The Rock December 2013

The Rock Winter weather will affect ‘Sophomore Alley’ parking

RBHS teachers consider joining new teaching scheme: class flipping

Graham Ratermann

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ecause of the winter months and the unpredictability of Missouri’s weather, Columbia everything to prepare for winter storms. This fall, the City Council of Columbia, Mo. amended an ordinance designating first and second priority snow routes which made it that anytime snowfall is above two inches on roadways vehicles can no longer be parked on the street, according to Public Works Public Information Specialist Stephen Sapp.

Public workers placed signs on these roads last week, and one of the streets receiving the new signs is Executive Drive, otherwise known as “Sophomore Alley.” The new policy will allow snow removal crews to work more efficiently, he said.

“Last year we learned during our first snowstorm where vehicles were parked and abandoned all over the place. It took us 28 hours to clear the first and second priority roads alone,” Sapp said. “During the second snowstorm when we didn’t have those parking issues we found that it took us seven hours to clear first and second priority roads and then move into residential areas.”

If a situation arises where school is still in session and Sophomore Alley hasn’t been cleared yet, students parking there face a potential $15 citation handed out by snow removal crew or immediate towing. This leaves students in a tough position either risking a ticket or parking somewhere else like the RBHS parking lot.

“I would just risk a ticket. I wouldn’t park in the lot because all the upper class would hate me and it would be hypocritical if I did park in the lot and then next year hate the sophomores for parking in the lot if I did it,” sophomore Clara Brand said. “If the snow is bad, and we can’t park in the only acceptable place to park, I don’t know where we would be supposed to park.”

Since the law is in its first year in effect Sapp said there would be more leeway this year as Columbia Public Work’s attempts to raise community awareness.

“Our goal is really not to go out and start towing vehicle’s left and right especially this first year,” Sapp said. “Our goal is to really educate and gain people’s understanding and willingness to voluntarily move their vehicles.”

Brittany Cornelison

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ew ideas are explored daily as to how teachers can better relate and teach their students. SMART Boards, student iPads and online math homework are only a few of the innovations that have graced public schools as of late. As a student body that is emerging into the tech-savvy generation, RBHS teachers have been looking for ways to work with this trait in their classrooms.

One teaching method that has recently become popular is classroom “flipping.” This has nothing to do with the physical classroom itself, but switching the order in which teachers teach the material to their students.

Because of the success other schools have seen from flipping, some RBHS teachers are attempting to follow in their footsteps, including fellows mentor David Graham, teacher at RBHS for 16 years.

“The premise of it is that, you move the teacher more to a coaching position and role in the classroom and not someone who stand up and delivers notes ... there’s a tendency on the part of students to zone out or to not pay much attention,” Graham said. “There’s not really a whole lot of data that suggests that lectures are an effective way of imparting knowledge to kids and that a more effective way is by actually doing. You learn from experience, not from somebody else telling you what to do.”

The basic concept of this method is that normal lecture time and note taking will be homework, where students can go online and watch presentation videos or powerpoints in order to grasp the topics. Then the students will come into class to discuss findings and work on projects related to the material learned prior to walking into the classroom.

Flipping a classroom requires teachers to rely on the fact that students will accomplish the given homework task outside of class.

This means that there would be a certain amount of material that each student would be required to do on their own in order to be caught up in class.

Senior Lily Salzer said this method would work best in a social studies classroom because there are many topics in which to form opinions on. She also said there are benefits to flipping the classroom that students may overlook.

“You would learn accountability a lot, because I feel like it places more responsibility on part of the student outside of the classroom,” Salzer said. “And you would learn critical thinking from it more, I guess, having discussions in class.”

This story is continued on page A3.

‘It Is Over’

photo by Mikaela Acton

photo by Nick Schnelle/Columbia Daily Tribune

Ryan Ferguson holds up a sign reading, “It Is Over,” shown to him earlier by his attorney, Kathleen Zellner. Ferguson was released from jail last month after spending nearly a decade of his life there for the 2001 murder of Kent Heitholt. Read more in-depth coverage on page A4.

Signs of Winter: RBHS experienced its first significant accumulation of snow last weekend.

Students walked through it toward their parked cars in ‘Sophomore Alley.’

Clubs help spread holiday cheer at Rock Bridge Elementary with Adopt-A-Child Emily Franke

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very year, RBHS Student Council works with Rock Bridge Elementary to create a list of families for the Adopt-A-Child program. This program identifies families from Rock Bridge Elementary who could use extra help to make the holiday season special. RBHS clubs and students can choose a child and turn their gifts and donations in to the activities office by Friday, Dec. 13.

“We get a list of kids from Rock Bridge Elementary, kids who wouldn’t otherwise get much, if anything, for Christmas, [then] we distribute those lists out throughout the clubs and they ‘adopt’ one of those kids,” RBHS student council president Jack Schimpf said. [The clubs] “raise money and go purchase the things they asked for then wrap them and get them ready for delivery.”

After her experience participating with a different club last year, junior

Betsy Poehlman chose to adopt a child again. For Poehlman, this year brings an opportunity to participate in Adopt-A-Child with a new club.

Poehlman and the German Honor Society, chose to adopt a little girl.

“Since GHS is a small club I knew we couldn’t afford to do a big expensive gift, like electronics, so I chose someone that wanted many different little stuff,” Poehlman said. “We just got individual people to get an item that was on her list.”

Poehlman purchased two stuffed animals for her club’s family. During finals week, club representatives and student council members will take the gifts over to RBE to give to the children and family. Both Poehlman and Schimpf both look forward to seeing their adopted children’s reaction to receiving their gifts.

“I’ve done it for two years now,” Schimpf said, “and it’s always great to go over and see the smiles on their faces when they open the presents.”

‘Like day’ scheduling next week will interfere with Career Center finals Students may miss up to 50 minutes of RBHS class for the CACC, vice versa Brittany Cornelison

W photo by Maribeth Eiken

Study Time: Senior Jake Gallagher studies in the media center on Tuesday, Dec. 10. Finals week begins next Monday, Dec. 16.

ith finals week beginning in four days, students are preparing themselves for the many various tests yet to come. However, now students may not have as much class time to prepare for these exams due to the scheduling that comes along with this week.

From Dec. 16 - Dec. 20, RBHS students will be following a “like day” schedule. This means that classes will be nine minutes longer and there will be no Bruin Block. In the past, “like day” scheduling was used to account for class time lost to assemblies, but now with finals taking place, “like days” are used to create extra time for preparation. Assistant Principal David Bones said that this schedule is what the RBHS administration believes will work most effectively for teachers and students alike.

“For this semester, this is what we are going to do with the like day schedule all week,” Bones said. “You know basically the idea is

to give the classes more time to ... review and prepare for finals and give finals, that’s really the reasoning.”

Though this will increase class time for teachers preparing their students for final exams, it doesn’t tailor specifically to the schedules of students who are involved in classes at the Columbia Area Career Center. These students will be missing anywhere from 15 50 minutes of their RBHS classes in order to be in their CACC classes, or losing time from the CACC to go to RBHS classes. Deciding what class the student will attend will be up to the instructor and the student.

“That’ll be done on a case by case basis, with the student and teachers to determine what’s best for the student,” Bones said. “We always think of the Career Center and know they have a challenge to balance all their feeder schools, obviously including Rock Bridge, so we do kind of try as much as possible to take their schedule into account.”

RBHS junior Mikayla Rippey, a student in the Professions in Healthcare class at CACC,

said with “like days” she doesn’t get as much information as other students in her class who come from other schools. Her instructor had to cancel their nursing clinicals because the times in which students from various schools would make it to class was varied.

“I don’t like having to miss clinicals and not have the extra time to prepare for class.

And we still have to start at the same time anyway some people will get the extra time while others, who can’t come in as early, aren’t going to get as much work done,” Rippey said. “I know that we have shortened class periods, so we’re probably going to miss review days and extra time to prepare for our finals.”

Though the like days are set in stone for this round of finals, it could change next semester according to Bones.

“I think they definitely should change it,” Rippey said. “They should just get rid of like days altogether because I just hate them in general, it just complicates things and throws our whole schedule off shift.”

FEATURES

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Tech creates communication failures

With Bri Porter’s return, Lady Bruins look to win third consecutive state title

Walk down the hallway outside of RBHS teacher Bree Engebritson’s door, and it’s difficult to disregard the white 8 1/2 by 11 piece of printer paper that hangs on the red brick wall. B1

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International Prime Minister of Thailand disbands current parliament

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No E-Cigarette policy for RBHS for now Renata Williams

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n response to popularity and use of the Electronic Cigarettes, Hickman High School has joined thousands of schools across the nation and banned students from smoking E-Cigarettes at school.

In addition to HHS, Columbia Public School’s administrators are also questioning whether or not E-cigarettes violate the drug policies already in place since their health effects are still being researched. Matthew Ross, assistant principal at HHS, said the policy on illegal drugs and tobacco encompasses E-Cigarettes because nicotine is considered a drug.

“Due to the fact that it is still undetermined what health risks are associated with the use of Ecigarettes and [because they are] possible distractions to the learning environment,” Ross said. “It was determined that they do not have a place at HHS.” RBHS has yet to come to a decision regarding the use of E-cigarettes on school property. RBHS Principal Dr. Jennifer Mast said she personally feels Electronic Cigarettes will not be allowed at RBHS, even though administrators haven’t addressed the subject

yet. the nicotine has [also] been re“We don’t have a policy on ported.” them,” Mast said. “Regardless, Columbia Public School adthere are some well known sub- ministrators have been working stances within many varieties of to make sure students are healthy E-Cigarettes generally accepted and Mast said if E-Cigarettes to be harmful. This is an emerg- may have dangerous effects then ing dialogue both nationally it’s not responsible for RBHS to and locally. I know the adults at allow use of them on the campus.

RBHS would be extremely inter- The issue of social norms also ested in the students’ views on comes into play. Mast said smokthis subject, as well.” ing in public places, especially Elecschools, is t r o n i c “We don’t have a policy socially unCigarettes on [electronic cigarettes]. acceptable.

“Use are not Regardless, there are some FDA apwell know substances of E-Cigawould proved within many varieties rettes be a distracfor aiding of e-cigarettes generally tion to our smoking accepted to be harmful.” cessation. learning c o m mu n i t y They are Jennifer Mast we are not advertised principal yet ready as safer alfor,” Mast ter natives to cigarettes though their effects said. “In using the word ‘yet,’ I haven’t been well studied as of acknowledge that as we know more about E-Cigarettes and now.

“It is also possible that their their implications, it is possible use in nonsmokers could lead there will come a day when they to nicotine addiction and have become socially accepted and a negative effect on the heart,” their use in schools wouldn’t be Dwight Look, M.D., said. “Com- that big of a deal.” mon side effects of E-Cigarettes Mast compares the use of Eare mouth and throat irrita- Cigarettes to cell phone usage in tion and dry cough,” Look said. that many teachers would have “Lung irritation by the carrier of never thought cell phones would

Teachers contemplate new ‘class flipping’ technique

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ccording to the New York Times, the idea of flipping classrooms began in Michigan, at Clintondale High School. The principal, Greg Green, got the idea for class flipping from his own recorded videos made to teach his son’s baseball team techniques. By recording the content, the kids were able to understand the skills outside of practice time, which made more time to work on skills during practice. After much experimentation, in 2001, Clintondale flipped completely. After the flip, the failure rate dropped from 30 percent to 10 percent and graduation rates rose to above 90 percent.

Junior CJ Phillips is in classes where teachers attempted the flipped technique, yet they did not execute it well.

“It’s poorly implemented right now. Teachers just sort of toss it into the curriculum every once in a while,” Phillips said. The success rate “depends on the class really. In History and English I learn best in a discussion, something difficult to achieve in flipped learning. In math and science I would love flipped learning.”

When implemented appropriately, out-of-class work for flipped classrooms can be anything from a presentation video to a podcast of a lecture.

Under this classroom setup, students are responsible for spending time at home watching these videos and learning the material so that class time can consist of teacher to student interaction time as well as project completion.

“Experiential learning is the basis for flipping the classroom,” Graham said. “The idea is not to just arbitrarily throw something out there in the internet and have the kids look at it, the idea is to deliver the ‘boring stuff ’ at home so the kids can look it over and then when they come into class the next day they can practice with it, do more researching, do more projectbased learning in the classroom with the teacher in there to help them along the way rather them delivering the information and then having them go home and try to practice it on their own which can be somewhat daunting and uncomfortable for the kids.”

However, this ‘boring stuff ’ may not be enticing to students, said Salzer, who feels as though it would be difficult for students to remain accountable to doing the daily homework assigned.

“I like the idea of it, but sort of knowing myself, I don’t know if I would follow through and do the work outside of class,” Salzer said. “So I think I would say that I prefer the traditional teaching method, but I do like the idea

Flipping

Continued from page 1

become a part of the learning environment, but things have changed.

Katie Neu, a senior at RBHS, smokes E-Cigarettes in hopes that she’ll quit smoking regular cigarettes. She said she smokes at school, but never inside the school, and doesn’t feel as if Ecigarettes should be banned. “I think they shouldn’t [ban E-Cigarettes] because it’s not harming anyone.” Neu said. “If [administrators] were to do anything about E-Cigarettes they [should] encourage them because they’re way better for you than smoking.”

Neu said she saw an advertisment for Electronic Cigarettes on television and asked around to people she knew who used them but didn’t do any further researching as far as learning possible health issues.

“Ever since I started smoking, my dad started smoking again,” Neu said. “He bums off of me, but I don’t want him to get addicted again.”

The biggest issue about using Electronic Cigarettes is the unknown effects that may come along with the usage of the machines.

“Again, these devices have just not been very well studied,” Look said.

for a new idea

50%

Who failed?

of freshmen failed English

BEFORE FLIP

19%

he prime minister of Thailand, Yingluck Shinawatra, decided to dissolve the Thai parliament earlier this week and called for new elections. The prime ministerial elections are planned for Feb. 2 and Shinawatra will probably not be her party’s choice.

Prime Minister Shinawatra dissolved the parliament a day after 150 members of the opposing Democrat Party told her that they would all resign from parliament because it was becoming challenging to work with her government.

Hundreds of thousands of Thai citizens are in the streets protesting against the current prime minister due to a major difference in political ideology.

National Senate Democrats trigger ‘nuclear option’ on filibusters

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few weeks ago, the Senate Democrats decided to vote in a new rule to lower the power of filibusters in certain cases. In a 52-48 vote, the Senate Majority party changed the rule for cloture from requiring a 60 vote super majority to requiring a simple 50 vote majority.

This includes certain executive and judicial nominations and doesn’t include Supreme Court judge nominations. This rule change came after the Senate Minority party decided to block almost every nomination that President Barack Obama wanted.

The thing that pushed the Democrats over the cliff was that the Republicans did not even try to point out traits in those nominations that would make them unqualified. The option taken by the Democrats is referred to as the Nuclear Option.

State Petitions created in Missouri in attempt to legalize marijuana

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he Secretary of State of Missouri’s office posted 10 petitions to legalize marijuana in Missouri on their website earlier this week. All of the petitions would like the Missouri laws concerning the drug to be similar to the laws dealing with alcohol.

The petitions differ in a few minor details, including the number of plants someone can grow and the amount of marijuana a person can have at once.

Once the Secretary of State approves the language of the petitions, public polling will occur to decide which of the ten petitions will be chosen.

Local

69% DO

of freshmen failed English

AFTER FLIP

31%

DON’T

Who graduated?

photo by Kirsten Buchanan

New study says Columbia No. 1 small city in America

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Source: www.knewton.com

art by Alex Caranza and Abdul-Rahman Abdul-Kafi

of it, if you can be accountable.”

The process of flipping a classroom goes in line with the idea of renovating all the rooms. Students of this generation are more technologicallyoriented than generations of the past, according to Graham, meaning that modes of education need to be tailored to those strengths.

“The idea started a couple years ago. It’s one of those educational innovations that’s coming around,” Graham said. “There’s a lot of discussion about what the true nature of education should be going into the 21st century and this is one of those ways that people are trying to be innovative with education, trying to reach the kids where they are.”

ilken Institute ranked Columbia, Mo. the number one best-performing small city in America. The study only looked at the type of new jobs, number of new jobs, and pay levels.

However, the Milken Institute did not look at the quality of life in Columbia.

Another factor taken into consideration was the job market in Columbia. Employment grew by 60 percent from 2007 to 2012 for high-tech industries in Columbia.

The survey also focuses on the way Columbia handled the recent Great Recession.

Stories written by Abdul-Rahman Abdul-Kafi Sources: KOMU8 News and www.Missourinet.com

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Special Report

Special Report

ONE HIT, TWO HIT BLACK HIT, BLUE HIT

Gro ing the Economy Anna Wright

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f Rep. Chris Kelly, D-Columbia, has his way, Missouri could join the ranks of Colorado and Washington in allowing recreational marijuana sales. Kelly’s bill, which he introduced one week ago, provides for a 25 percent sales tax and specific recommendations on licensing growers and retailers.

Colorado legislators spent two years between the time voters passed Amendment 64 till the time they began to see the social and economic effects of their decision. Colorado law now allows for the commercial production and distribution of cannabis within the state.

Colorado’s market boomed during the first week of recreational transactions, which began Jan. 1, with retail sales from 37 dispensaries across the state exceeding five million dollars. Colorado projects an annual marijuana revenue of $600 million, a rate of sales which would generate roughly $67 million in tax money, according to the International Business Times.

Senior Mariah Brady said the current criminalization of marijuana is economically inefficient because she said legalizing and regulating weed could help generate tax revenue which could be used for purposes such as public education funding.

“It’s stupid to spend so much money putting people in jail for [marijuana] or criminalizing people for it when the government could make so much money off of it by taxing it and making it legal,” Brady said. “You take the money you’re spending to keep it illegal, all that money you’re spending on jails, you’re going to take that spending away and increase your income because [the government] is going to tax it.”

RBHS government and economics teacher Chris Fischer said Brady’s ideas could be naive. Although he recognizes the financial logic in legalizing weed, unexpected problems may result from such policies.

Extreme inflation of the drug’s price should be anticipated, he said, which can be illustrated by the current legal marijuana markets.

“I think you can make very rational economic arguments for the legalization and regulation of marijuana,” Fischer said. “With that said, I think if you look at Colorado right now, I think there’s some negative externalities with that kind of policy that they didn’t really anticipate. For example, the price of it. The street value has skyrocketed, which is OK, but if you still have medicinal regulations where you’re trying to afford it to people who really need it, are you pricing yourself out of the market?”

A price increase is just one result of the legalization and commercialization of weed as a consumer product. If marijuana becomes recreationally legal in any given state, Brady believes illegal sales will take a devastating blow. This makes buying pot safer for consumers, she said, and takes possible violence out of the purchasing process.

This sentiment may only be partially true, however. In an interview for Public Broadcasting Service, Mason Tvert, a cofounder of A Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation, said he believes marijuana regulation would “dramatically reduce consumers’ exposure to harder drugs and the temptation to experiment with them,”

as well as ensuring the quality and safety of the marijuana consumers are buying. However, Tvert also said mere decriminalization would do nothing to eliminate the violent underground market, which is where he said the real violence associated with marijuana stems from.

Junior Phillip Browning* sells marijuana and said the profits that come from his sales outweigh any safety concerns. He said making money in the illegal drug market is essentially the same as generating a profit in any other legal market. The idea, he said, is to buy the drug in large quantities for a lesser price and sell smaller amounts at higher dollar values.

“Weed is just another commodity,” Browning said.

“It’s just like selling anything else, except illegal. You buy in bulk and sell in small quantities. Most people will buy a quarter ounce, or seven grams, for $90, and sell grams for $15 to $20. You do the math. Once you’ve sold enough to break even, you either keep selling and collect profit or smoke what you have left.”

Legal sales of recreational marijuana would likely take most of Browning’s customers, he said. Illegal street transactions would become unnecessary for consumers if pot were readily available in stores and dispensaries, he said.

“If you’re pushing pounds out of state, legalized weed could drop your prices, but you’ll still have business,” Browning said. “If you’re flipping [an ounce] every week or so, you’ll lose customers to the legal stuff.

Unless you have fantastic prices — if you’re close to the source or grow it yourself — the legalized stuff will kill your market. From a user’s perspective, I’d love to be able to smoke without worry. But as a dealer, it’ll undercut my prices and I’ll lose most, if not all, of my business.”

Fischer said the successful implementation of a legal marijuana market may hurt illegal dealers, although black market trade would be difficult to obliterate completely. Strict regulations could result in a lack of sufficient growers to meet market demand, ensuring the marijuana sales on a street level, he said.

Additionally, legalization in one state may increase the chances of the weed being smuggled out of state into illegal areas.

“It will still have a street value,” Fischer said. “If it’s readily accessible and you can regulate it so that we can meet supply, there’s enough cultivators, we regulate businesses such that they can meet the demand, then common sense would tell you that it would really hurt the black market. But that doesn’t mean that all that’s going to happen.”

Perhaps the legal marijuana market is too infantile to predict, but without a doubt, the marijuana industry will change the economic playing field by introducing a commonly consumed drug as a legal, commercially regulated consumer product. Brady said the transformation of weed from an illegal substance to a commercialized crop will attract opportunists who recognize the potential of the marijuana industry.

“Think about what tobacco did,” Brady said.

“It’s just going to open a market that millions of people can get into and it’s just going to open so many doors and so many opportunities.

There are going to be big businesses and stocks and more available jobs.

It’s just going to create a lot of opportunities for people.”

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The effects of marijuana on the

Urmila Kutikkad enior Mary Collins* is a self-proclaimed “quasi-stoner.” She wouldn’t say she smokes enough to be a fullblown “stoner,” but she does all right for herself nonetheless.

One hit and she says the familiar haze yawns into existence.

Two hits and the haze begins its absentminded settlement into brain divots and messes of nerves.

Three, four hits and the haze sighs into the beds of nails and the chap of lips and the waning of kneecaps.

Five or more hits and the haze has laced every vein and bloodstream and tract of skin. Five or more hits and thoughts have quickened their stride and exaggerated their depth and limbs feel like lime Jell-O and every word like a marble miracle.

Five or more hits and she is high.

“The high … it’s like the invisibility shield in Harry Potter when it’s the protective spell, how it just slowly starts to cover Hogwarts,” Collins said. “That’s kind of what it feels like; you just start to feel a haze go over you. Your body feels weightless, and it feels kind of tingly, like you’re on a roller coaster and everything is really heavy and movement is really weird.

And in your head you’re just coming up with these really abstract, intensely weird things.”

Marijuana usage is hardly new. From the dramatic anti-marijuana propaganda film, “Reefer Madness” in the ‘30s to the constantly-munchies-afflicted Scooby Doo and Shaggy in the ‘70s to the 2008 classic, “Pineapple Express,” weed culture has been around for a long time.

However, with recent states legalizing marijuana, new research has also been emerging concerning marijuana’s effect on the brain — especially that of a stilldeveloping teen.

Matthew Smith, a professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University, was part

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of a study looking at young adults who were about 17 years old when they used marijuana daily for three years. They were then abstinent for two years, after which they completed MRI scans.

“We found that structures in the middle of the brain — for example the thalamus and striatum — looked abnormal in two independent groups of people with a past history of daily marijuana use,” Smith said in an email interview. “The younger the people were when they started using marijuana daily, the more abnormal the brain looked. The more abnormal the brain structures looked, the poorer the performance on tests of memory. [The thalamus and striatum] are particularly important for cognitive function like learning and memory, as well as motivation and rewarding feelings — for example, getting excited about something fun or being able to get things done. Recent research suggests that one in six teens who try marijuana become addicted. There is well-documented evidence that frequent marijuana use has harmful effects on the brain and important cognitive functions that are critical for doing well in school and life in general.”

But with the bad comes the good, and vice versa. Though recreational marijuana use has only been decriminalized in two states so far — and just within the last couple months — medical marijuana is set to be legal in 21 states by the end of 2014. This is because medical marijuana has a host of beneficial effects, such as the ability to suppress nausea, soothe pain, decrease muscle spasms, stimulate appetite and stop convulsions, according to webmd.com. Because of these inherent abilities, medical marijuana is considered profoundly therapeutic in nature, used in the treatment of conditions like cancer, AIDS and HIV, dementia, epilepsy and multiple sclerosis.

Collins tends to buy into this more positive view of marijuana; she sees it as something natural and beneficial when people use it responsibly and in moderation. Though she is aware of the potential

threats marijuana poses to a teenage brain, the unique happiness that strikes her when she smokes outweighs any drawbacks it may have.

“I feel like [marijuana] enlightens me in a way,” Collins said. “It opens my eyes to new things. I really enjoy the feeling because I feel like you can’t be sad, and that’s really nice. You’re just kind of happy — at least for me, I get really happy. And I always have really deep, intense conversations with people … I think that’s my favorite part, that higher state you’re in where you can discuss so many things that you wouldn’t normally discuss, because they’re so ridiculous that they wouldn’t make sense in any other context but being super stoned. On the medical side of things, I could see how [marijuana use] could slow down the development of the brain, but I mean I’m pretty happy with what I know.”

The discrepancy between public perception of the effects of alcohol and marijuana frustrates Collins. Alcohol’s effects on the developing brain are comparable to marijuana’s effects, if not worse.

There are about 88,000 deaths attributable to excessive alcohol use per year in the United States, about 5,000 of which are underage deaths, according to the Center for Disease Control. While alcohol has clear, immediate short-term effects on the brain like thought, speech and movement impediment and loss of control over emotion and judgement, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, extensive research has uncovered long-term effects as well. With about 18 million Americans suffering from alcoholism, addictiveness is a long-term problem, as well as damage to learning and memory performance.

“No one ever dies from weed,” Collins said, “but alcohol poisoning kills a lot of people. I’ve experienced someone going through alcohol poisoning in front of my very eyes, and it was one of the scariest moments of my life, and it’s terrifying to think that taking too many shots can do

that to you, make your body seize up and not be able to breathe. But weed, I never have that fear, that I’m out of control because there’s some part of my mind that’s always still conscious. With something [like alcohol] that’s so bad, it sucks that you get a finger wagging if you tell your parents you’re drinking, but you could get in so much more trouble if you tell them you’re smoking weed. I feel like that’s incredibly unfair because [weed is] so much better for you.”

Regardless of any comparisons highlighting similarities and discrepancies between alcohol and marijuana, Smith believes both share one trait: their intoxicating sway over the developing brain.

“The most important thing to remember is that the abuse of either substance during adolescence can be harmful to the teen brain,” Smith said. “Although brains continually change during our whole life, the brain is trying to achieve its maximum potential during the teen years. Because of this, teen brain development is particularly sensitive or vulnerable to outside influences. From this perspective, it is important for teens to delay their use or experimentation with alcohol and marijuana until their 20s, when their brains may have reached their max potential. Just a delay of a few years might make a big difference.”

Collins, however, believes now — in the lazy apex of youth — is exactly the time to experiment. Marijuana is her present, not her future.

“I think I’m gonna get burnt out on it. I see it as something that’s just fun for right now, maybe through college and stuff, here and there,” Collins said. “But I don’t see myself doing it in my 30s or my 40s or my 50s really. I recently found out that one of my friends’ grandma smokes all the time. And that’s the greatest thing I’ve heard because I love her grandma so much and finding that out was even better - but I don’t personally see it as a constant usage. I could picture it in my future, but I’m not really planning for it.” *name changed upon request

“The younger the people were when they started using marijuana daily, the more abnormal the brain looked ... Recent research suggests that one in six teens who try marijuana become addicted.”

-Matthew Smith,

Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University photo art by Elena Franck, Maribeth Eiken and Yasmeen El-Jayyousi

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Community Panera Bread Company set to vacate downtown locality during December Hagar Gov-Ari

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photo by George Sarafianos

A time for family: As the tree is lit, families with children of all ages, attending the Cherry Hill Holiday Festival, take a closer look at The Magic Tree in its splendor. The tree, which takes over fifty hours to create, lies directly in the center of The Village of Cherry Hill.

Holiday Festival changes Magic Tree George Sarafianos

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ach year, on the Thursday after Thanksgiving, Columbians venture out to The Village of Cherry Hill to take part in the celebration of the Cherry Hill Holiday Festival. They marvel at the work done by Will Treelighter (a.k.a. Randy Fletcher), the creator of The Magic Tree.

Going on its fifth year, the festival’s intent isn’t just to simply accentuate the Magic Tree, but also benefit The Village, Kara Kippenberger, owner of Focus on Health Chiropractic, located in Cherry Hill said.

“I think it’s very important for us to show that we’re throwing the holiday festival, not just to benefit the businesses, but because we want people to see the beauty of The Magic Tree,” Kippenberger said. “But at the same time, Cherry Hill is kind of out of most people’s way, so no one really thinks about it a lot, but I think that having the Magic Tree located there makes it kind of an iconic place. Like whenever I talk about Cherry Hill no one knows what I’m talking about, but when I ask them where the Magic Tree is they all of a sudden know where I’m talking about.”

Although the main point of the celebration revolves around The Magic Tree, there is also a philanthropic aspect to the festival.

“We try to have a charity to benefit from the festival each year. Last year we benefited the Columbia Food Bank and asked them to put out donation bins, and that didn’t really work that well since, as anyone can imagine, not many people remember to bring out cans of food when they are going out with their families. We’ve learned that a monetary donation is a much better way to go,” Kippenberger said. “This year, we were thinking about who would be a good charity or business

to benefit, and someone suggested Great Circle, celebrating the tree, kind of takes away from the which runs Boys and Girls Town here in Colum- experience of the tree and shifts it more towards bia … We’re gonna be raffling off a picture of the other attractions, like the bounce house and the Magic Tree, and all of the proceeds will be horse rides. The festival shouldn’t be about that, going to Great Circle.”

I think that it should be about the tree and only The tree lighting althe tree.” ways being the main Fletcher agrees with I think that it’s event of the Festival, The Jost in the sense that clear that the Magic Tree acts as a sort the Holiday Festival has of beacon to those who Holiday Festival has caused a change, but he live in the village, RBHS believes that it is a small definitely helped senior and resident of price to pay in exchange spread the word of for the pedestal the tree Cherry Hill Village Brian Jost said. is put on while located in The Magic Tree “The Magic Tree has Cherry Hill.

Brian Jost been located in Cherry “There is a stronger senior Hill since I’ve lived here, commercial aura to it and every year when now with the Holiday they light it up, I can tell Festival. It kind of goes it makes something different. I can’t really put with the territory of being in a commercial park, my finger on it, but I’ve noticed throughout the which is managed by the Cherry Hill business asyears, that whenever the tree goes up that people sociation. I’m just glad and grateful that the tree is get into the spirit of the holidays, almost like it’s in a place that can accommodate lots and lots of clockwork actually,” Jost said. “I think that the people. Commercial, privately owned places are tree acts as something that everyone enjoys. It’s the only alternative to public parks, and I want to just aesthetically pleasing, and I think that, that stay away from a place where the city can regureally makes people remember just how beautiful late and have control over the tree,” Fletcher said. something can be.”

“It’s definitely different from when it was all in Jost said the Holiday Festival is a way for more my yard, people would come out and look at the people to find out about the Magic Tree and be tree and it would be quiet and it was more of a a part of its splendor, but at the same time, he contemplative sort of experience, which ideally feels the Festival takes something away from the is what I would like people to be able to do, is to experience. contemplate the big ideas in life as they look at “I think that it’s clear that the Holiday Festival the magic tree, and so I suppose there’s a slight has definitely helped spread the word of the mag- shift or compromise there, but people are going ic tree, and that is very important. If more people to do what they want, and they should feel free find out about The Magic Tree, the more good it to think of The Magic Tree however they wish… can do through just being there,” Jost said. “But Those who want to contemplate the bigger things the Festival, although it’s supposed to be about in life, can do that, but there’s no harm in fun.”

s of this month, the Panera Bread Company of downtown Columbia, at 102 S. Ninth St. will close its doors for good. Many changes surrounding the development and expansion of Columbia have brought this move about, including raised rent prices and a lack of sufficient business to keep this location afloat.

From the original Saint Louis Bread Company, Panera has expanded into an enormous franchise which has been subject to many changes, from its menu to its constantly moving locations. With the relatively recent opening of the drive-thru included Panera on 100 Brickton Rd. in east Columbia, employees at the downtown location will transfer both there, and to the location on 3709 S. Providence Rd. Ending it’s 29-year roost at the the Hall Theater, the chain’s downtown presence dates back to when it was still known as Saint Louis Bread Company. Providence Panera employee, senior Mariah Brady claims that although the move will be tough on downtown customers, it will only make the Panera on Providence a tighter knit circle.

“I think it’s unfortunate for the people who live close by and the people that have been going there for some time,” Brady said. “But I think it will be better for our business at least because we’ll be getting their customers and their employees.”

The change has not only affected downtown employees. Providence Panera goes to great lengths to embrace the merge with open arms, while accommodating for the new products on their menu that come with the new season.

Though it has been a challenge, Providence Panera manager Beth Avery, who has been a manager at the store for going on three years, believes that the transition will be for the best.

“Because of the opening of the Brickton store,” Avery said, “all of the Columbia Paneras have lost business. From what I understand, [the downtown employees] are being distributed throughout the other three stores. With them closing we’ve had customers … try to figure out how to redistribute themselves. It seems like it’s got a big effect on the customers, more so than on us.”

Brady, who has worked at both the Providence and Brickton Panera locations in Columbia, acknowledges the connection customers have with the particular store they frequent, but encourages the transition to be as smooth and pleasant as possible for both employees and customers.

“I think that right now what a lot the managers are doing they’re just setting in stone more rules and making sure we’re doing what we’re supposed to in uniform mode,” Brady said. “But it’s a great time of year and as long as [the new employees and customers] know they can joke around with us and stuff, they’ll see that we’ll treat them how we treat everyone else.”

Senior Bella Gebhardt, who is graduating RBHS this semester and will be attending the University of Missouri Columbia in the spring, says the Panera downtown proved effective in hosting group study sessions, and in grabbing the occasional bite to eat. Now that it will be closing, she said, she and her friends will be forced to find a new place to eat and study.

“It was really convenient locationally, and I loved the interior,” Gebhardt said. “This Panera had a super high ceiling and it had an oldish vibe that I really liked. I always ordered a barbeque chicken salad and sat in the back booths. It was a really convenient place to meet people, and it’s unfortunate that there won’t be that kind of study place when I go to Mizzou.”

However, projections anticipate sales in the remaining three locations will rise. With change impacting the employees and the customers, Avery hopes to make the switch as convenient as possible for all.

“Any associate we get from downtown, we need treat them just like we would a new associate,” Avery said. “We need to understand that they’re actually not that new, just new to us. We just have to work with them because all Paneras are a little different. They had a pretty good atmosphere at the downtown cafe, and we all just need to be accommodating.”

Though the close will affect both associates and customers alike, the expansion of Columbia and of Panera as a corporation in the city should cancel out any inconvenience.

Providence Panera and other locations alike will soon be working together in order to create the smoothest transition possible, while simultaneously making a comfortable and peaceful work environment for those employees who are changing locations.

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Health & Wellness

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Think over Emily Franke

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ate nights of cramming and extended periods of worry over grades become habitual as winter weather sets in. Doubled with the increasing pressure of a progressing school year and the added stresses of the holidays, students face impending exams.

Lodged tightly between Thanksgiving and the winter break, finals’ season boosts the endemic stressed nature of the high school student. For junior Sam Farmer, this time of the year adds great pressure.

“Everything with finals and then tying up loose ends, like with my school work, and then also Christmas time is kind of stressful and ...

I’m keeping on winter training for track,” Farmer said. “I just try and keep track of the stuff I have to do in my planner and then also sometimes I just do the stuff that has to be done, that I actually need to do, and then I just save the other stuff for later or just have to sacrifice it.”

Beyond the pressure of finals and the end of a semester, students face other real stresses.

Guidance counselor Leslie Kersha said when looking at students’ stress, the main causes are family, relationships and the pressures of school or a busy schedule. Between school, homework, jobs and extracurriculars, she said, students are stretched thin. When they are stressed or pressed for time, Kersha said, they don’t sleep as much and they may stay up to keep up with their work.

“I think when students are stressed they oftentimes don’t sleep as much so they may stay up if they’re stressed about an upcoming test or project,” Kersha said. “They may stay up all night, which once again sleep is necessary to counter stress, ... and so it’s kind of this ... cycle of if you’re stressed, to try to get something done then you’re going to feel worse because you didn’t have the sleep.”

Choosing to stay up, Farmer said, both increases her stress level and lessens it. She is able to get more done if she stays up later, but then she is tired the next day. This cycle may even counteract a student’s effort and cause a decrease in academic performance, Kersha said.

According to Mental Health America, for students between the ages of 13 and 17, school is the No. 1 stressor; after school ends, work takes the spot. At this point, the level of stress turns from helpful to hurtful.

“I think that one of the reasons that we get stressed is because we’re pulled in so many different directions and we’re pulled in those directions sort of physi- cally, like sometimes we have to be at cross country practice and band practice and play practice all at the same time and that’s stressful,” Kathryn FishmanWe a v e r , g i f t e d education teacher, said, “or we’re also pulled in lots of different directions mental-

ly so we’re thinking about chemistry homework and college applications and a conversation we had with our parents and a conversation we had with our friends.”

According to apa.org, 66 percent of Americans believe their stress moderately, strongly or very strongly affects their physical health and 63 percent reported the same of their mental health. Easy ways to combat stress and counter negative mental and physical effects include eating right, sleeping enough and exercising.

Kersha, who is a long-time yoga instructor, said yoga is a great form of exercise that helps focus on mindfulness and breathing, both of which are practicable outside of yoga.

“One aspect of [yoga] is deep breathing,” Kersha said, “so literally when your body is under stress you naturally tend to take short shallow breaths which reinforces to your body that you should be stressed. So taking a few minutes throughout the day to really take slow deep breaths, which signals to your body you’re calm, you’re safe, you can relax, can really make a big difference.”

Other forms of exercise that work to reduce stress, Kersha said, include structured exercises as well as those that are purely for entertainment, such as shooting hoops, that get the body moving.

Beyond affecting the individual, stress can change how a person relates with others, Fishman-Weaver and Kersha agree. When they interact with their friends, family and teachers, Kersha said, they won’t be a s easy to get along with if they are overly burdened with stress.

“In my mind stress management is really about taking care of yourself and figuring out those things that you need to do in order to take care of yourself,” Kersha said, “and that may mean creating more time in your schedule, which nobody thinks you can, but you can, you just have to let go of some things or say no to some things.”

photo by Morgan Berk

A season of superfluous stress How winter holidays impact anxiety Manal Salim

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espite the glittering lights, white sheets of glistening snow or glamorously wrapped gifts, around the bustling holiday season, research shows that more people are inclined to feel that their stress increases rather than decreases.

According to the American Psychological Association at www.apa. org, 38 percent of Americans feel an increase in stress during this time, and only eight percent experience a decrease.

As described in this research the APA conducted, the holiday season can be a cause of stress for many people for a variety of reasons. It may be a financial burden due to the excessive spending of money on gifts, or perhaps the search for the perfect gift for every important person in one’s life may trigger stress, explains senior Karina Kitchen.

As a student, Kitchen has found she incurs the most stress during the holiday season since it is around the same time as the end of the semester, thus making the addition of finals another source of pressure.

In general, a plethora of different causes trigger stress, according to Advanced Placement Psychology teacher Tim Drennan. Drennan explains humans have a fight-or-flight response built into their systems to deal with emergencies, and it is a part of the sympathetic nervous system that triggers a biological response to the stressor.

“There are an unlimited number of things that can cause stress,” Drennan said. “Generally it comes in at times where we are unsure about our ability to cope or adjust with an event, person, or demand.

Unfortunately in our fast paced society, we experience stress whenever we feel the pressure to get everything done. This is pretty much a daily response for most of us, at least in this country. There is never enough time and every little thing that we must do is interpreted as an emergency or danger.”

The holidays offer plenty of reasons to be stressed out and anxious, Ken Duckworth, a director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness said. Duckworth explained that the stress could be incurred from the unwrapped gifts, the pile of cookie exchange invites, or even the office parties.

However, for many, the biggest source of holiday stress is the family dinners, the family obligations and the burden of family tradition.

“There’s this idea that holiday gatherings with family are supposed to be joyful and stress-free,” Duckworth said. “That’s not the case.

Family relationships and trying to please everyone is complicated. But that doesn’t mean that the solution is to skip the holidays entirely.”

Kitchen said she can relate to this burden of family stress as she remembers the trek she encounters each year to provide her mother with the perfect gift for Christmas.

She said the commercial expectation of the holiday season may stray from the true purpose of this time.

“I know that every year, my dad and I shop for hours trying to find something that we think my mom will like. It can become stressful and somewhat discouraging when we don’t find what we’re looking for, but we try not to let it get to us and we use that time as bonding time for the two of us,” Kitchen said. “We also know that she simply appreciates the fact that we care about her and want her to have a good holiday.”

Similar to Kitchen’s positive approach to the holiday season, Drennan explains people often see the holidays as a much more positive time of year.

Once people realize those they are looking to please will love them regardless of the gift they receive, surviving the pressure of the holidays turns out to be much easier.

However, if one simply views the holidays as a mad rush to purchase the ideal and perfect gift, the situation turns out to be uncomfortable and in turn stressful for many.

“I think for those who feel close to their support systems and don’t experience pressure to perform or play uncomfortable roles, the holidays can truly be relaxing,” Drennan said. “But relationships with perceived expectations that make us feel uncomfortable can truly be an unnecessary interruption to a routine that we are usually comfortable with.”

When people actually look forward to spending time with loved ones rather than focusing on the commercial aspect of the holidays, the outlook on the season improves significantly. According to the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner research on holiday stress at www.apa.org, 53 percent of individuals mention family or friends as their favorite thing about the holidays, and 36 percent specifically mention spending more time with family.

In contrast, based on the results of this same research study, many dislike the commercial aspects of the holidays such as shopping, money and commercialism. Because of these commercial triggers, 61 percent of people feel an increase in stress and 68 percent of Americans experience heightened fatigue.

Focusing on the personal relationships associated with the holiday season rather than the commercial aspects and using purchases to please others, are ways Kitchen has increased her level of happiness during this time. Reminding herself of the real importance of the season has proven to be an efficient method for relieving stress in Kitchen’s case.

“Though it may not be the healthiest method for combating pressure, I enjoy eating all of the holiday goodies that we may have in the kitchen as a more temporary way to deal with stress,” Kitchen said. “But, Christmas is my favorite holiday, so I’m generally really happy during the holiday season because of that. Focusing on the true meaning of the holiday and spending time with my family really helps me feel at peace.”

art by Sarah Poor

According to kidshealth.org, “crammed schedules and not having time to relax,” are causes of long-term stress. Along with using time wisely, Kersha suggests cutting down on activities when those obligations create an overwhleming amount of stress.

“Students have more energy so I do think you guys can take on, in general, more than adults in some ways,” Kersha said, “but if you’re taking on so much that you’re constantly in a state of stress, then I think it’s an important thing for you and your family to sit down and look at what can we pare back, what can we do differently maybe for a short period of time and then we can reevaluate.”

With the end of semester only a week away and final exams looming, stress levels are high and managing time comes into a new context.

According to Kersha, planning ahead plays a key role in lessening the pressure of these weeks.

Choosing to study a little bit, in “micromovements toward the big final,” helps students to avoid doing nothing in preparation until the night before, which, according to Kersha, prevents hours of studying.

“It’s not a surprise, everyone knows they’re coming,” Kersha said, “so I think one of the first things they can do is look at what can I cut back those next two weeks. ‘Can I ask to work only on the weekends rather than on school nights of those weeks? can I, you know, once again going back to this idea of what can I temporarily take off my plate?’”

For Farmer, managing time comes hand-inhand with preparation for finals. By choosing to run before school, she said, she has time after school to catch up on school work and to study for finals.

“Sometimes, if the stress, and it just depends on the source of the stress and how you’re dealing with it, but if you’re under extreme stress seeking out the help of a counselor can be really important,” Kersha said, “or at least knowing your support mechanisms and reaching out to those people who are supportive to you.”

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ALSO INSIDE In-Depth: Romanticizing the past

facebook may be dead Sophie Whyte

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he integration of social media into the daily lives of Americans is second nature by now.

Social networking sites allow for the instant connection to millions of people internationally in an efficient and easy way, which makes it highly attractive to people with an on-the-go lifestyle. Internationally a fourth of all people utilized social media in 2013.

“Social media is popular with youth because it’s a way to express ourselves in a pretty comfortable way,” junior Saja Necibi said. “We can connect with other people and exchange thoughts and ideas. We like being in touch with close friends, and social media sites allow us to rekindle friendships with people who we may have lost contact with. They also are a quick way to get information out, and since they’re free, everyone can join and connect with others.”

Platforms such as Friendster and Myspace set the stage for large, interactive networks that anyone could use. These sites eventually lost traction and gave way to the alleged king of social media: Facebook. Introduced in 2004, Facebook lets account holders share photos, videos and statuses and nearly a decade later users still utilize this media. Facebook is a Fortune 500 company, has a movie centered around it and even has over a billion users for their websites, showing its relevance to audiences today.

Yet this once thriving haven for teens is now dying. According to a Pew Research Center survey, “in focus groups, many teens expressed waning enthusiasm for Facebook.”

Because of things like the rise in adults getting profiles and stress from the boring arguments on the site, social media outlets deteriorate over time.

“I think social media sites just help create drama, and I think people just don’t want that anymore, so that’s why it’s dying out,” junior Amber Dothage said. “I think we could live without [social media.]

I would feel better if we didn’t have to use them.”

However the Pew survey also stated that many teens use Facebook because “the site is still where a large amount of socializing takes place, and teens feel they need to stay on Facebook in order to not miss out.” Accounts by adults are still on the rise.

Facebook might be losing popularity in favor of other social media sites according to the Pew study,

but is still a highly profitable and active company, so it’s obvious Facebook is not gone from anyone’s lives just yet.

“I don’t really think that Facebook is dead,” Necibi said. “Among the youth, it has lost some popularity, but the site has millions of active users around the world. Along with that, it seems like more and more adults are creating Facebook accounts to connect with friends and family.”

Everything from websites to applications helps users to communicate without ever verbally saying a word. Some sites like Twitter limit the amount of communication users can give at one time, which encourages quick and witty conversation, like humor accounts such as @funnyoneliners or @TheTweetOfGod. Celebrity comedians including Steve Carrell and Ellen DeGeneres have Twitter accounts where they post short jokes and comical photos. Though communication was one of the primary reasons social media began, Dothage says that humor is the future of social media use for youth.

“Vines are generally funny and honestly I think they make people’s day,” Dothage said. “Snapchat ... the faces that they make with the pictures and just trying to do it in class without your teacher knowing is ridiculously funny.”

Even though social media outlets such as Vine and Snapchat are continually growing, Facebook remains one of the largest social networks, it’s not the only one with millions of users. Newer, smaller social sites like Vine and Snapchat are gaining more traction however.

“I think you know Facebook and Twitter are obviously the main two that most people are using,” RBHS media specialist Dennis Murphy said. “But there’s lots of little offshoot things that are coming up and will change, I mean, I think within a year or two, Facebook and Twitter will be dead, something else will take their place. So [social media usage] just keeps changing.”

Social media has only been around for about a decade, with sites like Friendster originating in 2002.

It is unknown what the general course of social media will take since social media itself is so new. Some sites like Myspace become disfunctional after a few years while Facebook has already lasted for nine years. The future of online networks is in the hands

art by Maddy Mueller

of its users, changing daily.

“I’m not sure if the concept [of social media] will change as much, but the way it’s delivered might change,” Murphy said. “I mean I do think that with Google Glasses and all those kind of things, that people will be constantly interacting over and over and over and that constant interaction I think in time, given enough time, will change to where people don’t communicate as much anymore.”

According to a scholarly article Jeane M. Twinge published in Aug. 2013 in the Journal of College and Character, social media has already changed human interaction in the short period of time it lives. Her abstract states, “Social media builds shallow, ‘weak’ ties, increases self-focus (including narcissism), and may lead to mental health issues for some individuals. Over the time social media became popular, young people’s empathy for others, civic engagement and political involvement declined.”

However, there are positive impacts. Sites like Facebook that have chat boxes increases the amount of communication between family and friends, somewhat like small, digital letters. Social networks allow for information to be spread easily.

“The best thing about social media is that you can connect with friends that live elsewhere,” said Necibi. “One of my best friends lives in San Francisco, another lives in New Jersey, and some even

live overseas in Europe and Asia.”

But, as Murphy stated, Facebook will soon be dead, that is, if the site isn’t considered dead already.

There is an increasing trend towards more visual social networking sites. Twitter and Facebook appeal to those who like status updates. Short lines of text that communicate ideas, humor and details of one’s life. However, there are more social sites popping up that rely heavily on photos and art. Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram are a designer’s dream.

Thousands of photos, art pieces and videos posted everyday to these sites create a new era. Could it be the future of social media?

“I think because it’s quick and fast and so interactive, that’s what is most important that people like,” Murphy said. “They don’t want to spend a lot of time on anything.”

Perhaps the quick visual presentation is what draws people into these design heavy sites and keeps users there. Facebook may be stepping aside to allow more room for these sites.

Regardless as to whether Facebook has become dearly departed yet or not, it is the grandfather website that has inspired many offshoot social media sites and showed the world what social media is capable of. Social media is about communication, interactivity and most importantly human connection to those we might not be able to see every day.

Technology fails to compute face-to-face communications Brayden Parker

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alk down the language arts hallway outside of English teacher Bree Engebritson’s door, and it’s difficult to disregard the white single 8 ½ x 11 piece of printer paper that hangs on the red brick walls.

Like many similar signs posted throughout the building, the attempted warning features a juvenile sketch of a cell phone covered over with the bold red prohibition symbol, under which sits the phrase, “Learning Zone: No Cell Phones.”

The long disregarded effort to limit the use of technology in the classroom is much ignored as hundreds of students pass the salutation with eyes glued to the latest Twitter update on their phone and with another hand holding the newly issued iPad intended for “educational purposes.” If this is the manner in which technology affects the way that students walk from class to class, there is no doubt that technology’s influence remains even once class begins and the device is put away, or left out on the student’s desk or lap.

“If you’re going to use [a cell phone] responsibly, that’s great,” Engebritson said. “It gives you access to internet for research without having to go check out a laptop and you have all those programs that can help you like a dictionary and thesaurus. But I think that with any piece of technology, if people want to abuse it, then they’re going to and that’s not something you can generalize into a whole entire group.”

Experts and researchers discussed the effects of technology in the classroom immensely and the debate of the goods and evils that they bring have been debated by students, teachers and researchers alike. Yet the newest area of interest among the scholarly is the correlation between adolescents being immersed in technology and the non-verbal methods

in which they communicate, especially in writing.

One 2011 report from the Nagoya University of Commerce and Business Administration in Japan, published that the millions upon millions of SMS, or text messages, sent annually are the most utilized method of writing for adolescents, moreso than handwritten assignments and formal essays that students complete throughout the school day.

It would seem that interchanging communication methods throughout the course of a typical school day would prove to bring along a plethora of uncapitalized I’s and intercessions of “LOL,” the ramifications of switching from the effortless texting and the labor necessary required writing for teach-

ers. However, despite the assumptions, teachers still have not seemed to witness this fallacy yet.

“As far as formal essays go, I very rarely see the text lingo. I think students still get that it’s not the time for that type of language,” Engebritson said. “But I will see on assignments, like little writings that I will collect, I will see the abbreviations or the uncapitalized “i” and things like that. I think there are different things that you see that are more popular due to texting.”

While most 21st-century students would prefer to turn in formal essays and district writing assessments by means of texting if not for the effortlessness that comes with choreographing thumbs instead of pencils, students also under-

stand the importance of differentiating between formal and informal ways of writing.

“Sometimes I use text abbreviations,” sophomore Quinn Miller said, “when I’m taking notes for shorter and faster words, but not when I’m just regularly writing.”

Engebritson agrees students understand the necessity of using their differing ways of written communication for the intended audience.

“There have been instances that I have seen it in formal writing,” Engebritson said, “but I feel that in most of the writing that I’ve seen on assessments, kids know you don’t really use that there.”

Although students can make the dif-

feature photo by Morgan Berk

ferentiation between methods of communication and switch on and off when they use each, the fact that texting lingo bleeds into school work is inevitable.

According to a 2008 report from the American Life Project, a poll of teenagers revealed that 50 percent of high school students do sometimes use informal language in their school work, with 38 percent of teens having used shortcuts such as “IDK” and “LOL,” as well as a quarter of teens having inserted written emoticons in their class work.

“Yes, I think [technology] causes people’s writing skills to decrease,” Miller said, “because people have gotten used to typing and rely on it instead of writing.”

As with all debates, the opposing sides will continue arguing this concern of technologies and its influence on non-verbal adolescent communication will only continue to heat up as people discover advanced technologies and make their way into the classroom.

Teachers and students alike will continue to be part of this discussion as well as make the best decisions for themselves and their classrooms.

It can be expected that these discussions will continue long after the sign foreboding these technologies falls to the ground outside Engebritson’s classroom. However, for teachers like herself, Engebritson continues to appreciate the positive impacts technology has on education and accepts the imperfections of the system.

“Technology isn’t going to go away and it’s just going to get bigger,” Engebritson said. “I think you see that even in our school, especially with the iPads. So I think it’s great if it’s used the right way...

Anytime something is new there are obviously little speed bumps along the way but it goes back to those kids that if they want to use it responsibly they are going to, and if they’re not, they’re not.”

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Cheaters take the lead Ross Parks

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feature photo by Marissa Soumokil

Taking a peek: Many have become both more aware and willing to admit that they have cheated at some point of their academic journey. Students both at collegiate and high school levels are at an all-time high in admittance and lax attitude on cheating.

hough cheating may be the worry of many educators and students, the strange fact is, it is not all that rare. According to www.stanford.edu, cheating is defined as, “representing someone else’s work as your own” and states that cheating has increased in the past 50 years. Also surprising to some is the report that the most avid cheaters are above average, college-bound students.

For years, the common theory on cheating was “... people who are lazy [cheat],” as junior Alex Wasdon said. “It’s people who don’t value school enough and would rather use other people’s work.”

However, even with the traditional stance on cheating deeply rooted in the minds of pupils and teachers, www.standford.edu still reports that, “73 percent of all test takers, including prospective graduate students and teachers agree that most students do cheat at some point and 86 percent of high school students agreed.”

Some may feel like cheating has increased, others believe cheating is not new, and that it’s only recently that people feel free to admit it.

“I could see some people justifying cheating because of some successful people who cheat,” junior Rachel Forrest said. “However, I’d still be nervous to cheat … it’s probably better to just do your own thing and get some sure points than to risk it with cheating.”

Therefore, the question for many is why cheating has become so commonplace, and how people feel justified to manipulate their way through school .

“In my experience ... those on the higher end [of achievement] feel the pressure to perform and get every single thing in and are therefore more likely to be susceptible to

... cheating,” Advanced Placement World teacher Katherine Sasser said.

With students feeling such a need to succeed, many become numb to the once commonplace stigma associated with cheating.

For some, a rather recent debacle at Harvard in which more than half of a class was caught cheating on a take-home test, may be evidence of such a sentiment.

However, for many, even when pushing themselves to their limit, cheating may be the only way to gain an edge. “[Students] are involved in [so much], it’s just not possible to maintain success, and so sometimes cheating becomes reality because they can’t do all that they want to,” Sasser said.

In fact, history is riddled with successful masters of self-propagation and deceit. From George Washington’s violations of the sanctity of Christmas when crossing the Delaware, to Henry-the-XIII’s fondness of new wives, despite the fact that divorce was illegal at the time, all these figures were able to successfully accomplish their goals despite them being against tradition.

Many might say the only reason history remembers these violations is because these people were public figures. But one could argue that they are only remembered because of their successful violations of social norms.

“I think that there is an emphasis on [cheating],” junior Emily Kinkade said. “There is an idea in ... society that you should be successful without having to try as hard.”

Another layer to cheating could be that lines are blurred for students. Some classes encourage cooperation, collaboration and discussion through group projects. On the other hand, there are classes in which collaboration is difficult.

For many students, these dis-

paraging differences between class etiquettes add to the confusion as to where the boundaries of cheating begin and end.

“Collaboration’s the willful sharing of an idea,” Wasdon said, “whereas cheating is the stealing of those ideas without permission.”

While all of this may sound simple, one should consider, the nonomnipotent power which must try their best to monitor the activities in their classes. For many teachers, the task of monitoring can be too great.

“Coming from a language arts and social studies perspective, when you look at writing, often times students … have a lot of commonalities and similarities, so it’s difficult to say which is and isn’t cheating,” Sasser said. “If I give an essay prompt and students talk about it beforehand, then they have similar ideas in thesis and arguments, I wouldn’t say that, that is cheating.”

However, even truly collaborating students find it unclear when it is or isn’t OK to share ideas.

“I feel like those classes that don’t have a lot of collaboration might need to collaborate more, but it might also make more people cheat,” Forrest said. “I think when people collaborate it is easier to cheat even if it’s by accident because everyone is talking. Individually, it stands out more.”

Overall, the prominence of cheating may shock people, while some may view it as the only way to get by, which for many, justifies the cheating. However, something relatively new lies within our culture that may worry some, especially educators.

“I think that our society has taught students ... that things should come easily,” Sasser said. “I really think that something is seriously wrong with that message to kids because to become better, you have to be challenged.”

Features

B3

Are females hardwired for hatred?

S

feature photo by Maribeth Eiken

Trisha Chaudhary

ince its release in 2004, the movie Mean Girls is one that most teenagers are familiar with.

In fact, according to the box office website, Mean Girls raked in a total of $129,042,871 worldwide.

People know their characters for their unprecedented cattiness and mean behavior, hence its title.

In the film the main character Cady Heron becomes friends with a group of girls called ‘The Plastics’ with intention to sabotage the school’s ‘Queen Bee,’ Regina George. The film demonstrates instances of sabotage, jealousy and bullying, exposing the underbelly of the female world in high school.

Every school has girls who personify the likes of Regina Georges and Cady Herons, but according to senior Alex Griner, Mean Girls is obviously a Hollywood dramatization. A handful of girls can be especially conniving, but the majority don’t act this way, he said. Despite this, Griner believes girls have a distinct way of dealing with their problems and drama.

“Girls are very … passive aggressive,” Griner said. “They just take things very slowly and kind of eat at [problems]. It’s very sadistic.”

Aanchal Sharma, graduate of the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour from

McMaster University, supports Griner’s opinion. In tractiveness, youthfulness, clear skin, large breasts.

2011, she published a paper attributing the aggres- Interestingly, research has shown that physically atsive behavior of women to an innate predisposition tractive female adolescents suffered a greater risk of of humanity. As it turns out, women are hardwired being aggressed against.”

This “punishment,” which is especially popular to be catty.

In her paper, “Intolerance of Sexy Peers: Intra- among adolescents, could come in the form of ossexual Competition Among Women,” Sharma and tracism and derogatory gossip, Sharma and Vaillanher co-author professor Tracy Vaillancourt from court’s paper said. Girls befriend others, try to isolate the victim and spread the University of Ottawa, rumors. Thus, women try put forth the idea that womto suppress other women’s en use indirect aggression against other women that They just take things sexuality through catty almost as a dethey feel are more attractive very slowly and kind behavior fense mechanism. Though than them. They attribute this to a woman’s need to of eat at [problems]. women are predisposed to act this way, Sharma beuse sex to negotiate with It’s very sadistic.” lieves that individuals can men, which they cannot do also attribute their behavif sex is too readily available.

Alex Griner ior to ‘nurture’ as well as Women often ‘punish’ other senior ‘nature.’ women who make sex too “While females may easy to get.

“By making sex too readhave a predisposition ily available, sexually/suggestive females reduce the to react in certain ways and within certain situnegotiating power or ‘demand’ of their sexually ations that is not to say that these behaviours are conservative counterparts,” Sharma said in an email unanimous 100 percent of the time,” Sharma said. interview. “Intrasexual competition intensifies when “There are certainly learned behaviours, coping a competitor holds qualities which are considered strategies and individual differences that buffer feto be desirable in a mating partner – including: at- males behavior. For example, if a female does not

value the qualities a potential ‘competitor’ has, or does not perceive them as an advantage, then competitive behavior may not ensue.”

Senior Elena Franck agrees that the way a girl reacts to more attractive women depends on her individual character, and like Griner, doesn’t think that all girls act the way Mean Girls dictates. However, she would attribute this to their insecurities, not necessarily an inborn and subconscious need to wipe out sexual competition.

“I feel like it’s kind of an insecurity thing,” Franck said. If “there’s something missing on the inside [some girls] feel like they have to project and put down others to make themselves feel better.”

Regardless of their insecurities, Sharma and Vaillancourt’s research would stipulate that girls are hardwired to act catty to women they find more attractive. Sharma thinks understanding this instinct is vital in being able to respond to attractiveness more effectively.

“Another important implication for this research is understanding and addressing bullying,” Sharma said. “While focusing on evolutionary roots suggests extremely strong tendencies for females to engage in indirect aggression – understanding why indirect aggression is so prevalent among females and its origins may help develop programs and information to help create self-awareness among females.”

Bruins roam far from their den Madi Mertz

W

hile the cheerleaders may claim that “Rock Bridge rocks wherever they go,” how does RBHS stack up to various other schools?

Hickman High School is the only school in the nation with the mascot of the Kewpie, but it is well known that RBHS is not the only school in the nation with the mascot of the Bruin.

RBHS may be a unique school in its policy of “freedom with responsibility,” but it may not be alone in much else.

The similarities and differences between different schools with the Bruin mascot are stunning and surprising. Much like a family, they all may appear the same, but they are vastly different on the inside, depending on something as simple as where they reside.

There are 20 public schools across the United States which identify themselves as the Bruins besides RBHS. The main question of the matter is, then, just how much does the mascot have to do with the similarities between schools?

Just as bears come in all shapes and sizes, including black, brown, grizzly, and Berenstain, so do the nation’s bruins. Sizes range from small town schools with only a few hundred students to schools in metropolitan areas, with enrollment numbers in the thousands.

Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Va. is the largest of all, boasting an impressive 3,955 students, according to U.S. News. That being said, it is a magnet school which caters to students in grades 7-12, unlike most of the schools which house high school students in grades 9-12 or 10-12.

The largest Bruin school in the 9-12 or 10-12 category is Cherry Creek High School in Denver, Colo., which holds around 3,443 students in grades 9-12, ac-

cording to U.S. News.

Four of the schools have fewer than 1,000 students; Brookings-Harbor in Brookings, Ore., Tri-West Hendricks in Lizton, Ind., Beddingfield in Wilson, N.C. and Bear River in Grass Valley, Calif. All of these have small attendance rates.

Size doesn’t matter when it comes to merit, however. Mountain View High School in Orem, Utah, the 15th most populous Bruin school out of the 20, is the fifth in their state, and holds a national rank of 1240.

Ballard High School in Louisville, Ky., the 11th most populous, happens to be ranked the highest in their state out of the Bruins. At number three, they are the second runner-up for best school in their state, on top of an impressive number 487 national ranking.

So Bruins have a tendency to succeed, whether they’re large or small in size. But bears do tend to be boisterous.

While still being a highly ranked, magnet school, Lake Braddock has a strange tradition of a cheer.

“It’s called the ‘Bruin Rumble’, so at our football games, they take all the trash cans and tip them over and they pound on them. They have their own now, actually, so it’s not the actual physical ones that have trash in them,” Lake Braddock yearbook advisor Kathryn Helmke said.

“They have them painted and the seniors usually paint themselves and the bleachers are painted and the seniors usually sit in front and they’ll usually start the Bruin Rumble, and then the whole students section will respond.”

Many of the schools have traditions like this. In fact, similar to BruCrew, Bear River has BruiNation, as does Northrop High School in Fort Wayne, Ind. The BruiNation may hold black bears and brown bears, but Bruins come in far

art by Sarah Poor

more colors.

Out of the 20 public schools which calls themselves the Bruins, nine have school colors of blue and gold. There are two who are brown and orange, and Fargo South High School in Fargo, N.D. is brown and gold.

The program that RBHS recently adopted to help first generation college students, AVID, is used by no less than four different Bruins.

There are Bruins with as much as a 96 percent minority in the student body, such as Trevor G. Browne in Phoenix, Ariz., or 94 percent, like Bloomington High School in Bloomington, Calif.

So, as similar as Bruins may seem, each and every one is different. For instance, most all of the schools have a sports department of some kind, but only two have a show choir.

Long story short, Bruins come in all different shapes and sizes. They hibernate at different times, they are all different colors, they’re interested in different areas of study. Ballard has received a national award for their math and sci-

ence Advanced Placement courses, while Bloomington has award winning ROTC and performing arts departments.

By comparison, RBHS, ranked 8th in the state and 957 in the nation, is the only green and gold Bruin, and has just about 2,000 students. Whether or not that makes RBHS worthy of rocking wherever they go, is up to the attitude of the students.

After all, students chose the mascot 40 years ago, and it continues to inspire school spirit. Little known fact, RBHS’ mascot was almost the trolls. Former RBHS English teacher, Marilyn Toalson was a part of the first graduating class, and took part in the decision of the school mascot.

“The students’ first choice was Trolls.

Remember we were students at Hickman so we were proud of being Hickman Kewpies, it was very emotional to change schools, after all the Kewpies were the only naked baby mascot anywhere,” said Toalson. “However, teachers vetoed that. So after several votes and suggestions, we kind of went with

bears, the cave, etc. We thought Bruin was more sophisticated and not used so much, so we voted for Bruins.”

It’s obvious that other schools have liked the idea of the Bruins as well.

Plenty of other sophisticated and unique schools had the same thought that Toalson’s class did. The students define a school, and it’s impossible to witness the way in which the students define a school without being on the inside.

All Bruins have a different attitude about their school, but David Bones, RBHS Assistant Principal for activities knows his students love their school.

“I’d always say we’re an outstanding school with great kids,” Bones said, “and the fact that it does whatever they can to support kids success.”

At RBHS, the students know that they’re supported as fellow Bruins, no matter how they stack up to others.

In the end, it’s impossible to determine the best Bruin. Different schools across the nation connected only by their identity as bears, and all 21 have aspects which make them worthwhile.

B4

In-Depths

“Never look back unless you Romanticizing the Manal Salim

C

urled up in front of her laptop with the light of the screen gleaming upon her face, movies transport senior Safiyah Elkomy to another time period she would much rather reside in.

Elkomy regularly watches “The Phantom of the Opera,” which is set in the mid to late 19th century, along with other movies based in past times to indulge in an ideal piece of the past.

Through observing and admiring the stories and characters in the older and classical movies of previous times, Elkomy admits she would have much rather preferred to live in the past.

“I definitely love to romanticize about the past through old movies because I like just that time, the environment, their manners and just the way they lived in general. I would even prefer to live back then and I like to think that I ‘live’ in the past through the movies I watch because that way I can really just relive the past through those movies and feel like I am a part of that time and go to any time period really,” Elkomy said.

“I definitely think that older movies are glamorized versions of the past, but honestly I like to think of them that way better.”

According to enterprisenews. com, people enjoy classic films because these movies take viewers back to a time when ‘values’ meant something, and random acts of kindness were widespread. Older films transport those watching to a time when America was strong and united, and when integrity, decency and honor were attributes of a great person, a hero. Because of these qualities, the site explains that when watching a classic film, one is able to “long for the lost society that the movie portrays.”

Movies aren’t the only triggers for individuals to romanticize about the past, Advanced Placement Psychology teacher Rachel Proffitt explained. If the past were a time of relaxation and enjoyment for a person, the individual tends to “get stuck” in the brighter times of their past, and assume their future is dimmer and bleak.

“Typically as people get older, they might want to go back a bit. It really is that people want to be a few years younger because maybe they feel like they were healthier or thinner back then, so that would make them wish to return to their past,” Proffitt said. “But if you’re content with where you are then there’s no real reason to necessarily go back. I do think a lot of the times

Past glorifies

people go back to the past to change something that they did. We get nostalgic, but I think as people get older they learn more that it probably really is just a question of rosy retrospection. We tend to think the past was great, but really if we went back it had its own struggles.”

These struggles can be difficult to recognize because often times, past events are recalled with rose-tinted glasses, thus making them seem so much better than anything happening in the present, according to the research conducted by Tory Higgins and Charles Stangor in a paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1988.

Their research points out that humans tend to think about the distant past more abstractly than they think about the present. Many of the specific things that are happening right now involve the petty annoyances that one has to deal with to navigate daily life. There are bills to be paid, stacks of laundry to be done, tests to be taken and errands to run.

When a person thinks about the past, those petty annoyances don’t come up because individuals generally recall the bigger events. They naturally remember things that left a greater imapct. So, all a person thinks about are the great times they had.

“When I was in school, everyone was like, ‘Weren’t the ‘60s great? Wouldn’t it be cool to go back?’” Proffitt said. “We romanticized the past because of all the fun things and even because we only kind of remembered it in pictures and media and you just kind of assume that what you see is how it felt, when really everybody was still just the same.”

When individuals look back on past events, they often know how they turned out, according to www.huffingtonpost. com. Uncertainty is stressful, and the present often feels less pleasant than the past because people are still waiting to find out how the various education and business ventures that are part of life now are going to work out.

However, junior Humera Lodhi disagrees with this concept, as she believes looking toward the future allows for increased development and success, whereas dwelling in the past causes a close-minded view of both oneself and the surrounding world.

“You can’t change the past, you can learn from the past I guess, but when you look towards the future it makes you work more towards what you have the potential to do in the future,” Lodhi said. “Even at a personal level, when I say something, maybe even as simple as ‘I want to get into college,’ it’ll make me want to work hard, and make me want to get good grades, and join extracurricular activities. So it will make me a better person and increase my work ethic now and benefit me in the present because I have a vision for the future and I am not dwelling on my past.”

With increased glorification of the past, Lodhi said individuals become too nostalgic and place the past on such a high pedestal. Lodhi explains she has heard people talk about how the past was so much better, but they often forget about all the negative things that occurred during previous time periods.

“People will look back to the ‘60s or something and think that there was so much less pollution or how much better it was, but then they don’t remember the racism or the struggle that people had to go through during that time,” Lodhi said. “I feel like people are always glorifying the past and make it out to be so much better, and say that our life right now sucks. But I think every time period is going to have different difficulties, but that doesn’t make any one time period better than the other. Nowadays we have all this new technology, and I’m sure it is going to be

Reality

utilized b a d l y, but that’s just a side effect of prog ression.

That’s why I think looking back is so negative because you kind of lose hope in the future and you don’t try to make the future better because you are so stuck focusing on the past.”

Although she believes dwelling in the past can bring about negative implications, Lodhi said reminiscing about the past in moderation can bring benefits if individuals today are able to build off of the experiences they endured in the past.

“It’s easier to just say we were better off at that time, rather than thinking of all the problems that we may have faced back then our problems now, and realizing this is what I can do to use the resources that I have today that I didn’t have earlier in my life to make it better,” Lodhi said. “I know in the ‘90s the Green Movement was really big, so I should expand on that movement today, and use the technology we have like solar panels that we have now and didn’t have back then t bring about a new and more progressive Green Move ment. Instead of trying to bring about a better change people think it’s just easier to say the past was better an we are ruined now, and just leave it at that.”

With Lodhi’s mindset, Proffitt explains even more teenagers in this generation will be able to use inspiration from the past to bring about progression in their future and learn beneficial lessons. Providing individuals with a movement or a reason to look forward to their future allows for the opportunity to make your mark on the world, according to Proffitt.

“I feel like teenagers probably want to make their own mark on the world and that maybe just focus ing on that is the key,” Proffitt said. “There’s always some thing that if you are looking for a purpose you can find i it may not seem, as clear as, say the civil rights and Gree movements in the past, but it didn’t seem that clear t people back then either. People were just doing it. The didn’t understand it as a movement necessarily, but rathe as working towards the benefit of their future.”

Though Elkomy enjoys transporting herself to th past via the many classic movies she watches, she doe not think she is necessarily stuck in the past. Rather, Elko my views her actions as another more personal way, asid from societal movements, of taking inspiration from th past to build for her future.

“Since I want to become an actress one day, I do defi nitely look forward to the future, and I want to make th best of it,” Elkomy said. “But I take inspiration for m future from the past. I want my acting and the movie I want to be a part of in my future to be like all the ol movies that I watch. I mean the past isn’t something that feel that I need to re-live but it is a world I need to escap to sometimes.”

Regrets influence decisions of the Future Brett Stover

R

egret is an important part in how one lives life, even though the person may be far removed from the initial event. It can cause people to doubt themselves, always looking back and wondering, ‘What if I did it differently?’ Even seemingly minor choices - or lack thereof - made in childhood can affect people in high school and beyond.

Senior Joanna Zhang made a decision years ago, years before reaching an age at which such decisions can be made with rational thought.

Zhang regrets not learning her ancestral language while she was young.

“There was a period of time that I refused to speak Chinese for the longest time,” Zhang said. “My parents sent me to Chinese school, but I refused to actually try because I thought it wasn’t cool.”

Such regrets are the most common form, according to a study by Thomas Giloviqh and Victoria Husted Medvec at Cornell University. They found 54 percent of people said their largest regret was one of inaction. The three most common ‘regrets of inaction’ were education-related like that of senior Nate Horvit, who made his way through his ninth grade year without considering the consequences.

“When I was a freshman, I didn’t really understand that my grades and decisions I made then would impact me when I was applying for colleges and so my GPA was kind of shot after my freshman year,” Horvit said. “I didn’t even know what a 4.0 was or anything like that, so I would have liked to have had that dawn on me and understand and be more focused on my academics freshman year and not just senior year when I care about getting into college.”

By not committing fully to his education in ninth grade, Horvit said he eventually limited his post-secondary options, though he did not realize it at the time. Despite his increased focus on education during the last three years, the damage his lack of understanding caused is in the past.

Only 12 percent of those in the Cornell study reported feeling re-

gretful about something they had done, a ‘regret of action.’ Almost every person in that category rued some relationship decision, mainly.

The study labeled any regret that was not clearly one of action or inaction as ‘indeterminate.’ Of the people that regretted an action or inaction, rather than an ‘indeterminate’ regret, only 37 percent wished they hadn’t done something. Sixty-three percent wished they had acted, wished they had seized the day. Like Horvit and Zhang, a majority of people look back on some event in the past and realize that if they had acted, rather than been inactive, they could’ve changed their lives for the better.

“I think about [not taking ninth grade seriously] when I am applying for colleges, filling out their applications or things like that,” Horvit said. “I found it a little bit harder. A lot of the places I couldn’t really get into would be available [had I worked harder that year.]”

Sophomore Brooke Herigon also looks back on her education, but a little farther back than Horvit. Herigon regrets letting schoolwork interfere with enjoyment, rather than saving that trade-off until high school. “[I regret] all of the nights I stayed up so late working on my homework in the fourth and fifth grade because I [had dance lessons] until nine every night,” Herigon said. “I made all of my school work too much of a priority when I should’ve been having fun.”

While of course Herigon cannot fix the past, she does try to approach academics and social activities with a more balanced lens. Despite how much some people attempt to shut out or ignore their regrets, the lingering memory of those experiences affect how one will act in the future.

“There’s not really a lot I can do now. I can’t really go back and fix it,” Horvit said. “But in the future - like freshman year of college for instance - I’ll be more motivated.”

Although mistakes like Horvit’s result in lessons that only the one experiencing it feels, other regrets prompt people to change others as well. Dr. Neal Roese, from the Kellogg School of Management at

Northwestern University, believes that regret, unlike hindsight bias, causes increased care in later choices. Roese has written papers on this facet of psychology.

“Regret tends to make people more cautious and careful in their future decisions,” Roese said. “The immediate sting of a regrettable decision makes you want to shift gears to safe option. On the other hand, hindsight bias is connected with overconfidence. If you feel like you knew it all along, you might be more likely to take risks.”

While she does not find herself more apt to take extensive risks in the future, Zhang now considers planning to ensure that her own children do not fall under the same impressions she did so they, too, do not have to experience her regret.

“We are learning in psychology about how it’s hard to master a language and be fluent in it [when beginning learning] past adolescence,” Zhang said. “It makes me think about about how I want to raise my kids and whether I want to raise them learning a second language, especially now that China is an emerging world power, [Chinese] would be a particularly useful language to know.”

No matter whether a regret is a result of action or inaction, or whether it causes a trend toward caution or one toward risk, regret is undeniably intertwined with human nature, especially in the volatile world of the teenager.

“If regret is a reflection of our goals and ideals, then it’s probably a good thing that we feel regret, because it gives us feedback that allows us to make changes for the better,” Roese said. “Regret is a side effect of trying to get the most out of life.”

to ee, nd

seit, en to ey er

he es ode he

fihe my es ld I pe

In-Depths

are planning to go that way.”

B5

-Henry David Thoreau

Millenials contemplate decade in history Afsah Khan

B

orn in 1995, senior Megan Kelly is part of the last generation born in the 20th century. With such a status, she believes she and her classmates see themselves as ’90s kids but doesn’t know if they are qualified to identify themselves with this generation.

Although Kelly said she doesn’t have clear-cut memories of the events of the ’90s, she still thinks she should be able to consider herself a ’90s kid. In her opinion, she and some of her older peers have enough of an idea of how the last few years of the decade felt like to be part of that generation.

“I think if you were born in the ’90s, you are a ’90s kid,” Kelly said. “I don’t remember much of the culture from the ’90s, but I have good memories of being a child and pictures of what my clothing was. I remember a lot more from this decade than the ’90s.”

Although Kelly remembers much more from the 2000s, she can still identify and relate to some of the ’90s relics that bring nostalgia to those who have memories of the decade. However, she doesn’t believe she and her peers can possibly compare the two decades.

“I did love the fashion [of the ’90s] and that is coming back in style today,” Kelly said. “I think all decade have their ups and downs, but I have enjoyed my life so far, so I can’t really say if one decade was better.”

Unlike Kelly, freshman Maryam Bledsoe doesn’t think she is a ’90s kid. Just like many of her peers, Bledsoe was born in 1999 and she considers herself part of the 2000s more than the ’90s.

However, she has trouble associating with her younger peers who were born in that decade.

“I grew up on 2000s stuff, but at the same time, I’m on the older edge of that group,” Bledsoe said. “So at the same time, I don’t really identify with the younger people. So I feel like I’m kind of in the middle.“ The reason Bledsoe doesn’t agree with some of her classmates who say they can be considered a part of the ’90s is because she knows they can’t have clear and cherishable While memories Elkomy has found satof that isfaction and success in decade looking back on life, Lodhi since finds she is more content they with contemplating what is to come. She explains if she had focused too much on a bad grade she had received sophomore year, she wouldn’t have been able to move on and accomplish all the experiences she has today. Lodhi takes pride in her exciting mentoring experiences she has had this year, and explains she has this opportunity and others like it because she looks to her college future and takes the necessary steps to achieve her future goals.

“I know for myself at least, when I look towards the future, I become more innovative. I am going to increase my creativity, and I’m going to make the world a better place, I think,” Lodhi said, “all because I focus on what I can do instead of what I should have done.”

were all born in the last few years of the ’90s.

“I do [feel left out] because I have no idea what the ‘Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ is or whatever else happened in the ’90s,” Bledsoe said. “I don’t know, so I can’t [relate to] that.”

While Bledsoe and Kelly were born in the ’90s and don’t remember much from that part of their lives, RBHS Science teacher Kerri Graham clearly remembers the ’90s and therefore counts herself as part of that generation. Graham graduated from high school in 1996 and from college in 2001, so she spent her teen years in the ’90s.

“I would say that I’m a ’90s kid because I was a teenager and a young adult in the ’90s, so that kind of molded me,” Graham said. “I’m kind of a prodigy of both the ’80s and the ’90s, but when it comes to high school and pop culture and whatnot, it was the ’90s for me.”

Although Graham sees some clear differences between today’s high school students and what she remembers of her own high school peers, she still believes the main problems they dealt with as high schoolers remain the same.

“I don’t necessarily know if my life was simpler than what [high schoolers’] lives are right now.

But I think one thing that was simpler was communication,” Graham said. “It was simpler when you couldn’t be in communication all of the time. The fact that we have cell phones and all of the stuff that keeps us in contact all the time, that wasn’t there.”

Growing up in the ’90s, Graham didn’t have the luxury of a computer or a smartphone until much later in her life. Since she didn’t have social media to spend her time with, Graham believes these technological differences between her generation and today’s teenagers divide their lifestyles.

“I didn’t get my first cell phone until I graduated from college and actually started working here at Rock Bridge. Pay phones were still huge. If I had to get in contact with my parents we used pay phones,” Graham said. “At school, my parents trying to contact me when I was at school during the day, that did not happen. It only happened if it was an emergency and they had to call the office to get a hold of me.”

The lack of social technology allowed Graham and her peers to grow up in a much different atmosphere than today’s teenagers. According to a 2013 research study published

by Pew Research Center, 78 percent of teenagers own a cell phone, and 47 percent of those individuals own smartphones.

Even though the rise of technology has brought people closer together, Graham believes that it is extremely difficult to cut off social interactions in order for high school students to relax from time to time, and that is the main difference between her generation and today’s iPhone yielding teens.

“I think [the lack of communication] allowed me as a student to sometimes escape when I needed escape from my social life, which I think is probably harder to do now,” Graham said. “When it came to my life as a whole, as a high school student, compared to [today] I think I was dealing with the same issues [today’s students] are dealing with for the most part ... it’s just that the things around us have changed a little bit.”

Since Graham witnessed the culture of the ’90s, she considers herself to be a ’90s kid along with others in her generation. However, she doesn’t feel that

high s ch o o l students today can have enough cherishable memories of that time to say the same.

“To me, being a ’90s kid means you remember the ’90s. So for me, for example, I was born in ’78.

I wasn’t a kid of the ’70s, I’m not a prodigy of the ’70s, I’m of the ’80s and the ’90s,” Graham said. “I think whoever was born at the end of the ’90s are more a product of the 2000s and the teens, in my opinion.”

Bledsoe agrees with Graham and believes she and her peers shouldn’t be able to think of themselves as ’90s kids because most of her classmates were born in the last few years of the decade and therefore have no solid memories of ’90s culture.

“I guess [some people] think being born in the ’90s is the same as having memories,” Bledsoe said. “They think that just because they were born in that generation, they qualify to associate with that group, when they don’t because they most likely don’t remember anything from that [time period] and they can’t elaborate on what happened in the ’90s.”

art by Yasmeen El-Jayyousi

B6

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Editorials Negative health implications of Electronic Cigarettes necessitates school-wide ban

T

he Electronic Cigarette is invading America. With millions of users and a booming yet only beginning to bloom industry worth $1 billion in sales this year, E-Cigs are poised to become the “next big thing.”

Battery-powered cigarette imitators, E-Cigs allow consumers to take drags of a vaporized propylene glycol/nicotine mixture, even lighting up at the end and releasing puffs of white smoke for that “cool,” realistic effect. Part of their success lies in the popular opinion that E-Cigs, supposedly lacking tobacco and many harmful carcinogens, are far less toxic to bodily health than regular and publicly denounced cigarettes. With alluring names like Green Smoke, NJOY and bluCigs, the E-Cig industry tries to push these popular conceptions, along with ones that E-Cigs are eco-friendly and can even be used in public venues like schools.

Though this popular opinion may have swept this nation’s smokers off their feet, resulting in an exponential growth in E-Cig use, the claim has no basis in fact. Though the product isn’t Food and Drug Administration approved, the organization conducted several studies.

In one sample of a leading E-Cig brand, the F.D.A. “detected diethylene glycol, a chemical used in antifreeze that is toxic to humans, and in several other samples, the FDA analyses detected carcinogens.”

Official reports cite concerns that E-Cigs may also provide “other potentially harmful volatile components.” Because E-Cigs

haven’t been submitted to the FDA for approval, the depth of studies they can conduct and subsequent knowledge available about nicotine and chemical levels in E-Cig are severely limited.

Furthermore, though E-Cigs don’t contain tobacco; they do still contain the highly addictive and harmful drug, nicotine, sometimes even in higher levels than regular cigarettes. Worse, numerous alarming studies conducted by institutions like the World Health Organization and University of California - San Fransisco have found the use of E-Cigs has no proven ability to reduce dependency on smoking; rather, their use can be conducive to nicotine addiction.

Our nation has dedicated immeasurable time and effort in the endeavor to curb the destructive practice of smoking. We have not come this far — reducing the percentage of cigarette-smoking adults to 18 percent in 2012 from more than 40 percent in the ‘60s — to lose all progress to E-cigarettes as they become just as popular as cigarettes were in their prime. The one seemingly invaluable benefit of E-Cigarettes, their lack of tobacco, is nothing but a thin facade to fool consumers into buying into the corrosive industry — one equally awful, if not worse, than the industry of regular cigarettes.

Though the lack of federal condemnation of E-Cigarettes is disappointing, the outrage lies in the fact that most public venues have no rules or bans whatsoever against E-Cigarettes, simply allowing them on their premises. This becomes

B7

Typically, for staff editorials, “The Rock” staff makes a unanimous decision on the controversial topic at hand. However, in this issue, our staff was not able to come to a collective decsion and has two editorials written in support of both views our staff voted for.

Creation of E-Cig policy unnecessary for RBHS

especially alarming when looking at public schools. Many places sell ECigarettes to minors in across the country, and they are even deliberately geared toward younger people with fun, added flavors like strawn recent years, an estimated 1.78 berry and cookies and cream. Sure, million high school children experimaybe E-Cigs aren’t as disruptive mented with Electronic Cigarettes, as regular cigarettes, which release according to the Centers for Disease the threat of secondhand smoking Control. Though this may seem to be a with each puff, but that certainly whopping number initially, it is imporisn’t the only reason cigarettes have tant to note that nearly 4,000 people been banned in schools. younger than 18 years of age begin Cigarettes were also banned smoking traditional cigarettes each day. with genuine concern for the proEven though E-Cigarettes increase in tection of our children and their popularity, schools, including Hickman developing brains and bodies, and High School, have E-Cigarettes banned these devicare no differ- RBHS does not have a policy es. Currently, RBHS ent. Yet, the doesn’t have a polipolicy is dif- regarding students smoking cy regarding E-Cigferent. RBHS Electronic Cigarettes? Should the arettes, and accordcurrently has school implement a policy? ing to principal Dr. no policy on “The Rock” staff voted Jennifer Mast the E-Cigarettes, device is regarded Ban E-Cigarettes - 13 which is as as a substance that good as allowNo need for a policy - 13 may cause harm. ing them and Lacking the need subsequently for a response to E-Cigarettes up to this allowing our students to harm point proves that a new policy does not themselves on school property. require implementation at RBHS. Our school must help lead Even without a set of rules in place, the way. We, as a student body at E-Cigarettes have not been a probRBHS, must join or perhaps help lem at RBHS. No teachers have heard to catalyze the movement against complaints about the use of this mimic the absurdly deceptive E-Cigacigarette, and students do not use them rettes. Our methods should atinside the school. If they are used at all, tempt to reach the conclusion of cigarettes are perhaps used off school banning E-Cigarettes from school grounds, in the same general location grounds. Either that, or we help as traditional cigarettes. The fact that the blackened E-Cigarette industry RBHS hasn’t encountered any issues blossom, letting a revived epidemic regarding E-Cigarettes further shows of ashen lungs and yellowed teeth that the topic lacks a restrictive policy, drag our nation and our school into as students themselves have been able regression.

I

to uphold the mantra of freedom with responsibility in terms of substance use.

And with ambiguous research about the effects of E-Cigarettes, the lack of a concrete policy seems fit. According to the Mayo Clinic, little is definitely known about the negative health effects of Electronic Cigarettes.

What is known is that the E-Cigarette may look like a cigarette and deliver a dose of nicotine, but the similarity ends there. Though they differ in shape and size, E-Cigarettes basically all function in the same way and trigger vaporized nicotine instead of tobacco smoke. An FDA study, according to www.washingtonpost.com, found that E-Cigarettes may release carcinogens, but are safer than cigarettes because they don’t release poisons found in cigarette smoke.

Without studies to provide the public with a complete knowledge of the pros and cons of the product, a definite decision cannot be reached. Not knowing the complete story behind Electronic Cigarettes makes it incorrect to blanketly assume they should be treated under the same ban as cigarettes.

The strict ban the HHS administration chose to implement against ECigarettes shouldn’t influence the decision of the RBHS administration on the topic. There is no need for a policy to ban the use of E-cigarettes here. In addition, a new policy would generate unnecessary restrictions that would punish students who have been able to use E-Cigarettes appropriately without any rules at all.

NSA purpose seems noble while agency’s aims may contain flaws Ross Parks

T

he recent scandals within the United States government and the National Security Agency and those circling around Edward Snowden have led to the revelation that the U.S. government is spying on its citizens.

According to reports, the NSA, a division of the government intended to collect intelligence has reportedly been keeping extensive and expanding information on the citizens of the United States as well as those of foreign countries. While the purpose of the NSA is nothing new, being a 61-yearold division of the government, the allegations that it’ using its resources against the people for which it is intended to protect, is alarming too many.

The NSA operates under the Department of Defense, and the motto, “Defending the Nation.

Securing the Future.” Their vision and goal are as follows: “Global Cryptologic Dominance through Responsive Presence and Network Advantage,” and their values, “We will protect national security interests by adhering to the highest standards of behavior.” Which all sounds pretty nice and peachy, but all depends on the usage of text to determine the true intentions of the agency.

After all, nearly everyone likes soda, and promote and condone soft drinks; however, if we called them “diabetic’s cocktail,” then we may no longer accpet the putrid, caffeine filled, addictive, high glucose and sodium dump of liquid that we agree is kid friendly and serve willingly at parties and events.

Overall, the purpose of the NSA does seem noble, however, the aim of the agency is the what is in question. If the intent is truly to protect the people, then it shouldn’t also be stored on record, unless the issue is directly aligned with national security.

As of now, the NSA can collect and store information for a length of five years in the pursuit of furthering an investigation or to use the evidence to compile upon possible “threats.” However, once again, the NSA needs to define “threat” before these premises are acceptable – a task which is too large for one man to handle and only many courts, in which legality rather than opinion is the key function, can decide.

However, while answering the legality of the question in great detail may be impossible for one

person to accomplish, some reflection upon overarching themes in American history can and have proven to make the points of many people before.

After all, the larger question is still in play. It is not whether the actions of the NSA are or are not legal, but if we should allow them to be legal. Laws have been made, broken and reconstructed by the hands of those who disagreed with a set of rules and standards that they found overtly unjust, numerous times.

Every great social movement is a nearly perfect embodiment of the idea that the country and its policies are those crafted by the will of the people and the force that we hold to make change. The civil rights movement, women’s suffrage and even the civil war are expressions of the people in response to policy that they found to be unjust.

As citizens of a country founded upon the ideals of freedom, it is and always has been our duty to constantly reevaluate and reinforce the ideals of the country, especially those listed within the first 10 amendments to the constitution.

However, in securing these freedoms, the spectrum between freedom and absolute control, at times, has weirdly met. The line as to where security ends and freedoms reign are unclear and has lead to many pieces of legislation that in retrospect were not in line with the ideals of freedom for all. Easy examples would be Japanese internment and the Alien and Sedition Acts.

In theory and on paper, these ideas were meant to secure the greater freedom for all. What people failed to realize at the time is, by restricting the freedoms of people, it ironically inhibits their ability to be free. And by taking away the rights of others, no matter how few, the rights of those still deemed good by the government, became all the less legitimate. After all, if we are all born with certain inalienable rights, then how may we take those freedoms from others to secure our own. In fact, if we were to try and take others’ rights, as we have tried to before in the past, the rights we hold are then an ironic and deplorable misconstruction of what freedom is meant to be and blatantly misrepresents from where freedom derives.

Freedom is meant to be possessed, not afforded by man or government. As

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Rock Bridge High School 4303 S. Providence Rd., Columbia, Mo. 65203 Vol. 41, Issue 3

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The Journalism: Newspaper and Honors Seminar class produces The Rock, Bearing News and Southpaw. Call us with comments at 573-214-3141, or email us at contactus@bearingnews. org The paper’s purpose is accurately to inform, educate and enlighten readers in an open

many seem to be confused, our government does not grant Americans their rights, instead our government is to be a statement of our rights, and one that should never violate the liberties of man , as the regimes before it.

Many argue the legislation that quickly followed the attacks of 9/11 violated people’s rights. Both prisoners and the people of the U.S. were violated because the legislation gave the government a rather unlimited capability to track down whatever they deemed as a threat with no requirement for transparency. For many, this sounds like a good idea, because safety always sounds nice, especially when it’s efficient.

But what people seem to forget is that the power to eradicate the freedoms of others is not afforded to any one person. Only is something a crime when one acts against another individual and only then is it taken to court to be decided. Therefore, with legislation that allows for the detention and silencing of those who conspire and plot against the government may sound nice, while we all have an idea of what freedom feels like, perhaps we all should be reminded that the power to determine what is good and bad is one traditionally held by the people. And allowing the government to covertly track, follow, compile information upon and eventually detain individuals without a proper trial as any other accused, is tradition-

ally inconsistent to say the least, with the ideals behind our existence.

With legislation such as that following 9/11 and the actions of the NSA, the American public should be well versed in what it means to forfeit liberties of securities. After all, when the public gives its government the right to label the citizens good and bad, the road is not long to being afforded rights on a conditional bases, rather than possessing them innately within ourselves.

Besides, those who founded the country in which we live warned and warred strongly against a powerful, domineering government, but even more so against a people who didn’t realize their own rights.

“Those who sacrifice liberty for security, de serve neither.”

—Benjamin Franklin

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Publication: The Journalism Newspaper class produces The Rock at Rock Bridge High School, located at 4303 South Providence Road, Columbia, Mo. 65203 The Rock Editors-in-Chief: Ashleigh Atasoy, Trisha Chaudhary, Manal Salim

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In-Depths Editor: Emily Franke Photography Editor: Maribeth Eiken Sports Editors: Brayden Parker, Harsh Singh Web Master: John Gillis Staff Writers: Abdul-Rahman Abdul-Kafi, Molly Mehle, Madison Mertz, Sam Mitten, Ross Parks, Graham Ratermann, Joshua Ripley, Pen Terry, Derek Wang, Jay Whang Artists: Alex Carranza, Madeline Mueller, Sarah Poor Photographers: Mikaela Acton, Morgan Berk, Randi Obermiller, Rachel Kirchoffer Videographer: Eric Glennon

B8 Sarah Palin’s latest book bigoted, extremely offensive Commentary www.bearingnews.org • The Rock • Dec. 12, 2013

Urmilla Kutikkad

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’m not going to lie; I didn’t go into reading Sarah Palin’s new book, Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas, with an open mind.

To be fair, though, with the barrage of suffocating media coverage during Palin’s 2008 vice presidential run, it’s almost impossible to take an unbiased look at her. Whether it be her infamous comment on being able to see Russia from her backyard or a more startling one about her inability to name a single newspaper she has ever read, it’s difficult not to already have a strong opinion on the self-proclaimed maverick from Alaska with the lilting accent.

Though it seems like there was a general bipartisan disapproval of Palin, my dislike of her certainly wasn’t helped by the fact that I’m a “flaming liberal” and tend towards atheism, or, as I suppose Palin would call me, an “angry, godless, militant hater.”

But my feelings toward her have, throughout the years, surpassed the point of intense dislike, and her antics are now a source of mild amusement.

Accordingly, it’s hard to take Palin’s book seriously; the writing is a thoroughly mediocre patchwork of outlandish cliches and “Alaskan quirks.” At one point, she inexplicably refers to the media as the “Lamestream Media” and continues to do so for the rest of the book. But then in the midst of harmless irritants like that, she suddenly does things like compare atheism to Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China. And, in the frame of mind that this woman was almost the vice president of our nation, things get very real, very suddenly.

Indeed, there is an exhausting surfeit of problems with Palin’s book — like Palin herself, the book often times does the work of parodying itself.

By far the most upsetting problem, however, lies in Palin’s fondness for pigeonholing people into wildly exaggerated stereotypes.

As a liberal and an atheist, I guess I just have to accept that I am an “NPR-listening, Birkenstock-wearing, religion and family hating, aggressive, elitist, jaded

scrooge crusading against Christianity” ­– to hear Palin tell it, at least. I hand “very young teens abortion pills,” “try to change the definition of marriage to elevate adult desires over the societal cornerstone that’s built the family since the beginning of time” and “kill children for any reason or no reason at all,” all while in the “state of moral decay” inevitably brought on by atheism.

I’m generally used to these accusations. The reality of our culture first reached me when I subtly mentioned to a girl in my sixth grade science class that of course I believed in evolution. I didn’t think anything of the comment, but she did. She gasped, leaned in and whispered urgently, quietly: “so you don’t believe in God?” The question gave me pause.

I hadn’t really thought about it before; belief in evolution and belief in God had never seemed conflicting, and I wasn’t really sure what I believed anyway. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I wasn’t sure I believed in a higher power, but I compassionate, stupid, intolerant was sure of my belief in science. and greedy. I would be lying if I I didn’t think my choice of con- said, in a fit of flaming liberal anvictions was a problem, but one ger, I haven’t used a few choice look at the girl’s pursed grimace words myself. But, this is the naand I knew I’d picked “wrong.” ture of our politics; we generalize During the next couple weeks, for ease of overzealous attack. vicious remarks about “weird, I’m acclimated to this politigodless atheists” flooded school cal climate, so it is saying somehallways. thing that Sarah Palin somehow It’s been years since I had my still manages to continually proearly-life crisis, but not much has foundly offend me. I don’t parchanged ticularly — not my enjoy Vicious remarks convictions, t h e about “weird, and not c o m godless atheists” those of ments the people on secuflooded school who are lar lefthallways angered by ists I demy views. scribed From family, classmates, teach- earlier, but at the very least, ers, the comments about the they’re nothing new. If she had incapability of “aggressive athe- left it at that, this book would ists” to be human beings capable be just another compilation of of morality have been a constant “classic Palin” drivel: a little ludimurmuring in the edges of my crous, a little irritating, but nothears. Add being a leftist to that, ing to get up in arms about. But and you get the added pleasure Palin goes so far as to say that of being called a Communist in “the world’s most murderous rea pseudo-kidding fashion, free of gimes – from Nazi Germany, to charge.

Stalin’s Russia, to Mao’s China This isn’t to say the religious – share either a ruthless atheism right isn’t targeted just as much. or an explicit rejection of tradiI’ve heard them called every pos- tional Judeo-Christian beliefs (or sible variation on the words un- both),” implying that atheism, or

art by Sarah Poor

any faith, but her preferred Christianity, is somehow the common factor compelling despotic rulers to tragic, cruel actions.

Furthermore, she later mentions a book she read about a suicidal person about to jump from the Golden Gate Bridge. As first responders tried to talk him down, causing a traffic jam, impatient onlookers began to angrily shout “Just jump!” Palin has the blackened heart and enough lack of class to somehow continue to interpret the situation by assuming the awful people shouting “Just jump!” were atheists, simply by virtue of the fact that this was happening in “the most liberal city in America.” Instead of backing up her outrageously offensive claim that atheists “care more about the convenience of their commute than a desperate man’s life,” as she should, Palin simply moves on.

She then takes her pigeonholed depictions of all atheists as immoral scrooges and all JudeoChristians as honest, kind, hardworking people and uses those to construct elaborate, exaggerated dystopian “Visions of Christmases Yet to Come … if the Militant Atheists and Secular Liberal Have Their Way” where things

Frowned upon activities bring unfair effects George Sarafianos

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never smoked on campus during my sophomore year at RBHS, but all too well I remember those who did. Every day as my school bus approached the northernmost parking lot of RBHS, I would see the same group of students huddled together against the fence dividing the Columbia Area Career Center from Angelo’s Steak House.

As the year progressed I noticed they seemed to be their own school club. All someone had to do was refer to “The Smokers” and automatically everyone knew who was being talked about in the room. It wasn’t until even later on in the year that I noticed the disdain in my peers’ voices when “The Smokers” were discussed. The moniker somehow made them appear lesser in the eyes of the student body, or so it seemed.

The contempt this label held made me feel as if I would be treated with hostility if I were to smoke at school as they did, so out of fear, I refrained for the remainder of the year.

By the time my junior year had rolled around, I had begun to smoke on a much more regular basis, and I thought it acceptable to indulge the occasional cigarette in the north parking lot of RBHS. This was not my wisest choice since smoking acts as a stress reliever for most, and as many know, high school can be quite stressful sometimes.

Before I knew it I was walking into almost all of my classes smelling of smoke, something that at the time I could have cared less about, but eventually it caught up to me.

Until someone acknowledged it verbally, I had been oblivious to how strongly of smoke I actually reeked. At that moment, I began to notice things happening to me that I had feared in my year prior.

People whom I had at one point been civil acquaintances with, now treated me as if we had never spoken. My teachers seemed more standoffish, and my friends who did not smoke became increasingly distant.

As someone who has never had strong intimate relationships, I definitely took these reactions to heart. I thought, ‘What gives them the right to judge me?’

infographic by Renata Williams

From my perspective, I was doing all that I could do right: I was still in school, I didn’t bring drugs on campus, I was respectful and civil towards everyone, yet I was treated as a leper.

I’d had enough of people passive aggressively saying, “It smells like smoke…” while looking directly at me. I was sick of people associating me with “sketchy” people simply because we held a mutual habit. But the tipping point was definitely when one of my classmates accused me of abusing drugs. Although a press release from casacolumbia.org states that 17-year-olds who smoke cigarettes are 13 times more likely to smoke marajuana than those who don’t smoke, I felt the accusation to be inappropriate and intrusive. From my perspective my peer had no place to assume such a thing, seeing as how she knew little to nothing about me other than the fact I used tobacco products.

I became paranoid that people might be thinking – not bad thoughts necessarily about me, I just didn’t enjoy the idea that people I knew almost nothing about had a piece of information about me that they could think about. This paranoia turned into self-consciousness as I thought about other students’ opinions more and more.

I became a social hermit, acknowledging the existence of only my close friends.

The thought of people thinking negatively of me was now all that I could think about when walking through the hallways.

I thought that the remainder of my time left at RBHS would be this way, but once I began working, studying for the ACT and having numerous other factors of stress in my life, I began to think less and less of what people thought.

Eventually, the opinion of others became something that I rarely thought about as I gained more and more responsibility.

In hindsight, I think that the insecurities I felt were normal, seeing as how all young adults go through a stage of social awkwardness. But I do stand by the point that, other people’s habits should be no one’s business, as simple as it is, I think that, that is all that can really be said.

have degregated to the point where universities have the audacity to accommodate Muslim students by installing foot-washing stations and Joe McScrooges scathingly mutter “Namaste” at nativity scenes.

If her book is so wholeheartedly devoted to anything but the attack on atheists, it is the promotion of the Christianity faith and a plea to end the attack on the faith, advocating for a painfully ironic return of “true, religious freedom” to this (predominantly Christian?) nation. But she bases all her arguments in the assumption that her faith is undeniably true and that all others are unfortunately incorrect. She then uses this “truth” to justify allowing Christianity to pervade every aspect of life, including school.

But fear not, it’s for the greater good of everyone and to prevent societal moral decay. Palin is only mad at you because she wants to help you.

Palin fails to understand two very important things: one, that she can’t broadly generalize people and she especially can’t try to base her arguments off of fictitious and exaggerated people and situations she has made up in her head.

I am a liberal and an atheist, but I don’t hate religion; on the contrary, I believe religion can be powerful and transformative, teeming with stunning silver linings. A member of school choir since fourth grade, I’ve been singing religious songs for as long as I can remember, but I haven’t gone on a rampage to end the practice. I’m not aggressive or an elitist, and I most definitely don’t wear Birkenstocks. Every person in the secular leftist and religious right groups she generalizes in her book, along with every person in between, is riddled with no end of nuances.

Second, Palin doesn’t realize the confusingly obvious fact that she can’t construct a patronizing argument on the basis of her faith being unequivocally true and still expect anyone but the people who agree with her in the first place to listen to her argument.

This book is not for anyone who has any diversity of opinion; it is for the people who already agree with Palin and are looking for an easy reaffirmation of those beliefs. If anyone still feels the urge to read it, let me know; I have a copy I’m looking to get rid of.

Lack of judgement proves fair, helpful Justin Sutherland

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airly frequently this fall I attended the boys soccer team games and over time I became more trusting with its audience in the stadium. As I took photos of the players on the track Tuesday night against the Jefferson City Jays, on Oct. 22. I thought nothing of leaving my backpack up in the stands and taking the rest of my equipment with me.

The morning after, however, I realized keeping my backpack in the stands caused me to forget about it entirely, and I left the stadium without it. I knew what I had to do.

I raced before the bell after my father dropped me off for school and sprinted to the place where I believed my backpack was. However, the backpack was gone and along with it, the ever-expensive iPad mini that my family would have to pay for if I were unable to find my missing belongings.

For the next few days, I searched all of my classrooms, around my house and in my parents car to no avail.

What I did not think to do, though, was to actually explain to my parents, make a police report or check-in with the office as to where backpacks or things of that nature are held because I believed no one at the game would actually take my backpack, and I thought I would eventually find it or it would magically appear, like when a magician brings back his disappearing assistant from what seems like thin air. The thought of someone taking it didn’t even come across my mind; it just sounded unheard of to me.

The next Friday, I was also covering the soccer game at Battle High School on homecoming night, and instead of spending my time at the actual dance, I finished my story instead.

Yet one problem arose; My mother found out I did not know where my backpack nor my iPad was as I took hers to grab quick directions to the game I was covering.

As I walked out the door and drove

away, my parents berated and interrogated me with questions of where my stuff was, what my passwords were, and how I was so ignorant as to not tell about my losses.

Once I returned home, it felt like hunting season. In particular, backpack season. I raced to the football field where the backpack was lost and on homecoming night searched the entirety of the stadium in my blue sweatpants and black Adidas hoodie.

Empty-handed, I went into the building, mind you, during homecoming.

I soon had Mr. Egan assist me by opening up the main office and although the backpack was not in the lost-and-found, it was behind Mrs. McGonagle’s desk with none of my belongings missing.

At first I was dumbfounded, but then as I came to the realization, I leave my stuff like my wallet and keys around the building unattended all the time and, although it is not an invitation to check, my car is typically unlocked. My mentality is if I trust you, you should be able to trust me too instead of the opposite. Even though the crime rate of Columbia is higher than the national average, my mind does not really go to that thought.

I have never really had to worry about my things being taken or stolen. Maybe because I myself wouldn’t steal. Maybe because I try to see the best in people. Maybe because I am naive. Either way, I trust people at RBHS and plan to continue in the way that I have been doing things for the last three-and-a-half years. Just because sometimes I can be careless with my own stuff doesn’t mean that my thoughts for people will lessen, and in this case, they have increased.

Everyone is given trust, regardless of whether they deserve it or not. Not to say that once someone breaks it, my attitude won’t change toward that individual, but until that happens, I plan to trust people regardless of who they may be, or how they may seem.

Sports

ALSO INSIDE Arts and Entertainment: The 12 DIYs of Christmas

photo by Lisa Holt

Queen of the Court

Third time’s the charm: Senior Bri Porter returns this season to the sport she loves. Two seasons after sitting out with a torn ACL, Porter is back and looking to make an impact on the court.

Urmila Kutikkad

S

enior Bri Porter has spent 27 months of her life recovering. Some athletes can detail a cringe-inducing inventory of various injuries that have claimed wrists and shoulders and knees, but Porter, a RBHS varsity basketball player, has battled only one: the torn ACL. The Anterior Cruciate Ligament, or ACL, is located deep within the knee joint and is crucial for movement. Tearing it is widely referred to as one of the most painful athletic injuries, which anyone who has torn an ACL will know. Porter, however, has torn the ACL in her right knee not just once, not even twice, but three times in a row. She tore it for the first time in January 2011, then again in 2012, then for the third, and what she hopes will be the final, time last October.

“I think the first time was the most devastating because I didn’t know what was happening, and I was totally surprised and horrified when I heard the possibility of an ACL tear mentioned,” Porter said. “The two most recent times, though, I knew what I’d done the instant it happened, so it wasn’t such a surprise.”

The reality of not being able to play for several months after each injury, however, is worse than the initial pain of each tear, Porter said. The duration of each rehabilitation process has grown progressively longer, with six months of physical therapy needed after the first tear, eight af-

Closer

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ter the second and the latest one demanding 13 and counting. Though not being able to play was difficult, RBHS head basketball coach Jill Nagel said the team made sure to keep Porter involved in everything that was going on.

“It’s easy, with an injury, to feel disconnected or alienated,” Nagel said. “But we’ve made sure she’s been really involved, that she’s known she was still a huge part of the team and getting us to where we are, making sure that she’s still coming to games, helping us out. And as I told her last year, helping to be a coach for us.

You learn so much by watching from the sidelines. So she would help see things for us on the bench and relate those to us as a coach, and being with the players she can have a unique inside view to help us out and maybe make things work a little better.”

Porter started playing basketball when she was four and having something this important to her taken away for so long has been a taxing ordeal. However, she hasn’t had to deal with it on her own; her patchwork support system of coaches, teammates, family and faith has been a source of profound strength and encouragement.

“My coaches have been amazingly supportive, and even when I couldn’t play, my teammates always made me feel like an important part of the team, which meant a lot to me,” Porter said. “They’ve been encouraging throughout the whole process.”

Porter’s teammate, senior Mubinah Khaleel, said it was important to

WRESTLING At the Parkway South wrestling tournament last Saturday, RBHS wrestlers took third as a team.

Individually, seniors Sam Crane, Quinn Smith and Jason Kiehne won their classes.

the Bruins to give Porter this encour- like this happen — things that I don’t agement. Even though Porter’s natu- understand — I defer to God’s plan.” ral talent for basketball gave the team With the continued brace of her a confidence that she’d be OK, they support system, Porter started playcontinued to provide her with com- ing and attending practices again fort and reassurance throughout her about a month ago, saying she contime away from playing. siders the past year her “ease in” pe“We were always just telling her, riod. She’s played two games already, ‘keep but she pushing says it’ll Up Next through, t a k e Today-Saturday: keep goabout ing with a n @ Deepsnap Tournament (AR) y o u r other y e a r,’ ” month Dec. 20: Khaleel to fully

@ St. Thomas Aquinas (KS) s a i d . read“‘Rehab j u s t and it’ll before get better eventually, come back and she can go full-speed. play.’ She’s a really good player, too, “Doctor’s orders are two minutes so we had faith that she’d come back per quarter, so we keep a pretty tight really strong.” eye on that and make sure we’re folIn addition to the support of lowing doctor’s rules,” Nagel said. her teammates and coaches, Porter “And she’s done great; these past two said some of the biggest sources of games she’s felt great, she’s looked strength came from her family and great, and it’s been 22 months since faith, both of which are critical ele- she’s played a high school basketball ments in her life. game, so definitely we want to take “The biggest encouragement, this slow. As we told her, it’s a jourthough, came from my family — ney. Five months is how long the seaespecially my parents,” Porter said. son is; we want to make sure we have “There were a lot of times that I her at the end of the five months. So doubted myself or questioned my would we love to have her for all 32 ability to come back as a competi- minutes of every game ... but we’re tive player, but my parents were a willing to sacrifice and she is as well. constant source of encouragement. Eight minutes a game until ChristMy relationship with God is also the mas or so, when she gets released most important thing in my life, so fully, hopefully. And then we can naturally it’s been the most important have her for the long haul.” part of this process. I trust God, and Eight minutes may not be much I believe in His love, so when things time for Porter, but for her sister and

FOOTBALL State coaches named four Bruins to the Class 6 All-State Team. They are DB Sabien Cook, OL Daniel Wolf, WR Zach Reuter and QB Logan Twehous.

fellow teammate, junior Cierra Porter, the handful of minutes is quite immeasurable. Cierra has grown up playing basketball with her sister. For her, the two are inseparable entities.

After a turbulent few years of losing that constant, Cierra said she is ecstatic to be playing with her sister again.

“I’m really excited. I’ve always liked playing with her; that’s why we’re going to the same college,” Cierra said. “Because we play well together, we know where each other are gonna go and all that stuff. So I’m really excited to have her back; it’ll make the experience more fun.”

Though the injuries and 27 cumulative months of rehabilitation have come unwanted, Bri is appreciative of the way the injuries have shaped her view on basketball. The sport is no longer something she takes for granted.

“When I was younger, [basketball] was just a fun game to play, but it has become more significant as I’ve gotten older,” Bri said. “I feel like anything you put that much time into has to take on some new meaning outside of just its own, and for me, basketball’s importance lies in the habits it teaches me and the greater number of people it allows me to interact with. But it’s still also a really fun game to play. In a weird way, going through these injuries has made basketball more fun to me. Now that I realize it’s not something I’m guaranteed, I feel so excited and grateful every time I have the opportunity to play.”

BASKETBALL The Bruin basketball team defeated Southwest Kansas City Tuesday evening by score of 76-38. The boys team improves to 6-0 on the season and plays at home Friday .

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STUCK INSIDE While their classmates travel during winter break, athletes stick around for practice, competition Harsh Singh

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nlike last year, winter break at RBHS will be two weeks instead of a week and a half. Michelle Baumstark, CPS community relations director, said winter break is longer this year because of a different calendar cycle compared to last year.

The extra seven days off will give students more days to rest, spend time with their families and travel out of Columbia. Freshman Keerthivaas Premkumar will go to New York for ten days to celebrate the holidays. He said he is excited because it gives him time to explore a new city and spend time with his family. Even though Premkumar has been to New York before, he still believes it is a great city for family bonding.

“New York is like the perfect city to celebrate Christmas and New Year’s Day because the whole city is filled with a holiday vibe,” Premkumar said. “My dad works in Pennsylvania, so I rarely see him and this time will give me the opportunity to have a good time with the whole family.”

While Premkumar will enjoy his days in New York, athletes in winter sports will have a lot less freedom over their breaks. Jackson Dubinski, a member of the Bruins varsity basketball team, has to stay in Columbia over the holidays to attend basketball practices. Dubinski believes these practices are important because he says the time on the court will keep the team focused for the upcoming games, like the shootout against Lafayette High School which will be on the day students come back from their vacations.

“We’ll be in the gym a lot so I won’t be leaving the city but honestly for me, it’s never been a problem,” Dubinski said. “I love playing and wouldn’t want to ever miss out on that opportunity.”

Just like the athletes, these coaches also have to make certain compromises to train their teams during winter break.

Jill Nagel, head coach for the girls basketball team, said even with practices going on during winter break, the team will also get sufficient rest. Nagel also said she isn’t making any compromises for these practices because they will prepare the team for another run at the state championship. She said the practices will help the team learn more about each other.

“We want to provide days off around the holidays for our players to be with their families as much as possible but yet need to put in the appropriate

Girls Basketball 24-28 Hours

20-24 Hours Tournament Practice over Dec. 20 -21

Bruins By the numbers

Boys 20-24 Hours Basketball 20-24 Hours

art by Yasmeen El-Jayyousi

Crane leads Bruin wrestling; focuses on dedication Luke Chval

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t is certainly true that RBHS is a powerhouse for outspoken high school athletes in the state of Missouri. There are few wrestlers finer than senior wrestler Sam Crane, who committed to the University of Missouri, which has one of the best wrestling programs in the country. Crane isn’t the only RBHS wrestler to commit to wrestle at a university this year, as his teammate senior Quinn Smith committed to South Dakota State University.

Crane already has a connection with the university’s wrestling program, as his brother Taylor Crane also decided to wrestle for the Tigers, and is now an assistant coach for his younger brother’s team at RBHS. Beginning the season with two-time National All-American honors, Crane is motivated immensely by the sport of wrestling. Crane, the No. 84 overall recruit is his class and an astounding record of 141-7, is also a three-time state finalist and won the 132-pound state championship as a sophomore.

“What has inspired me in the sport

On and off the mat: Senior Sam Crane , a Mizzou commit, is the natural leader of the Bruin wrestling team. Crane, left, wrestles a Kirksville opponent on Dec. 3 at Rock Bridge. photo by Maribeth Eiken

of wrestling is to do the absolute best that I can in my training, competing, and life itself,” Crane said.

“In wrestling you learn to get off your back, in life you get thrown onto your back a lot.”

Although wrestling is purely an individual sport, with a lineup of a team splitting the competition into individual matches, senior wrestler Grant Maledy emphasizes the importance of support in matches and practice from teammates, a task that he says Crane accomplishes well.

“They [teammates] are your support during matches,” Maledy said. “Also they give you advice when you need help as well.”

Senior wrestler Hunter Blume goes into detail about the day-to-day teamwork that improves the team’s psychology and ability. The encouragement, he said, provides a boost to all of the wrestlers on the team, as friendships between teammates cause support in practice, competition, and outside of wrestling.

“Every day the guys are in the room challenging and driving each other to become better wrestlers,” Blume said. “Teammates are also the ones who root you on, they drive you to get that last second takedown or escape to give the team much needed points that may win the

Joshua Ripley

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Girls Swimming

Winter Break

Bruin senior ends his cross country career at nationals hen senior Evan Schulte crossed the finish line fourth at Nike Cross Midwest Day on Nov. 17, he had done something no RBHS runner had ever done before, in qualifying for the prestigious Nike Cross Nationals meet. Two weeks later in Portland, Ore., the Bruin senior attempted to do something few in the country had ever accomplished: finish in the top 21 at Nike Nationals and earn an All-American status. While Schulte ultimately fell short of this goal Saturday, finishing 60th, he was still able to appreciate what he had accomplished.

Schulte was running near the front of the pack early in the race but a little less than a mile in, a runner fell in front of him, forcing him to Evan Schulte stop, which allowed 50 other runners to pass him, putting Schulte in a position he simply couldn’t recover from. Schulte eventually crossed the finish line in 60th place with a time of 15:54, 54 seconds back of winner Taylor Wilmot of Spokane, Washington who finished with a time of 15:00.

“I was kind of frustrated at first because if not for a fall in front of me, I may have had a shot at AllAmerican,” Schulte said. “But top 60 in the nation is really good, so I can’t be too mad.”

Qualifying for Nike Nationals, all of Schulte’s expenses for the trip were covered and he said the experience was something he would never forget.

“The experience was awesome,” Schulte said.

“Nike put on a dream weekend, and I got to meet some pro athletes and the best high school runners across the country. All the stuff we got and the care they provided us was amazing and it’s a weekend I will remember for the rest of my life.”

[amount] of work to stay sharp with our execution on the basketball court,” Nagel said.

Senior Chayla Cheadle, varsity basketball player, usually goes to Kansas City during the holidays.

Cheadle said basketball practice won’t stop her and the family from going to Kansas City because as soon as practice is over, they will hit the road. As for the practices, Cheadle said they will have a positive impact on the team.

“I don’t get mad about [the practices],” Cheadle said. “I know when we aren’t in the gym some other team is, and I want to be the best in state.”

Staying in Columbia during winter break allows athletes to hang out with their friends and rest at home. Junior Petar Marinov, a member of the wrestling team, said he will still be able to spend time with family and friends while also going to wrestling practices. Marinov said the wrestling team is like a family so he won’t mind practicing with them during the break.

“I was rather unhappy at first, but then I realized that it will be nice staying in Columbia because it will be relaxing staying at home around Christmas,” Marinov said. “The trade off for the practices is doing better when competing. This is my first season, so I need all the practice I can get.”

Similar to Dubinski, Marinov said if the team wishes to beat the best schools in the state, they have to practice in order to get better. He said winter break should not be an excuse for not practicing and the team needs to be together during breaks to not only get better, but also to bond.

“Every practice counts and not practicing for an extended period of time can be detrimental to one’s performance when they return,” Marinov said. “Our team this year has a lot of potential, but we will need to practice and practice to be our best.”

Wrestling

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dual.”

Although the sacrifices are many, Crane deflects the severity of them. Crane’s commitment to become such a revered athlete must be filled with discipline.

“Some of the struggles I have faced could be not getting to hang out with friends as often at night or on the weekends,” Crane said. “But some of my closest friends are wrestlers so it’s alright that I have that time taken away by the sport that I love.”

Crane, who has been wrestling since the age of five, is certainly one of the top leaders of the team, who has been “leading by example.” He is known as one of the hardest workers on the team, and demonstrates dedication and discipline to the younger wrestlers. “[Crane]’s willing to do anything he has to do to better himself,” Blume said. “And in doing so, he betters everyone around him.”

Blume also says that he’s a close friend of Crane, who have been connected by the sport for a long time.

“Sam and I are good friends, we wrestled together since kids club,” Blume said. “And he’s a great guy, who’s always there for you.”

As an athlete who owns a fair share of excellence in both leadership and ability, Crane has much to look forward to in his future at the collegiate level of wrestling next year after he graduates from RBHS. “I’m looking forward to being on one of the best Division I collegiate wrestling teams in the nation,” Crane said. “To be a part of a great team and to also be great myself, on and off the mat.”

21

The number of points allowed by the Lady Bruin basketball team in its first win of the season against Blue Springs .

6

The number of losses suffered by the Bruin football team; the most by a second place team in the state championship.

7

The number of Bruin wrestlers who placed in the top five of their first tournament of the season.

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Returning Home Crosstown rivals renew series next Tuesday, Kewpies won past two Brayden Parker

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t was the year of the Kewpie. The final year of competition solely between Columbia’s two high schools crashed furiously to the finish line of 2012 and left behind spectacular performances for history to remember.

A combined four points decided two football games, and two basketball games went to three overtimes. The football team knocked off the Bruins twice, ending a three-year reign for RBHS in the Providence Bowl. Likewise, on the court, the basketball team took down their crosstown rival twice, concluding an impressive streak of 21 straight wins for the Bruins.

While the overtime thrillers and outstanding plays made last year’s rivalry series memorable, the bad blood that boiled over during the heartstopping finishes resurfaced a friction that the rivalry and its fans missed.

Hickman students and fans alike made sights at both the Sept. Providence Bowl, and the Jan. basketball game at RBHS. Following both contests, a 22-21 win for football and a 78-74 victory in three overtimes for basketball, purple and gold flooded the fields of play, undoubtedly celebrating their latest triumph over the Bruins in the .

It was the latter contest, however, that sparked controversy. After the conclusion of the basketball game on Jan. 22, 2013 multiple videos surfaced on YouTube showing the post-game celebration of HHS students with players. It appeared as if then RBHS junior Nick Norton was trapped underneath the mass of Kewpies and fellow teammate Vencel Tigue attempted to pull Norton from the frenzie. Other videos revealed an unnamed female adult confronting Tigue moments later. The next morning rumors spread around both campuses about an altercation at the game.

Ultimately these rumors were laid to rest as school officials and Columbia Public School’s superintendent Chris Belcher reviewed the case and determined no fight took place. It was merely a celebration by Kewpie fans that entangled both the RBHS team and fans as they attempted to leave the court and no ill measures were taken by either side.

“I’m not sure that I would describe what happened last year as a fight,” RBHS athletic director David Egan said. “We had a highly competitive

game. It went into triple overtime. Getting caught in the emotions, fans stormed the floor and there was sort of an effort to extricate the players. I think it was unfortunate and was not the ideal situation but I also don’t think it was this big fight. I think that is a misrepresentation of what happened.”

The fact of the matter remains that the melee that occurred last Jan. sparked a rivalry that has continued long past it’s expected expiration.

Despite the inclusion of Battle athletics into the prep sports scene, the Bruins and the Kewpies are at it again in 2013. RBHS won another close Providence Bowl in September, a contest that took place at Hickman’s LeMone Field, the same location of the Bruin’s 2012 season ending loss.

This Tuesday, the Kewpies will also return to the scene of the crime, but perhaps the scene of a crime they caused. RBHS may have been on an impressive 21-game winning streak yet HHS has won the past two straight and looks forward to yet another.

But it is on the Bruin’s shoulders to get things back on track. They return four seniors that desire revenge on their homecourt against their city rivals. One of those seniors, Travon Tumey will lead his team into the much anticipated game.

“It’s going to be a tough one, but we can match well,” Tumey said. “We’re not going to give this win to them. I doubt that they are going to come over to our court this year and get that [win] on us on our home turf.”

While boys basketball coach Jim Scanlon and his staff will take care of the game on the court, the team is leaving extracurriculars to the fans and to school officials.

Egan said school officials will talk over with Bruin’s fan bases, such as Bru Crew about fan conduct. However, he also believes, for such a big game, there needs to be a lot of emotional support by the crowd to give the team confidence and support.

“We’ll continue with [preventative steps], not so much as a reaction to what happened last year, but because even before that happened that’s sort of standard procedure for us to do,” Egan said. “Any time Hickman and Rock Bridge get together, it’s always competitive and always entertaining. Theres so much adrenaline and emotion going into it that you always see the kids playing at high levels.” art by Maddy Meuller

Reliance on faith encourages athletes Athletes of differing religions dig inside for strength, motivation Brittany Cornelison

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hen it comes to sports, every athlete has to find performance motivation from somewhere. The adrenaline alone motivates some, many the money or fame and others feel as though the sheer joy of success is enough to keep them going. But in addition to these motivators, some devoted athletes find motivation in a power that is greater than themselves.

Tim Tebow is a poster athlete for religion in the professional world. Not only has he declared his faith by posting Bible verses in his eye paint, but also, his physical act of “tebowing,” kneeling down and praying, fans recognize this worldwide. Tebow took his devotion to his religion, and was able to intermix it with his passion for football from a young age.

RBHS baseball player, senior Kyle Teter, believes in these same principles and uses religion as a motivator during his sporting career.

“Religion is the basis for everything, really. [My] passion for sports lies inside

tablishment Clause which states that a school cannot support any singular religion. However, in court, the cheerleaders won the favor of the jury and continued supporting their football team this way.

At RBHS students are granted “freedom with responsibility” and can openly express themselves in any area that they so choose. Clubs such as Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Muslim Student Union and The Light Bible Club promote students to speak out about their religion. In athletics, all belief systems are accepted as well because the religions of students range greatly due to the diversity of the student body.

“We are definitely supportive in including all people, all faiths and religions and you know religion is very, to most people, very important and it’s the core of who they are,” head girls basketball coach Jill Nagel said. “So we definitely want to make sure that we allow them the freedom to express that.”

Senior Mubinah Khaleel participates on both the RBHS basketball and track teams. She was born into a Muslim family and has taken part in the religious traditions since she was young. Though not forced, she continued to engage in religious practices. She enjoys being a part of the Muslim community and chose that way of life for herself. Khaleel believes it is her faith that keeps her head clear and focused during game time.

When she needs relief, she said that she prays for her team and their success in order to call on God for peace and a positive spirit.

“You believe that good things would happen and they usually will feature photo by Mikaela Acton

religion. I believe that God has given me talents and other people talents to do things to play sports. He lets me run, walk, throw a baseball and hit a baseball,” Teter said. “The passion for sports lies in the chance to glorify His name while playing the sport, because you can receive recognition for playing sports, but because He gave you the gift it’s better that people see Him through [your] ability to play sports.”

Teter feels gifted by God in his athletic ability and said he wants to use that in his sporting performance. He has the freedom to do this here at RBHS because the First Amendment states there should be no law respecting an establishment of religion. However, there are some areas in the United States that do not abide by this rule as closely as RBHS. In May 2013, school officials banned cheerleaders from Kountze High School in Kountze, Texas from publicizing Bible verses on banners at their high school football games. This case was brought to court and The Freedom with Religion Foundation claimed that this display of religious broadcasting violated the Es-

because you have that mindset,” Khaleel said. “Just believing in God and that He will help you through it, He puts you through tough times to see how you get over it, so you just gotta keep going through it.”

Athletes don’t rely on their faith just in the prosperous times, but through the difficult circumstances as well. Khaleel feels as though she relies more on her faith when she is in a rough patch in her sporting career, asking God to help her through it. Yet, she wishes she would have the same amount of reliance in faith in hard times. When she is playing her best, she forgets that she needs to thank God for providing success.

“It’s really bad, but when you do well you kind of tune it out a little bit,” Khaleel said, “but when you are doing bad you like bring the thought in more which is a good thing, but these things you should keep in your mind the whole time.”

Both Khaleel and Teter said they have been able to use their faith to help encourage others. As a coach, Nagel said she sees that her team is made up of girls who are of various religions, and though they don’t all believe completely the same, she sees them discussing their different faiths amongst each other.

“We have different religions and faiths on the team right now, and I would think, and if you’d ask any of the kids they would say, that they feel like they’re supported in their faith. And the kids are very [aware] that the person standing next to them might not have the same beliefs and the same faith but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be accepting,” Nagel said. “Just this weekend I heard someone talking about different faiths and religions and asking different questions, you know, of different people.

And I was very happy and excited to see that because they’re learning from each other. They’re not judging.”

Since RBHS has more than 2,000

kids, having a student body of this size leads to a diversity in ethnicities as well as religions. These differences spark curiosity Khaleel said. People often ask her about why she wears different clothing, such as a hijab. This gives her an opportunity to share her faith with others.

“Usually not many people of my religion do sports just because we have to cover up and everything, so it’s just harder,” Khaleel said. “We have to pray five times a day and then we have a month of fasting too.”

But it’s not only the attire that makes these athletes stand out on the sidelines.

The actions and words of those who are religious shine and reflect upon that person and their beliefs on their teams, Teter said.

“Religion is the basis for everything, but sports really gives you the chance to expand on that,” Teter said. “Some people are really good at speaking, they are really good at preaching and talking and for other people sports... that’s their voice. People can see you playing in a Christ-like manner which is not cussing and stuff, when you’re playing or going all out for everything, and not looking for recognition in your play.”

These athletes say they recognize a power greater than themselves behind everything that they do, and that is the driving force behind their successes.

Though achievement may add motivation, Khaleel and Teter say their faith is what pushes them most every time they step onto the court or field.

“It gives you a purpose to play ... your driving motive can be the district championship, it can be the titles, the recognition and stuff, but really religion gives you that true thing to fight for,” Teter said. “Colossians 3:23 [says,] ‘Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord and not for men.’

That’s a huge one and really just gives a focus to everything you do especially in sports.”

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Hobbit fandom prepares for second film in trilogy Obsession takes over with fan art, fan fiction, merchandise in all things geek Urmila Kutikkad

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ast year, on the day The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey came out, the school was teeming with hobbits - and even a few Bilbo Baggins of its own. There were antiquated costumes and gleaming Rings on necklaces and, in true hobbit fashion, a few bare feet on their own heroic quest against school health code policies.

Gracefully timeless stories like the Lord of the Rings have that kind of enchanting power on people; they make them throw caution to the winds and express their passion with a childlike abandon.

“I read the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit when I was in first and second grade,” junior Jilly Dos Santos said. “The Hobbit was my first favorite book. When everyone else was going on about Harry Potter, I knew where the real magic was at. [When the movie came out], I went to see the midnight release with a big group of friends, stayed up the rest of the night, somehow passed a math quiz in that zombie-like state and then did the dance marathon. We were dead by the end of it. I didn’t sleep for 40 hours, but it was so worth it.”

With tomorrow’s release of part two of the three-part installation, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Dos Santos says she plans on going to the midnight release despite it being in the midst of a busy weekend again.

Though she says it will be a hectic night, she believes that all the craziness is part of the fun. Dr. Robert Thompson, renowned professor of Television and Pop Culture at Syracuse University that the Associated Press once dubbed “A Pop Culture Ambassador,” said there’s a reason for

this devoted craze around The Hobbit.

“Generally, there are certain types of programs that tend to get the really enthusiastic, cultlike fans. And those programs tend to be things that create universes all their own,” Thompson said, “which means we get a lot more enthusiasm around fantasy-oriented programs, science fiction-oriented programs, than we do around a lot of other programs. And The Hobbit, of course, is one of the classics in that genre. When you pick up The Hobbit or you pick up any of the Lord of the Rings books, there’s a map in the beginning. It creates a universe and it literally maps it out and you’ve got all these different languages, different rules.

You’ve got elves and there’s hobbits, and I think all that lends itself to mass social consumption because there’s just so much to talk about.”

Junior Maha Hamed harbors a plethora of pop culture “obsessions,” ranging anywhere from Lord of the Rings to One Direction to Doctor Who. Hamed doesn’t just forge through her obsession alone, though. Social media outlets like Tumblr provide communities for her to fuel her interests.

“You could say [Tumblr] makes [pop culture obsessions] better and worse,” Hamed said.

“Because Tumblr is other people helping you with this sort of obsession and fueling it, so you’re like ‘Yeah!’ but at the same time, [Tumblr] slowly gets weirder and it slowly goes too far. It’s reassuring that you’re not the only one, though. You don’t feel like you’re the only person out there that likes a certain thing even though it can be the weirdest thing. Maybe in your class no one knows what Doctor Who is, but if I go

on Tumblr, there are thousands of blogs about it. So you get a sense of belonging with finding fandoms.”

Thompson says these communities — both tangible and online ­— only make sense. When people ask why these followers tended to group into “fandoms,” he replied, “Well, why wouldn’t they?”

“If there’s something you really like, whether it be a skill like knitting or a sport which requires participating with other people or a show, you really are part of the fun of consuming any kind of culture [that] is sharing it with other people,” Thompson said.

“Take your favorite show: you really like Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones. Imagine what it would be like if you could watch it every week, or on Netflix all day long, but you were never allowed to speak to anybody else about it. What if every Super Bowl, people watched the game all by themselves, didn’t have Super Bowl parties, weren’t able to talk about how various players had performed; that would take an awful lot of fun away from it.”

Furthermore, though social media outlets like Tumblr that, as Hamed said, can often “take things too far” or intense gatherings like Comic Con can lend a negative stigma to pop culture obsessions, Thompson believes there’s nothing wrong with obsessions, that maybe there’s even a silver lining.

“I don’t think there’s anything inherently bad about [obsessions],” Thompson said. “I suppose if you wake up in the morning and do nothing but read people’s blogs about The Hobbit and update your social media outlets about The Hobbit and rewatch ‘Hobbit’ cartoons over and over, that’s too much.

photos used under Fair Press Doctrine from www.thehobbit.com

Gandalf takes center stage: In this official poster and stills, the cast of wizards, hobbits and dwarves show off their respective skills in magic and weaponry.

If you’re naming your first-born child Bilbo, you’re probably a little too into it, but I sometimes envy people who can get as inter-

ested and as committed as they can. I think, in many ways, some wonderful things come from caring about these sorts of things.

Truly enjoying a work of art, whether it be a movie or a novel or a poem, can be a profoundly good thing.”

Large snowfall around Springfield causes date change for all-state band auditioning Brett Stover

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photo by Morgan Berk

Suit up: Junior Matt Orf will still audtion for state despite date changes.

n a last-minute decision by the Missouri Bandmasters Association, they postponed All-State Band auditions until Saturday, Dec. 21. Initially scheduled for last Saturday, Dec. 7, inclement weather in southern Missouri prompted the rescheduling. MBA President Linda Huck posted a message on the MBA website on Friday notifying students and directors of the change of date. In order to even be eligible to audition, high school students must first place in the All-District level of auditions.

“The current weather system that is affecting the southern half of our state has created concern among the MBA Board of Directors for the safety of those students traveling to Columbia on Saturday, Dec. 7,” the statement read. “MBA recognizes the hours of preparation that takes place for students to prepare for this important

audition. To exclude a large portion of the state from an audition opportunity would not create a fair representation of the very best musicians from our state.”

With between five and 10 inches of snow coating the roadways in much of southern Missouri, travel from schools in the region to Hickman High School, the site of the audition, would have been dangerous and accident-prone. While it benefits those students in southern Missouri, RBHS band members now have to wait an extra two weeks to audition.

Junior trombonist Matt Orf, who was one of many first chair RBHS students in the All-District Band from RBHS, still plans to audition despite the delay. Orf said that while the extra time may help other students, there’s a point in instrumental practice where “it’s hard to get [your audition] any better and it stagnates.”

“I understand why they rescheduled audition dates, but I’m frustrated because

I was at the peak of my playing,” Orf said.

“I’m nervous my playing [ability] may plateau or go down while other players’ playing [ability] increases.”

RBHS band director Steve Matthews notified students via email last Friday of the change, assuring them that any refunds would be provided if students find themselves unable to audition. While such a rescheduling normally wouldn’t cause much havoc, the new audition date is also the first day of winter break.

“I was practicing heavily two weeks prior to the original date to improve my position [from All-District band.]” sophomore clarinetist Mickey Jamieson said.

“When the news broke that the date had been pushed back two weeks, I was somewhat relieved. The only thing I’m worried about is the large amount of time [in which others can practice.] It’s actually more motivating, pushes me to practice my material much more than I would have.”

Vote online at:

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Dessert within a dessert: delicious chocolate bowls for holiday season Renata Williams

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You will need: Wax paper Pan or tray Double boiler Balloons Chocolate Bowl Large spoon Regular spoon

his holiday season, present your desserts in a delicious fashion. Use these chocolate bowls to eat anything from cake to ice cream to more chocolate. This project will only take about an hour and will be the perfect addition to any dessert.

Step 1: Melting the chocolate Start out this DIY by dumping all of the chocolate you’ll need into the top section of the double boiler, or the regular non-plastic bowl to substitute for a double boiler. With the bottom section of the boiler, fill it about one-third of the way with water and bring it to a low boil on the stove. Once the water has been brought to a boil, the top pan or bowl of the double boiler can be added. In order to keep the chocolate from being burnt, stir consistantly. This will take three to six minutes.

Step 2: Preparing for bowl making

There isn’t a whole lot of preparation that needs to take place in order to make these chocolate bowls, but I recommend doing these small things before you begin in order to make the best of your time. The first thing I did was transfer the chocolate that was just melted into a separate bowl to allow for cooling. The chocolate actually needs to cool quite a bit so that the making of the bowls is easier. The second thing for preparation is placing down wax paper onto your pan or tray. Lastly, wash the balloons you are planning on using because there can be all kinds of junk on them.

Step 3: Making the chocolate bowls The best part is here; making these delicious bowls. Start by blowing up your balloons to whatever size you’d like, although smaller balloons allow for easier bowl-making. The most important part about making these bowls is making sure that the chocolate is not too hot, actually almost cool, because if it’s too hot, the balloon will pop. On your wax paper, take your smaller spoon and put a little circle of chocolate on the sheet. Next, all you have to do is dip the balloon into your bowl of chocolate as far as you want and then take it out. Anywhere from one-third to onehalf of the way up the balloon is a good estimate for a practical size bowl. I do this about three or four times with a 30-second wait inbetween dips. When you feel you are ready, connect the chocolate dab

on the wax sheet to the chocolate covered balloon. Repeat this step as many times as you want for as many bowls as you’d like.

Step 4: Cooling the bowls I emptied a place in my refrigerator and stored my bowls there. It took about ten20 minutes before the bowls were ready to be taken out, but this all depends on what kind of chocolate you get and how much you let it cool before you began. Just experiment to see what works best given your refrigerator and type of chocolate used.

Step 5: Finishing the bowls The official last step to finishing the bowls is popping the balloons and then removing them. Make sure the chocolate is fully cooled before popping. If your chocolate is ready to have the balloon popped, once the balloon pops, it will not move from the shape it originally took. The last thing I did was take a knife and reshape some of my bowls to make the tops even.

This isn’t necessary but it can be a nice fixer-upper for a bowl that was uneven.

Once you’ve made your bowls, they are great for pairing with your favorite dessert and serving at your Christmas dinner.

I used cheesecake in my bowls, however most desserts can work with chocolate. As you go along, the bowls become easier to make. Practice makes perfect. This craft is sure to impress your friends and family, and, who knows, you might even impress yourself. Good luck!

photos by Renata Williams

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1. Cheesecake and chocolate: Finished product of the chocolate bowls, both white and milk chocolate. These bowls were used for a scrumptious cheesecake dessert. You can use the bowls for nearly any type of dessert.

2. Ready to burst: The balloon coated in warm chocolate. It was popped with a knife after the chocolate dried. Just take the balloon out of the dried chocolate bowl, and it’s ready to eat.

For more photos and the rest of the 12 DIYs of Christmas, visit bearingnews.org

Holly Jolly Christmas sprinkled Spritz cookies

photos by Ashleigh Atasoy

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Ashleigh Atasoy

You will need: Spritz Cookie Press 1-½ cup softened butter 1 cup granulated sugar 1 egg 2 tablespoons milk 1 teaspoon vanilla extract ½ teaspoon almond extract Food coloring package 4 cups flour 1 teaspoon baking powder Red and green sparkle sprinkles

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‘is the season of itchy sweaters, holiday cheer and that one extra cookie splurge.

And in my family, there’s nothing like holiday tradition. A classic, Christmas staple in my house is the Spritz cookie.

It all originated with a risky purchase my mom made, circa 1998: a contraption with seemingly no purpose. Later, we learned it was called a Spritz Cookie Press, and besides looking similar to an AK-47 (now where’s the holiday cheer in that?), the barrel-shaped novelty worked wonders.

Loading the tool with dough, we only had

to press down on the top handle and a cookie would pop out from the other side. With several detachable ends, the cookies could come out in several holiday shapes. Christmas trees, bells, poinsettias – you name it, the cookie press could make it.

Fast forward 15 years, and we’re still using the original cookie press my mom bought over a decade ago. And though we’ve added another press to our kitchen, the Spritz cookie, in all its cookie press glory, remains one of my favorite holiday traditions.

The ingredients are included to the left.

For full instructions on this cookie concoction and extra photos, visit bearingnews.org.

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1. Mixing it up: Stir the batter together with the red food coloring to create a soft pink.

2. Final presentation: Plate of finished sprinkled Spritz cookies ready to be eaten and enjoyed. 3. Ready for my close up: Green Christmas tree Spritz cookie with green sprinkles. 4. Into the oven: Tray of unbaked Spritz cookies. A few more minutes until it’s done!

For more photos and the other 12 DIYs of Christmas, visit bearingnews.org

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Lighting up the holiday season

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s the harsh colds of winter greets Columbians once again, an arguably lethargic palate of colors accompany the climate change. It has become almost an American tradition to decorate one’s house and property, adorning it with glittering lights and figures.

Christmas lights merged into the culture of the holiday in the 18th century, in which upper class Germans used candles attached to Christmas trees to decorate the shrubs.

The stringed bulbs of Christmas lights that people commonly use to decorate trees today originated around 1950, which was around the time the tree at the Rockefeller Center in New York City began to use electric lights. A decade later lights decorated the roofs of buildings.

This practice made its way around the world in the late 20th century, to countries such as Japan.

More recently, entities use Christmas lights to construct structures and shapes for decoration. Several of these include the Christmas tree entirely made of lights in Dundas Square in Toronto and at the Place de la Republique in Limoges, France.

These pictures are examples of holiday lights near RBHS that personify the holiday spirit. source: www.nbcnewyork.com, www.holidayleds.com