opens the door to opportunities. Different from sports, however, is the subjective aspect of music – those who get a good rating or win a competition are all based on scores given by judges, tinged with a human aspect. “I know that certain people I’ve heard ... they think they seem to have advantages at auditions because they know their teacher’s going to be the judge,” Bergstrom said. “So, obviously, they know what their teacher likes to hear, and they’ve learned to play everything their teacher is listening for. So that sort of thing I think affects judging.” Bergstorm, who also composes music and has won awards for his musical compositions, says luck plays an especially big part when it comes to judging. “It’s a lot different than a sport. There [are] no winners and losers in music. We made there be winners and losers by having competition, whereas sports are innately a competition. Music is not. It’s hard to quantify in any sort of way who wins [in music],” Berstorm said. “So in terms of a composition competition, it’s completely down to luck. The preference of the judges and depending on the situation, that makes it completely up to luck on whether you’re going to win the competition or not.” However, no matter who wins or loses, gets in or doesn’t, it doesn’t matter if luck plays a part – what really matters, Dablemont said, is what athletes and musicians gain from their journey to the performance. “If you have lived so that you are constantly practicing a skill, and you know what it takes to become good at that skill, it puts you above,” Dablemont said. “I definitely think athletes and musicians have a better understanding of hard work than people who don’t experience those things, because they’ve never had to work hard for something unless it’s school. I don’t know what else it’d be.”

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www.bearingnews.org » The ROCK » April 18, 2013

Reality of growing up brings siblings closer lauren » Puckett

andon’s eyes are two different colors. They’re mainly blue, but in one segment of his left eye, the iris, is brown. Almost orange. But definitely not blue. He doesn’t like people looking at his eyes. He doesn’t like anyone examining his face. He gets embarrassed; his gaze falls, and his lips twist into an awkward adolescent smile. He doesn’t talk much about himself. In fact, he doesn’t talk much at all. But he sings. I think my brother Landon learned to sing before he learned how to speak. I used to sit outside his preschool classroom after my day of elementary school was finished, watching him through the window. The other kids would be busy with Polly Pockets and Fischer Price fire trucks, but Landon would be singing. He would dance too, drumming against the pavement with his light-up Sketchers. He was content in his own world. Somehow, no one understood that. The other kids got frustrated with Landon’s silence. But I understood him perfectly. Landon wasn’t a talker; he was a singer. So, I decided I would become his translator. When people couldn’t understand what Landon was saying, or what he wanted or why he was crying, they came straight to me. When he was frustrated, when he couldn’t explain himself, he glanced at me. I was his savior, immediately transforming his music into words. We continued like this for years. Landon and I could read each other. He knew when my inspiration was dry and my heart was aching. I knew when his energy was dying and his morale was crumbling. Everything made sense to us. We were united. Then, somewhere along the way, I stopped listening. Landon started junior high school, and suddenly, puberty claimed his innocence. He closed up, diving into Youtube, memes and “The Hobbit,” clawing at any available escape from adolescence. He closed his bright blue eyes to the world. I got tired. I got exasperated. I told him to “deal with it,” and I left him alone. The doors to our bedrooms, set across the hallway from one another, were slowly closed. They didn’t reopen until the day I came home and my mother’s head was in her hands. She’d received a call from Landon’s school. A pair of boys had ganged up on him, calling him a wuss, calling him dumb, calling him gay. It was in his Performing Arts class, a place that was supposed to be his serenity. They teased him because he liked singing. He took music seriously and that made him an object of ridicule. He wasn’t frustrated or upset when he came home that night. It was almost as if he’d forgotten the whole incident. But I could see behind his quiet resolve that he was shaken. He’d only seen bullying in TV shows and movies — now he’d experienced it. And he was hurt. He was badly hurt. I went to bed that night drowning in emotions. I was livid. I was exhausted. I was sad beyond comprehension. I was disappointed in myself. I’d forgotten my job — I’d forgotten I was supposed to be Landon’s support beam, his role model. I was supposed to be the one who understood. I was supposed to be his translator, and I’d forgotten the language he spoke. But, being the kind spirit he is, Landon taught me again. We talked for hours. I helped him with his music, and he asked me questions about the world. He asked me why God allowed cruelty. He asked me why we were allowed to have Christmas, when halfway across the world, children were dying. He asked me why some people truly cared and others were just “nice.” He asked me if I would still visit often when I left for college. And, truthfully, I didn’t know the answer to any of his questions. I was terribly aware of my own ignorance. But I held his hand, and I listened to him talk, and I didn’t tease him when his throat got tight. I allowed him to be emotional. For once, he was entirely honest and entirely open, meeting my gaze with those bright blue eyes. I was there for him again, just as I once was. In these last few months before college, I’m showing Landon all I can. I’m showing him how to flirt with the cute girls in his science class. I’m showing him how to open a door for a lady because “that’s the gentlemanly thing to do.” I’m showing him how to talk sports because even nerds should know the difference between Michael Jordan and LeBron James. But, most of all, I’m learning. I’m learning how to be an affectionate sister, an attentive advisor and a best friend. And, I suppose, I’m learning to say goodbye. So when the day finally comes and I load my black SUV with moving boxes and picture frames, I won’t be prepared, but I’ll be ready. Because I’ll have a CD inserted in the stereo — a recorded album of the songs Landon’s created over the years. And I’ll listen to him sing, and I’ll sing along with him, and I think we’ll just stay like that forever. Apart, yes. But united. We never leave each other’s sides. When you love someone that much, when you understand each other without having to speak, then there is nothing that can keep you apart. The anger and sadness of reality can’t seep in through my skin. No junior high drama, no college stress, no new life can change what Landon and I have always been: kindred souls. Kindred souls don’t break. And as I drive off, maybe I’ll glance into the rearview mirror, and I’ll see my face reflected back at me. I’ll smile and remember what countless people have told me over the years: Landon and I have the same bright blue eyes.

The Young and the Restless Sleep deprivation affects school performance sam » Mitchell Sleepless Too Tired Too Often

How Much Sleep Do We Need? Teens need 8.5-9.5 hours of sleep each night. 35.3% of adults got < 7 hours of sleep

Who Is Affected By Sleep Deprivation? 43.7% of people ages 18-25 unintentionally fell asleep at least once in the past month.

What Are The Risks? People who experience sleep deprivation are more likely to suffer from diabetes, depression, obesity and cancer.

Why Does It Happen? Sleep deprivation is mainly caused by work schedules and technology. infographic by Paige Martin

ach morning I wake up around 6:30 a.m. with my mind in a daze. I hear the alarm pounding incessantly in my ear, and I blindly swing my hand at the clock trying to stop the noise. After a few seconds of fumbling around, I find the snooze button and the noise stops; I am allowed to sleep for another nine minutes. This process repeats every nine minutes until I’m finally conscious enough to realize I’ll be late to school. At that point, why not hit the snooze button one more time? Nine minutes turns to 45, and I am late to my first class. It has gotten to the point where I don’t even realize that the alarm has gone off until I’ve already hit snooze three or four times; I sleep right through it. When I finally straggle into the classroom after the tardy bell, I’m still in a sleep daze, tired from my lack of sleep the previous night. As first hour wears on, I begin to wake up and become more and more engaged with what is going on around me, but I’ve already missed out on quite a bit, all because I decided to stay up until 2 a.m. I’m not alone. Normally three or four students show up to my first hour late and tired. A recent study by www.phys. org showed that only eight percent of high school students get as much sleep as they need; nine hours. It’s a dilemma; do I stay up late in order to get all of my homework finished and still have time to relax, but risk ending up tired and out of it the next morning? Or do I get a good night’s rest and wake up the next morning with a pile of unfinished homework and the memory of a short uneventful evening the night before? In my experience I almost always choose the prior. The draw of starting a new movie or wasting an hour surfing the Internet can be overpowering when the other option is going to bed, ending the day and leading right to the start of another school day. In the past there has been a common concept that says that high school students can have a social life, get good grades or get the sleep they need, but can only achieve two out of these three. This has proven true, and I chose the grades and social life. The same ends up being true on weekends. I will plan to catch up on my sleep over the weekend since I don’t have homework to keep me up late or school to wake

me up early, since, as www.thescientificamerican.com says, sleep debt, like any debt, can be repaid by making up on what was missed. Yet, this never works out either. Most weekends I end up out late with my friends on Friday and Saturday nights and don’t make up the sleep I missed during the week. On school nights the short term fun of staying up late is often much more enticing than the long term gains of getting a full night of rest. With a full night of sleep I am always more alert and engaged the next day, I perform better in school and am in a better mood for the first couple hours of the day. Without it I am groggy and grumpy for the first part of the day and it takes more focus and effort to understand what is going on in school. I should regret that I miss out on these benefits of a full night’s sleep. I should want to go to sleep at 10 p.m. each night to ensure I get enough rest. I should be willing to turn off the television, shut the laptop and drop the phone early enough to get a full eight hours. But I don’t. Getting some free time is too important to me to do homework until 9 p.m. then call it a night. There’s just not enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do and get the sleep I need. I want to hang out with friends; I want to watch an episode of Breaking Bad, I want to play some basketball or football or take my dog for a walk. To fit in all the stuff I want to do, sleep gets left out. And this is why I end up in bed around 2 a.m. each night. Is it optimal? Definitely not, but it is manageable, at least for me. Maybe next year’s later start time will solve the problem, at least for high school students. Going into college next year, I’ll definitely try to get on a more normal schedule, but I’m not sure how successful I will be. There will be even more distractions each day living on campus than there are living at home, but it will be even more important to get needed sleep as the workload will be greater and there will be more activities I want to engage in. But for the rest of the year I’ll still be wandering into my first hour classes well after the bell, and I won’t be the only one. We should strive to find a better balance in our sleeping patterns, and get enough sleep to perform at our fullest while leaving time for relaxation and fun.

Stereotypes detract from personality of others ipsa » Chaudhary

sian Americans portray the model minority. We get perfect scores on tests, whether they be unit tests in a class or standardized tests such as the SAT. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, Asian Americans scored an average of 528 on the writing portion of the SAT and scored an average of 23.7 on the writing portion of the ACT, both of which are higher than any other ethnicity for either test. We get accepted to the most prestigious colleges and universities. We maintain straight A’s in school. We take the heaviest course load possible, even as seniors. I spent most of my childhood trying to fit all these stereotypes. At first it was because my parents expected me to. But eventually I just expected myself to live up to the expectations that every other Indian seemed to fulfill. It wasn’t until high school that I felt constricted by these expectations and they began to stress me out to levels of insanity as I started to lose sleep over schoolwork and became more and more absent-minded. The expectations

that once motivated me to do the best in school soon came to weigh down on me. After one year of high school, cracks began to appear in the sturdy wall of perfection I had built around myself. I took Advanced Placement and honors classes but I also enrolled in art to get my fine arts credit. To my surprise, not only did I like art, but I was pretty good at it, too. I had spent so much time trying to maintain a perfect Grade Point Average that I was blind to the possibility that I could be good at something outside the fields of math and science. While I breezed through art, I struggled in Pre-Calc. It worried me. People would ask what I got on tests, and before I could answer, they would reply, “You got an A.” I was so used to hearing that statement and knowing it was true that I felt uneasy when it wasn’t. Shouldn’t I get straight A’s? Wasn’t I supposed to be good in math? What was wrong with me? Indians are known to be good in math. In fact, according to the National Center for Education statistics, Asian Americans scored an average of 595 on the math portion of the SAT, higher than any other

ethnicity. So struggling was new my ethnicity. But it wasn’t exactly to me. The stress of doing better a blessing, either. Any stereotype, overwhelmed me and left me lay- even a “good” one, imposes limitaing awake blinking through the late tions. It limits the way others view hours of the night as I mulled over us and, more importantly, the way what I was doing wrong. Every oth- we view ourselves because we still er Indian kid out there was prob- limit ourselves and our choices. ably finding a solution to poverty When we embrace notions of or making a machine that would how others should act, whether all zap the HIV out Americans of infected peoare obese The stress of doing better or that all ple. And there I was “failing” preoverwhelmed me and left A f r i c a n calc. What had the me laying awake blinking Americans world come to if are aththrough the late hours of Indians couldn’t letes, we even get A’s in the night as I mulled over limit the math? goals we what I was doing wrong. In my attempt deem posto be the perfect sible for Indian daughter, ourselves. I had stressed myIt’s easy self to the point of being in a state to miss the fact that having preof constant sleep deprivation. Even conceived notions of someone can the peace I found during my hour place them at a disadvantage. and a half long art class was lost as I shouldn’t feel guilty about not worry about spoiling my grades in getting perfect grades and living other classes consumed me. And up to these ridiculous expectations what was it all for? everyone seems to have of Indians. It was all because of the cli- Whether we embrace stereotypes che conception of what every In- of intelligence or physicality, we dian kid has to be like. So maybe are simply sending others a mesit wasn’t a horrible thing to be sage about what we deem is posthought of as a genius because of sible for them and what we do not.

photo illustration by Patrick Smith

« Commentary April 18, 2013 « The Rock « www.bearingnews.org

Ideal self-image distorts daily life

photo by Paige Kiehl art by Paige Martin

Dieting leads to realization of lifestyle Body size alters opinion of others kaitlyn » Marsh

onestly, I’m tired of being fat. I am completely positive my fat cells and I have gotten entirely too comfortable with one another and frankly, I have gotten too comfortable being my current size and weight. I mean, let’s be honest, have you seen my butt? It’s on the verge of being a teensy bit massive. It is starting to resemble a possible distant cousin to a Kardashian, but unfortunately, this isn’t the look I was really going for. Let’s get serious, it’s time for a personal kick in the butt, pardon the pun. Ever since beloved puberty, I’ve always been fairly chunky. My mom would say, “You’re going to have to watch what you eat, Kaitlyn.” So I did; I watched all sorts of food disappear into that hole below my nose, never to be seen again, or so I thought until I slowly began to notice them in jiggling form atop my stomach and thighs. I know what the problem is. I like food. Why is this so wrong? Why can’t I gain weight somewhere else — say like my feet. Why can’t my toes and soles just house all my digested cupcakes and cookies? I’d be willing to wear closed-toe shoes if it meant I could squeeze into a size four. But sadly, my body just likes to keep all my dirty little secrets right in one of the first places guys examine with their eyes (don’t try to deny it). All of my pizzas and pasta, cakes and confections — right on the hips. In my multiple Googling fests I have come to one conclusion. The diagnosis is boredom eating — a complex theory of females overeating when bored. I’ll explain how it works: there is always something I need to do to busy myself, but instead of being a creepy health fanatic and going out for a jog in two

feet of snow, I like to munch. On anything. And even worse, I cannot say no. “Kaitlyn, want a cookie?” “Yes.” “I’m not going to finish this pasta, would you like the rest?” “Yes.” “You deserve a cupcake for your hard work, chocolate or vanilla?” “Two of each, please.” I swear it’s got to be a disease or something. So in my attempts to grow my vocabulary and reverse the symptoms and effects of my disorder, I am dieting. And it stinks. A lot. First four days, the treatment is comparative to dungeon meals of bread and water — except bread is outlawed. A participant goes from eating anything they want and progressively getting bigger each day to a strict diet of no sugar and no carbohydrates — or a low-carb diet. Literally all I eat all day is peanuts. I’ve gone through nearly seven containers of the little nuts since first beginning my practical starvation three weeks ago. Every once in awhile I get some no-carb yogurt, cheese, leafy greens and lean meats such as turkey or chicken, but my diet mostly consists of peanuts — raw, dry roasted, buttered, mashed, shined, cracked or whole. And yet, I’ve gained three pounds. It’s true, I’m definitely not having the greatest time of my life, but the thought of prom being right around the corner scares me into gnawing on my peanuts faster than I have ever gnawed. Recently purchasing my dress over spring break, I was slightly baffled and how sparkles and satin can draw the eyes away from fat rolls. However, the fabric pulled at my hips, promoting the wellrehearsed sigh of disappointment. Still much improvement

george » Sarafianos

solely to benefit ourselves in some form. It causes us as huhen you’re a little mans to become entangled in kid, you don’t really our own problems and makes understand the con- it nearly impossible in some cept that words can hurt peo- cases to even remotely funcple. Things will just fly out tion. The sole thing that we as of your mouth because you humans seek is stimulation, think of them, almost as if which we strive to achieve repercussions are something in a number of ways. But bethat do not exist for you yet. fore people can begin to try It took me a long time to and feel good out in the vast actually realize the words world that’s out there, you that coming out of my mouth have to feel good about yourmight hurt someone around self, which is something that me. But it never really af- takes just as long and is argufected me so why did I have ably just as important. a reason to care? Growing up, I witnessed Humans are selfish crea- girls stress over their image, tures. We trick ourselves into their figure consuming them believing we are doing some- as they came of age. I rememthing for one reason, when in ber girls crying because someactuality all that we do, we do one had called them fat or something of that nature. older they became, Are RB teens satisfied with their appearance? The the more important their body image was. Being of the opposite YES gender, I never truly unh it w derstood exactly what NO satisfied nce? Are you a it was girls were going r a e p p a l a ic s through, how they saw y your ph themselves, etc. Have you ever g Until a certain age, I one thought of them as creaYES on a diet? tures riddled with pesNO tilence, which probably didn’t help their issues YES either. But I soon came e v e i l e b O u N o to see that self-image was y Do ? n o something that boys deal i t c in perfe with too. I was in third or fourth grade, and I was always Do you model your the last one to get jokes. YES appearance after some It took me a second to realize just why exactly it NO of your peers? seemed that all the jokes made about me revolved YES around food, especially doughnuts. It was a slow d NO sure s realization but eventue r p ? eel y f ally I caught on. a u w o Do y a certain I didn’t really think k o much of it at the time, o l to but as the fat jokes beThe Rock surveyed 180 students came more of a regular to be made. With all the tanned bodies returned from their tropical vacations of bikinied beaches, I no longer feel comfortable hiding behind my procrastination, excuses and fear my own reflection. And I know one thing, I want to freakin’ rock a bikini this summer — no, scratch that, maybe a few summers from now — and I want to feel healthy and preferably not sweat bacon grease and powdered sugar when climbing a flight of stairs. Yes, it takes time, and, yes, it takes dedication and willpower not to sneak Double Chocolately Triple Fudgyness Brownie ice cream when no one is looking. But nothing is going to weigh me down any longer, not even my own behind.

69% 31%

31% 69%

42% 58%

39% 61%

63% 37%

occurrence as I aged, I found that self image was not only something that young women struggled with but boys as well. Why else would they have spent their time and energy in order to point out a very obvious fact if they didn’t think that their efforts would be worthwhile? If they thought that it would offend me, then my peers are either studying me as a test subject or they are basing their tactics off of what would work in order to break them down, which is in essence the desired goal. All people desire to be viewed in a unique way, not necessarily different or perfect, but simply how they view perfection. For some, this contentment is not yet reached, seeing as that their desired image is still missing in action for any one of a countless list of reasons. Body image can aid in people leading a happy and content life if they come to a realization of what they truly expect from themselves. It hinders me personally in no way at all. I have reached a state of awareness in my being, allowing me to focus on things that I deem most important at the moment. I see myself the way that I am every day of my life, every time I look in a mirror, and everytime I see a photo of myself. It is not something that can be avoided, once someone has been exposed to something non-stop for a certain period of time, they build a tolerance to its effects. Self image is something that is present in almost all minds and of all races, regardless of gender, and it does not hold prominence in one person’s mind as much as it may the next.

infographic by Hyelee Won

Concept of perfection promotes false illusion of reality for teenagers brittany » Cornelison

s I walk through the halls each day, I find it hard not to look at others and make up their life stories in my mind. I see people who look exhausted, as if they are fighting an internal battle that is giving them no rest. There are people who walk alone, secluding themselves from everyone and avoiding eye contact. Then on the complete opposite spectrum, there are those who walk along with such confidence that I almost assume there is nothing that could bring them down. They look perfect. But for me, the concept of perfection is extremely confusing in itself, yet, I’ve strived for it all my life. I’m known for being good at covering up my emotion and pain, which may make it seem like I have it all together. I pushed friends away from close relationships for years so that I wouldn’t have to explain to them my whole life story. And it wasn’t until I broke down some of my barriers that I began to find that perfectionism isn’t all it’s made out to be. At one point in my life, I felt as though I had the most put-together, monotonous life that

anyone could be subject to. Nothing tragic had happened to me, but at the same time, nothing wonderfully out of the ordinary had either. I was alright with it though, as long as nothing disturbed my peaceful lifestyle. But, October 2011 changed everything. My grandmother, who had basically raised me, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She taught me confidence, patience and servitude. She even introduced me to God, which is something I’ll never be able to repay her for. But from that autumn on, each round of chemotherapy weakened her more, both physically and mentally. And the grandma I had grown up with, who taught me to be strong, was losing the battle. A year later, my grandma was still alive, which was literally a miracle. Doctors were amazed. No one with this fatal form of cancer had ever responded so well to treatment under their provision. But just when I thought nothing could shake my newfound confidence, the next rolling stone of defeat came barreling down. My parents’ divorce knocked me off my feet, and just like that, my so-called picture-perfect family was no more. That rolling stone crushed my reality, my confidence and my view on nor-

malcy. Though I held it together on the outside verses such as John 16:33, which says, “In this for the viewing of my peers, my life of com- world you will have trouble. But take heart! I pleteness was actually in complete ruin. have overcome the world.” Or Matthew 6:64, I realize divorce is not an uncommon occur- “Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow rence. According to will worry about itself. Each day divorcestatistics.info, has enough trouble of its own.” 41-50 percent of first These words calm my soul It was hard for me marriages end in diand allow me to give over the to find assurance vorce. But to a girl desire for a perfect, flawless life whose every day was to my God, who is perfect. ... because it felt as held together by the two experiences made though everything was meThese idea that life would question how possible peragainst me. remain constant, I fection even is to attain. I could was forced to enter a have been bitter and filled with whole new realm of complaints about what I had commonality. I was to endure. It would have been searching for a way easy. I could have blamed my to free myself from the constant battle of worry parents, or even God, for putting me in such an and soothe my aching heart. unconstant, unpredictable life. My lack of peace pushed me into a deep dark However, now I know that perfection is abplace, only to be pulled out by my faith in God. solutely unachievable, but who’s to say that It’s almost impossible to explain unless you ex- should result in unhappiness? Sometimes it’s perience it yourself but knowing that I followed our faults that define who we are. Ultimately a God who is never going to leave me gave me a the reality is, a life of perfection is typical and sense of security in my crazy life. ordinary compared to what true individuality I found, and continue to find, refuge in Bible feels like.

Editorials »

www.bearingnews.org » The ROCK » April 18, 2013

art by Michelle Zhang

HB 163 threatens the freedom and opportunities of potential graduates

s the graduating seniors of 2013 prepare for their final days at RBHS, they leave with their freedom, their individuality and the experimentations of their senior year. As of Feb. 2013, these experiences will be altered if Missouri House Bill 136 is passed, and students at RBHS and across Missouri will be forced into finishing their senior year with two mandatory, senior-level mathematics and science courses. After the bill’s first hearing in February, its announcement unsettled some students with its sudden suggestion of the stripping of student ability to hand-select their course load for their last year of secondary school. With the frustration and the objections that come with a state-regulated schedule, it is important to note that the math and science curriculums in high school are vital and irreplaceable by any classes available at RBHS or any high school for that matter. The logic and thinking practices that accompany any heavy math or science course are necessary to the development of students as learners and as educated members of society. However, are both types of courses necessary for a full four years in contributing to the success of students throughout their high school

careers? ing up two of eight blocks in their schedule and Each contributes to the academic journey demanding that all seniors with the exception of high school students, and with the United of the academically superior, sign up for an exStates ranked a mere 11th in international stan- cess of both math and science courses, regarddardized math scores and less of the 3-credit rule, for these a 10th for science scores, areas of study. Should the House require according to a study conInstead of forcing students students to take math and sciducted by the Institute of to take classes that may or may Educational Sciences, it’s not affect career-oriented classence classes seinor year? clear that some reform is es, giving students the option of The Rock Staff Voted needed. Math allows stutaking one or the other will not Yes-4 dents to explore problems only give students a stronger both real and theoretical sense of freedom, but will also No-8 in various enlightening apencourage a path of mathematiThey should only have to take one proaches. Science courses cal and scientific study which math or one science -15 do the same, giving stuis growing immensely in the dents a large realm of basic United States. knowledge, including critUndeniably, a background ical thinking, problem solvin math and science fields will ing capabilities and a firm contribute to the overall knowlgrasp of the natural world. edge of any individual, despite Math and science courses are vital to stu- their desired field of study. But so would classes dents’ educational experience, whether they’re that educate students in the fine arts and handsinvested in the mathematic-scientific end of on skills. By allowing students choice in their academics or not. However, the choice to let the educational diet, the state legislature can give state regulate the course load of all high school them the ability to explore new interests while seniors is a little extreme. The bill casually limits still ensuring they are schooled in either the scitoo much of the schedules of all seniors by tak- entific or mathematical fields.

Therefore, the state legislatures and schools throughout the United States would benefit greatly in requiring only one course in the fields of either math or science as opposed to both. This will open up the schedule for seniors to explore their individual interests of study and will give the state and the country the comfort that students will have an easy transition into universities and their futures by having all students maintain a steady level of study in the math and science fields. Students will receive the chance to discover their individuality and talents by signing up for courses which challenge and interest them, while maintaining an involvement in the staterequired math or science courses. This way, the bill would still encourage uniqueness and exploration, values promised to students at RBHS. Math and science courses will ultimately benefit all individuals while satisfying state requirements. This will allow for the easy transition into a stronger state-regulated schedule for next year’s seniors. The opportunity to choose either math or science as opposed to both will make this transition even simpler. Forcing students to take both courses will inhibit this easy transition, make room for objections and provide an undesirable course load for all seniors.

»the ROCK Rock Bridge High School 4303 S. Providence Rd., Columbia, Mo. 65203 Vol. 40, Issue 7 The Journalistic Production and Honors Seminar class produces The Rock, Bearing News and Southpaw. Call us with comments at 573-2143141. Email us at TheRock@bearingnews.org. The paper’s purpose is to inform, educate and enlighten readers fairly and accurately in an open forum. The Rock is a member of the National Scholastic Press Association, Columbia Scholastic Press Association and the Quill and Scroll. Advertising is $55 for a quarter page, $95 for a half page and $135 for a whole page. The paper’s editorial board, made up of honors seminar students, will review all opinion pieces, including staff-written editorials, submitted for publication, for use in the opinion pages only. Columns expressed in signed works are those of the signer and not necessarily the entire staff.

3.5’s all around art by Yasmeen El-Jayyousi

Weighted GPA would take load off of AP and Honors students’ minds adam » Schoelz

ravitational forces in history have had a mixed reception. Though they have kept us all from flinging into space, they have also led to numerous deaths by drowning, falling, dropping off rocks and, indirectly, obesity. Idiomatic expressions, however, have had a wonderful and varied time playing with weight and gravity in the fashion we as humans cannot, at least until we learn to manipulate the gravitron. To “carry one’s own weight,” is to track one’s own progress and do one’s own work and is generally considered a positive in the field of labor, whether mental or physical. Some carry more than their own weight. They seek extra challenge, credit and collegiate experience and invariably end up doing great things. They are called astronauts. In school, they are called Advanced Placement students, and for some silly reason, we punish them for it. I am enrolled in several AP

classes. I like them. The teachers are great, the coursework is engaging and topical and the classmates! Oh, the classmates! What discussion, what attitude, what research! But I digress. AP classes are harder than regular and honors classes. That’s the entire point. Take a harder class; get some college credit if you can pay for it and pass the test. But the other point of AP classes was to be the hardest curve, the biggest workload — the best challenge. It’s a great environment for some of the top students in RBHS to work together, no doubt, and a mind without challenge grows fat and lazy. But the system rewards those who challenge themselves as little as possible. As an AP class is harder than an honors class — a hard call to make objectively but still I think a relatively accepted one, when Honors World has roughly five essays over the year compared to AP World’s 30. It follows that getting an A in an AP class is harder than in an honors class, as well it should be.

However, the way that collegiate acceptance works nowadays is if you want either an academic scholarship or admittance to an Ivy League (TM) institution, you need at least a 3.8, bar none. There are so many smart kids, so many 34 ACTs and 2260 SATs, so many kids with heavy course loads and writing awards and high school internships that colleges have to draw the line somewhere, and somewhere happens to be between a 3.6 and a 3.8 GPA in most cases. Applying to colleges and universities is a stressful experience, and knowing that skewed statistics wind up on their resumes only compounds the experience. So a savvy student must ask himself: how much do I want to learn? Is it worth it to take an AP class if it means I may take a hit to my GPA? This is an awful question. Isn’t schooling supposed to be about learning at its core? Social learning, time management learning and traditional learning — math and history and science and art and English and literature. Letter grades, however,

have surpassed true education in importance totally. Letter grades are, at heart, arbitrary, depending on teacher, class and point-in-time assessments of knowledge, an imperfect measurement of understanding — any testing system can be fudged, and many students make an art of it. As a school and as a college town community, we should try and take some of the pressure off of students while maintaining the importance of true learning. We should move to a weighted grading scale, where an A in an AP class would be worth a five and in a non-AP class it would be worth a four. It could even be calculated on a case by case basis — nationwide, some school districts allow pupils to choose whether or not to weight their GPA. Students who challenge themselves academically should be worried about learning first, grades second. We must open up conversations with the school board, stop grubbing for letter grades and start demanding the necessary shift to a weighted grading system.

The paper encourages letters but reserves the right to edit or reject material on the basis of libel, obscenity or profanity. All stories with grammatical errors will be printed as received. Anyone wishing to submit a letter must sign with a valid signature. The Editorials Board will hold names upon request. When a group writes a letter, all members must sign. Editors-in-Chief: Nomin-Erdene Jagdagdorj, Maria Kalaitzandonakes, Adam Schoelz, Daphne Yu Production Manager: Maddie Magruder Arts and Entertainment Editors: Lauren Puckett, Ashleigh Atasoy Commentary Editor: Jacqueline LeBlanc Community Editor: Blake Becker Copy & Assistant Online Editor: Atreyo Ghosh Design Editor: Afsah Khan News Editor: Alyssa Sykuta Blogs Editor: Anna Wright Features Editors: Manal Salim, Trisha Chaudhary Editorials Editor: Jake Alden In-Depths Editor: Ipsa Chaudhary Multimedia Editor: Urmila Kutikkad Photography Editor: Asa Lory Personality Profiles Editor: Luke Wyrick Sports Editor: Kaitlyn Marsh Web Master: John Gillis Staff Writers: Brittany Cornelison, Tyler Dunlap, Hagar Gov-Ari, Sam Mitchell, Alyssa Piecko, George Sarafianos, Rajesh Satpathy, Julia Schaller, Jennifer Stanley, Carleigh Thrower Artists: Yasmeen El-Jayyousi, Paige Martin, Richard Sapp, Hyelee Won, Michelle Zhuang Photographers: Maddy Jones, Paige Kiehl, Patrick Smith, Aniqa Rahman Advisors: Robin Stover, Abbey Trescott

« Editorials April 18, 2013 « The Rock « www.bearingnews.org

Whimsical wonderland may not be so wonderful after all

Movie makers manipulate, pervert traditional fairy tale stories with mature elements blake » Becker

hildren’s stories are classic works that are always a pleasure to look back on and read through or watch. Many provide robust and original stories that leave them a respectable permanence in the world of literature and film. These works of art, like Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland, the Brothers Grimm’s Hansel and Gretel and L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz are among such stories, which can capture the attention of all, regardless of age, with their rich narrative, serious characters and original concepts. These masterpieces set a high standard for all fantasy themed stories. With a respectable place in film history, it’s only sensible for the works to be done justice by any remakes or spin-offs by having the new works adhere to the original stories’ spirit and themes. Logic and respect don’t seem to apply to the current film industry though, as giving the Mad Hatter a sword, sexualizing Gretel and turning the Wizard of Oz into an intense action movie is perfectly acceptable to producers as a way to make capital without any regard to artistic integrity. Tim Burton’s version of Alice in Wonderland in 2010 popularized the trend of transforming classic stories into over-hyped dramas that take an unnecessarily serious tone. While the film received mixed reviews with a 51 percent approval rating on www.RottenTomatoes.com and 6.5/10 on www.IMDb.com, it managed to gross

$1,024,299,904 at the box office worldwide, placing it at 11 among the highest grossing films in history. The film is a bastardization of the original Alice in Wonderland by ignoring the work’s authentic theme of imagination and makes up for its lack of innovation by centering the movie around a war against the Queen of Hearts that only Alice can end by dressing up in full plate armor and killing a dragon that Caroll barely mentioned in the original literature. The book did have some violent tones but nothing as large as a full-blown war. Recent releases continue this style of taking an original concept and transforming it into something completely unrelatable. New release Oz the Great and Powerful follows the same road as Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland by turning an imaginative classic film into an intensified action/adventure that doesn’t match up with the original spirit at all. Jack and the Giant Slayer and Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, however, bring it to a whole new extreme by taking short stories designed for children and making them completely unidentifiable from the original work. It goes without saying that many of the old European folk tales which inspired the stories of the Brothers Grimm were somber and often frightening. However, they were ultimately geared towards educating their youthful audience about morality and the dangers of the world around them. The original Hansel and Gretel is an onerously

dismal tale of starving children escaping from a witch by throwing her in the oven, but at the core of the fable is a story about the tragedies of parental abandonment and the importance of children having positive adult role models in their lives. How does it make sense to throw a witch cult into the story when it was never originally mentioned and turn the children into sexualized characters that constantly try to act tough? Adding in these unnecessary elements lobotomizes the heart and soul of the original story and adds in more mature elements without adding in mature values or depth. But you better hold onto your hats, kiddos, because as they say in the movie, “These aren’t regular witches!” This isn’t the Hansel and Gretel your grandma knew! The trailer received an NC-17 because of the glorified adult themes rampant within the film. Jack the Giant Slayer is just as absurd; the story is supposed to be about a poor boy discovering a magic bean stalk leading to a giant’s castle filled with riches to steal, not a medieval fight for humanity’s survival against a race of giants. Despite all of the outrageously dull concepts, negative reception and blatant tarnishing of the names of cherished works, these films still manage to reel in loads of money from the box office. Because coming up with original ideas won’t make any money and takes effort, it’s a diabolically brilliant scheme for filmmakers to take a story that everyone remembers fondly, then pump it full of modern concepts, famous

actors, drama, gross action and 3D effects to make a movie that appeals to a consumer as a film that’s based off a child’s story, but is now cool enough for a big grown up to watch. The dual appeal of these types of plots makes them attractive to movie executives, if only because of the ridiculous amount of money that can be made. As a result, the films rake in buttloads of money. Adam McKay, a producer for Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters proved the greed implicit in the creation of these films when he said, “We heard it, and we were just like, ‘That’s a freakin’ franchise! You could make three of those!’” With better visual and practical effects than ever before, modern directors have a tremendous opportunity to do justice to the heart and soul of old world fairy tales. Film production companies have access to successful and wellwritten material from authors like Neil Gaiman who synthesize folk tales with modern perception without sacrificing the originals’ integrity. They have the capacity to create films for a new generation of children and their parents that don’t talk down to kids, but also don’t lose their message amidst sensationalism and the idea that graphic grit is the same thing as substance. Maybe one day filmmakers will respect fiction and follow a work’s original spirit. Or they’ll continue, and turn Winnie the Pooh into a movie about a honey-drunk bear seeking revenge on the Heffalumps that killed his best friend Piglet.

art by Jennifer Stanley

Out-of-state tuition swells fees, burdens future college attendees julia » Schaller

infographic by Jennifer Stanley

www.usnews.com www.economist.com

or about a year now, all I’ve wanted is to get out. I’ve just wanted to leave Columbia and venture on in life. I had my sights set on the University of Arizona-Tuscon. I did not, however, know exactly what going out-of-state for college would mean for myself financially. Out-of-state tuition has skyrocketed in the past six years. Last year, CNN Money reported that average in-state tuition for public colleges in 2012-13 totaled $22,261 per annum. That’s not including financial aid, but that number is still higher than ever. CNN reported that the reason college tuition, especially out-of-state, is increasing is because state governments are cutting the amount of money they gave to colleges by $15.2 billion since 2007 because of inflation and America’s 2008 recession. The number of students attending college rose 12 percent since 2007. This means even more students are having to pay crippling college fees. Not only that, but this makes the college pool larger for applicants, which means the scholarship availability could diminish, making it more expensive for all students considering higher education. With state budget cuts, not as much money is channeled into the colleges, so there is less money in the scholarship pool. A college or university charges more to students coming from a different state because the school is supported directly by state taxpayers. Attending a school that is in the state that a person’s family pays taxes to will be cheaper than studying at

a school in a different state. There is no reason someone What benefits do the state should have to pay so much universities get if their only at- more money just because the unitendees are students from that versity they want to go to is in a state? There will be hardly any different state. Harvard Univerdiversity among students if this sity costs the same whether the continues, and students won’t student lives in state or is from have the opportunities to ven- the other side of the country. ture out into the world and go All schools should cost the same where they please for their edu- for in-state and out-of-state stucation. dents. Truth Withis, the out inIt seems almost wicked price of cludin g of colleges to charge attendscholaring an ships, such exorbitant amounts out-ofthe inof money for their own s t a t e state tuindirect benefits. universiition at ty that’s the Uninot even versity a specof Aritacularly zona is ranked $24,744, school is getting to be almost the a whole $16,180 difference besame price as going to an Ivy tween residents and nonresiLeague university. dents. With that difference, I According to the Univer- could buy the sky-blue Volksity of Arizona’s website, the swagon Convertible Beetle. estimated cost of attendance I know I’m going to end up for non-residence students in- going to college in Missouri cluding room and board, books now. I’ve weighed my options and supplies, travel and mis- as far as college goes, and financellaneous costs add up to be cially, it’s the right thing to do. $40,924, which is more than the In 2011, USA Today claimed price of the tuition to Harvard teens are causing student loans University, which is $37,576. to soar to $100 trillion because There is a disparity between so many more are attending colthe quality of education between lege, and the Federal Reserve the University of Arizona and Bank of New York reported Harvard University. Harvard Americans’ debt will be greater University is the number one in student loans than credit nationally ranked best college in cards. I blame the ridiculous the United States, whereas the out-of-state tuition. University of Arizona is ranked College is meant to prepare number 120 according to the people for future employment, U.S. News and World Report. but with so many students A $10-20,000 difference be- loans, it will most likely take tween in-state and out-of-state students years to pay off the tuition for a college is illogical. debt. Many students may not

be able to afford schools out-ofstate that have a better quality of education, robbing the maximum potential of their success for their future. The US News and World Report ranked the University of Missouri-Columbia higher than the University of Arizona on the best colleges, but that doesn’t mean all out-of-state schools won’t provide the same high level of education. If colleges and universities got rid of or decreased out-ofstate tuition to a decent amount compared to in-state tuition, our student loan debt wouldn’t be as high, and students could get the opportunity to venture out and go to a school not in their state. Everyone invested in the future of America’s higher education institutions needs to work together to communicate these problems to our state legislators. We need to make connections with the people who have the authority to help reform these institutions so that, ultimately, we can help connect the entire nation into one united educational opportunity. We should be enticing future generations into bettering themselves and, in turn, bettering the world around them. It seems almost wicked of colleges to charge such exorbitant amounts of money for their own indirect benefit. If more people directly contribute to the world through research and technology, something that requires copious amounts of information retention, there should be a larger amount of state funding to the institutions that catalyze these world advancements: colleges.

Editorials »

www.bearingnews.org » The ROCK » April 18, 2013

Game developers desert their devoted fanbases

adam » Schoelz

art by Jennifer Stanley

Gun loophole tightening necessary to secure safe future urmila » Kutikkad

he cold metal of a gun used to be something to revere. It embodied the values Americans have fought for time and time again: liberty and individual rights. But then, one too many school shootings broke the smiles off faces around the nation. One too many sobbing parents graced the television screen in the family room. One too many guns stole a child from the dinner table — nobody there to pick at peas and recount the dramatic events of the school day anymore. Thus came Americans’ great disillusionment, casting everything into doubt. It was no longer clearly black and white whether guns were patriotic weapons defending liberty and individual rights or just weapons dealing death and sadness. And yet, in spite of these unsettling doubts, almost every attempt at gun control since the Sandy Hook school shooting in December has failed. Only four states – Connecticut, New York, Maryland and Colorado – have passed any major gun control legislation. The federal assault weapons ban proposal has fizzled out, congressional Republicans continue their aggressive protection of gun rights and most congressional Democrats are too scared of losing votes to come out and support gun control. The momentum and passion the gun control movement had right after the shooting is in a tragic downward spiral. We are dangerously close to doing nothing and moving on, as we have done with every other shooting before. Americans are passionate about the ideals of liberty and individual rights our nation was founded on,

and restrictions on guns seem like a direct threat to those ideals. We are paranoid that our hard-earned rights will be taken away, which is natural. But there is a line. There is a degree to which guns and metaphorical patriotism can be prioritized over human lives, and we have surpassed it. We may think we’re choosing patriotism when we fight for guns, but in fact, we’re doing just the opposite, for congressional behavior begs the question: what kind of patriotism is it we believe in if, within 100 days of 20 children and six adults being murdered, we are already ready to forget and move on? We should be ashamed if we do nothing and let their lives pass in vain. Guns are weapons, weapons that can kill people. The least we can do is take precautions when trusting ourselves with guns, and though popular opinion may disagree, Americans are not entitled to guns without precautions – we can’t be. The entitlement of innocent children to their lives has to take ultimate precedence over everything else. The most simple and effective precaution we can take is background checks. The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 established the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The Brady Act mandated that those wishing to buy a gun from a federally-licensed dealer had to undergo a background check before they could purchase the gun. NICS effectively ensures that people with criminal backgrounds or mental illnesses don’t get guns. Except for the fact that many gun transactions aren’t public; they’re private. In 33 states, any-

one 18 or older can walk into a gun show or a private transaction and buy a gun, no background check necessary. The potential for danger is stunning. The solution seems simple: make background checks universal. Though factions in our government often have a difficult time working together, it seems outlandish that anyone could possibly oppose a simple background check to keep guns from getting into hands that would use them to horrific ends. Of course, such a hope would be naïve. National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said at the Conservative Political Action Conference a few weeks ago that those who wanted to expand background checks were “insane.” He believes expanded background checks would lead to a national registry of firearms (which is illegal under federal law), and that the government would use the registry to either tax or take guns. Essentially, the only argument against universal background checks is a paranoid hypothetical situation that has little to no chance of ever occurring. Unfortunately, this lone, delusional argument is also backed by a large amount of money. Americans who still oppose background checks are being dragged, kicking and screaming, into reality and away from the delusional utopia they live in where everybody holds guns and hands. The kicking and screaming isn’t only embarrassing, it’s quite literally killing us. Humans aren’t perfect, and we’ve forgiven that enough to let ourselves have guns anyway, but some humans are far from perfect, and we protect their right to sim-

ply be handed guns. The crimes they might commit are nothing compared to the far more heinous crime we commit when we are the ones providing them with weapons, knowing we didn’t take a single precaution. Missouri is one of the few states looking to close the gun loophole within its borders this year. Missouri Rep. Stacey Newman has introduced House Bill 187, which would require background checks for all gun sales. She has been lobbying since 2000 against Missouri’s gun policies, but to no effect. It’s tragic that it took shootings becoming commonplace for anyone to care. In February, Missouri Rep. Mike Leara proposed a bill that, if passed, would send people to jail for introducing legislation restricting gun rights. This would mean that Newman’s bill closing the background check loophole would give her an instant 4-year ticket to prison. Leara’s bill is unconstitutional, and he knows it, but he wanted it “to be clear that the Missouri House will stand in defense of the people’s constitutional right to keep and bear arms.” Many people agree with Leara’s sentiments. Missouri is a conservative state, and it flaunts its pro-gun attitude. But we have to fight back. Write letters to your representatives, make phone calls, inform whoever you can; the background check loophole must be closed in Missouri. A traditionally conservative state throwing politics aside and doing the right thing for its people is what the nation needs to set change in motion. Sure, universal background checks on guns won’t solve all our problems, but when we’re still kicking and screaming, every little step counts.

hough some may see the ugly release of “SimCity 2013” as an isolated incident, it’s another example in a long line of recent and weird anti-consumer trends in the games industry. And it comes from the company voted the worst in the United States two years in a row in The Consumerist poll. “SimCity” has had a whole heap of trouble since its release March 5. Overloaded servers prevented folks from playing the first week; early mods showing that Electronic Arts’ claim the game depended on server-side calculations was demonstrably false, and the fanbase realization of the many broken underlying systems in the game made us forget about “Aliens: Colonial Marines.” It also laid bare a near-systemic problem with the gaming industry: seeming contempt for gamers themselves. Why else would Maxis lie to their fanbase about the viability of online play? The efficacy and intelligence of the Sim agents within each city? The pathfinding system that’s worse than “Starcraft 1” (that may be slightly hyperbolic)? And from EA so soon after the disappointment of “Star Wars: The Old Republic,” and “Mass Effect 3” before that and “Dragon Age 2” before that. Beyond EA, “Aliens: Colonial Marines” disappointed anyone with a pulse, but at least its Metacritic score reflects that. This shows an underlying and disturbing problem with the current gaming industry: the shallowing of established Intellectual Properties. Though it would be easy to blame EA as its reputation is, mildly, Voldemort, the answer is much more depressingly sensible. To examine current trends in the game industry that have delivered disappointing sales for numerous shooters and strategy games and even more theme park MMOs, we must remember that publishers such as EA are out to make money, not necessarily quality games. In good economic times, this brought us the original “Dead Space,” “Mirror’s Edge” and “Braid.” They might not have sold as well as, say, “Call of Duty 4,” which came out around the same time, but it didn’t matter. They were experiments, and great ones at that. Our economic climate now is decidedly more dour than mid-2000’s. The economy drove off a bridge into a pit of despair in 2009, and even now we’re just barely reaching the lip. Suddenly, experiments with new IPs such as “Mirror’s Edge” and “Dead Space” were unthinkable — every game needed to sell enough to keep the company afloat. So those projects were put on hold, and sequels to popular IPs were rushed out the door as quickly as possible to make money. The games themselves became safer in content, often emulating the most popular shooters in a certain category — “Call of Duty” in the FPS market, “Gears of War” in third-person action, “Zelda” otherwise, and they rapidly became lobotomized, repetitive rehashings of such classics. This leaves us where we are today: the market is flooded with games of some quality that are all the same to the point that it has become meta — the game “Spec Ops: The Line” comes to mind. It’s ugly. Real ugly, and the bright spots from AAAs, such as “Far Cry 3,” are few and far between. Indies thrive, of course. Luckily, the solution to this problem is quite simple: vote with your dollar. Support indie developers — Bastion, Cave Story, FTL, Natural Selection 2, ARMA 3, DayZ — and high quality AAA titles to show EA and other huge game companies that a safe game does not necessarily mean a shallow and lame one, and help save the industry from itself. You could even say as you pay the cashier, “It’s dangerous out there; take this!”

Flawed fluoride system degrades public health maribeth » Eiken

photo by Paige Kiehl

magine ingesting a toxic chemical that slowly eats away at tissue function without even knowing you’re doing such a thing, a hidden poison that slowly pollutes the brain and the body’s senses. Consider the implications of weekly guzzling gallons of fluid laced with a substance terrifying in its potential for mental impairment. Most people would put such an activity on par with alcohol abuse or drug use given its potential for permanent payments of personal health. Most people who drink tap water put themselves at such risks every single day. Our state puts $50,000 of fluoride in our water every year. This has gone on since 1973 when a nationwide recommendation said putting fluoride in public drinking water would help the dental health of those ingesting the water. Since then, many documented studies were done proving the myth of the health benefits in fluoride completely false. So, with all this handy information, why does the Missouri Health Board insist on postponing the recommendation meeting in order to do more research? Maybe the postponement has something to do with the fear that fluoride might actually help dental health. This opinion appears on a prestigious website such as www. apha.org, claiming the additional fluoride improves dental health. But, what the websites do not include are the studies done on subjects who ingest fluoride and the effects it has on an individual. With some simple research using Google Scholar, research data sheets, papers and websites aiming to stop the purposeful pollution of our water gives all the facts. The United States Environmental Protection Agency, Fluoride Action Network and Natural News online providers cite such studies and other resources proving the negative health effects of fluoride in our water (if only to make the dentist’s job a bit easier). From these studies, subjects recorded frightening detrimental breakdowns of regular brain function and sensory recognition as well as showing no real signs of positive dental effects at all.

With all this information at our fingertips and wonderfully cited, why does the Missouri Health Board need to postpone it’s recommendation? One could argue that fluoride is in our toothpastes and used daily. The problem with this argument is that toothpaste is not directly ingested from someone brushing their teeth, and when they slap some Colgate on their pearly whites, they’re not consuming fluoride products so willfully. Also, toothpaste has a much, much lower fluoride content than the amount put into our public drinking water, hence why Missouri spends a whopping $50,000 a year for fluoride while toothpaste only costs about $2 per tube depending on the brand. Fluoride really does nothing good to our bodies unless it is for our teeth and taken in small doses if ingested. There’s absolutely no logical justification for pouring it into our water supply anymore than there is a good reason to bake prescription medication into elementary school lunches. The surprise of these findings can be unbelievable because the general public is not fairly educated about the artificial tampering with their primary source of refreshment; there is little chance to understand what is exactly being put in our free drinking water. The blame for this lack of education lies on the Health Board itself for not educating a population they are working to protect from disease and bad health; they have just left it in the hands of hard-working and busy parents and students. Old habits must die hard for the Missouri Health Board, but by educating ourselves and taking action for our health, proper recommendation or not, the fight against fluoride can continue. Get the word out and inform the Health Board that fluoride is indeed not a good thing and must be removed from our water. Its devastating side effects far outweigh any of its minor potentials for meagre dental improvements. The chance of winning extra-shiny teeth in the fluoride lottery is a costly gamble to make when you have to pony up the health of your brain to play such a dangerous game. Maybe then we will all be at ease when we smile.

« Sports April 18, 2013 « The Rock « www.bearingnews.org

Soccer adapts to new coaching staff tyler » Dunlap

photo by Patrick Smith

hen the weather gets warmer, spring athletes know it’s time to break out the workout clothes and cleats. Introducing a fresh coaching staff including Jack Rubenstein (head coach), Frank Bowman (assistant coach) and April Sulze (junior varsity coach). The Lady Bruins soccer team look forward to the challenges of a new competition season in addition to adapting to new coaches. After participating in soccer as a RBHS student himself and standing on the sidelines in a different position for the past few years, Rubenstein is no stranger to the routine, he said, and plans to continue the winning tradition. “I played Rock Bridge soccer for all four years that I went to Rock Bridge. I was the assistant coach for five years, and now I’m the head coach, so this organization is nothing new to me,” Rubenstein said. “At Rock Bridge, winning is so cultural, anything less is almost sub-par. I’m excited for the season. We’ve got a good team this year with a lot of potential.” However, the new style of play and expectation that comes with a different head coach is not the only addition to the team this spring. With three freshmen and five sophomores joining the roster, the seasoned athletes have also had to welcome a fair amount of underclassmen onto the competitive squad. This can make communication and technique somewhat of a challenge on the field, senior Caiti Tabaka said. “There’s a lot of new girls this year,” Tabaka said. “There is a lot of underclassmen coming in this year so [we] have to get used to playing with each other.”

Despite a big difference in personnel from last season, many of the upperclassmen who have experience playing the sport have high hopes for this season aside from some minor changes that have taken place. “I think we look pretty good this year,” junior Madison Boyken said. “Once we get our team chemistry down and get some experience with all of us playing together in game scenarios, I think we have the potential to be a really good team.” Aside from many new players on the team who are new to competition and team versus individual play, the girls have had to adapt and continue to embrace the positives and things they can learn from the new coaches and Rubenstein in particular, Tabaka said. “Our new coach is bringing a lot of new stuff to the table, such as new formations and style of playing, but we’re all adjusting to the new atmosphere,” she said. “He’s a pretty laid back coach from what I’ve seen so far, so I think it’ll be easy for all of us to get along with him and have a fun year.” Winning their first game of the season pushed them towards reaching their current 3-7 record. The Bruins continue to work with their new coaches and grow closer as a team. Setting aside the technicalities and physicality of the sport, Boyken recognizes the more personal side of the team and looks forward to the following season and sharing the experiences that only grow sweeter with time, she said. “I just love playing with all the girls and getting to be with them everyday after school,” Boyken said. “It’s just a good feeling to be a part of a team, especially one where we’re all so close.”

Varsity tennis finds chemistry, works to repeat success Continuing tradition of championships, players integrate aspect of community, teamwork blake » Becker

or the past three years, the RBHS boys tennis team earned the title of state champions, an accomplishment that RBHS Coach Ben Loeb and the rest of the team intend to repeat this year. However, attaining a highly contested state title demands the maintenance of skill and commitment from not only the individual players but from the team as a whole. Senior Alex Jones played a role in supporting the boys’ three state titles since his freshman year during the 2010 season, along with many of the upperclassmen during the time. Becoming a senior on the team this year modifies Jones’ role to require much more leadership on his part as a more experienced member of the team. Jones said advancing in the team as a senior as well as his rank as a varsity player brings important duties to his role, as Jones finds it his responsibility to assist younger players so they may continue the team’s legacy after he graduates. “I have to watch what I do a little bit more because I’m a senior. I can’t be goofing around or all the others. Especially the freshman and

sophomores will think that they can goof against the world. Then you get a chance to be around, and I just don’t want to set a bad exam- part of a team when you play high school tenple,” Jones said. “I just don’t want to win state nis, or in some cases you might play on some this year, I want to keep having the Rock Bridge different type of league team before you reach tradition of winning state.” high school tennis, but for the most part, high The team aspect of school tennis is for tennis can be problematmany people, their first ic for players first being true lengthy opportu[The players] have introduced to a team, nity to participate in a as the player goes from team sport,” Loeb said. adapted into valuing the solely depending on think to the credit success of the team above “I themselves for victory of the boys and girls themselves individually.” to relying on other playthat have played Rock ers in the team to push Bridge tennis, that they through as well. While have adapted into valuBen Loeb ing the success of the adding a team oriented » tennis coach team above themselves factor may be difficult for some, Loeb believes individually. And I emphasizing introducthink that’s part of the tion of new players to reason we’ve been very camaraderie is integral to advancing the skill successful.” level of not only the team but the individual This success also requires a player to tranplayer as well. sition from a friendly, social attitude to a com“I think in football and basketball, you grow petitive mindset when challenging teammates up with them being team-oriented, while in to advance in the team rank from either junior tennis, you grow up like an island. It’s you varsity to varsity or to climb into the varsity

“

line up. Junior Harry Bozoian believes making this change is key when playing against fellow players and is a switch essential for competing in meets and competition. “Five minutes you’ll be joking around, telling a story, and the next five minutes, you’ll be on the court trying to beat him, and you definitely have to play your own game and can’t worry about what other people are doing around you,” Bozoian said. “You have to stay focused on yourself and what you’re doing and usually that works out.” For Loeb, having players with this trait is essential to the team’s continued success and defines past championships and winning seasons for the boys team. When the player competes, it all boils down to finding the balance between the team and the individual in order to come out on top, Jones said. Although it may pose a challenge and takes skill and experience, Jones enjoys the time spent and effort in learning the sport. “It is hard because it’s so individual, but at the same time, it’s still a team, so you play for your team, but it’s all on you,” Jones said. “It’s just you out there.”

infographic by Michelle Zhuang source: thecompletepitcher.com

Baseball expands roster, motivation, faces majority of season away luke » Wyrick

he cracking sound of a baseball being hit and cheering from bleachers behind a gate around the field a crowd of fans in front of America’s pastime. Green and gold uniforms decorate the 2013 roster, composed of all three classes. Senior Braeden Rogers said it is this mixture of upper and lower classmen that makes him excited for the season, and he is looking forward to playing with the younger players as more admiration and appreciation for the team grows. “There’s only six seniors, and there’s actually a lot of open spots this year that our coach is looking to fill,” Rogers, a Varsity pitcher for the team, said. “We have a lot of potential to be a really good team with a lot of the younger guys we have.” While tryouts began the last week

of February, the team faced a significant problem. Without the ability to play on the field because of the snow, Rogers and the rest of the members solved the complication. “I thought [the tryouts] went really well. We tried a couple new things this year that we haven’t done in the past, but we did have one snow day,” Rogers said. “But it didn’t really delay us a whole lot, but we got a lot of stuff done despite the fact that we couldn’t go outside or had to work in the gym around other [sports] teams.” After knocking tryouts and preseason practice out of the way, the team now faces the pressures of playing the majority of their games away. Without the convenience of playing at home, the team will have to add blocking out detrimental cheers to their skill set. “We have 35 games total ... and we only have seven home games, so

we’ve got to work on being able to not work that home advantage,” Rogers said, “and just kind of get our minds ready for the road and just working on being a lot better as a team.” Working toward better defense is something Head Coach Justin Towe emphasizes. He believes the team can use its abilities on the field to gain an edge on both sides of the game.“ “Right now we’re swinging it as well as we’ve ever done; offensively, we’re really strong. But defensively, we’ve got to clean up some defensive issues and continue to throw strikes on the mound and limit our walks,” Towe said. “And if we can do that, then we’re going to be really tough to beat.” The loss of Ryan Phillips, a Head Coach Varsity pitcher for RBHS who graduated last year, “has affected me and the rest of the team,” junior Kyle Teter said. Without a teammate to

guide them, the Bruins are attempting to perform well without a role model. “This year we didn’t have Ryan Phillips, so it’s going to be a lot different since he was the head of the team for the last four years,” Teter said. “And I guess we basically have to start over from where we were.” This season, the team hopes to get to districts and win, which Teter said is the goal every year. The start of the season is a critical aspect and is something Teter hopes the team overcomes by practicing and preparing for the rest of the spring. “This season we’re just ... bouncing back and getting off to get to a good start,” Teter said. “Seeing how it goes and playing with the new team, we’re just hoping to figure it out.” The way that the players are chosen to play positions are due to their effort and predisposition they show

during the practices. When a player shows enough effort, they are given the chance to move up and down in rank on the team. “High school baseball doesn’t last that long,” Towe said. “And so if you can’t get super motivated to play, then there’s probably someone that is, and that’s how those guys move up and down.” Even though the team is in the middle of their season, the time they have left is minuscule. Towe said because of this, motivating the seniors isn’t too difficult. Towe motivates them by “talking to them and saying ‘Hey, this is your last go; it’s time to give it all you have,’” Towe said. “And most of the time, if a guy’s a senior and still playing, then he’s doing that, so it’s not really that difficult to motivate a senior because there’s really not a lot left [of the baseball season].”

Sports »

www.bearingnews.org » The ROCK » April 18, 2013

Hockey star finds supplement in lacrosse

s other four-year-olds lumbered around on their preschool playgrounds, junior Keegan McGonagle was skating on ice. His father said at age six, Keegan was skating with a purpose, getting started on his now dozen years of ice hockey experience. “The speed, power, physicality and grace of the game was infectious for Keegan, just as it had been for me when my father introduced me to the game,” Keegan’s father, Craig McGonagle, said in an email interview. “Keegan took to the game naturally and his love for the game is all the motivation he has ever needed. As parents, we have always encouraged our kids to find their passion, whatever that may be. For Keegan, that passion has been hockey, and recently lacrosse, a similar sport. In order to support our kids in pursuing their passion, we’ve spent plenty of money and time as a family towards those ends.” Craig’s own father grew up in Boston, playing “pond hockey during the winters,” he said. Craig spent almost every day skating and eventually played competitively for the University of Missouri-Columbia, back when ice skaters could use the Ice Chalet rink in Columbia. Keegan, unlike his father, had no way to play in his hometown. Instead, he started playing for Westminster Christian Academy in St. Louis, Mo., three years ago. Craig said the family made the two-hour commute three to four times each week for various practices and games. Certain weeknights father and son would not get home until 1 a.m. “After two years of playing in St. Louis, we were all getting burned out, and so Keegan decided to play in Jeff erson City this past season,” Craig McGonagle said. Getting home after 11 p.m. from a weeknight practice in Jeff City, [Mo.] was much easier that getting home at 1 a.m. from a practice in St. Louis, [Mo.].” Keegan now plays for the Mid Mo Tigers in Jefferson City, Mo. Approximately a third of the team hails from Columbia, he said, with another third driving over from St. Louis and the other third from Kansas City, Mo. The team’s schedule is “pretty competitive,” Keegan said, playing half of their games at home and the other half in Springfield, Mo. or St. Louis. Neither state nor school supported, the team members must pay for their own transportation, equipment and uniforms, he said, but these expenses matter little when he’s on the ice. “It’s just such a fast sport, and it changes every year,” Keegan said. “Nothing in the game is the same twice. It’s always changing, and you have to get better every day.

It’s just hard fun.” Last year, with less demanding hockey commutes, Keegan started playing lacrosse. The RBHS lacrosse team isn’t school sponsored either, and Keegan originally joined the team as “just something else to do to stay in shape for hockey.” But the experience has been especially rewarding, Keegan said. Junior Caymen Menard, who is one of three lacrosse cocaptains with Keegan, said the other players have similarly enjoyed Keegan’s presence on the team, especially with the level of dedication he brings to both sports. “With Keegan you never really saw that he wasn’t giving everything he had, like he never gave less to our lacrosse team because there was hockey practice after school,” Menard said. “It was really great because you never want a guy to be half there, giving half effort. That’s not who Keegan is.” On the field, it is easy to see Keegan’s “translation of hockey to lacrosse.” Menard’s own history with lacrosse started with hockey as well. Unlike his co-captain and teammate, however, Menard starting playing lacrosse because he didn’t want to commute to play hockey. Menard said Keegan brought his hockey conditioning and physicality to lacrosse, in addition to “those skills that a leader needed to be successful.” Menard said Keegan is known on the team for more than his role as a co-captain, though. “He never really shies down from a big hit or anything like that, just because hockey has given him that skill set,” Menard said. “He’s always the one just in the middle of everything, scrapping and getting done what the team needs. It’s not always pretty, but he ... plays a really important role on the team as ‘that guy’ who makes plays with his feet and that kind of stuff.” Craig said his son is dedicated to the sports beyond their demanding schedules, commutes and financial costs, practicing the sports’ “similar stick handling and deeking/dodging moves” in the basement. Mid Mo Tigers Hockey coach Jay Visgar said Keegan’s “skate hard, skate fast and never let up” strategy of playing was remarkable the first time he saw it. Keegan is a hard worker, willing to make even the most minor adjustments, but more than that, he has “a calling” for hockey. “Keegan is that guy, the one you want on the ice in those moments when the game can be won or lost,” Visgar said in an email interview. “He already is a complete player, and I would love a team of Keegans because we would be unstoppable.”

Later start times affect game scheduling, practice routines in upcoming fall seasons hagar » Gov-Ari

n the March 11 final decision regarding Columbia Public School’s start times, many questions emerged as to how this will affect sports in the coming fall, a mere three months away. With high schools running from 8:55 a.m. to 4:05 p.m., student athletes may face conflicts regarding personal and practice schedules in the fall. Athletic director Dr. Jennifer Mast said there is a possibility many sports may embrace the delayed class start time and rearrange their practice routines. While the football team plans to keep its current schedule of strictly afternoon, soccer is looking at Friday morning practices to compensate for Friday night home football games occupying the field. Cross country as well as boys swimming and diving plans on morning practices, Mast said. Girls golf and boys tennis are still uncertain. “We don’t entirely know what will happen. We have been in continuing conversation with all coaches,” Mast said. “We have some personnel things that have yet to shake out yet, and when I say personnel things, we have to find out who is coaching all levels of all sports because if we have middle school teachers coaching certain levels, they won’t be able to do any before school practices ... so our decision making process on when everything is going to be has a lot to do with personnel; it has a lot to do with the sport itself [and] available facilities.” In addition to coaching complications that may alter practice schedules, morning workouts disqualify student athletes the opportunity for early block or early

hour classes because of conflicting practice schedules, head of the counseling department Betsy Jones said. “The other big myth that’s out there is that a lot of athletes have requested an early block class because they feel like they’re going to be missing fourth block a lot if they’re leaving for games,” Jones said. “No athlete can take an early block class. All athletics will be having some scheduled practice before school.” Besides losing this early hour opportunity, athletes will have to participate in grueling practices before the sun comes up, which isn’t the most appealing thought for some students at the moment. While the scheduling is still a work in progress, many coaches are already looking into their possible options as a final decision on scheduling should be made before school lets out, Mast said. “Cross country feels right now they are going to go mornings. Girls golf is looking at a split plan — some morning, some afternoon — simply because we don’t know if we can get on the course in the morning because the course doesn’t open until seven, and that wouldn’t give us enough time,” Mast said. “Even if we were to get on the course at 6 or 6:30, it still doesn’t allow for a full nine holes for all golfers prior to school starting.” For cross country runner junior Carly Rohrer, this change in schedule will completely alter her mornings, her season goals and even her course load. With the early start times, Rohrer said, she will be rushed to get ready for school, pack a change of clothes and be forced to take a shower in the small allotted time before the first bell.

“[Afternoon practice] is better only because ... we can go home and relax after a workout, but instead, [with the new start times] we have to go to school for seven hours,” Rohrer said. “I will probably be really tired, having to exert myself so early in the morning.” As for the altered schedules that could force golfers to lug their bags out to the first tee at six in the morning, junior Amanda Baker, a member of the golf team, sees both ups and downs to the early practices. In addition to the chore of having to get up earlier than previous years to simply attend practice, Baker worries the principle of adaptation and change from the original evening schedule may cause controversy among some teammates. But with a high possibility that golf will practice in the morning hours at one time or another, Baker also sees some benefits in the morning practices. She said the cooler weather and morning energy of an early practice may help her improve her personal goals as a golfer, and even help her grades by giving her more time to work on homework after school. Even though the various sport routines may change in the coming year, the dedicated athletes shouldn’t waver with an altered schedule, Baker said. “Coach [Melissa] Coil was talking about having Friday morning practices so we would have Friday nights free to do whatever, which would be awesome,” Baker said. “Hopefully it doesn’t stop people from coming out, but I guess this just determines how committed you are to playing golf. We have to do what we have to do to get better and if that means practicing in the morning — I’m in.”

New gym provides additional space, conditioning facilities for varying schedules

photo by Asa Lory

How are the start times going to affect your sports practices next year?

[sophomore]

Kersten Brown volleyball “[Head Coach Robin Sherman] is an [elementary] teacher and they get out early. ... The only thing good coming out of the late release is that we won’t have to wait too long for practice to start.”

[sophomore]

Alex Ofodile football, basketball “I think it’s going to affect me during basketball season because I’ll miss more class time. ... I don’t really have an opinion; it doesn’t bother me too much.” Q & A and photos by Kaitlyn Marsh

nomin-erdene » Jagdagdorj

[junior]

First floor

New gym basement art by Michelle Zhuang and Kaitlyn Marsh

Maddi Hanson cross country “If they continue to have after school practices then there’s going to be some pretty late afternoons at the school. ... Family and study time will definitely be even more cut short next fall.”

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Arts & Entertainment »

Headphones influence music experience

www.bearingnews.org » The ROCK » April 18, 2013

Aldean’s “Night Train” country tour to perform in Columbia alyssa » Piecko

julia » Schaller

e all have those songs that we feel couldn’t get any better. We all know of songs that are so beautifully crafted and executed with perfect musicality that we honestly believe nothing in the world could make the song any better, but I think people underestimate how much the type of headphones they use can actually change the song. I decided to delve into the world of earbuds and see how different types of earbuds actually affect the music. For each brand of headphone, I listened to the same three songs: “Uprising” by Muse, “Arrival of the Birds & Transformation” by The Cinematic Orchestra and “I’ve Just Seen a Face” by The Beatles. I tried to take into account the treble and bass aspect of every song and consider how it affected the overall sound.

4. My quest started with the generic Apple earbuds everyone gets with their first iPod for free. Every single song lacked the soul they originally had. The earbuds completely cut the intensity and life of the music because there was hardly any bass or forceful, expressive beat. Each song was just a duller, higher and more annoying version of what it was supposed to be. Listening through the earbuds was like eating a luscious sandwich filled with all the things you love most, only to taste bread. It was highly disappointing. Don’t settle. Do yourself a favor and actually purchase better earbuds.

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I continued testing earbuds with GUM earbuds, which cost $5.46 on Amazon. Listening to “Uprising” was enjoyable, but not the best quality. There was a lot of lower bass and a strong beat that drove the song, but with GUM earbuds, a lot of that vigor was lost because they really only focused on the treble of the song. Much like “Uprising,” with “Arrival of the Birds & Transformation,” the earbuds enunciated the treble, leaving the song without its full sound potential. I have to admit there’s an emptiness to the songs when listening through the GUM earbuds. You miss the depth that every song deserves. The Skullcandy earbuds, which cost $10.49 on Amazon, really gave an expansive range between the bass and treble. The beat and drive in “Uprising” was much more exhilarating, and the instruments in “Arrival of the Birds & Transformation” were well-balanced and each resonated celestially. Listening to all the songs through the Skullcandys was the best, most satisfying sandwich meal I’ve ever experienced. One of the keys to the Skullcandy earbuds is that they are actually suctioned into your ears, blocking out all other noise. You find yourself almost in isolation; all you can hear is the music.

As far as all earbuds go, Beats are the king. They cost $199 on Amazon, and although they’re pricier, they command the throne when it comes to sound quality and bass and treble enunciation. Every voice and instrument resonates beautifully through Beats. Each song I listened to through these top-quality headphones was an ecstasy of balanced melodies and pitches. Although Beats produce the best sound quality, they’re not the most practical. Their expensive price makes them almost too fragile and worrisome. While Beats were in my possession, I constantly worried about taking care of them and making sure nothing went wrong with them.

hen junior Whitney Cravens received a text from her dad stating that he had bought her tickets, she was more than excited to read whom they were for: Jason Aldean. She had been waiting for the opportunity to see him in concert, and finally, the day had arrived. Aldean comes to Mizzou Arena April 26 for his “Night Train” tour. The show, his fourth in Columbia, is another chance for local fans to see him in concert and to enjoy his music. “I’m super excited. I love Jason Aldean, and I hear he has great shows,” Cravens said. “He’s super entertaining, and I love country concerts because they’re a lot of fun. And when the crowd gets involved, the concert is always better. ... I know tons of Jason Aldean’s songs, so I can’t wait to hear them live.” Aldean’s tour includes several of his more popular songs, such as “Dirt Road Anthem” and “Big Green Tractor,” as well as some of his less well known, such as “Johnny Cash” and “Take a Little Ride.” The tour also includes two opening acts: Jake Owen, known for his song “Barefoot Blue Jean Night,” and Thomas Rhett, known for his song “Something To Do With My Hands.” They both have recently become popular in the country music scene. Born in 1977, Aldean began playing country music at the age of 14 and in 1998 signed with Warner-Chapell Publishing for songwriting. When his contract was almost up, he signed with an independent label, Broken Bow Records, leading to the release of his first album, “Jason Aldean”, in 2005. His next album “Relentless” came out in 2007, featuring the song “Johnny Cash”, and following was his album “Wide Open” which led to success in the country music industry. The album featured songs such as “She’s Country,” “Crazy Town” and “Big Green Tractor.” His next album, released in 2010, titled “My Kinda Party,” had more success than the last album and included titles such as “Dirt Road Anthem” and “Fly Over States.” His most recent album, “Night Train”, was released in 2012. With his tour coming to Columbia, students anticipate a great concert. Cravens has listened to Aldean since one of his first album releases and enjoys his story as much as his music. “I just love Jason Aldean, and unlike Luke Bryan, who kind of got popular overnight, I’ve been listening to Jason since he first came out,” Cravens said. “His music is really catchy and just good country music. He can have real upbeat party songs and also those slow love ballads, and all of it is so good.” Aldean’s set list includes the variation of both slow and energy-filled songs, meant to engage fans in the concert atmosphere. Concerts provide a getaway and a place to just have fun, junior Ashley Reichert said. She enjoys the carefree air and the entire concert experience. “Dancing and singing along [are the most fun because],” Reichert said, “... you can sing as loud as you want, and it really doesn’t matter if you suck because no one can really hear you anyway.” Country music makes an impact on each person who listens, and it has definitely made a good impression on Cravens as she continues to enjoy the meaning of each song. She said the country music style allows for the artist to tell a story, paired with a catchy tune. Country music “is hardly ever auto-tuned, and it’s just singers’ voices and their true music and style,” Cravens said. “It doesn’t try to distort an artist’s voice to make it catchier, and it’s just regular people singing and having a good time while doing it, and that’s when it’s good music.” The Night Train tour venue, being at Mizzou Arena, will allow Columbia to host another big artist and many fans to have a concert experience. Cravens said she loves the atmosphere of a concert and Aldean’s concert is no doubt going to include an “upbeat, party” feel with his style of music and the energy to get the fans involved. “Everyone is just so happy and into the music,” Cravens said. “People just want to have a good time and the artists are so willing to entertain the crowd to ensure that people have the

n an episode of AMC’s Mad Men, advertising executives Roger Sterling and Don Draper lounge around an office after-hours in immaculately fashionable ‘60s suits. Amidst their conversation, Draper takes a break from puffing on his cigarette to pour himself a cup of scotch. “You don’t know how to drink, your whole generation,” Sterling tells the younger executive. “You drink for the wrong reasons. My generation, we drink because it’s good. Because it feels better than unbuttoning your collar. Because we deserve it. We drink because it’s what men do.” Recent studies conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics reveal that at least $25 billion are spent every year advertising tobacco, alcohol and prescription drugs. The studies also discovered that more than 14 percent of prime-time television shows portray tobacco use without any negative consequences, and more than 11 percent of American movies feature illegal drug abuse that has no detrimental effect on its users. Lissa Behm-Morawitz is an assistant professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia’s communication department and a published author whose research has focused on subjects like the AAP’s studies. According to Behm-Morawitz, a study by Heatherton and Sargent published in 2010 in Current Directions in Psychological Science demonstrated that viewing movies with depictions of cigarette smoking increased adolescents’ likelihood to start smoking. “The risk was higher for teens who lived in nonsmoking homes,” Behm-Morawitz said. “Generally, research suggests that exposure to depictions of smoking and drinking alcohol in advertising and entertainment media messages is linked to increased initiation of these behaviors in adolescents.“ RBHS Music and Film Analysis teacher Rich Hadfield has also noticed this trend. Since he started teaching, he has spent time analyzing trends in cinema and their effects on society, in particular looking into the prevalence of tobacco use and alcohol abuse in the media. “I remember once when I was in New York City, I saw a trash can that said something about the percentage of movies that are PG-13 that have smokers in them still,” Hadfield said. “That’s definitely a problem, tobacco, because smoking is always done as a cool thing to do. It always has been.” Behm-Morawitz sees similar effects on society from alcohol consumption in the media. The particular problem inherent in the way alcoholic beverages are portrayed, Behm-Morawitz said, is the target audience for such portrayals. “Alcohol consumption, in particular, seems to be celebrated in youth-oriented media, such as reality shows like Jersey Shore and popular scripted television shows and movies,” Behm-Morawitz said. “This is problematic because even if the characters on the screen are of legal age to be drinking, the teen audience is not.” A short-story writer enrolled in Webster University’s film school next year, senior Ian Gibbs agrees that many portrayals of alcohol and tobacco in television and movies are detrimental to society’s perception of such substances. However, Gibbs also feels that it’s important to portray illegal drugs such as marijuana or cocaine in the media pragmatically. “I think it’s good to portray [illegal drugs] in a very realistic light,” Gibbs said. “Not so much like the elementary school D.A.R.E. way, like marijuana will blow you up or make you die, but instead realistic portrayals of the dangers and the problems that come with using drugs.”

Gibbs is currently writing a story about a meth cook from the perspective of the cook’s young son. The short story is partly inspired by the AMC television show Breaking Bad, in which a chemistry teacher cooks and distributes meth. “Some might say that [Breaking Bad] encourages people to do this, because they see the main character doing it,” Gibbs said. “Really, the show shows how many horrible things happen to him as he begins this life. It gives you the idea you don’t want to start using or selling meth.” Hadfield also said illegal drugs are cast in a less positive light than tobacco or alcohol in the entertainment world. However, he sees some potential problems in the portrayal of illicit substances. “It’s not like [these drugs are] glorified,” Hadfield said. “But again, I really think that when you have characters that are doing anything in a form of entertainment, I also think it tweaks some people to think ‘I could try it. I could just give it a little try and see what happens.’” Some researchers, such as Behm-Morawitz, said entertainment sources can use their unique platform to support anti-drug abuse ideals by inserting health education messages into existing entertainment content to help inform young people about the risks of using drugs. While some entertainment-education research has shown evidence for these claims, Hadfield has doubts about the method’s ultimate effectiveness. “I don’t think anyone would want to go see a movie about somebody who has throat cancer. We can see the ads on TV. We’ve all seen those, where the lady was once beautiful, and now she speaks through her throat,” Hadfield said. “I think what you do is you just don’t have them. That’s it. I don’t think we have to have cigarettes in movies. We just don’t.”

art by Jennifer

jake » Alden

Stanley

Pop culture portrayal of tobacco, alcohol and drugs influences teens

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ROCK BRIDGE

AFTER HOURS The Rock surveyed 180 students (10% of population).

5% never

14% rarely

32% sometimes

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15-30 minutes

30%

30 minutes to 1 hour

fall

spring

TIMES YEAR mon tue wed thu fri sat all

28%

47%

of the

TIME SPENT ON HOMEWORK EACH NIGHT

all

day of the week

17%

winter

15% 18% 21% 9% 1% 28%

WHAT TIME DO STUDENTS LEAVE ROCK BRIDGE? before 3:00 - 18% at 3:00 - 34%

1-2 hours

22% 2-3 h

14% 3% + ours

3 hours

between 3:00 and 3:15 - 16% between 3:15 and 4:00 - 12% between 4:00 and 5:00 - 3% between 5:00 and 6:00 - 11% between 6:00 and 7:00 - 4% after 7:00 - 2% art and survey by Maddie Magruder