A place for critical reading, compelling writing, and analytical thinking.
Monday, August 24, 2020
Hmmm—due October 1
Type something interesting. 150+ words needed.
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I like to analyze things in movies. For example, last night I watched a movie on Netflix called Mune: The Guardian of the Moon. While watching, I was thinking about how the names and designs of the characters are related to the celestial bodies. Two of the three main characters' names are Mune and Sohone. Sohone's character design resembles a lion, like the Sun guardians before him. The sun is ruled by Leo in astrology, which means this lion-like figure guiding the sun makes sense. His name is also connected to meaning. Sohone is a name meaning determination, stability, and vivacity. I think it really relates to his character because he shows these traits, as well as his, is very masculine energy; the sun is known to be masculine energy and symbolizes similar traits. Mune has similar connections to his role as guardian of the moon. Not only is his name a literal variation of the word "moon," but the name means "feasible" or "possible." This is very fitting for his character; he was chosen as guardian by a sheep-like character who they say picks out the guardian because it is known as the purest creature. The guardian was planned to be Leeyoon. Mune ends up proving that he can be the guardian and he is the right fit for the guardian of the moon. His character design is also similar to that of a deer, and his face resembles a cat, both creatures known to lurk in the night. Also, Artemis is known as a goddess representing the moon whose symbolisms include a deer.
Senioritis is starting to develop in my life. Homecoming has passed and now I realize that the rest of the year will feel much longer. Getting up early is getting harder and doing homework has become less interesting. I think as I get closer to graduating, the more I want to start my life. I want to graduate from college and find a job that I can be successful in. All of my years of high school felt easy compared to this year even though I only have 5 classes; 2 of which are very basic level classes. I think the hardship comes from the stress of making my last year a memorable year. I want to enjoy my senior year but I also want to keep good grades. Right now is especially stressful because soccer becomes a big priority as we get closer to the post-season. I want to succeed on the field, in the classroom, and in my future.
As time goes on during school, the more I want to be done and playing college baseball. As you know, I am going to play ball in Council Bluffs this next year after high school, and am extremely excited about it. The more I think about leaving, the happier I get (no offense to my family). I very much enjoy baseball, it is the sport I want to play for the rest of my life. I am not saying that I do not enjoy playing football and basketball, I just have a different love for the game. And as I sit in class or am at practice, the only thing I can think about is leaving for college and playing for the Reivers. It will be some of the best years of my life, and I just can't wait for it. I wouldn't say it's senioritis, more just wanting something to happen. I don't necessarily want to be done with high school, just on to the next step in my life. I am ready to move on, and start playing baseball every day.
As my high school career is coming to an end, I have begun to realize how quickly it went by. It feels as though only yesterday I was a freshman, and now I'm on my last year. I would say that even though my years at BV flew by, I am excited to start the next chapter in my life. I have toured a few schools that I am very interested in and I think that the college I choose will be the perfect fit for me. The one thing that has been hard about this is that I often find myself sitting around dreaming about the next chapter, instead of enjoying the one that I'm currently in. This year is a very different senior experience, but I hope to make the most of it and fully prepare myself to move into the next stage of my life.
Surprisingly enough, most students at BVHS know me as the golfer. They are not mistaken either. Seventh thru eleventh grade I devoted most of my time to the course. I would play, practice, or compete every single day in the summer. In seventh grade I was going to try out for the middle school team; however, on day two of varsity tryouts, Scott Carroll invited me to come out. I was reluctant at first but decided on showing up. I played very well and actually earned a spot on the varsity roster as a seventh-grader. I soon got used to playing with the upperclassman. By eighth grade, I was the number one spot. Every single tournament I played in was against juniors and seniors. As time went on I began to realize there was more to my life than just golf. Rather than dedicating four hours a day it soon became two and than one. I decided for myself I would rather work, socialize, fish, and travel. I didn't like golf any less I just wanted more to my summers than golf. Unfortunately this year I had to make a very hard decision. I decided that with how well or business is doing it would be in the best interest for me and the company to not try out this year. I reached out to coach Geerdes and he understood; however, he was very disappointed. Truth be told not only did I want to focus my efforts on the company, but I also was burnt out. With this fresh break, I still get out to the course pretty regularly. I have found that without the pressure I am playing much better. I find it bizarre that I am playing some of the best golf I have ever played now that I have stepped away.
There are multiple breeds of golden retrievers. Most people are not aware of this. There is the English and American retriever. These are characterized by the color of their coat. The English Cream Goldens have white fur, while the American Goldens have a deeper red fur. I have an English Cream Golden Retriever; his name is Dakota. His mother was a pure white coat, and his father had a deep red coat. Dakota has a very light golden—almost blonde coat. The fur color is not the only difference between these lovable dogs; their shape and size are also different. Many people see Dakota and assume he is overweight—which for some reason offends my mom—which is not true. English Cream Retrievers stand shorter, with stockier shoulders. They have broad shoulders and hips. In contrast, the American Goldens stand tall, and are extremely slim; lacking broad shoulders. English Cream Retrievers also have a longer and more narrow nose, while American goldens have a shorter and wider nose. So in conclusion, my dog is not overweight, he is just built differently than American goldens. I strongly believe that his extra bodyweight just makes him more huggable.
As my last high school soccer season is coming to an end, it is starting to become real that we are almost a fourth of the way done with senior year. Soccer ending will be very bittersweet because it will be the last time I will ever play soccer for a team. It went by faster than I would have ever expected. Soccer is my favorite sport to play, so having the be over will be a huge change for me, especially since I have never not had sports to play during the school year. I am very thankful for this last season with my teammates even though it has been completely different than any past season. I think we have all gotten closer and my teammates will be my friends long after high school. In our last few weeks of the season, I hope to cherish every moment because we do not know if we will be cut short. We have been making the most of it and hopefully take a good run at state.
Having the title "Senior" is quite insane. These last 3 years have flown by. I always thought about being a senior one day and all the things that come with it. But, now I am here and it feels the same. Even playing my last season, it hasn't hit me yet that my last game ever for BVHS is in the near future. This season, obviously, has had some challenges. We are having girls be quarantined left and right. Not sure when the last time everyone was there together. I had to miss two games due to being quarantine and it wasn't fun. Missing games for anyone is not ideal, but especially when this is my last year it really sucked. We have one game left of the regular season. After that, it is the playoffs. It is crazy looking back at the past seasons and how fast they have gone. The team has evolved so much due to the fact that seniors leave each year. Spots have to be filled and the team has to continue playing. Just excited to see what the playoffs bring.
The way the online school is presented this school year compared to last year is very different. I have been quarantined twice now and switching back and forth is very difficult. Going from in school to online is fine except that some teachers do not consider the fact that we quarantined students have to do twice the work of an in-school student. While online we have to teach ourselves the lesson and then continue the assignments and still keep the same pace as the in-school students. Most of the time we end up taking a backseat on the priority list when trying to contact teachers since they normally do not take time out of the class to email us immediately answering any questions. This is because there are students demanding immediate attention from them so thus leaving us with unanswered questions for up to hours and in some cases a full day. While still having that assignment being due at a certain timestamp. I just find it interesting that last time the school got put online most teachers would allow multiple days for a single assignment versus now it is still at a regular paced classroom.
Leaving a sport behind can be one of the most tasking decisions for an adolescent, like myself, to make. Around this time last year, I was enjoying my junior year soccer season and felt I was improving as a player, as well as our team was developing. I realized the passion I gained for the sport was higher than ever. With this in mind, I questioned my future in the sport. For the first time, I realized I didn't want to take a break from soccer in the winter and figured it was in my best interest to pursue it year-round. With that decision came a heartbreaking consequence, I would have to quit basketball after playing for over 10 years. Through basketball, I experienced some of the best memories and created lasting bonds with teammates. Now looking back I made the right decision, by joining a new soccer club, and getting to play all year helped me to be able to continue my soccer career in college. I am very thankful for the years I spent playing basketball and all of the memories made and wouldn't trade them for the world.
As the school year has gone on I am getting more and more excited for graduation. I am ready for college and to be living on my own. As the school year has gone on I am getting excited for my senior season of basketball. My favorite part of high school basketball was winning the state championship my sophomore year. That was a really cool experience to be apart of. I love the bus rides, team dinners, and making memories with my teammates. I am really going to miss that next year when I am in college. I have decided I am going to play college basketball but I am not sure where I want to play yet. I am super excited to start that chapter in my life. Even though I am excited to graduate I am going to miss my high school friends, sports, and teachers. I am very thankful to be apart of the Brandon Valley school district.
As the leaves change colors, the temperature dipping lower every night, the roads blocked by slow-moving combines heading to fields of corn, you may begin to find yourself embracing the feeling of fall. However, in the house of a farm family, autumn is greeted by a rush of food preparation. My family lives on an acreage with livestock and an apple orchard, cornfields surrounding us on all sides. My grandpa has been a farmer for 50 years and the fall, to our family, means harvest. We spend all the free time prepping chicken coops for the snowy winter, harvesting basket after basket of fresh produce—tomatoes, kale, peppers, and more, and beginning hours of time spent in a combine, watching the ears of corn being swallowed up by the corn-head. As the food is brought in, it is canned, transported to a freezer, or turned into a fresh meal. After chilly afternoons spent working around the yard or working in the fields, you can always count on a warm cup of coffee or homemade apple cider to be waiting for you on the table. So as people enjoy weekends filled with pumpkin patches and corn mazes, the autumn brings work-filled afternoons and fresh-made meals on the farm.
Growing up is uncomfortable. It seems as if everything in my life the past few months has been teaching me how to grow up. How to deal with untimely mishaps. How to move on from something even if I didn't want to. I'm not sure how others are progressing through life, but it's taken a toll on me. The interesting thing about growing up is the fact that nobody talks about it. There isn't a human on this earth that can tell you what steps to take and what direction to go. Most of it is left for you to figure out for yourself. Never in my life have I had to make so many decisions alone. I think that growing up is interesting because it gives us the opportunity to form our life. It's really difficult to make decisions on your own; however, when we start to make those decisions, we start to get some control. We start to become our own people. The cycle continues from there. The more that comes our way, the more doors we see open up in our life. In general, growing up is interesting. It brings some of the heaviest burdens upon us, but it also gives us the blessing to live freely.
Rockets. Not something most people think about on a regular day. Why think about rockets you ask? Well, as an inspiring Aerospace Engineer, it is something I love learning about. One thing, in particular, that is most interesting to me is done by SpaceX, one of the many commercial rocket companies around the world. What makes their work so interesting is they are able to land and reuse a rocket booster after sending it off to space. This is fascinating to me because to reach orbit, you have to be traveling over 25,000 miles per hour. 25,000. Then to be able and land that rocket—which by the way is 230 ft. tall— on a platform in the ocean smaller than a half a football field is pure insanity. SpaceX's goal is to continue to decrease the cost to access space, allowing everyone to eventually see the stars. Hopefully, within the next 10 years, to have a person on Mars.
As my high school career is coming to an end, I have had plenty of time to reflect on the last four years of my life. As a student from the class of 2021, I feel like my high school experience was cut short. COVID has stripped the majority of my junior year/high school events and so many questions go unanswered about this year, senior year. Will the class of 2021 even get to have a prom? What will winter/fall sports look like? Will sports even happen? Will we go online again? Last year, I felt so bad for the seniors because they didn’t get prom and their graduation was late, but now I am in the same situation, except I might not get my whole “senior experience”. Sporting events aren’t the same. As a competitive cheerleader, I’m used to the stands being packed with people, but now in order to even get into the competition you have to have a voucher, so there are not as many people able to cheer you on. I just hope that this year isn’t affected too much by COVID, so I can have some sense of normality.
Switching sports your senior year is quite a difficult decision to make, especially when you don't know what comes ahead with the new sport you could choose. This year, my senior year, I decided to drop volleyball and go out for softball. This was a very hard decision for me to make because I have played volleyball every other year of my high school career. I had dedicated so much time to volleyball and I had gone to all the summer open gyms for this year's upcoming season. I was all set on playing volleyball my senior year and then we played in a tournament thing and they glimpse into the season did not look fun. There were a lot of problems during this tournament and I just didn't seem confident that this would be the best or most fun option for my senior year. It took lots of switching back and forth but then after talking to the coaches, I was certain that volleyball wasn't going to be for me this year. The softball coach seemed very excited to have me with him this season which made me feel even better about my decision. After the first game and practice with the girls, I knew that I had made the best decision. It is always so fun to go to practice and be with friends who make practice fun.
The picture that titles this assignment is a drawing of Rhett and Link from Good Mythical Morning. GMM is a YouTube channel ran by those two and from middle school to my freshman year of high school, every morning I would watch their show like it was the morning news. I have watched them since their first season with the Chia Lincoln while they filmed in their basement. So when they hit their 1000th episode and dropped a GMM 1000th coin memorabilia, I had to get one. I had never gotten any merch from any YouTubers before because I thought it was dumb, but I had watched so much GMM I just really wanted it. For my 15th birthday my sister, Ashton, got me tickets to go see their live show in Dallas. On the way to the show we even drove the wrong way on a one-way road. It was a really cool time, actually getting to see them in person and listen to their interesting stories. The craziest part of that live show was that Cory from Dude Perfect was there watching them. I've run into the Dude Perfect Crew a couple of times in Texas, but that's a different story.
The Elders Scrolls series of games is one of the best game series of all time. These games are classified as action role-playing games. In each game, the player is an epic hero who is destined to defeat a powerful evil. There are also hundreds of side quests the player can do within each game, making it so a person could spend hundreds, if not thousands of hours playing one single game. There are five (going to be six soon) games in the main series and six smaller games that aren’t exactly like the main but are still cannon to the lore and story. They all connect to each other as time progresses in the land of Tamriel. There are ten playable races within all the games: High Elf, Wood Elf, Dark Elf, Khajiit, Argonians, and Orcs are all non-human races while Nords, Bretons, Redguards, and Imperials are all human races. Each race has different skills and perks that can greatly help the player depending on what they are doing in the game.
As the weather gets cooler, time seems to both slow down and speed up. Everyone starts being in less of a hurry to go places, but they would rather stay inside with their family. The fireplaces start crackling causing smoke to billow out of the chimneys. I love fall because of all the fun things you can do. Fall is a prime time to wear flannels. One of the best activities to do is walk on the trails watching the leaves change colors. The cool, crisp air makes it perfect to sit outside wrapped up in a blanket. Hot chocolate warms up your insides. On Saturday mornings, another great activity to do is go to the apple orchard. Sweet apple cider fills the air as you walk through the rows of trees. As you collect your apples, you make a decision to go home. Stuck on your clothes, hay also follows you home.
Hunting varies based on the animal you are hunting. Turkey and coyotes can see color so they are harder to hunt. Coyotes are hard to spot because they try to sneak up on their pray making themselves hard to spot. Turkey is easier because they are less concerned about being spotted. Turkey becomes even easier to hunt in the spring because they are preoccupied with mating. Deer cannot see color, they spot movement. this means that the hunter doesn't need to pay attention to the colors they wear, they need to make sure they don't move when the animal is watching them. Pheasant hunting is completely different because you want the game to see you. The goal is to scare the pheasant so it flies up into the air where you can shoot it. Duck hunting, deer hunting, and coyote hunting require the hunter to stay in one spot and wait for the target animal to come to the hunter, but rabbit hunting and pheasant hunting require the hunter to find the animal.
The perfect night out. What would call the perfect night out? Would it be with friends, family, or even just being by yourself? Well for me, I'd say it would have to be hanging out with my friends. Say you are hanging out with your friends and you guys get really bored. What is there to do for fun? Well here are some suggestions. If my friends and I are just waiting to have a chill hangout, then we would just get some snacks and find a good movie to watch. Now if you are looking for something more exciting, then what I would suggest is to go out and maybe take some pictures at a nice place outside, or even the grocery store. You can make any area look cool if you just look like you are having a good time. The last idea for a fun night out would be to DIYing something that you probably found off of TikTok. You would have fun spending time with your friends and even making something new and adding it to the unforgettable memories you have with the people you care about the most.
Senior year is here and will be gone before we know it. I feel as though I was just starting high school yesterday. I am personally excited to move on and go to college. Although I do not know where I want to go to school, I know that I want to be a nurse. Nursing is something I have always been interested in; so I am excited to go into that field. I will of course miss Brandon and the community, I have learned and grown here so this place is super important to me. What I have already learned about being a senior and knowing this will be my last year here (hopefully) is to always appreciate the now. Life is going to get more tough, I will have to pay bills and maybe have kids. I have also learned to appreciate the people you go through life with, sadly many of the people I see every day I will not see again after graduation. I hope all of my classmates go onto bigger better things.
Living through a pandemic is something that my generation is going to remember for the rest of our lives. Many of our grandparents, parents, and older siblings can tell us exactly where they were when they found out about 9/11 or other important events. I was born almost exactly a year after 9/11, so I obviously can't relate, but I know that I will be able to tell my kids and grandkids about my COVID-related experiences and exactly where I was at on that Friday the 13th we got sent home. I'll remember meeting in the gym after school with my basketball teammates to talk about "rescheduling" our state tournament. We all knew that it was coming to an end, but there was one string of hope that we would find a way to make it happen. It was very disappointing to hear that the tournament was cancelled after coming off of a championship title the previous year and winning the play-in game to the tournament. I'll always remember having vivid dreams about playing in that tournament during quarantine, waking up to even more disappointment. I had played my last game with our seniors and one of my best friends (who moved away) without knowing it. The memories will stick with me forever, and I do luckily have one more season left, no matter how abnormal it will be.
Football used to be my favorite sport rather than baseball. I used to be an avid football fan and as a kid would sleep with a football every night. I started to grow away from football around my eighth-grade year. I just started to like baseball more than I enjoyed football. I would have more enjoyment by going down to the fields and hitting in the cage by myself than going to the middle school fields and throwing a football. I think that I can connect that to the fact that I sometimes like to be alone, hence why I am going into accounting after high school. Baseball slowly grew into the sport that I enjoyed the most and wanted to spend most of my time on. I used to play quarterback in football which helped me to be a faster pitcher and have a better throwing arm. That is why I play third base now and have a very strong throwing arm.
After the last Marching season after all the success we had, I was so ready to come back this fall and be even better. Unfortunately, Corona came out of nowhere and devastated that dream. I was just told this weekend that we only have 2 weeks left of high school marching band ever. That hit hard, after all the hopes and dreams and predictions of how this season would go it absolutely sucks that we were cut down to 3 competitions. Usually, it’s 8 or 9 and it got cut way down and it really really sucks. I can’t even begin to realize that my high school marching career will be over in less than 2 weeks. I feel like just yesterday I was the freshman on the field trying to figure things out and learn the techniques and procedures. Now here I am 4 years later and now I’m one of the seniors on the field who has spent the last 4 years perfecting and mastering the technique and procedures. Hearing that we only have 2 weeks left blew my mind and left me speechless and I honestly don’t know if I can comprehend it. The past 4 years, however, have been amazing and I have made some of the best friends and created amazing memories that will last forever. I wouldn’t trade it for the world but I just don’t want it to be over yet, that’s all.
Is the NFL the same without the fans at the games? As I continue to watch the NFL as the season progresses the main thing I seem to notice is that even at home the watching the games feels so weird without any fans. Since I have been to a game in person I know how energizing fans can get at a game and always hear how fans can make the game harder for away teams so I wonder if teams feel the need to have fans back or think that this is better without fans. I personally would think that having fans is one of the best parts of home games for teams because they are always cheering you on and helping you by making it hard to hear for other offenses. So my question for all of the NFL players would be what is it like without fans is it better or do you wish that you had them back?
From March until we started school again in August, life was more relaxed than it ever has been. I hung out with my friends, ran every morning, and worked during the day and throughout the week for 6 months. Now that we're back in school, I feel like the word "busy" has climbed into a semi and run me over repeatedly. Every day I wake up at 6:30 and go to school until 3:00. I go to cross country and from there I go to work or church for the evening. Following that, I do homework until about midnight and then I go to bed and repeat the process the next day. If I'm not at either of my 2 jobs or church, it's because I have a race that day and am out of town. On weekends, I have races or practice on Saturday mornings and if I don't have cross country, I work all day at one job and then all evening at my other job before going home. On Sundays, I go to church at 8 and get home around noon because I'm on the worship team, and then I immediately go to work for the rest of the afternoon/evening. On some Sundays, I go out of town to play drums at smaller churches in the area, which takes even longer. This has been my schedule every week since we started school, and it's been very overwhelming. I grew accustomed to the more relaxed schedule we had during the "lockdown", but now that schedule is gone and I'm busier than ever, and it has definitely taken its toll on me.
There are professional marching bands and indoor percussion groups. It sounds quite nerdy, but they are actually very fun to watch. Professional marching bands are called drum and bugle corps. Any woodwind instruments are not present in these groups, hence the name. Drum Corps International (DCI) is basically the NFL of marching band. The best drum corps in the world compete against each other in DCI. Winter Guard International (WGI) is very similar to DCI. WGI was originally formed to allow professional color guards to compete, but indoor percussion groups have created a new face for WGI. WGI groups compete in gyms instead of football fields and have smaller amounts of people than drum corps have. DCI and WGI groups are completely independent, so anyone can try out for them. It is very difficult to make it into one of these groups, though, because they are very selective. Only the best marchers and players can earn themselves a contract. Of course, there are lower-level groups that are not so picky, but it is still a challenge for marchers to become members of these groups. I play bass drum in the fall marching band, but I also play bass drum in the Brandon Valley Indoor Percussion group, which you may have never heard of or seen. Hundreds and hundreds of high schools have both marching bands and indoor drumlines. These high school groups serve as normal school activities, but can also help prepare players to enter into DCI or WGI. Kayden Hoeke and Max Outland are both brass players from Brandon Valley who brought their skills to a DCI drum corps over the past few years. Eric Darrington and Nathan Holm, who are also Brandon Valley alumni and marched on the BV bassline with me, have made high-level DCI and WGI groups. This past summer, I was offered a contract to play for River City Rhythm, a drum corps based out of Minnesota. It's crazy for me to know that I could be a part of professional drum corps and indoor drumlines.
Recently, I have had irrational urges to adopt dogs. With the wage I currently make, I do not have any money to spare on adopting dogs. So I decided that it was time for the family and I to get a new couch. Not that long ago, I took photos of our living room couch and threw them on the internet, at a price that was way higher than it should be, in hopes it would sell. It did. I had to break the news to my parents, which honestly went well as they did not believe that I did that. After a long talk, I finally convinced them, and they were beyond astonished. Not only were they upset, but they were also worried that I could have already sold other items in our house without letting them know. I could not allow the buyer to purchase our living room couch, nor was I able to adopt a dog. But that did not stop me from looking for other dogs that may be cute enough for my parents to fall in love. Yeah, that did not work either. Since then, I have been searching and searching, never really knowing how much these dogs cost. A week ago, I found out that I could pay the owner an 80 dollar adoption fee, and I would be good to go. I was going to sell my family's couch for five hundred dollars...
Words. Why do they have an ample amount of power and persuasion? Sometimes they can be meaningless, yet they mean everything. Why? I have always taken an interest in why, how, and when people use words. When thinking about or using words I do not say them all out loud. Sometimes I show a motion, and people understand what I am trying to say. Was motioning a thing before the Sumerians created the first written langue in 3400 BCE? I am even more curious about how the Sumerians thought pre-wordage. Would their thoughts include words or would they contain pictures? Words. We may never know the true meaning behind them, yet, they have a purpose. They can be loving, rude, blunt, or long. Some even come in different styles of language. This leads me to my last thought on how languages were fully developed. If the purpose of words was to know what one is trying to express through different sounds and syllables, then why use separate methods when we all have the same purpose. Words. Maybe they have a meaning or show a statement, or they may have happened to fill the page.
I spent almost 9 months inside the womb of a woman who thought I was the biggest mistake of her life. I can imagine the anxiety she felt when she missed her period, or the fear when her pregnancy test turned up positive. Making the decision to abort me, give me to another family, or raise me herself must have been immensely challenging. My parents adopted me when I was a baby. In fact, my (adoptive) mother was in the room when I was born. This event must have been colossal for my family, yet I have no memory of it. I’ve heard stories about my dad anxiously waiting in the hallway of the hospital, waiting for my birth mother to give birth, for the nurse to come out of the room and tell him if I was a boy or a girl. When they told him that he would be taking home a baby girl, he fell to his knees, weeping. I know that they had to keep me in Nebraska, where I was born, for another month because my birth father had a hard time giving me up. Eventually, he made the hard decision to leave me with another family, one that would be able to provide better for me. The whole affair is a reminder to me that my life is a gift, a blessing. I will make something of my life because I was given one.
For more than 60 years, scientists in Russia have been trying to domesticate silver foxes. In 1952, two people began working on the project. The experimenters traveled to many fox farms and picked the tamest ones there as a starting point. Over more than 10 generations of foxes, they started to see trends. The tails were becoming shorter and their skulls were becoming shorter and wider. Many researchers doubted the validity of this experiment, attributing the changes in the group of foxes to the fact that the size of the original group was not large enough. Any small group of animals when bred for generations will always see some changes from the first generation. The scientists kept working, however, and the experiment expanded to minks, rats, and river otters. The experiment was almost canceled when the Soviet Union collapsed. The experiment is still going today, but no new information has been released since 2005.
Monopoly, one of the best board games ever made slowly became a boring game to play during the quarantine. When we first went into lockdown I thought “oh yeah this is going to be great these two weeks off.” Slowly I realized that these two weeks were turning into two months very quickly; so my mom and I decided to play Monopoly to pass the time because Monopoly is a very time-consuming game. Every so often we would play the original version of the game but most of the time it was the Game of Thrones version. This version of the game is very different from the original. This version of the game consists of cards that can be kept by you and help you in the future or really hurt you if your opponent has them. For example one of the cards that could help or hurt you is the steal a monopoly card. It is safe to say that I played this card on my mom one too many times whenever we would play. Eventually, the game got boring after we had played it so much and I haven’t played a game of monopoly since the lockdown ended.
"Ra Ra Rasputin: lover of the Russian Queen." Rasputin was a monk who had a profound effect on the Russian monarchy, despite his somewhat silly reputation today. All things considered, Rasputin was a horrible monk. He loved alcohol, women, and abandoned the monastery at 19. He was rumored to have magical healing abilities, which is why he became in good favor with Czar Nicholas II. The son of the Czar was suffering from a common blood disease in royals, hemophilia. Medical professionals were doing what they thought would help, which was to give the boy aspirin. Rasputin basically told him to just stop giving him the medication and trust in his faith. The Czar, willing to try anything at this point, did as Rasputin recommended. Aspirin is, of course, a blood thinner. The boy's condition quickly improved because the aspirin was severely worsening it. This solidified Rasputin's spot as a royal mystic.
It has become a common occurrence to be asked what my plans for after high school are—whether it be by my coaches, family, or even friends. I have done a lot of personal reflection on what I intend to do with my life after high school and there are so many possibilities, it’s actually quite incredible. The reality of the situation is I have an idea of what I want to do and now need to find my next key component—where I want to go. Although there is always a chance of having a change of heart, as of right now, I want to pursue a career in elementary education. For the longest time I have had a passion for working with kids and I find joy in doing so. I would also like to continue my soccer career into college. Finding the college that is the best fit for me academically and athletically has been a bit daunting, but it also has allowed me the chance to determine my own future.
Senior year is a lot different than expected so far. It is so much harder than expected. I thought it was going to be easy because I am only taking four classes so I would have a lot of free time. But I do not have as much free time as I thought I would. My classes require much more work outside of class than I expected and senioritis seems to have kicked in already because I do not feel like doing any of it. Additionally, I have decided that I need to choose a different career path because I am not good at the subject that I wanted to go into. This time last year, I knew exactly where I wanted to go to college, what I wanted to study, and what my future job was going to be. However, now I do not know any of these. My hope is that I can figure these things out in the next few months.
Blinking is a natural thing that all people do. It's one of those things that we don't think about doing because we have never experienced life without it. The act of blinking keeps your eyes from becoming too dry while also protecting your eyes from foreign particles like dust. Just the other day, I found myself wondering how much of our average day is spent looking at the back of our eyelids. I thought for sure it would have to be far less than half of our day because of the simple fact that blinking takes only a fraction of a second. As a quick Google search has informed me, the average human blinks about 15-20 times each minute. This adds up to about 28,800 times per day. It is crazy the think about how 10 percent of our waking hours each day are spent with our eyes closed. This just goes to show how everyday actions, such as blinking, are often overlooked and rarely given much thought.
On average, more than 250,000 children are pulled from their homes and families and placed into the foster care system. I have decided to go to school to become a caseworker and make a difference for these children and their families. As I’ve been talking to people about this decision and the steps I need to take next, I’ve come to the realization that not everybody understands. This is very important to me so I would just like to help bring some understanding. The caseworker’s job is to determine if the situation is safe for the child. If it’s not, the children are often pulled out of the home and placed with a family that has trained to help these children. The caseworker will also work with the parents to find help and classes so they can be ready to have their kids back. The ultimate goal is to find the best scenario for everybody. Not all of these parents are bad parents or hate their kids. Some just aren’t able to provide for their kids. In fact, most of these parents have come from a difficult childhood. The kids, afterward, just need TLC and reaffirming.
I've been really struggling with the decision of where I want to go to college. I visited USD and SDSU, both of which had very nice campuses and impressive business departments. Many of my friends are choosing to go to USD, as well as one of my best friends. He wants me to go to USD, and it seems like a good choice for me. Their business school is excellent and I have many other friends who went there. The real problem occurs with my family. Every single person in my family has graduated from SDSU. Other families throughout the town know that my family is a big SDSU family and that we do not support USD. It's frustrating because both schools offer me what I want, but I'm forced to either choose my friends or my family tradition. My parents say they will support me no matter what, but I struggle believing that when many of my parent's friends expect me to go to SDSU, and when I inform them that I visited USD they are very surprised. It has really put a lot of pressure on me this first semester of my senior year because I have to start visiting and applying for the schools. I know that I will get into either of them, but the decision to pick one over the other has really been bothering me. I think it is causing a lot of mental fatigue that is starting to hinder me in some aspects of my life. I hope that whatever decision I decide to move forward with I'll get support.
Water drains differently depending on whether you are in the Northern Hemisphere or the Southern Hemisphere. In the Northern Hemisphere, water drains in a clockwise direction, while in the Southern Hemisphere, water drains in a counterclockwise direction. This is why when a toilet flushes in America, the water goes clockwise but when a toilet flushes in Australia, it goes counterclockwise. This happens because of something called the Coriolis effect. The Coriolis effect is a physics term used to describe how an object moves depending on the hemisphere in which the object is located. For the Northern hemisphere, it goes to the right, and for the Southern hemisphere, it goes to the left. The Coriolis effect also affects things that are much larger than a toilet, such as cyclones. It explains why in different parts of the world, cyclones spin in different directions. However, the Coriolis effect has no effect on the equator, as it is the dividing line between the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Thus, water drains directly downwards with no circular movement on the equator. Madeleine Pearce
In the beginning of my senior year, I felt like I was stuck in the junior year still; all because of COVID. As the weeks go on everything is getting so for real. Senioritis is a real thing! I remember listening to my friends, who were older than me, talk about it but I never really put it into consideration until now. I am thrilled to start a new chapter in my life. The college I would love to attend is USD. I plan on majoring in Medical Biology, then continue college and get my doctorate in Obstetrics and Gynecology. Maybe go even further and specialize in Fallopian surgery. As much fun as growing up sounds, everything is hitting all at once. As many people know, I am in the theatre. On Thursday, September, 24 we had our fall play meeting. It hit me right then and there; I only have three shows left! Out of everything that I am leaving, the theatre I will miss the most. I thought about minoring in theatre in college, but who knows if I will have time in my schedule. Maybe I will just have to audition for some plays throughout my life.
The theory that alien life is out there is interesting for me. If it can be proven, it would lead to a lot of other questions. For example, how would it tie into religious belief systems? Would major religious leaders try to interpret how alien life fits into their scripture, or would they deny the existence of it and call the scientific community liars. I also think it's interesting to think about what alien life would live like. Some people imagine aliens as super-intelligent creatures with loads of cool sci-fi gear, but I disagree. I think that alien life would be more like animals. After all, humans are the most advanced thing in millions of species, I don't think that alien life could evolve to reach our level of intelligence. Even if they did, it would be hard to measure. I don't think that we would ever be able to speak the same language as an alien, because I don't think an alien would be friendly I think seeing an unfamiliar species would freak them out, and they would attack us.
Since the end of Junior year, I have been looking at colleges that I would like to attend. At first, I did not know what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go. I finally decided to major in Accounting or Finance, which made the college decision a little easier. I could cross out schools that did not have these two majors. I also decided that I want to go to a medium-sized school, most-likely division II. I finally had my college list narrowed down when I started getting calls and texts from track coaches. Now I am not sure if I want to run track in college, or if I want to put 100% of my effort into school. I want to make my college decision as soon as possible, but I also want to have confidence in my decision and know that I chose the right school for the right reasons.
Something interesting... hmmm, well to start you off the first oranges were not actually orange at all. They in fact were green, which I find interesting. Even oranges today that are grown in warmer regions like southwest Asia still stay green throughout their lifetime. More about oranges is that they are one fruit that has two very different tasting juices. Pulp and no pulp are very different and creates a large divide in the population. As the saying to have pulp or to not have pulp. At least that is how I remember it. Also, apples and oranges are not as similar as some people like to believe. To start the color is not the same. The flavor is very much a differentiating taste. There is a core in an apple whereas no core in the orange. The only real similarity between the two is the fact that they both have seeds on the inside that make them fruit. They as well both get flowers on their respected trees.
I will be writing about the massive amounts of significant injuries to start the NFL season and why I believe there is such a high amount of injuries. There have been a very high amount of key players knocked out of this season—such as Saquon Barkley, Nick Bosa, Tarik Cohen, and Courtland Sutton—that have all gone down with ACL tears. I believe this to be a result of having no preseason games. In the past, preseason has been the time when players can start getting used to real, in-game contact. Without preseason, the players go from practice contact straight into full games and I don't believe that their bodies were ready for a strain like that. Another possible theory is because there was no preseason, the injuries that would have taken place in the preseason now happen in the first few games of this season along with the normal amount of injuries that normally happen in the first few weeks of the regular season. Either way, I 100 percent blame no preseason for the high amount of injuries this season.
My volleyball season is getting closer to the end. We're about halfway through our volleyball season and I think it is starting to hit me that I won’t be back next year. I haven't always had great success in my volleyball career but I always tried out and did my best for my team. This is my first year starting for Varsity, so part of me always saw the firsts of things and didn’t really realize that the firsts were also my lasts. I am very grateful that I get to play my last season of volleyball, and I haven’t decided yet if I am going to play in college so it could be my last time ever playing volleyball. I am just living in the moment and I am very excited to have the last season when I know some people this year have not been able to. I still have quite a few more firsts to experience and I am hoping that I also take at the moment and realize that it is also my last too.
Being left-handed has its advantages and its disadvantages. Many times I find myself forgetting that most people are right-handed and everything that they do is the opposite from me. Unfortunately, being left-handed has a lot of disadvantages: I can't use markers or any kind of art supplies without getting it all over my arm, I can not eat in the middle of people without bumping them every time I try to use my fork, and when I am writing I have to write across my paper. My mom would always tell me that being left-handed is very unique, only 26% of children are left-handed. For right-handed people, they use their dominant left brain and left-handed people use their dominant right brain. I read an article about how left-handed people are better drivers and in my case, I think I am the best driver in the family by a long shot. My little brother is so incredibly bad and I could never understand why, well it is because he is a terrible mulit-tasker. Although being lefthanded can be challenging I don't mind being a little bit different then everyone else.
Did you know that black licorice could kill you? Black licorice contains an acid that will drop your potassium levels if you consume too much of it. I never knew this until I saw that a man had died from black licorice the other day. He was a fifty-four-year-old man who ate one to two bags of black licorice every day. After continuing this habit for three weeks he passed out in a McDonalds and died. The paramedics later deemed it death by black licorice which does not seem possible. Turns out it is if you consume too much black licorice. I guess people need to be careful about how much licorice they eat. This is something that is very interesting because I wonder if not only black licorice but other kinds of licorice can cause the same exact thing to happen. Either way, why would someone eat that much black licorice. After all, it is black licorice.
At Brandon, we have a winter percussion program. This program is typically referred to as winter drumline. Due to the unfortunate circumstances surrounding the world during this time we don’t know if we will be having a season. Many ideas have come up with the Minnesota Percussion Association (MPA) not making a decision on whether or not we will have a season. It is certainly looking like we won’t. Minnesota has canceled their marching band programs for the fall and is moving them to the spring. With the transfer of seasons, it looks unlikely that MPA will host a season. Also, Winter Guard International (WGI) the national circuit for drumlins competitions has already announced that they will not host any competitions. WGI can’t force individual circuits like MPA to cancel but they do have a large say in their decisions. With all of this uncertainty, I am looking at everything in a positive light. I’m trying to think more about college. If there isn’t a season I will most likely start applying for scholarships earlier than I planned on and I will apply to more than I originally thought I would. All in all, I would be sad by the cancellation of my final season but it also wouldn’t be the worst thing to ever happen.
November of sophomore year I noticed that my throat had begun to hurt. I decided to look in a mirror and shine a light in my thought to see if I could spot redness or white spots as a sign of strep throat. When I looked in the back of my throat, I found one huge white spot surrounded by redness right behind my tongue. My mom and I decided to wait for a couple of days to see if the spot would go away. After about a week the spot, unchanged, was still there. My mom decided to take me to an ear nose and throat doctor. The doctor at first glance thought that it could be a lingual cyst but thought to do a CT scan to get a better look was needed. After looking at the CT scans, the doctor had told me that it was my thyroid that was enlarged in the back of my tongue, meaning I don't have thyroid in the spot I should(bottom part of your throat). I was referred to Dr. Gupta, an endocrinology specialist, to treat my hypothyroidism. Hypothyroidism is when the thyroid can't create enough thyroid hormone to keep the body running properly. I was able to get my thyroid hormone levels good again my gradually increasing my dose of levothyroxine each month for over a year. Although having a thyroid on the back of your tongue is rare, it doesn't affect me much besides makeing sure I take medicine every morning.
There is a number of bananas that can kill you. If you manage to eat ten million bananas in your lifetime, you will die of radiation poisoning. Bananas contain a minuscule amount of radiation. Radiation poisoning never leaves the body (which is why x-rays are not preferable) so eating ten million bananas will kill you of radiation poisoning. Granted, if this was done for eighty years, you would have to eat three hundred and forty-two bananas a day for eighty years. While doing this, you would have other problems than radiation like eating too much potassium and getting hyperkalemia (causes muscle weakness, numbness, tingling, vomiting, etc.). But the more basic problem with this is eating that much food in general. Your body would make you throw up that much food because it means you would eat about a third of a banana every minute of every day. You would have to overeat to accommodate for the time you would be doing other tasks and even sleeping. The overall point of this is you are able to eat enough bananas to die from radiation poisoning but that amount makes it so you would have to live to be unnaturally old and constantly eat bananas to worry about it.
Many people have asked me if I am planning to dance in college. I usually reply with yes, but I am never confident in my answer. Obviously, I do not want to give up something that I have done for my entire life. I often ask myself: what was it all for? I never had any intentions of making dance my life long career, so why did I continue to work so hard and train like there was no tomorrow? Dance has molded me into the person I am today. Without it, I don't know where I would be. I sometimes wonder what sport I would have gone into if my mother never signed me up for dance classes when I was three years old. I feel as though I need "the next step". Giving up all the years of training and passion would be heartbreaking. Since my freshman year of high school, my dream has been to get recruited to the University of Minnesota Twin Cities dance team. But, if it's not financially realistic, should I even go for it? Being on the team is my big dream, but would my loans be an even bigger nightmare?
For some reason, video games gain a bad reputation, but why? Many of the people who argue that video games are a bad influence are the very same people that sit around and watch television for hours on end. The main difference between people who play video games and the people who watch television in their free time is that video games challenge the player’s mind just like how sports challenge the player’s physical body, while people who watch television can watch shows and movies that are supposed to make them think, however, they usually do not. Video games have also gained a bad reputation because of how violent some of them can be. Instead of arguing about how violent video games are not so bad, because it is useless because those people will not change their minds, I will say that there are also video games that are not violent. Do those people ever look at the Farming Simulator games, Human Fall Flat, or even Mario games, all of which are enjoyed by many people, yet the most violent parts about them are the player’s imagination.
One thing that I have noticed throughout my life is that people rarely look up. People tend to watch the ground when they walk or stare at their phone screen. If an asteroid were to fall from the sky, one would probably only notice it by hearing the sonic boom instead of seeing it first. I, on the other hand, try to look up more often. I love watching the night sky, rather than the bright day sky. When I have time, and the sky is clear, I will lay blankets on top of my car, lay on top, and watch the stars and satellites. There was one night that a group of us were outside having a bonfire and we saw what we thought were stars travel in a straight line across the sky. There were about 20 of them and every 10 minutes they would come back around following the same path. After deliberation and google searching we concluded that they were satellites. It intrigues me to know that there is so much out there that we can not see with our naked eye–possibly even undiscovered life forms.
A little over a month ago, my family and I moved to Sioux Falls from Mankato. It was a very last-minute decision, and it was hectic trying to get everything figured out before school started since Mankato starts after Labor Day, but Brandon Valley starts mid-August. My dad would ask me on a scale of 1-100 how I felt about us moving. For the first few weeks, I said zero. I hated leaving behind my friends, my senior soccer season as a captain, and my senior year in the school district and town that I had been in my whole life. Our soccer team was predicted to have a much better record than we had in the previous years, and I was looking forward to my last season as a soccer player. We also had a great chance of beating our rival, Mankato West, for the first time in 5 years. I was heartbroken that I had to quit soccer forever without knowing that the last game of my junior season was my last game ever since my club season this summer was canceled because of Covid. I miss my teammates so much, and I wish I could play one last game with them.
Life's weird. There is no rhyme or reason some things happen and most things I don't even remember. As a kid, I guess I was go-lucky and obnoxious but I have no memory of it. To be honest I barely even remember what I ate this morning. Now all of a sudden I'm a senior that's about to graduate. Now I have to make decisions that will affect my life greatly. What college do I go to? What major do I want to go for? How will I ever make it to college? These are but a few questions that are constantly running through my mind. Sometimes I get too caught up in it and stress myself out because I have no idea what I want to do with my life and everybody around me is always saying that its okay to not have my life planned out. But if I don't, what will happen? Maybe, I just need to live in the moment and not get too caught up in the future. I should live now and not stress about tomorrow because today has too many problems for me to worry about the future.
Listening to music is an activity that most people not only enjoy but have an emotional connection to. The effect that music can have on our emotions and mood is astounding, especially considering that most music we listen to is composed by people we have never met or have any emotional connection to. There are often times in life where we experience feelings that no one has ever seemingly felt before, but there is likely a song to describe that feeling. If there is no song that describes these feelings lyrically, then there is undoubtedly a song that denotes these feelings through the tune and beat itself. It is quite incredible that people of all different languages and backgrounds can listen to music and experience similar emotions. In our lives, music has a significant role that we seem to miss every day. I often find myself with a song in my head or humming a tune, even when there is no music to be heard. And isn’t it strange that one song can trigger memories from long ago? Not only is this a strange experience, but it is unbelievable that one song can resonate within your memories so well as to remind you of them. Sometimes we do not give music a second thought because it is always present or accessible in our lives, and we seem to forget the impact it has on all of us.
As media grows and we get more apps to view movies and tv shows we see a change in how teenagers are portrayed and what they think we want to see. Creators think that we as teenagers want to watch shows with darker themes. This is shown by The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina where the once light-hearted, funny show that I grew up with became dark and highly sexualized. This same thing has happened with the CW's shows of Riverdale and Nancy Drew. In all of these, they change characters and show teenagers only dealing with death/murderers, drugs, alcohol, and intercourse. This is NOT all teenagers do we study and work and hang out with friends. Half of us do not even have the time for dealing with what these teenagers deem "normal". I do not want to focus on what is dark in the world all the time sometimes I just want to watch something lighthearted. This is something hard to find so if you are like me I look to Disney+ and other children's shows. Since I am the eldest sibling I am free daycare which means I have watched MANY children's show. That being said my personal favorite is the show Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir, my little sister's personal favorite. The teens are more realistic than what we are portrayed as in the media meant for us. This show also shows how we can be oblivious because let just says the two main characters are in a love square with themselves and their hero alter egos. It is so obvious that they are their alter ego but that helps with the lightheartedness and silliness of the show. Which I personally would rather watch than having to see characters making out and drinking every 5 minutes.
FC Bayern Munich is a soccer club based in Germany. Currently, they have one of the world’s best squads. This past year has been a huge success for Bayern. They won every single trophy possible this past season. They won the Bundesliga, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Super Cup, German Super Cup, and the DFB-Pokal. Bayern actually still has a chance to win another trophy as well. They will be competing in the FIFA Club World Cup at a later date. If they win this, Bayern would be the second team in history to win six trophies across one season. Only FC Barcelona have done this before. Along the way, many of Bayern's players had themselves very good individual seasons as well. Robert Lewandowski scored 55 goals and contributed 10 assists during the season. He averaged more than a goal a game in the Bundesliga, Champions League, and the DFB-Pokal. Manuel Neuer played a fantastic season as well. Neuer was nominated for the UEFA Player of the Year award for his work at goalkeeper this year. Hopefully Bayern will keep this up and win some trophies this season.
On May 10, 2020, my family adopted a puppy from the humane society. He is a 1-year-old black lab and we decided to name him Bo. He is a very well-behaved puppy and my dad has begun the process of training him to be a hunting dog. He now knows how to sit, lie down, stay, fetch, drop, shake, and, my personal favorite, go get dad. My dad is his favorite person in the family, but I am a close second. Bo likes to jump on my bed, especially right after I clean my sheets. Sometimes, he gets to sleep with me in my room at night, but not right after I get my sheets out of the laundry because he sheds just a little bit and I have white bedding so it is very noticeable. Bo really likes to go on car rides and he loves to stick his head out of the window while we’re driving. His favorite treat is when we go to B&G to visit Dustin and he gets a doggie sundae. I’m so glad that my family decided to bring Bo home and I can’t wait for all the memories that I’m going to make with him.
Working at Menards over the summer wasn't necessarily fun but since I worked the closing shift at least 4 nights a week on average for the later part of the summer I got to see some of the prettiest sunsets ever. I pushcarts so that means I would spend my entire shift outside and as the hours would pass by during the day you would begin to know if the sunset would be pretty or not. If it was a cloudless sky, which sadly is quite common in the midwest during late summer, the sunset would just be a palet of basic colors gradually fading into one another. If the sky was full of clouds on the other hand you could be in store for a beautiful site. If the clouds fell slightly above the sun on the horizon with just enough spaces for light to seep through you would see some of the brightest reds, oranges, and pinks ever. By far the prettiest sunsets would be when there were thunderclouds, towering storm clouds that looked like skyscrapers that floated in the sky. If these clouds were present light would pass through them just right and surprisingly directly above the sun wasn't the prettiest part of the sky, it was wherever the thunderhead was. Sometimes you would have to turn your back to the sun and look in the opposite direction to see this beauty. The colors would be so bright that if you were to take a photo of the sky one would assume that a filter was on it due to the intensity of the colors.
My great-grandpa served in World War two as a radio operator and tail-gun bomber on a B-22 Liberator. The nose art from the plane that he was in most of the time was put in a museum which led him to go to Midland Texas for a dedication ceremony. On one of the many missions, he was flying on their plane got hit by something causing them to fall out of the sky several thousand feet before the crew was able to gain control of the plane. After World War two was over my great-grandpa became a door to door milk salesman. Then my great grandparents started the Nutty Bar and Rootbeer stand in Arnolds Park Iowa Were they owned and operated it for thirty-one years before they sold it off, to this day the Nutty Bar stand is still open and using some of the traditions that my great grandparents used. During this time my grandparents owned a taco restaurant right next to the Nutty Bar stand for eight years. This is where you would find my father in the summer. A few years ago my grandpa decided to write a book about my great grandpa’s life.
I really enjoy fishing. It is one of my favorite activities. Over the years, I have experienced some pretty great fishing stories. But, one of my most favorite fishing memories was the first time I went out ice fishing without an adult. During my freshman year of high school, a buddy and I decided we wanted to go fishing on a Thursday. We went on a Thursday because we both did not have a semester test that day. We asked our parents thinking they would say no, but to our surprise, they said yes! So, we had a sleepover and woke up Thursday morning to go fishing. We made a stop at Walmart to pick up some subs for lunch. Once we picked up the subs we went to the lake. Once we arrived we got all the stuff ready to go and headed to go walk on the hard water. Once we found our spot it was so cold our eyelashes had icicles on it. We then had to drill holes manually which warmed us up. We fished for a couple hours with no bites for several hours. Once it was time for lunch we left the tent with our rods still in the water. To a surprise, we came back to a rod missing and the two other rods bending. We set the hook and I began manually reeling back my rod in the water. I ended up getting my whole rod back and my lines were not tangled. Unfortunately my buddies line broke. I caught a huge northern pike!
Playing sports has consumed my life ever since I can remember. Basketball and softball are the two that have held true the longest. As I work toward graduating high school and starting the next chapter of my life, I have had important decisions to make. One decision, in particular, was deciding where I wanted to go to school and what sport I wanted to play. I have always had a natural ability for softball and my love only grew for the sport after spending countless hours honing in on the skills needed to succeed. Basketball required more fine-tuning for me as an athlete, something I was more than willing to work for. A school and a softball program found its way into my life and the decision to attend Augustana University next fall was made. After reaching this conclusion, I was prepared to hang up my basketball shoes. Wanting to focus on the sport I knew I would be playing for four more years seemed fitting. After considering this decision for a long while, I came to the conclusion that I wanted and needed to play basketball, whether it was to stay in shape or just have fun, I definitely needed it. Practicing hard, creating relationships, and having fun consumed my first two weeks of practice. Gearing up to play the first game of the season and have my first career varsity start was exciting. My mind was racing with all these possibilities and visualizing success, not at all thinking of the dreadful event that far too many female athletes experience. After going through surgery and months of rehab, finally being back playing is an absolute blessing. That blessing, however, came with another important decision. Choosing to play softball in college and going through an injury to this extent has forced things into perspective for me. I have learned so much about myself and about the nature of being an athlete. For example, there are so many things you cannot control but how you handle the situations you have been dealt with determines what type of person and player you are. But also it forced the realization that basketball is very strenuous on my body, having various other knee issues to prove this. I knew I wanted to play but I also knew that the well-being of my body was important. After talking to Coach and making my final decision not play, I was heart-broken but at peace. The girls that I have grown up balling up with, my teammates, have been so supportive. I can't wait to cheer them on this winter, hopefully claiming their number one fan title. Basketball has taught me so much and it will forever be a defining factor of who I am today, both as a person and an athlete.
Something that I find to be interesting is how I spend my time in quarantine. I spent two days early last week and the last 3 days this week in quarantine due to a close contact. I am aware that I enjoy procrastinating things, but for some reason, I did not realize how bad it was. The assignments I have been given while at home have been a test for my time management abilities. I think I have plenty of time to do an assignment for a class and procrastinated until I realize it is going to take more time than I thought it would. Last year, during distance learning, I had a similar epiphany that led to me trying to work harder on not procrastinating. As I have made my way through this week I have learned that I still need to work hard to do my work when I am at home. I need to spend more time working on my homework in a timely manner while I am at home.
More people should come to volleyball games. Yes, there are the regulars that come to every home game that we have, but they don’t cheer. One of the points of having home games is so you get home-court advantage. The gym is supposed to be loud and the fans are supposed to be cheering all the time. In the past, when my sister was in high school, people from all sports and clubs would come to watch and cheer on the volleyball team. It hasn’t been like that in a while, especially with everything going on. Since not every adult that wants to go can, I think that more students should come support and cheer. I know that it is hard for some that want to because other priorities like their own sports or activities are at the same time, but if you are not doing anything or you are looking for a good excuse not to do homework come to the volleyball games.
John Herbert Dillinger was an American gangster hailing from the city of Indianapolis. He was known for forming the Dillinger Gang, who were accused of robbing 24 banks as well as 4 police stations. As a kid, he got into a lot of trouble and by the time he was 19 he had already been arrested for auto theft–this would not be the last time he had a run-in with the law. In 1934 he was captured on the lamb in Arizona and sent home to Indiana. The local police sent him to what they bragged as an inescapable prison. It was supposedly guarded by 20,000 men. One day he managed to undermine them all and finagle his way out using nothing but a piece of wood that he carved to look like a Colt 38. By the time of his death later that year, he had managed to evade the police in almost 4 states for almost a year. He had also escaped from 2 separate prisons during his lifetime and was known to have taken part in a minimum of 12 bank robberies. Today several movies and books have been written about his life.
In the last few years, I have learned a lot about fear. I have learned that fear does not have to be an uncontrollable emotion but it is rather a choice. Yes, fear can come in the form of a sudden reaction to something scary, but a lot of the time, fear is what builds up inside of us as a result of ongoing circumstances. These circumstances can sometimes cause us to lose our identity as a loved human being. The good news is that circumstances, though ongoing, are temporary. With the knowledge that all fear is temporary, I no longer recognize fear as something unexpected but rather something that has been put there to help me grow stronger in my identity. One of my favorite bible verses is, "There is no fear in love. But perfect love casts out all fear." This verse has been one of my favorites because I know that when fear tries to take away my identity I can turn to it and be reminded that I am loved beyond what I can imagine. I am now able to hold a weapon to fear that can not be defeated because it has been placed in my identity. Fear is not who we are. Fear is temporary and because of the greatest love ever we can live free from fear.
Now that the leaves are falling and cold weather is starting to roll through, I really start to miss baseball season from the summer. During baseball season, I have absolutely nothing to worry about and all I get to do is play baseball. It's the best because that's all I want to do anyway. The teammates I play with are the funniest people I've ever met. I would wake up every single day extremely excited to go to the baseball field and play with the best teammates. It’s only unfortunate we have to wait until the spring to play games again. Last year, our spring season was cancelled due to COVID. With an insanely shortened season, it felt like we did not play very many games. Even though we played quite a few games this year, time flies by in baseball when playing games is a lifestyle over the course of about three months. I wish I could go back to playing games all the time and not have to worry about school or anything else.
Tennis is my favorite sport to play for fun. I was not going to play tennis right away and instead run track but I am glad that I picked tennis. I just wish I would have been able to play a tennis season last Spring. We only had one week until our first practice would have begun. I wish I did not take my first two seasons for granted because now, in Fall, looking forward there is a possibility that we might not even have a season again this year. So my sophomore year of tennis could potentially be my last season and that bothers me a little bit. Looking back I feel like if I knew my Sophomore season was going to be my last it may have been different. I am glad how my season went but you never know what it would be like until you are in that position. I just hope that we can at least get to the first month of tennis.
I have been involved in music ever since it was possible. I have been doing vocal music since the age of seven and instrumental since the 5th grade. I have always had a connection to music that doesn't always make sense. I have loved doing it since the day I started and some days I can't seem to find it in me to keep doing it at the same time. There's never a time when I don't have something going through my head. Sometimes, it's a song that I had just heard, and other times it's an instrumental piece that I had thought of that I think would sound good. I have never been confident when it comes to music, though, I always seem to forget of the years of practice that I have put in and always feel as if I am not good enough. I plan on auditioning for scholarship recitals which would help put me into a music program while I am attending college. Music has helped everyone in a different way. Some people experience it by creating music or being in a musical ensemble. Others just find comfort in the idea of listening to it because it is soothing or because it helps them take their minds of of things they don't enjoy in their life. Music is something that everyone has a connection to.
I am sure as you read the comments above mine that you will see a common pattern: Senioritis. Well, I am going to add one more about senioritis. Soccer has been weird this year and for a multitude of reasons. COVID has put a damper on soccer on many different occasions. The year has sucked when you can't fist bump your buddy after you make a great play of can't get everyone together in the huddle. The college team I am going to commit to wants me to come down but that day is the second round of playoffs; which hasn't helped me at all. Do I want to win a playoff game even though I know we have no chance to beat that second round? Or is it selfish of me to want to go down and officially sign my college contract? Either way, senioritis is hitting me in that aspect. In terms of school, it is hard to stay focused at home or at school. I don't have the motivation to work hard and strive to get my grades up. When given free time I tend to do a lot of thinking and would rather fantasize about the future and what is yet to come in the next five years. I still haven't found what I want to do in college in terms of what I want to study. How am I supposed to know what I want to do if I have never had that much real-world experience? I know that things have a way of working themselves out but right now it is hard to see that.
COVID-19 has affected everyone in 2020 in some way or another. It's more than likely affected everyone in your family. Whether that is your parents started to work from home or even school getting moved to online classes last spring. With going to online school last year it just didn't feel the same. If you had a question on an assignment you'd have to email your teacher which could take a couple of hours to days versus just raising your hand in class. I feel like I have taken school for granted over my years. Always wishing for a holiday break or a snow day. You don't realize how much you miss something until it's gone. At the beginning of my freshman year, If you told me that I would miss school. I would have called you crazy. You truly don't know how good something is until it is taken away. I will forever be grateful to live in the United States and that it is easier to get an education here than anywhere else in the world.
Many people have cats and dogs as pets but have you ever heard of somebody who has a squirrel? Well, I did. I know it probably seems weird and follows the style of a Disney princess movie, just hear me out. One nice spring day, my family was outside doing a bunch of yardwork. I was assigned the task of raking and cleaning underneath the set of pine trees in our yard. Suddenly, I noticed this small, pink creature about the size of a mouse that didn't even have its eyes open yet. I ran over and told my parents. Being covered in bugs and lacking movement, we had all thought it was dead until it wiggled one of its legs. The motherly instinct in my mom took over and she rushed the mystery creature inside our house to clean it up and try to research what it is. A few moments later, my mom came back outside and told us that she thinks it is a squirrel. No later than half an hour later, we heard a noise and saw another baby squirrel fall from one of the pine trees. With the wonderful capabilities of the internet, it wasn't hard to find articles upon articles about how to care for squirrels. We decided we would try to care for them. Fast forward a month or two and we have these two fully grown squirrels. Around this time my dad and I constructed this glorified birdhouse for the squirrels and dubbed it the "squirrel box." We set it up in our backyard and moved the squirrels to live on their own outside. We would still go out and feed them from time to time, but as time went on we saw them less and less. It has been years now but every now and then there are squirrels by our house who are just a little too comfortable with us and we wonder.
Playing sports is something that has been a part of my life ever since I can remember. Whether it was going to a friend's house to play backyard football, going to a little league baseball game, or playing madden against my friends. Sports have revolved around me my whole life. Now that it is my senior year of high school I am left in a little bit of a predicament of what I want to do in College. Of course, I would love to play sports in college, but at a price. I would like to receive some sort of scholarship since I would be paying lots of money to receive an education. Whatever happens though, I know sports will always have a connection in my life. I know it will be difficult right away not playing sports if that is the path I choose because when track got canceled last year it was hard knowing that I may never run track again. But whichever road I take after high school I hope sports will still be in my life.
Mayhem was a Norwegian Black Metal band that had a more complicated history than any other band. They gained notable fame in the late 80s with their dark image and genuinely insane band members. The lead singer Per Yngve Ohlin (who went by the nickname "Dead") viewed himself as a creature from another world and painted himself to look like a dead body. He also had pig and sheep heads impaled on sticks at the concerts which is somewhat concerning. He had constant feuds with the other band members Euronymous and Varg Vikernes. It's rumored that Dead stabbed Euronymous at one point. In 1991, Dead shot himself with a shotgun and left a suicide note saying "excuse all the blood". The band used this event to promote their black metal image and Euronymous made a necklace out of bits of his skull. Another band member "Necrobutcher" left the band after the trauma, leaving just Euronymous and Varg. In 1993, Euronymous planned to blow up the Nidaros Cathedral (which was featured on their new album's cover) to coincide with their upcoming album release. However before he could do this, Varg murdered Euronymous by stabbing him 23 times. This was reportedly because Euronymous threatened to torture Varg to death and videotape it. Varg was arrested and sentenced to 21 years (maximum sentence in Norway), only getting out in 2009. He was also arrested on charges that related to the 150kg of explosive and 3,000 rounds of ammunition found in his home (which he was going to use to help Euronymous blow up the cathedral). The history of this band is genuinely insane and I don't even like their music, and I especially don't like Varg (who is a confirmed murderer and neo-nazi) but the history of this band is one of the most interesting and really left an impact on the European Metal Scene.
This year is going to be great for track and field. I made a decision to quit basketball this year so that I could get an early start on the pole vault. It was a hard decision to quit my senior year since I’ve been playing since 2nd or 3rd grade. The basketball season cuts many months into the start of the pole vault, months I didn’t want to wait. Since Mueller asked me in church one Sunday morning to try out for pole vault I’ve never been happier. I love our practices after school, moving the pits to the outside when it gets warm enough, putting up the pit on jump days, and of course, getting to fly high in the air. There is nothing better than the feeling of your feet leaving the runway as the pole takes you 13 feet into the air. The rush of adrenaline is almost addicting and it just makes you want to go again and again.
I have been collecting vinyl records for about 3 years now. I have collected anywhere from about 140 - 160 and my collection is still growing today. I have tried to have my music taste as diversified as possible. From a young age, I was mainly exposed to rock artists, particularly growing up on artists like Marilyn Manson, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Primus, Slipknot, etc. But I found myself going through an identity change when I moved to South Dakota in 2010. I wanted to diversify my music in every way possible. I started off getting into more rock bands like Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, and Live. But that quickly was not enough for me. I wanted more. So I turned to rap music after a friend introduced me to Childish Gambino, and another friend did the same with Kendrick Lamar. I quickly fell in love with their music and began expanding from there with artists like Anderson .Paak, Frank Ocean, Kanye West, Juice WRLD. Of course, there are a lot of artists I am not listing here. I could go on for days about every artist that I have in my Apple Music. For example, I grew up on Pink Floyd too but did not list them above. I grew up on their basic hits like Wish You Were Here, Money, and Time. However, recently I have decided to deepen my understanding of their music. Listening to albums like Meddle, Animals, and The Division Bell. I have done the same with artists like Alice in Chains too. Of course, with me doing this, the number of records I own has only increased.
People say quitting means you're giving up. I think the complete opposite. I was in band for three years, and while I am forever grateful for the opportunity it presented to me, I struggled poorly with self-esteem and my mental health to the point of almost no return. It was crazy for me to do. I was the first chair, I paid attention, I did a great job, however, I was just over it. The atmosphere I felt walking into the band room quickly became hostile during my sophomore year and. I knew my hours were numbered. However, my feeling of walking into Mrs. Koehn's classroom has made all of the difference. Whenever I walk into the interp room, I feel loved. My teammates are my brothers and sisters, and Mrs. Koehn is my second mom. I can't believe how well I have excelled in this activity and how much it does for my mental health. When I graduate, I will be so sad to no longer compete, however, from scholarships to the competitions, to the bonds I've formed with the small team we have, will stay with me forever
Bush dogs are adorable little canines few people are aware exist. They were first identified by Peter Lund through fossils found in Brazilian caves and, at the time, were believed to be extinct. However, the prehistoric pups are still very much alive. Bush dogs are rather small animals and weigh around only 13 pounds. Their small size, combined with their blunt snouts and rounded ears, makes them look a bit like a bear cub. Nonetheless, some of their distinctive features, such as their medium-length stubby tails, and long, stout bodies ensure they cannot be confused with any other mammal. Unfortunately, there are few bush dogs left in the wild (only around 15,00); and they are currently classified as near threatened meaning they are likely to become endangered in the near future. Luckily, many zoos, dedicated to their preservation, keep bush dogs so they will be around for years to come.
Life, it amazes me how fast it can change. Everything can be going well one moment and in the blink of an eye, something happens. You don’t know why and often wonder what you did to deserve it. Good or bad, I believe everything happens for a reason and sometimes that reason is not clear. We all have our days where we wish they were better, oftentimes our days are great blessings. You could wake up and have the best day where everything is going well, and once you get home you find out some bad news and everything turns upside down. Why does this happen? Why do bad things happen to good people? This is often what people ask themselves. We all deal with our own hardships and we all experience different things as well. This is what makes life interesting because you never know what will happen or when.
Being a senior was something that I have always looked forward to but now that it's here, I want to go back. I can remember classes that I took freshman year with the people that I am still friends with. I remember being on the bottom of the totem pole in cheer. It's hard to wrap my head around the fact that I am now in charge of the cheer team as co-captain and I am a senior. I already had an idea of what I wanted to do once I got to college but now that the date is getting closer to picking one, it's terrifying. Picking a college and a major at this age is weird because I want to make sure that I like what I am doing ten years down the line. It'll be weird because I will no longer go to school with the people that I have been with for the past twelve years of my life. Everything is moving so fast that it is hard to keep up with what is happening between friends, family, and school sometimes.
Something I realized last night as I was trying to fall asleep is that bridges and tunnels are technically the same thing. While it may sound like a weird thing to think of, it is actually very true. Whether it is a bridge or a tunnel depends on your perspective. For example, to the people passing on top, they are going over a bridge connecting two places. However, to the people who go under the “bridge,” they are really going under a tunnel, as a tunnel is something one passes under to get to the other side. It may sound stupid to care about something like that, but I think it interesting that people say, “We are going to drive under the bridge.” Why? Because they are labeling it a bridge based off of the perspective of the people above, not their own. For them it should really be a tunnel. Not that this realization is going to impact anyone’s life or anything, but I still think it is interesting to think about. -Eva Malsam
There is a case study about how birth date affects player development in sports. For example, most players in the NHL currently are born in the first three months of the year. Why is this? The answer is quite simple. It lies in the way that youth hockey is divided into age groups. Players born in the year January 2002 are fit into the same category as a player born in the same year in December. This gives them an extra 11 months to develop physically as well as mentally each year. Players with an early birth date are often seen excelling because of these advantages. This same effect can be seen across multiple sports. It becomes especially pronounced as time goes on and players exponentially grow. Not to worry however if you're a player of a sport that has been born in a later month, research has shown that the difference in skill level and physical maturity levels out by ages 16-17. So if you ever have kids and wonder why they may be lagging behind their peers, consider this.
Something that I think is interesting is music. That sounds kinda dumb but I am absolutely fascinated by it. I can play tenor sax, trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn, mellophone, french horn, guitar, cello, and a little bit of clarinet. Everything about band and music fascinates me, I am always thinking about some sort of music. I mostly think about marching band and drum corps. I even got into a drum corp (unfortunately I wasn’t able to march because of COVID but they have extended my contract for this summer). I am in a jazz band and orchestra. I have learned that there are some things in music I don’t like. I have played the cello 9 years and I have learned that I no longer find joy in playing it. Every day I come into the orchestra and dread the next 45 minutes. It’s kind of ironic considering the very thing that introduced me to my new passion has itself faded from that same passion.
The idea that we can understand some people but not others is a crazy thought. There are over 7000 languages in the world and so much that we don’t understand. The Bible is the most translated book at 700 languages but as big of a number as that is, it only covers 10% of the entire world’s languages. There are so many more ways to communicate with people than just the languages that might first come to mind. In fact, people can communicate without talking at all! For example, 5% of the world has a disabling hearing loss. These people can communicate through sign language and hand gestures, some can read lips, or use other ever-advancing technology to help them. People also communicate through art or music or dance. When people find a passion you are likely to see them using it to communicate their thoughts and emotions through. Languages are a curious thing but it’s what makes people unique and feel connected to one another. Even as more and more languages disappear it is important to remember that these separations don’t have to be barriers but instead a welcomed variety to our world.
I am finally a senior, the year everyone is the most excited about in high school. Now that we are in senior year, I am starting to develop senioritis. It is hard to balance school work when all I want to do is relax and have fun after football practice. I have realized that senior year is about a quarter way through and it is very nerve-racking to think I will be graduating soon and yet I don't even know what I want to study in college. However, I am excited about the future and the next step being college makes me realize how much closer I am to being thrown into the real world. Soon I will be playing football for Augustana and after that, I will be getting a full-time job and hopefully settling down somewhere. As the year goes on I will want it to slow down because high school is much easier than the real world.
In the deep remote of rural North Dakota, this story takes place. The old farmhouse is worn but sturdy. The rest of the complex contains a shabby stable, a broken-down coral, and a nearly dilapidated aluminum shed. As a child, this place was warm and welcoming. Now, it only tells of decay and age. I park the truck just outside the house’s front porch. As I walk up the front steps, old memories of childhood joy and adolescent energy return to me. I hear my mother call me in for the first time in decades. I walk in as she puts the hot pork roast on the table, telling my father to turn off the TV and join us. My little sister jumped into the chair beside mine, ready to eat. I take my place at the table as my father asks me about my day. However, as the meal goes on, I slowly let the visions disappear into the dust. Then, I am left alone with the memories of the day that I lost all of them, wishing it was my time to join them.
Minnesota Sports fans have the toughest time as any sports fan. Out of all cities with all four major sports teams they easily have it the worst. Only one of the 4 teams have ever one the championship, the Twins did it twice in 1989 and 1991 but since then no team has even made it back to a championship. The Timberwolves are one of the worst franchises in the entire NBA due to horrible front office decisions. The Wild are the definition of mediocrity due to the twin 13 year 98 million dollar contracts that they gave to Ryan Suter and Zach Parise which was supposed to lead the team to success but just ended up sputtering out. The Twins who cannot overcome their demons with the New York Yankees in the playoffs. Also fun fact the Twins have lost 18 straight playoff games which is the worst in all of 4 major sports leagues. And finally the Vikings where do I even start with them they are the definition of a choker. So many important games blown and horrible luck affect the team that it is next to impossible to expect any success from them ever even when things look good.
Deciding which next-gen console to buy can be a difficult decision for some people. If this will be the first console you will be buying you will want to look into all of the specs of each one. Most of the time the specs are generally the same. One may have more storage but the other has expandable storage. You also may want to consider what your friends have bought or already have. This is because you might want to play with some friends that you have. Some new consoles are completely online, you only have to pay a monthly subscription fee. Some may like this because with the physical consoles you have to pay a monthly fee to play online with friends anyway. It is a lot easier to decide if you already have a console. You will probably be choosing to buy the same brand as the one you already have unless you did not enjoy the experience with the console you already have. In which case you might consider switching.
I noticed you used a "Good Mythical Morning" background as the picture for this blog post. I love watching Rhett and Link whenever I have time. They are funny and beyond creative. My favorite videos have to be when they eat gross food; those are my favorite because of their faces when they realize they have to eat something nasty. The food games are also at the top of my list. They will either throw darts at a map, trying to guess where a certain dish is from, play shuffleboard to guess which decade the food was created, or even spin a lazy susan to see who has to eat the nasty food. Sometimes they leave an item in a certain substance for a month; these are interesting to see what the substance did to that certain item. Nevertheless, Good Mythical Morning is one of my favorite youtube channels and I was inspired to write about them when I saw that picture.
I am an only child which makes the college application process absolutely awful. My parents refuse to let me go anywhere other than somewhere east river in South Dakota. That sounds terrible to me because I would like to leave this state the second I can. Neither of my parents have good arguments for why I should stay here so it makes talking to them about college very frustrating. It's even more annoying when all of the other adults in my life, including my doctor, agree that my parents should let me leave the nest and go where I please. Minnesota would be perfect for me and they are acting like I'm moving to a different country. I think they just don't want me to leave. My dad will be fine but my mom will probably have to be admitted to a psych ward the second I move into my dorm. Ideally, I think she would love to live with me forever.
High school has been interesting, to say the least. I have changed a lot since I started and I am proud of that fact. Now all I can wait for is the next chapter in my life, college. I have heard some very good things about college. Looking back at my freshman year I realize how I have changed not just with my friends but as a person. I am a lot more mature, which does not seem to be true but it is. I can not wait to see how much I will change in the next four years. I have already made such a large jump with these four I can not imagine where I will be in the next four. I have not yet decided where I want to go but I will soon enough. This decision will be the one to change me and my future and I just hope it is for the better.
Do you want to play soccer in college? Where do you plan to attend college? These two questions seem to only be the only thing people care to ask me. Being uncommitted and asked these questions makes me nervous—even though I have a pretty good idea of where I will be attending/playing. It gets me thinking, do I say the truth or do I tell them what they want to hear? When people ask these questions I feel like they are expecting me to know right then and there the plans I have for my future. When I tell them that I am not committed anywhere they tend to look at me with a puzzling look, as if it is a joke and they are trying to figure out the punch line. Lately, I have come to terms with myself and have decided to tell people the truth. In case you were curious I’ll answer those questions for you. I do want to play soccer in high school. I have some of my fondest memories on the soccer field. I do not know where I’m going to attend college. I have been on some visits and practiced with some college teams. But for now, I am just going to go with the flow.
Tonight is a big night for the varsity soccer team. We will be going head to head with Roosevelt, who is much higher in rank than us. It will most likely decide whether we have to travel to Sioux Falls for the first playoff game, or somewhere far like Rapid City or Pierre. It is very nerve-racking, to say the least. It will also almost certainly be the senior's last home game for the rest of our soccer career in high school. By this being the last game of the regular season that also means that the actual end to it all is soon to come. I have been playing soccer since I was just 3-years-old. It will be a bittersweet goodbye whether we win or lose in the playoffs. I am not planning on playing soccer in college so this is the end for me. I just hope to score one last goal, or even better, my first in-game bicycle kick.
It is finally October! October is one of my favorite months because not only are the leaves changing colors, but it is the month of Halloween. Halloween is an interesting concept when you really start to think about it. Children dress up as different characters and wait until it is dark to go around to neighboring houses and get candy from strangers. It sounds like kidnapping bait, to be completely honest. Who even thinks of that? Halloween is actually a tradition that originated from the Celtics during the eighth century. The Celtics believed that on this day, Hallow's Eve, is when the ghosts return to the earth for this one night. While it might sound similar to the Latin celebration, Day of the Dead, it is actually quite the opposite. Halloween was a night created to ward off spirits instead of inviting them in. The Celtics would light huge bonfires and wear costumes in attempt to scare away unwanted entities. Farmers would even go as far as to sacrifice their own cattle in hopes to protect their crops from dying. The annual tradition has been passed on for hundreds of years and is now known as a fun, light-hearted evening full of tricks and treats that just about everyone gets excited for.
Snowboarding has come in leaps and bounds; rising to the top with its own culture, equipment, and athlete superstars, it is a well-established sport today. Its competitions and events have become international staples; for example, the Air and Style snowboard competitions, the Swatch Freeride World Tour, and the FIS Freestyle Ski and Snowboard World Championships. Snowboarding has evolved into many different styles of riding including freestyle, alpine racing, backcountry, and more, but where did it begin? Well, it started in 1929 with a plank of plywood, a clothesline, and some horse reins. M.J. "Jack" Burchett could be seen gliding down hills with his new invention. In 1963, Tom Sims created what he called a "skiboard." Sims was obsessed with skateboarding and he wanted to do it in the winter as well as the summer. His invention consisted of a rounded pine plank with a nose kick in the front, carpet on top, and aluminum with candle wax underneath. The snowboard didn't commercially catch on until 1965 when Sherman Poppen—a father trying to get his kids out of the house on a winters day— invented the "Snurfer." Two children skis bolted together and a length of cord for balance later, Poppen soon had all the kids in the neighborhood on his doorstep, begging him to build them one. Patented 6 months later, the Snurfer was mass produced; 6 million units were sold over the next few years, but it was mostly seen as a kids toy. Meanwhile Dimitrije Milovich, inspired by sliding down snowy hills on meal trays, began producing boards for himself and friends. In 1972 he would begin to produce the first snowboards as we know them today and experiment with iron edges. In 1977, Milovich and other snowboarding pioneers went on to get these snowboards onto slopes–facing many irritated ski resort managers on the way. These were the origins of the winter sport, snowboarding.
I have played baseball since I was five or six years old. This past summer we played in the junior legion state tournament. Going into the state tournament, our record was the worst of all four teams. Brandon was hosting this tournament, which gave us a subtle advantage. We were going into the first game against Post 22. Post 22 was a very fundamental team and we had not played them in the regular season. We ended up not letting them score a single run on us. Throughout the entire tournament, we had not let up a single run until the championship game. We ended up winning the state tournament. This was the first state championship game I have won since I was nine years old. This was a very surreal moment. I don't know what to expect going into my senior year season, but hopefully, I make the most of it.
Everyone who told me my senior year was going to be a breeze was a dirty liar. I am somehow more stressed than I was in my junior year. Between my job, extracurriculars, homework, and applying for colleges—I don't know which is worse. The biggest factor playing into my stress currently is that I'm trying to develop my portfolio. I decided I was going to major in illustration a bit too late, and now I'm scrambling to make enough art pieces to submit to colleges. I really want to go to KCAI. It's an art school in Kansas City that seems so fantastic. I won't be that far from either side of my family, and I have family that lives there as well. I am so afraid that I won't be accepted, so I'm very stressed about creating my portfolio. I need 10-15 pieces for the college to review and determine if they will accept me, and I currently have about four. The fifth one is a work in progress, and I have about four more ideas for pieces, but I currently don't have the time to start them all. On top of all this, I have a commission for my uncle to draw as well. This is terrifying because I don't want it to look bad. I was also planning to make little charms to sell to try and make some extra cash, but unfortunately, I haven't found the time to sculpt them yet. On the bright side, even though I am swamped by all this art I have to do, it has made me realize this is really what I want to do for the rest of my life. Yes, it is so stressful and a LOT of work, but I truly wouldn't have it any other way. Being an artist is truly my dream job, and I really hope I get the opportunity to pursue further. Everytime I get down on myself because I hate my artwork or I don't think it's good enough— I just remember that fifth grade me with a dream of being an artist would look at me now and be so proud.
The youngest child tends to get away with more things than any previous children. Being the youngest I have noticed this myself, as well as my siblings often commenting about things I have gotten away with that they never would have even tried. I believe this is because the parents are suddenly realizing that this is their last child and once they leave their job of raising their children is over. Naturally, this is a scary thought, so they want to try and entice the younger child to stay longer or ensure their baby child will remain in their good graces. Or they are worn out from raising the other children and as long as they see the youngest within two to three business days everything is alright. I say this because that’s mostly how it is at my house. I am free to go out and do things, but being the opposite from my siblings I would rather sit in my room and read. The other two would have benefited much more from relaxed parental control than I am currently.
I have been playing soccer my whole life, it has been my favorite sport ever since I was 3. This season, being my senior season, has been very weird. Last Saturday I was quarantined after my dad tested positive. This took me out of the last two weeks of soccer. I thought I would care more, but for some reason, it hasn't affected me at all. We lost last night in the playoffs and I guess I don't really care about it. I loved playing in my last season and working with the team. It might have been my last time playing my favorite sport. I think that I've realized that all good things must come to an end. One of my best friends moved away this summer, while I was bummed out, it honestly didn't seem to be that bad. With this year being my last in high school, I know that I won't ever talk to most of my friends in a couple years. To me, that is a difficult concept to grasp.
The other day my friend told me something very interesting. She said something along the line of the way that our atoms and molecules are composed is merely on a chance. This got me thinking, everything in life is a chance. There is always a chance you will not wake up in the morning, or that the Yellowstone volcano will erupt, or that it will be the best day in your life. Humans have taken it upon themselves to help minimize the risks of the bad. An example of this would be as simple as looking both ways before crossing the street, or taking medications and being vaccinated to eliminate being sick. Humans have also celebrated the good. We throw birthday parties when we make it around the sun, we celebrate people that will bring more life into this world, we treat ourselves after getting a good grade on a test, and more. In 2020 it is important to remind ourselves that everything is from chance.
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I like to analyze things in movies. For example, last night I watched a movie on Netflix called Mune: The Guardian of the Moon. While watching, I was thinking about how the names and designs of the characters are related to the celestial bodies. Two of the three main characters' names are Mune and Sohone. Sohone's character design resembles a lion, like the Sun guardians before him. The sun is ruled by Leo in astrology, which means this lion-like figure guiding the sun makes sense. His name is also connected to meaning. Sohone is a name meaning determination, stability, and vivacity. I think it really relates to his character because he shows these traits, as well as his, is very masculine energy; the sun is known to be masculine energy and symbolizes similar traits. Mune has similar connections to his role as guardian of the moon. Not only is his name a literal variation of the word "moon," but the name means "feasible" or "possible." This is very fitting for his character; he was chosen as guardian by a sheep-like character who they say picks out the guardian because it is known as the purest creature. The guardian was planned to be Leeyoon. Mune ends up proving that he can be the guardian and he is the right fit for the guardian of the moon. His character design is also similar to that of a deer, and his face resembles a cat, both creatures known to lurk in the night. Also, Artemis is known as a goddess representing the moon whose symbolisms include a deer.
Senioritis is starting to develop in my life. Homecoming has passed and now I realize that the rest of the year will feel much longer. Getting up early is getting harder and doing homework has become less interesting. I think as I get closer to graduating, the more I want to start my life. I want to graduate from college and find a job that I can be successful in. All of my years of high school felt easy compared to this year even though I only have 5 classes; 2 of which are very basic level classes. I think the hardship comes from the stress of making my last year a memorable year. I want to enjoy my senior year but I also want to keep good grades. Right now is especially stressful because soccer becomes a big priority as we get closer to the post-season. I want to succeed on the field, in the classroom, and in my future.
As time goes on during school, the more I want to be done and playing college baseball. As you know, I am going to play ball in Council Bluffs this next year after high school, and am extremely excited about it. The more I think about leaving, the happier I get (no offense to my family). I very much enjoy baseball, it is the sport I want to play for the rest of my life. I am not saying that I do not enjoy playing football and basketball, I just have a different love for the game. And as I sit in class or am at practice, the only thing I can think about is leaving for college and playing for the Reivers. It will be some of the best years of my life, and I just can't wait for it. I wouldn't say it's senioritis, more just wanting something to happen. I don't necessarily want to be done with high school, just on to the next step in my life. I am ready to move on, and start playing baseball every day.
As my high school career is coming to an end, I have begun to realize how quickly it went by. It feels as though only yesterday I was a freshman, and now I'm on my last year. I would say that even though my years at BV flew by, I am excited to start the next chapter in my life. I have toured a few schools that I am very interested in and I think that the college I choose will be the perfect fit for me. The one thing that has been hard about this is that I often find myself sitting around dreaming about the next chapter, instead of enjoying the one that I'm currently in. This year is a very different senior experience, but I hope to make the most of it and fully prepare myself to move into the next stage of my life.
Surprisingly enough, most students at BVHS know me as the golfer. They are not mistaken either. Seventh thru eleventh grade I devoted most of my time to the course. I would play, practice, or compete every single day in the summer. In seventh grade I was going to try out for the middle school team; however, on day two of varsity tryouts, Scott Carroll invited me to come out. I was reluctant at first but decided on showing up. I played very well and actually earned a spot on the varsity roster as a seventh-grader. I soon got used to playing with the upperclassman. By eighth grade, I was the number one spot. Every single tournament I played in was against juniors and seniors. As time went on I began to realize there was more to my life than just golf. Rather than dedicating four hours a day it soon became two and than one. I decided for myself I would rather work, socialize, fish, and travel. I didn't like golf any less I just wanted more to my summers than golf. Unfortunately this year I had to make a very hard decision. I decided that with how well or business is doing it would be in the best interest for me and the company to not try out this year. I reached out to coach Geerdes and he understood; however, he was very disappointed. Truth be told not only did I want to focus my efforts on the company, but I also was burnt out. With this fresh break, I still get out to the course pretty regularly. I have found that without the pressure I am playing much better. I find it bizarre that I am playing some of the best golf I have ever played now that I have stepped away.
There are multiple breeds of golden retrievers. Most people are not aware of this. There is the English and American retriever. These are characterized by the color of their coat. The English Cream Goldens have white fur, while the American Goldens have a deeper red fur. I have an English Cream Golden Retriever; his name is Dakota. His mother was a pure white coat, and his father had a deep red coat. Dakota has a very light golden—almost blonde coat. The fur color is not the only difference between these lovable dogs; their shape and size are also different. Many people see Dakota and assume he is overweight—which for some reason offends my mom—which is not true. English Cream Retrievers stand shorter, with stockier shoulders. They have broad shoulders and hips. In contrast, the American Goldens stand tall, and are extremely slim; lacking broad shoulders. English Cream Retrievers also have a longer and more narrow nose, while American goldens have a shorter and wider nose. So in conclusion, my dog is not overweight, he is just built differently than American goldens. I strongly believe that his extra bodyweight just makes him more huggable.
As my last high school soccer season is coming to an end, it is starting to become real that we are almost a fourth of the way done with senior year. Soccer ending will be very bittersweet because it will be the last time I will ever play soccer for a team. It went by faster than I would have ever expected. Soccer is my favorite sport to play, so having the be over will be a huge change for me, especially since I have never not had sports to play during the school year. I am very thankful for this last season with my teammates even though it has been completely different than any past season. I think we have all gotten closer and my teammates will be my friends long after high school. In our last few weeks of the season, I hope to cherish every moment because we do not know if we will be cut short. We have been making the most of it and hopefully take a good run at state.
Having the title "Senior" is quite insane. These last 3 years have flown by. I always thought about being a senior one day and all the things that come with it. But, now I am here and it feels the same. Even playing my last season, it hasn't hit me yet that my last game ever for BVHS is in the near future. This season, obviously, has had some challenges. We are having girls be quarantined left and right. Not sure when the last time everyone was there together. I had to miss two games due to being quarantine and it wasn't fun. Missing games for anyone is not ideal, but especially when this is my last year it really sucked. We have one game left of the regular season. After that, it is the playoffs. It is crazy looking back at the past seasons and how fast they have gone. The team has evolved so much due to the fact that seniors leave each year. Spots have to be filled and the team has to continue playing. Just excited to see what the playoffs bring.
The way the online school is presented this school year compared to last year is very different. I have been quarantined twice now and switching back and forth is very difficult. Going from in school to online is fine except that some teachers do not consider the fact that we quarantined students have to do twice the work of an in-school student. While online we have to teach ourselves the lesson and then continue the assignments and still keep the same pace as the in-school students. Most of the time we end up taking a backseat on the priority list when trying to contact teachers since they normally do not take time out of the class to email us immediately answering any questions. This is because there are students demanding immediate attention from them so thus leaving us with unanswered questions for up to hours and in some cases a full day. While still having that assignment being due at a certain timestamp. I just find it interesting that last time the school got put online most teachers would allow multiple days for a single assignment versus now it is still at a regular paced classroom.
Leaving a sport behind can be one of the most tasking decisions for an adolescent, like myself, to make. Around this time last year, I was enjoying my junior year soccer season and felt I was improving as a player, as well as our team was developing. I realized the passion I gained for the sport was higher than ever. With this in mind, I questioned my future in the sport. For the first time, I realized I didn't want to take a break from soccer in the winter and figured it was in my best interest to pursue it year-round. With that decision came a heartbreaking consequence, I would have to quit basketball after playing for over 10 years. Through basketball, I experienced some of the best memories and created lasting bonds with teammates. Now looking back I made the right decision, by joining a new soccer club, and getting to play all year helped me to be able to continue my soccer career in college. I am very thankful for the years I spent playing basketball and all of the memories made and wouldn't trade them for the world.
As the school year has gone on I am getting more and more excited for graduation. I am ready for college and to be living on my own. As the school year has gone on I am getting excited for my senior season of basketball. My favorite part of high school basketball was winning the state championship my sophomore year. That was a really cool experience to be apart of. I love the bus rides, team dinners, and making memories with my teammates. I am really going to miss that next year when I am in college. I have decided I am going to play college basketball but I am not sure where I want to play yet. I am super excited to start that chapter in my life. Even though I am excited to graduate I am going to miss my high school friends, sports, and teachers. I am very thankful to be apart of the Brandon Valley school district.
As the leaves change colors, the temperature dipping lower every night, the roads blocked by slow-moving combines heading to fields of corn, you may begin to find yourself embracing the feeling of fall. However, in the house of a farm family, autumn is greeted by a rush of food preparation. My family lives on an acreage with livestock and an apple orchard, cornfields surrounding us on all sides. My grandpa has been a farmer for 50 years and the fall, to our family, means harvest. We spend all the free time prepping chicken coops for the snowy winter, harvesting basket after basket of fresh produce—tomatoes, kale, peppers, and more, and beginning hours of time spent in a combine, watching the ears of corn being swallowed up by the corn-head. As the food is brought in, it is canned, transported to a freezer, or turned into a fresh meal. After chilly afternoons spent working around the yard or working in the fields, you can always count on a warm cup of coffee or homemade apple cider to be waiting for you on the table. So as people enjoy weekends filled with pumpkin patches and corn mazes, the autumn brings work-filled afternoons and fresh-made meals on the farm.
Growing up is uncomfortable. It seems as if everything in my life the past few months has been teaching me how to grow up. How to deal with untimely mishaps. How to move on from something even if I didn't want to. I'm not sure how others are progressing through life, but it's taken a toll on me. The interesting thing about growing up is the fact that nobody talks about it. There isn't a human on this earth that can tell you what steps to take and what direction to go. Most of it is left for you to figure out for yourself. Never in my life have I had to make so many decisions alone. I think that growing up is interesting because it gives us the opportunity to form our life. It's really difficult to make decisions on your own; however, when we start to make those decisions, we start to get some control. We start to become our own people. The cycle continues from there. The more that comes our way, the more doors we see open up in our life. In general, growing up is interesting. It brings some of the heaviest burdens upon us, but it also gives us the blessing to live freely.
Rockets. Not something most people think about on a regular day. Why think about rockets you ask? Well, as an inspiring Aerospace Engineer, it is something I love learning about. One thing, in particular, that is most interesting to me is done by SpaceX, one of the many commercial rocket companies around the world. What makes their work so interesting is they are able to land and reuse a rocket booster after sending it off to space. This is fascinating to me because to reach orbit, you have to be traveling over 25,000 miles per hour. 25,000. Then to be able and land that rocket—which by the way is 230 ft. tall— on a platform in the ocean smaller than a half a football field is pure insanity. SpaceX's goal is to continue to decrease the cost to access space, allowing everyone to eventually see the stars. Hopefully, within the next 10 years, to have a person on Mars.
As my high school career is coming to an end, I have had plenty of time to reflect on the last four years of my life. As a student from the class of 2021, I feel like my high school experience was cut short. COVID has stripped the majority of my junior year/high school events and so many questions go unanswered about this year, senior year. Will the class of 2021 even get to have a prom? What will winter/fall sports look like? Will sports even happen? Will we go online again? Last year, I felt so bad for the seniors because they didn’t get prom and their graduation was late, but now I am in the same situation, except I might not get my whole “senior experience”. Sporting events aren’t the same. As a competitive cheerleader, I’m used to the stands being packed with people, but now in order to even get into the competition you have to have a voucher, so there are not as many people able to cheer you on. I just hope that this year isn’t affected too much by COVID, so I can have some sense of normality.
Switching sports your senior year is quite a difficult decision to make, especially when you don't know what comes ahead with the new sport you could choose. This year, my senior year, I decided to drop volleyball and go out for softball. This was a very hard decision for me to make because I have played volleyball every other year of my high school career. I had dedicated so much time to volleyball and I had gone to all the summer open gyms for this year's upcoming season. I was all set on playing volleyball my senior year and then we played in a tournament thing and they glimpse into the season did not look fun. There were a lot of problems during this tournament and I just didn't seem confident that this would be the best or most fun option for my senior year. It took lots of switching back and forth but then after talking to the coaches, I was certain that volleyball wasn't going to be for me this year. The softball coach seemed very excited to have me with him this season which made me feel even better about my decision. After the first game and practice with the girls, I knew that I had made the best decision. It is always so fun to go to practice and be with friends who make practice fun.
The picture that titles this assignment is a drawing of Rhett and Link from Good Mythical Morning. GMM is a YouTube channel ran by those two and from middle school to my freshman year of high school, every morning I would watch their show like it was the morning news. I have watched them since their first season with the Chia Lincoln while they filmed in their basement. So when they hit their 1000th episode and dropped a GMM 1000th coin memorabilia, I had to get one. I had never gotten any merch from any YouTubers before because I thought it was dumb, but I had watched so much GMM I just really wanted it. For my 15th birthday my sister, Ashton, got me tickets to go see their live show in Dallas. On the way to the show we even drove the wrong way on a one-way road. It was a really cool time, actually getting to see them in person and listen to their interesting stories. The craziest part of that live show was that Cory from Dude Perfect was there watching them. I've run into the Dude Perfect Crew a couple of times in Texas, but that's a different story.
The Elders Scrolls series of games is one of the best game series of all time. These games are classified as action role-playing games. In each game, the player is an epic hero who is destined to defeat a powerful evil. There are also hundreds of side quests the player can do within each game, making it so a person could spend hundreds, if not thousands of hours playing one single game. There are five (going to be six soon) games in the main series and six smaller games that aren’t exactly like the main but are still cannon to the lore and story. They all connect to each other as time progresses in the land of Tamriel. There are ten playable races within all the games: High Elf, Wood Elf, Dark Elf, Khajiit, Argonians, and Orcs are all non-human races while Nords, Bretons, Redguards, and Imperials are all human races. Each race has different skills and perks that can greatly help the player depending on what they are doing in the game.
As the weather gets cooler, time seems to both slow down and speed up. Everyone starts being in less of a hurry to go places, but they would rather stay inside with their family. The fireplaces start crackling causing smoke to billow out of the chimneys. I love fall because of all the fun things you can do. Fall is a prime time to wear flannels. One of the best activities to do is walk on the trails watching the leaves change colors. The cool, crisp air makes it perfect to sit outside wrapped up in a blanket. Hot chocolate warms up your insides. On Saturday mornings, another great activity to do is go to the apple orchard. Sweet apple cider fills the air as you walk through the rows of trees. As you collect your apples, you make a decision to go home. Stuck on your clothes, hay also follows you home.
Hunting varies based on the animal you are hunting. Turkey and coyotes can see color so they are harder to hunt. Coyotes are hard to spot because they try to sneak up on their pray making themselves hard to spot. Turkey is easier because they are less concerned about being spotted. Turkey becomes even easier to hunt in the spring because they are preoccupied with mating. Deer cannot see color, they spot movement. this means that the hunter doesn't need to pay attention to the colors they wear, they need to make sure they don't move when the animal is watching them. Pheasant hunting is completely different because you want the game to see you. The goal is to scare the pheasant so it flies up into the air where you can shoot it. Duck hunting, deer hunting, and coyote hunting require the hunter to stay in one spot and wait for the target animal to come to the hunter, but rabbit hunting and pheasant hunting require the hunter to find the animal.
The perfect night out. What would call the perfect night out? Would it be with friends, family, or even just being by yourself? Well for me, I'd say it would have to be hanging out with my friends. Say you are hanging out with your friends and you guys get really bored. What is there to do for fun? Well here are some suggestions. If my friends and I are just waiting to have a chill hangout, then we would just get some snacks and find a good movie to watch. Now if you are looking for something more exciting, then what I would suggest is to go out and maybe take some pictures at a nice place outside, or even the grocery store. You can make any area look cool if you just look like you are having a good time. The last idea for a fun night out would be to DIYing something that you probably found off of TikTok. You would have fun spending time with your friends and even making something new and adding it to the unforgettable memories you have with the people you care about the most.
Senior year is here and will be gone before we know it. I feel as though I was just starting high school yesterday. I am personally excited to move on and go to college. Although I do not know where I want to go to school, I know that I want to be a nurse. Nursing is something I have always been interested in; so I am excited to go into that field. I will of course miss Brandon and the community, I have learned and grown here so this place is super important to me. What I have already learned about being a senior and knowing this will be my last year here (hopefully) is to always appreciate the now. Life is going to get more tough, I will have to pay bills and maybe have kids. I have also learned to appreciate the people you go through life with, sadly many of the people I see every day I will not see again after graduation. I hope all of my classmates go onto bigger better things.
Living through a pandemic is something that my generation is going to remember for the rest of our lives. Many of our grandparents, parents, and older siblings can tell us exactly where they were when they found out about 9/11 or other important events. I was born almost exactly a year after 9/11, so I obviously can't relate, but I know that I will be able to tell my kids and grandkids about my COVID-related experiences and exactly where I was at on that Friday the 13th we got sent home. I'll remember meeting in the gym after school with my basketball teammates to talk about "rescheduling" our state tournament. We all knew that it was coming to an end, but there was one string of hope that we would find a way to make it happen. It was very disappointing to hear that the tournament was cancelled after coming off of a championship title the previous year and winning the play-in game to the tournament. I'll always remember having vivid dreams about playing in that tournament during quarantine, waking up to even more disappointment. I had played my last game with our seniors and one of my best friends (who moved away) without knowing it. The memories will stick with me forever, and I do luckily have one more season left, no matter how abnormal it will be.
Football used to be my favorite sport rather than baseball. I used to be an avid football fan and as a kid would sleep with a football every night. I started to grow away from football around my eighth-grade year. I just started to like baseball more than I enjoyed football. I would have more enjoyment by going down to the fields and hitting in the cage by myself than going to the middle school fields and throwing a football. I think that I can connect that to the fact that I sometimes like to be alone, hence why I am going into accounting after high school. Baseball slowly grew into the sport that I enjoyed the most and wanted to spend most of my time on. I used to play quarterback in football which helped me to be a faster pitcher and have a better throwing arm. That is why I play third base now and have a very strong throwing arm.
After the last Marching season after all the success we had, I was so ready to come back this fall and be even better. Unfortunately, Corona came out of nowhere and devastated that dream. I was just told this weekend that we only have 2 weeks left of high school marching band ever. That hit hard, after all the hopes and dreams and predictions of how this season would go it absolutely sucks that we were cut down to 3 competitions. Usually, it’s 8 or 9 and it got cut way down and it really really sucks. I can’t even begin to realize that my high school marching career will be over in less than 2 weeks. I feel like just yesterday I was the freshman on the field trying to figure things out and learn the techniques and procedures. Now here I am 4 years later and now I’m one of the seniors on the field who has spent the last 4 years perfecting and mastering the technique and procedures. Hearing that we only have 2 weeks left blew my mind and left me speechless and I honestly don’t know if I can comprehend it. The past 4 years, however, have been amazing and I have made some of the best friends and created amazing memories that will last forever. I wouldn’t trade it for the world but I just don’t want it to be over yet, that’s all.
Is the NFL the same without the fans at the games? As I continue to watch the NFL as the season progresses the main thing I seem to notice is that even at home the watching the games feels so weird without any fans. Since I have been to a game in person I know how energizing fans can get at a game and always hear how fans can make the game harder for away teams so I wonder if teams feel the need to have fans back or think that this is better without fans. I personally would think that having fans is one of the best parts of home games for teams because they are always cheering you on and helping you by making it hard to hear for other offenses. So my question for all of the NFL players would be what is it like without fans is it better or do you wish that you had them back?
From March until we started school again in August, life was more relaxed than it ever has been. I hung out with my friends, ran every morning, and worked during the day and throughout the week for 6 months. Now that we're back in school, I feel like the word "busy" has climbed into a semi and run me over repeatedly. Every day I wake up at 6:30 and go to school until 3:00. I go to cross country and from there I go to work or church for the evening. Following that, I do homework until about midnight and then I go to bed and repeat the process the next day. If I'm not at either of my 2 jobs or church, it's because I have a race that day and am out of town. On weekends, I have races or practice on Saturday mornings and if I don't have cross country, I work all day at one job and then all evening at my other job before going home. On Sundays, I go to church at 8 and get home around noon because I'm on the worship team, and then I immediately go to work for the rest of the afternoon/evening. On some Sundays, I go out of town to play drums at smaller churches in the area, which takes even longer. This has been my schedule every week since we started school, and it's been very overwhelming. I grew accustomed to the more relaxed schedule we had during the "lockdown", but now that schedule is gone and I'm busier than ever, and it has definitely taken its toll on me.
There are professional marching bands and indoor percussion groups. It sounds quite nerdy, but they are actually very fun to watch. Professional marching bands are called drum and bugle corps. Any woodwind instruments are not present in these groups, hence the name. Drum Corps International (DCI) is basically the NFL of marching band. The best drum corps in the world compete against each other in DCI. Winter Guard International (WGI) is very similar to DCI. WGI was originally formed to allow professional color guards to compete, but indoor percussion groups have created a new face for WGI. WGI groups compete in gyms instead of football fields and have smaller amounts of people than drum corps have. DCI and WGI groups are completely independent, so anyone can try out for them. It is very difficult to make it into one of these groups, though, because they are very selective. Only the best marchers and players can earn themselves a contract. Of course, there are lower-level groups that are not so picky, but it is still a challenge for marchers to become members of these groups. I play bass drum in the fall marching band, but I also play bass drum in the Brandon Valley Indoor Percussion group, which you may have never heard of or seen. Hundreds and hundreds of high schools have both marching bands and indoor drumlines. These high school groups serve as normal school activities, but can also help prepare players to enter into DCI or WGI. Kayden Hoeke and Max Outland are both brass players from Brandon Valley who brought their skills to a DCI drum corps over the past few years. Eric Darrington and Nathan Holm, who are also Brandon Valley alumni and marched on the BV bassline with me, have made high-level DCI and WGI groups. This past summer, I was offered a contract to play for River City Rhythm, a drum corps based out of Minnesota. It's crazy for me to know that I could be a part of professional drum corps and indoor drumlines.
Recently, I have had irrational urges to adopt dogs. With the wage I currently make, I do not have any money to spare on adopting dogs. So I decided that it was time for the family and I to get a new couch. Not that long ago, I took photos of our living room couch and threw them on the internet, at a price that was way higher than it should be, in hopes it would sell. It did. I had to break the news to my parents, which honestly went well as they did not believe that I did that. After a long talk, I finally convinced them, and they were beyond astonished. Not only were they upset, but they were also worried that I could have already sold other items in our house without letting them know. I could not allow the buyer to purchase our living room couch, nor was I able to adopt a dog. But that did not stop me from looking for other dogs that may be cute enough for my parents to fall in love. Yeah, that did not work either. Since then, I have been searching and searching, never really knowing how much these dogs cost. A week ago, I found out that I could pay the owner an 80 dollar adoption fee, and I would be good to go. I was going to sell my family's couch for five hundred dollars...
Words. Why do they have an ample amount of power and persuasion? Sometimes they can be meaningless, yet they mean everything. Why? I have always taken an interest in why, how, and when people use words. When thinking about or using words I do not say them all out loud. Sometimes I show a motion, and people understand what I am trying to say. Was motioning a thing before the Sumerians created the first written langue in 3400 BCE? I am even more curious about how the Sumerians thought pre-wordage. Would their thoughts include words or would they contain pictures? Words. We may never know the true meaning behind them, yet, they have a purpose. They can be loving, rude, blunt, or long. Some even come in different styles of language. This leads me to my last thought on how languages were fully developed. If the purpose of words was to know what one is trying to express through different sounds and syllables, then why use separate methods when we all have the same purpose. Words. Maybe they have a meaning or show a statement, or they may have happened to fill the page.
I spent almost 9 months inside the womb of a woman who thought I was the biggest mistake of her life. I can imagine the anxiety she felt when she missed her period, or the fear when her pregnancy test turned up positive. Making the decision to abort me, give me to another family, or raise me herself must have been immensely challenging. My parents adopted me when I was a baby. In fact, my (adoptive) mother was in the room when I was born. This event must have been colossal for my family, yet I have no memory of it. I’ve heard stories about my dad anxiously waiting in the hallway of the hospital, waiting for my birth mother to give birth, for the nurse to come out of the room and tell him if I was a boy or a girl. When they told him that he would be taking home a baby girl, he fell to his knees, weeping. I know that they had to keep me in Nebraska, where I was born, for another month because my birth father had a hard time giving me up. Eventually, he made the hard decision to leave me with another family, one that would be able to provide better for me. The whole affair is a reminder to me that my life is a gift, a blessing. I will make something of my life because I was given one.
For more than 60 years, scientists in Russia have been trying to domesticate silver foxes. In 1952, two people began working on the project. The experimenters traveled to many fox farms and picked the tamest ones there as a starting point. Over more than 10 generations of foxes, they started to see trends. The tails were becoming shorter and their skulls were becoming shorter and wider. Many researchers doubted the validity of this experiment, attributing the changes in the group of foxes to the fact that the size of the original group was not large enough. Any small group of animals when bred for generations will always see some changes from the first generation. The scientists kept working, however, and the experiment expanded to minks, rats, and river otters. The experiment was almost canceled when the Soviet Union collapsed. The experiment is still going today, but no new information has been released since 2005.
Monopoly, one of the best board games ever made slowly became a boring game to play during the quarantine. When we first went into lockdown I thought “oh yeah this is going to be great these two weeks off.” Slowly I realized that these two weeks were turning into two months very quickly; so my mom and I decided to play Monopoly to pass the time because Monopoly is a very time-consuming game. Every so often we would play the original version of the game but most of the time it was the Game of Thrones version. This version of the game is very different from the original. This version of the game consists of cards that can be kept by you and help you in the future or really hurt you if your opponent has them. For example one of the cards that could help or hurt you is the steal a monopoly card. It is safe to say that I played this card on my mom one too many times whenever we would play. Eventually, the game got boring after we had played it so much and I haven’t played a game of monopoly since the lockdown ended.
"Ra Ra Rasputin: lover of the Russian Queen." Rasputin was a monk who had a profound effect on the Russian monarchy, despite his somewhat silly reputation today. All things considered, Rasputin was a horrible monk. He loved alcohol, women, and abandoned the monastery at 19. He was rumored to have magical healing abilities, which is why he became in good favor with Czar Nicholas II. The son of the Czar was suffering from a common blood disease in royals, hemophilia. Medical professionals were doing what they thought would help, which was to give the boy aspirin. Rasputin basically told him to just stop giving him the medication and trust in his faith. The Czar, willing to try anything at this point, did as Rasputin recommended. Aspirin is, of course, a blood thinner. The boy's condition quickly improved because the aspirin was severely worsening it. This solidified Rasputin's spot as a royal mystic.
It has become a common occurrence to be asked what my plans for after high school are—whether it be by my coaches, family, or even friends. I have done a lot of personal reflection on what I intend to do with my life after high school and there are so many possibilities, it’s actually quite incredible. The reality of the situation is I have an idea of what I want to do and now need to find my next key component—where I want to go. Although there is always a chance of having a change of heart, as of right now, I want to pursue a career in elementary education. For the longest time I have had a passion for working with kids and I find joy in doing so. I would also like to continue my soccer career into college. Finding the college that is the best fit for me academically and athletically has been a bit daunting, but it also has allowed me the chance to determine my own future.
Senior year is a lot different than expected so far. It is so much harder than expected. I thought it was going to be easy because I am only taking four classes so I would have a lot of free time. But I do not have as much free time as I thought I would. My classes require much more work outside of class than I expected and senioritis seems to have kicked in already because I do not feel like doing any of it. Additionally, I have decided that I need to choose a different career path because I am not good at the subject that I wanted to go into. This time last year, I knew exactly where I wanted to go to college, what I wanted to study, and what my future job was going to be. However, now I do not know any of these. My hope is that I can figure these things out in the next few months.
Blinking is a natural thing that all people do. It's one of those things that we don't think about doing because we have never experienced life without it. The act of blinking keeps your eyes from becoming too dry while also protecting your eyes from foreign particles like dust. Just the other day, I found myself wondering how much of our average day is spent looking at the back of our eyelids. I thought for sure it would have to be far less than half of our day because of the simple fact that blinking takes only a fraction of a second. As a quick Google search has informed me, the average human blinks about 15-20 times each minute. This adds up to about 28,800 times per day. It is crazy the think about how 10 percent of our waking hours each day are spent with our eyes closed. This just goes to show how everyday actions, such as blinking, are often overlooked and rarely given much thought.
On average, more than 250,000 children are pulled from their homes and families and placed into the foster care system. I have decided to go to school to become a caseworker and make a difference for these children and their families. As I’ve been talking to people about this decision and the steps I need to take next, I’ve come to the realization that not everybody understands. This is very important to me so I would just like to help bring some understanding. The caseworker’s job is to determine if the situation is safe for the child. If it’s not, the children are often pulled out of the home and placed with a family that has trained to help these children. The caseworker will also work with the parents to find help and classes so they can be ready to have their kids back. The ultimate goal is to find the best scenario for everybody. Not all of these parents are bad parents or hate their kids. Some just aren’t able to provide for their kids. In fact, most of these parents have come from a difficult childhood. The kids, afterward, just need TLC and reaffirming.
I've been really struggling with the decision of where I want to go to college. I visited USD and SDSU, both of which had very nice campuses and impressive business departments. Many of my friends are choosing to go to USD, as well as one of my best friends. He wants me to go to USD, and it seems like a good choice for me. Their business school is excellent and I have many other friends who went there. The real problem occurs with my family. Every single person in my family has graduated from SDSU. Other families throughout the town know that my family is a big SDSU family and that we do not support USD. It's frustrating because both schools offer me what I want, but I'm forced to either choose my friends or my family tradition. My parents say they will support me no matter what, but I struggle believing that when many of my parent's friends expect me to go to SDSU, and when I inform them that I visited USD they are very surprised. It has really put a lot of pressure on me this first semester of my senior year because I have to start visiting and applying for the schools. I know that I will get into either of them, but the decision to pick one over the other has really been bothering me. I think it is causing a lot of mental fatigue that is starting to hinder me in some aspects of my life. I hope that whatever decision I decide to move forward with I'll get support.
Water drains differently depending on whether you are in the Northern Hemisphere or the Southern Hemisphere. In the Northern Hemisphere, water drains in a clockwise direction, while in the Southern Hemisphere, water drains in a counterclockwise direction. This is why when a toilet flushes in America, the water goes clockwise but when a toilet flushes in Australia, it goes counterclockwise. This happens because of something called the Coriolis effect. The Coriolis effect is a physics term used to describe how an object moves depending on the hemisphere in which the object is located. For the Northern hemisphere, it goes to the right, and for the Southern hemisphere, it goes to the left. The Coriolis effect also affects things that are much larger than a toilet, such as cyclones. It explains why in different parts of the world, cyclones spin in different directions. However, the Coriolis effect has no effect on the equator, as it is the dividing line between the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Thus, water drains directly downwards with no circular movement on the equator.
Madeleine Pearce
In the beginning of my senior year, I felt like I was stuck in the junior year still; all because of COVID. As the weeks go on everything is getting so for real. Senioritis is a real thing! I remember listening to my friends, who were older than me, talk about it but I never really put it into consideration until now. I am thrilled to start a new chapter in my life. The college I would love to attend is USD. I plan on majoring in Medical Biology, then continue college and get my doctorate in Obstetrics and Gynecology. Maybe go even further and specialize in Fallopian surgery. As much fun as growing up sounds, everything is hitting all at once. As many people know, I am in the theatre. On Thursday, September, 24 we had our fall play meeting. It hit me right then and there; I only have three shows left! Out of everything that I am leaving, the theatre I will miss the most. I thought about minoring in theatre in college, but who knows if I will have time in my schedule. Maybe I will just have to audition for some plays throughout my life.
The theory that alien life is out there is interesting for me. If it can be proven, it would lead to a lot of other questions. For example, how would it tie into religious belief systems? Would major religious leaders try to interpret how alien life fits into their scripture, or would they deny the existence of it and call the scientific community liars. I also think it's interesting to think about what alien life would live like. Some people imagine aliens as super-intelligent creatures with loads of cool sci-fi gear, but I disagree. I think that alien life would be more like animals. After all, humans are the most advanced thing in millions of species, I don't think that alien life could evolve to reach our level of intelligence. Even if they did, it would be hard to measure. I don't think that we would ever be able to speak the same language as an alien, because I don't think an alien would be friendly I think seeing an unfamiliar species would freak them out, and they would attack us.
Since the end of Junior year, I have been looking at colleges that I would like to attend. At first, I did not know what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go. I finally decided to major in Accounting or Finance, which made the college decision a little easier. I could cross out schools that did not have these two majors. I also decided that I want to go to a medium-sized school, most-likely division II. I finally had my college list narrowed down when I started getting calls and texts from track coaches. Now I am not sure if I want to run track in college, or if I want to put 100% of my effort into school. I want to make my college decision as soon as possible, but I also want to have confidence in my decision and know that I chose the right school for the right reasons.
Something interesting... hmmm, well to start you off the first oranges were not actually orange at all. They in fact were green, which I find interesting. Even oranges today that are grown in warmer regions like southwest Asia still stay green throughout their lifetime. More about oranges is that they are one fruit that has two very different tasting juices. Pulp and no pulp are very different and creates a large divide in the population. As the saying to have pulp or to not have pulp. At least that is how I remember it. Also, apples and oranges are not as similar as some people like to believe. To start the color is not the same. The flavor is very much a differentiating taste. There is a core in an apple whereas no core in the orange. The only real similarity between the two is the fact that they both have seeds on the inside that make them fruit. They as well both get flowers on their respected trees.
I will be writing about the massive amounts of significant injuries to start the NFL season and why I believe there is such a high amount of injuries. There have been a very high amount of key players knocked out of this season—such as Saquon Barkley, Nick Bosa, Tarik Cohen, and Courtland Sutton—that have all gone down with ACL tears. I believe this to be a result of having no preseason games. In the past, preseason has been the time when players can start getting used to real, in-game contact. Without preseason, the players go from practice contact straight into full games and I don't believe that their bodies were ready for a strain like that. Another possible theory is because there was no preseason, the injuries that would have taken place in the preseason now happen in the first few games of this season along with the normal amount of injuries that normally happen in the first few weeks of the regular season. Either way, I 100 percent blame no preseason for the high amount of injuries this season.
My volleyball season is getting closer to the end. We're about halfway through our volleyball season and I think it is starting to hit me that I won’t be back next year. I haven't always had great success in my volleyball career but I always tried out and did my best for my team. This is my first year starting for Varsity, so part of me always saw the firsts of things and didn’t really realize that the firsts were also my lasts. I am very grateful that I get to play my last season of volleyball, and I haven’t decided yet if I am going to play in college so it could be my last time ever playing volleyball. I am just living in the moment and I am very excited to have the last season when I know some people this year have not been able to. I still have quite a few more firsts to experience and I am hoping that I also take at the moment and realize that it is also my last too.
Being left-handed has its advantages and its disadvantages. Many times I find myself forgetting that most people are right-handed and everything that they do is the opposite from me. Unfortunately, being left-handed has a lot of disadvantages: I can't use markers or any kind of art supplies without getting it all over my arm, I can not eat in the middle of people without bumping them every time I try to use my fork, and when I am writing I have to write across my paper. My mom would always tell me that being left-handed is very unique, only 26% of children are left-handed. For right-handed people, they use their dominant left brain and left-handed people use their dominant right brain. I read an article about how left-handed people are better drivers and in my case, I think I am the best driver in the family by a long shot. My little brother is so incredibly bad and I could never understand why, well it is because he is a terrible mulit-tasker. Although being lefthanded can be challenging I don't mind being a little bit different then everyone else.
Did you know that black licorice could kill you? Black licorice contains an acid that will drop your potassium levels if you consume too much of it. I never knew this until I saw that a man had died from black licorice the other day. He was a fifty-four-year-old man who ate one to two bags of black licorice every day. After continuing this habit for three weeks he passed out in a McDonalds and died. The paramedics later deemed it death by black licorice which does not seem possible. Turns out it is if you consume too much black licorice. I guess people need to be careful about how much licorice they eat. This is something that is very interesting because I wonder if not only black licorice but other kinds of licorice can cause the same exact thing to happen. Either way, why would someone eat that much black licorice. After all, it is black licorice.
At Brandon, we have a winter percussion program. This program is typically referred to as winter drumline. Due to the unfortunate circumstances surrounding the world during this time we don’t know if we will be having a season. Many ideas have come up with the Minnesota Percussion Association (MPA) not making a decision on whether or not we will have a season. It is certainly looking like we won’t. Minnesota has canceled their marching band programs for the fall and is moving them to the spring. With the transfer of seasons, it looks unlikely that MPA will host a season. Also, Winter Guard International (WGI) the national circuit for drumlins competitions has already announced that they will not host any competitions. WGI can’t force individual circuits like MPA to cancel but they do have a large say in their decisions. With all of this uncertainty, I am looking at everything in a positive light. I’m trying to think more about college. If there isn’t a season I will most likely start applying for scholarships earlier than I planned on and I will apply to more than I originally thought I would. All in all, I would be sad by the cancellation of my final season but it also wouldn’t be the worst thing to ever happen.
November of sophomore year I noticed that my throat had begun to hurt. I decided to look in a mirror and shine a light in my thought to see if I could spot redness or white spots as a sign of strep throat. When I looked in the back of my throat, I found one huge white spot surrounded by redness right behind my tongue. My mom and I decided to wait for a couple of days to see if the spot would go away. After about a week the spot, unchanged, was still there. My mom decided to take me to an ear nose and throat doctor. The doctor at first glance thought that it could be a lingual cyst but thought to do a CT scan to get a better look was needed. After looking at the CT scans, the doctor had told me that it was my thyroid that was enlarged in the back of my tongue, meaning I don't have thyroid in the spot I should(bottom part of your throat). I was referred to Dr. Gupta, an endocrinology specialist, to treat my hypothyroidism. Hypothyroidism is when the thyroid can't create enough thyroid hormone to keep the body running properly. I was able to get my thyroid hormone levels good again my gradually increasing my dose of levothyroxine each month for over a year. Although having a thyroid on the back of your tongue is rare, it doesn't affect me much besides makeing sure I take medicine every morning.
There is a number of bananas that can kill you. If you manage to eat ten million bananas in your lifetime, you will die of radiation poisoning. Bananas contain a minuscule amount of radiation. Radiation poisoning never leaves the body (which is why x-rays are not preferable) so eating ten million bananas will kill you of radiation poisoning. Granted, if this was done for eighty years, you would have to eat three hundred and forty-two bananas a day for eighty years. While doing this, you would have other problems than radiation like eating too much potassium and getting hyperkalemia (causes muscle weakness, numbness, tingling, vomiting, etc.). But the more basic problem with this is eating that much food in general. Your body would make you throw up that much food because it means you would eat about a third of a banana every minute of every day. You would have to overeat to accommodate for the time you would be doing other tasks and even sleeping. The overall point of this is you are able to eat enough bananas to die from radiation poisoning but that amount makes it so you would have to live to be unnaturally old and constantly eat bananas to worry about it.
Many people have asked me if I am planning to dance in college. I usually reply with yes, but I am never confident in my answer. Obviously, I do not want to give up something that I have done for my entire life. I often ask myself: what was it all for? I never had any intentions of making dance my life long career, so why did I continue to work so hard and train like there was no tomorrow? Dance has molded me into the person I am today. Without it, I don't know where I would be. I sometimes wonder what sport I would have gone into if my mother never signed me up for dance classes when I was three years old. I feel as though I need "the next step". Giving up all the years of training and passion would be heartbreaking. Since my freshman year of high school, my dream has been to get recruited to the University of Minnesota Twin Cities dance team. But, if it's not financially realistic, should I even go for it? Being on the team is my big dream, but would my loans be an even bigger nightmare?
For some reason, video games gain a bad reputation, but why? Many of the people who argue that video games are a bad influence are the very same people that sit around and watch television for hours on end. The main difference between people who play video games and the people who watch television in their free time is that video games challenge the player’s mind just like how sports challenge the player’s physical body, while people who watch television can watch shows and movies that are supposed to make them think, however, they usually do not. Video games have also gained a bad reputation because of how violent some of them can be. Instead of arguing about how violent video games are not so bad, because it is useless because those people will not change their minds, I will say that there are also video games that are not violent. Do those people ever look at the Farming Simulator games, Human Fall Flat, or even Mario games, all of which are enjoyed by many people, yet the most violent parts about them are the player’s imagination.
One thing that I have noticed throughout my life is that people rarely look up. People tend to watch the ground when they walk or stare at their phone screen. If an asteroid were to fall from the sky, one would probably only notice it by hearing the sonic boom instead of seeing it first. I, on the other hand, try to look up more often. I love watching the night sky, rather than the bright day sky. When I have time, and the sky is clear, I will lay blankets on top of my car, lay on top, and watch the stars and satellites. There was one night that a group of us were outside having a bonfire and we saw what we thought were stars travel in a straight line across the sky. There were about 20 of them and every 10 minutes they would come back around following the same path. After deliberation and google searching we concluded that they were satellites. It intrigues me to know that there is so much out there that we can not see with our naked eye–possibly even undiscovered life forms.
A little over a month ago, my family and I moved to Sioux Falls from Mankato. It was a very last-minute decision, and it was hectic trying to get everything figured out before school started since Mankato starts after Labor Day, but Brandon Valley starts mid-August. My dad would ask me on a scale of 1-100 how I felt about us moving. For the first few weeks, I said zero. I hated leaving behind my friends, my senior soccer season as a captain, and my senior year in the school district and town that I had been in my whole life. Our soccer team was predicted to have a much better record than we had in the previous years, and I was looking forward to my last season as a soccer player. We also had a great chance of beating our rival, Mankato West, for the first time in 5 years. I was heartbroken that I had to quit soccer forever without knowing that the last game of my junior season was my last game ever since my club season this summer was canceled because of Covid. I miss my teammates so much, and I wish I could play one last game with them.
Life's weird. There is no rhyme or reason some things happen and most things I don't even remember. As a kid, I guess I was go-lucky and obnoxious but I have no memory of it. To be honest I barely even remember what I ate this morning. Now all of a sudden I'm a senior that's about to graduate. Now I have to make decisions that will affect my life greatly. What college do I go to? What major do I want to go for? How will I ever make it to college? These are but a few questions that are constantly running through my mind. Sometimes I get too caught up in it and stress myself out because I have no idea what I want to do with my life and everybody around me is always saying that its okay to not have my life planned out. But if I don't, what will happen? Maybe, I just need to live in the moment and not get too caught up in the future. I should live now and not stress about tomorrow because today has too many problems for me to worry about the future.
Listening to music is an activity that most people not only enjoy but have an emotional connection to. The effect that music can have on our emotions and mood is astounding, especially considering that most music we listen to is composed by people we have never met or have any emotional connection to. There are often times in life where we experience feelings that no one has ever seemingly felt before, but there is likely a song to describe that feeling. If there is no song that describes these feelings lyrically, then there is undoubtedly a song that denotes these feelings through the tune and beat itself. It is quite incredible that people of all different languages and backgrounds can listen to music and experience similar emotions. In our lives, music has a significant role that we seem to miss every day. I often find myself with a song in my head or humming a tune, even when there is no music to be heard. And isn’t it strange that one song can trigger memories from long ago? Not only is this a strange experience, but it is unbelievable that one song can resonate within your memories so well as to remind you of them. Sometimes we do not give music a second thought because it is always present or accessible in our lives, and we seem to forget the impact it has on all of us.
As media grows and we get more apps to view movies and tv shows we see a change in how teenagers are portrayed and what they think we want to see. Creators think that we as teenagers want to watch shows with darker themes. This is shown by The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina where the once light-hearted, funny show that I grew up with became dark and highly sexualized. This same thing has happened with the CW's shows of Riverdale and Nancy Drew. In all of these, they change characters and show teenagers only dealing with death/murderers, drugs, alcohol, and intercourse. This is NOT all teenagers do we study and work and hang out with friends. Half of us do not even have the time for dealing with what these teenagers deem "normal". I do not want to focus on what is dark in the world all the time sometimes I just want to watch something lighthearted. This is something hard to find so if you are like me I look to Disney+ and other children's shows. Since I am the eldest sibling I am free daycare which means I have watched MANY children's show. That being said my personal favorite is the show Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir, my little sister's personal favorite. The teens are more realistic than what we are portrayed as in the media meant for us. This show also shows how we can be oblivious because let just says the two main characters are in a love square with themselves and their hero alter egos. It is so obvious that they are their alter ego but that helps with the lightheartedness and silliness of the show. Which I personally would rather watch than having to see characters making out and drinking every 5 minutes.
FC Bayern Munich is a soccer club based in Germany. Currently, they have one of the world’s best squads. This past year has been a huge success for Bayern. They won every single trophy possible this past season. They won the Bundesliga, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Super Cup, German Super Cup, and the DFB-Pokal. Bayern actually still has a chance to win another trophy as well. They will be competing in the FIFA Club World Cup at a later date. If they win this, Bayern would be the second team in history to win six trophies across one season. Only FC Barcelona have done this before. Along the way, many of Bayern's players had themselves very good individual seasons as well. Robert Lewandowski scored 55 goals and contributed 10 assists during the season. He averaged more than a goal a game in the Bundesliga, Champions League, and the DFB-Pokal. Manuel Neuer played a fantastic season as well. Neuer was nominated for the UEFA Player of the Year award for his work at goalkeeper this year. Hopefully Bayern will keep this up and win some trophies this season.
On May 10, 2020, my family adopted a puppy from the humane society. He is a 1-year-old black lab and we decided to name him Bo. He is a very well-behaved puppy and my dad has begun the process of training him to be a hunting dog. He now knows how to sit, lie down, stay, fetch, drop, shake, and, my personal favorite, go get dad. My dad is his favorite person in the family, but I am a close second. Bo likes to jump on my bed, especially right after I clean my sheets. Sometimes, he gets to sleep with me in my room at night, but not right after I get my sheets out of the laundry because he sheds just a little bit and I have white bedding so it is very noticeable. Bo really likes to go on car rides and he loves to stick his head out of the window while we’re driving. His favorite treat is when we go to B&G to visit Dustin and he gets a doggie sundae. I’m so glad that my family decided to bring Bo home and I can’t wait for all the memories that I’m going to make with him.
Working at Menards over the summer wasn't necessarily fun but since I worked the closing shift at least 4 nights a week on average for the later part of the summer I got to see some of the prettiest sunsets ever. I pushcarts so that means I would spend my entire shift outside and as the hours would pass by during the day you would begin to know if the sunset would be pretty or not. If it was a cloudless sky, which sadly is quite common in the midwest during late summer, the sunset would just be a palet of basic colors gradually fading into one another. If the sky was full of clouds on the other hand you could be in store for a beautiful site. If the clouds fell slightly above the sun on the horizon with just enough spaces for light to seep through you would see some of the brightest reds, oranges, and pinks ever. By far the prettiest sunsets would be when there were thunderclouds, towering storm clouds that looked like skyscrapers that floated in the sky. If these clouds were present light would pass through them just right and surprisingly directly above the sun wasn't the prettiest part of the sky, it was wherever the thunderhead was. Sometimes you would have to turn your back to the sun and look in the opposite direction to see this beauty. The colors would be so bright that if you were to take a photo of the sky one would assume that a filter was on it due to the intensity of the colors.
My great-grandpa served in World War two as a radio operator and tail-gun bomber on a B-22 Liberator. The nose art from the plane that he was in most of the time was put in a museum which led him to go to Midland Texas for a dedication ceremony. On one of the many missions, he was flying on their plane got hit by something causing them to fall out of the sky several thousand feet before the crew was able to gain control of the plane. After World War two was over my great-grandpa became a door to door milk salesman. Then my great grandparents started the Nutty Bar and Rootbeer stand in Arnolds Park Iowa Were they owned and operated it for thirty-one years before they sold it off, to this day the Nutty Bar stand is still open and using some of the traditions that my great grandparents used. During this time my grandparents owned a taco restaurant right next to the Nutty Bar stand for eight years. This is where you would find my father in the summer. A few years ago my grandpa decided to write a book about my great grandpa’s life.
I really enjoy fishing. It is one of my favorite activities. Over the years, I have experienced some pretty great fishing stories. But, one of my most favorite fishing memories was the first time I went out ice fishing without an adult. During my freshman year of high school, a buddy and I decided we wanted to go fishing on a Thursday. We went on a Thursday because we both did not have a semester test that day. We asked our parents thinking they would say no, but to our surprise, they said yes! So, we had a sleepover and woke up Thursday morning to go fishing. We made a stop at Walmart to pick up some subs for lunch. Once we picked up the subs we went to the lake. Once we arrived we got all the stuff ready to go and headed to go walk on the hard water. Once we found our spot it was so cold our eyelashes had icicles on it. We then had to drill holes manually which warmed us up. We fished for a couple hours with no bites for several hours. Once it was time for lunch we left the tent with our rods still in the water. To a surprise, we came back to a rod missing and the two other rods bending. We set the hook and I began manually reeling back my rod in the water. I ended up getting my whole rod back and my lines were not tangled. Unfortunately my buddies line broke. I caught a huge northern pike!
Playing sports has consumed my life ever since I can remember. Basketball and softball are the two that have held true the longest. As I work toward graduating high school and starting the next chapter of my life, I have had important decisions to make. One decision, in particular, was deciding where I wanted to go to school and what sport I wanted to play. I have always had a natural ability for softball and my love only grew for the sport after spending countless hours honing in on the skills needed to succeed. Basketball required more fine-tuning for me as an athlete, something I was more than willing to work for. A school and a softball program found its way into my life and the decision to attend Augustana University next fall was made. After reaching this conclusion, I was prepared to hang up my basketball shoes. Wanting to focus on the sport I knew I would be playing for four more years seemed fitting. After considering this decision for a long while, I came to the conclusion that I wanted and needed to play basketball, whether it was to stay in shape or just have fun, I definitely needed it. Practicing hard, creating relationships, and having fun consumed my first two weeks of practice. Gearing up to play the first game of the season and have my first career varsity start was exciting. My mind was racing with all these possibilities and visualizing success, not at all thinking of the dreadful event that far too many female athletes experience. After going through surgery and months of rehab, finally being back playing is an absolute blessing. That blessing, however, came with another important decision. Choosing to play softball in college and going through an injury to this extent has forced things into perspective for me. I have learned so much about myself and about the nature of being an athlete. For example, there are so many things you cannot control but how you handle the situations you have been dealt with determines what type of person and player you are. But also it forced the realization that basketball is very strenuous on my body, having various other knee issues to prove this. I knew I wanted to play but I also knew that the well-being of my body was important. After talking to Coach and making my final decision not play, I was heart-broken but at peace. The girls that I have grown up balling up with, my teammates, have been so supportive. I can't wait to cheer them on this winter, hopefully claiming their number one fan title. Basketball has taught me so much and it will forever be a defining factor of who I am today, both as a person and an athlete.
Something that I find to be interesting is how I spend my time in quarantine. I spent two days early last week and the last 3 days this week in quarantine due to a close contact. I am aware that I enjoy procrastinating things, but for some reason, I did not realize how bad it was. The assignments I have been given while at home have been a test for my time management abilities. I think I have plenty of time to do an assignment for a class and procrastinated until I realize it is going to take more time than I thought it would. Last year, during distance learning, I had a similar epiphany that led to me trying to work harder on not procrastinating. As I have made my way through this week I have learned that I still need to work hard to do my work when I am at home. I need to spend more time working on my homework in a timely manner while I am at home.
More people should come to volleyball games. Yes, there are the regulars that come to every home game that we have, but they don’t cheer. One of the points of having home games is so you get home-court advantage. The gym is supposed to be loud and the fans are supposed to be cheering all the time. In the past, when my sister was in high school, people from all sports and clubs would come to watch and cheer on the volleyball team. It hasn’t been like that in a while, especially with everything going on. Since not every adult that wants to go can, I think that more students should come support and cheer. I know that it is hard for some that want to because other priorities like their own sports or activities are at the same time, but if you are not doing anything or you are looking for a good excuse not to do homework come to the volleyball games.
John Herbert Dillinger was an American gangster hailing from the city of Indianapolis. He was known for forming the Dillinger Gang, who were accused of robbing 24 banks as well as 4 police stations. As a kid, he got into a lot of trouble and by the time he was 19 he had already been arrested for auto theft–this would not be the last time he had a run-in with the law. In 1934 he was captured on the lamb in Arizona and sent home to Indiana. The local police sent him to what they bragged as an inescapable prison. It was supposedly guarded by 20,000 men. One day he managed to undermine them all and finagle his way out using nothing but a piece of wood that he carved to look like a Colt 38. By the time of his death later that year, he had managed to evade the police in almost 4 states for almost a year. He had also escaped from 2 separate prisons during his lifetime and was known to have taken part in a minimum of 12 bank robberies. Today several movies and books have been written about his life.
In the last few years, I have learned a lot about fear. I have learned that fear does not have to be an uncontrollable emotion but it is rather a choice. Yes, fear can come in the form of a sudden reaction to something scary, but a lot of the time, fear is what builds up inside of us as a result of ongoing circumstances. These circumstances can sometimes cause us to lose our identity as a loved human being. The good news is that circumstances, though ongoing, are temporary. With the knowledge that all fear is temporary, I no longer recognize fear as something unexpected but rather something that has been put there to help me grow stronger in my identity. One of my favorite bible verses is, "There is no fear in love. But perfect love casts out all fear." This verse has been one of my favorites because I know that when fear tries to take away my identity I can turn to it and be reminded that I am loved beyond what I can imagine. I am now able to hold a weapon to fear that can not be defeated because it has been placed in my identity. Fear is not who we are. Fear is temporary and because of the greatest love ever we can live free from fear.
Now that the leaves are falling and cold weather is starting to roll through, I really start to miss baseball season from the summer. During baseball season, I have absolutely nothing to worry about and all I get to do is play baseball. It's the best because that's all I want to do anyway. The teammates I play with are the funniest people I've ever met. I would wake up every single day extremely excited to go to the baseball field and play with the best teammates. It’s only unfortunate we have to wait until the spring to play games again. Last year, our spring season was cancelled due to COVID. With an insanely shortened season, it felt like we did not play very many games. Even though we played quite a few games this year, time flies by in baseball when playing games is a lifestyle over the course of about three months. I wish I could go back to playing games all the time and not have to worry about school or anything else.
Tennis is my favorite sport to play for fun. I was not going to play tennis right away and instead run track but I am glad that I picked tennis. I just wish I would have been able to play a tennis season last Spring. We only had one week until our first practice would have begun. I wish I did not take my first two seasons for granted because now, in Fall, looking forward there is a possibility that we might not even have a season again this year. So my sophomore year of tennis could potentially be my last season and that bothers me a little bit. Looking back I feel like if I knew my Sophomore season was going to be my last it may have been different. I am glad how my season went but you never know what it would be like until you are in that position. I just hope that we can at least get to the first month of tennis.
I have been involved in music ever since it was possible. I have been doing vocal music since the age of seven and instrumental since the 5th grade. I have always had a connection to music that doesn't always make sense. I have loved doing it since the day I started and some days I can't seem to find it in me to keep doing it at the same time. There's never a time when I don't have something going through my head. Sometimes, it's a song that I had just heard, and other times it's an instrumental piece that I had thought of that I think would sound good. I have never been confident when it comes to music, though, I always seem to forget of the years of practice that I have put in and always feel as if I am not good enough. I plan on auditioning for scholarship recitals which would help put me into a music program while I am attending college. Music has helped everyone in a different way. Some people experience it by creating music or being in a musical ensemble. Others just find comfort in the idea of listening to it because it is soothing or because it helps them take their minds of of things they don't enjoy in their life. Music is something that everyone has a connection to.
I am sure as you read the comments above mine that you will see a common pattern: Senioritis. Well, I am going to add one more about senioritis. Soccer has been weird this year and for a multitude of reasons. COVID has put a damper on soccer on many different occasions. The year has sucked when you can't fist bump your buddy after you make a great play of can't get everyone together in the huddle. The college team I am going to commit to wants me to come down but that day is the second round of playoffs; which hasn't helped me at all. Do I want to win a playoff game even though I know we have no chance to beat that second round? Or is it selfish of me to want to go down and officially sign my college contract? Either way, senioritis is hitting me in that aspect. In terms of school, it is hard to stay focused at home or at school. I don't have the motivation to work hard and strive to get my grades up. When given free time I tend to do a lot of thinking and would rather fantasize about the future and what is yet to come in the next five years. I still haven't found what I want to do in college in terms of what I want to study. How am I supposed to know what I want to do if I have never had that much real-world experience? I know that things have a way of working themselves out but right now it is hard to see that.
COVID-19 has affected everyone in 2020 in some way or another. It's more than likely affected everyone in your family. Whether that is your parents started to work from home or even school getting moved to online classes last spring. With going to online school last year it just didn't feel the same. If you had a question on an assignment you'd have to email your teacher which could take a couple of hours to days versus just raising your hand in class. I feel like I have taken school for granted over my years. Always wishing for a holiday break or a snow day. You don't realize how much you miss something until it's gone. At the beginning of my freshman year, If you told me that I would miss school. I would have called you crazy. You truly don't know how good something is until it is taken away. I will forever be grateful to live in the United States and that it is easier to get an education here than anywhere else in the world.
Many people have cats and dogs as pets but have you ever heard of somebody who has a squirrel? Well, I did. I know it probably seems weird and follows the style of a Disney princess movie, just hear me out. One nice spring day, my family was outside doing a bunch of yardwork. I was assigned the task of raking and cleaning underneath the set of pine trees in our yard. Suddenly, I noticed this small, pink creature about the size of a mouse that didn't even have its eyes open yet. I ran over and told my parents. Being covered in bugs and lacking movement, we had all thought it was dead until it wiggled one of its legs. The motherly instinct in my mom took over and she rushed the mystery creature inside our house to clean it up and try to research what it is. A few moments later, my mom came back outside and told us that she thinks it is a squirrel. No later than half an hour later, we heard a noise and saw another baby squirrel fall from one of the pine trees. With the wonderful capabilities of the internet, it wasn't hard to find articles upon articles about how to care for squirrels. We decided we would try to care for them. Fast forward a month or two and we have these two fully grown squirrels. Around this time my dad and I constructed this glorified birdhouse for the squirrels and dubbed it the "squirrel box." We set it up in our backyard and moved the squirrels to live on their own outside. We would still go out and feed them from time to time, but as time went on we saw them less and less. It has been years now but every now and then there are squirrels by our house who are just a little too comfortable with us and we wonder.
Playing sports is something that has been a part of my life ever since I can remember. Whether it was going to a friend's house to play backyard football, going to a little league baseball game, or playing madden against my friends. Sports have revolved around me my whole life. Now that it is my senior year of high school I am left in a little bit of a predicament of what I want to do in College. Of course, I would love to play sports in college, but at a price. I would like to receive some sort of scholarship since I would be paying lots of money to receive an education. Whatever happens though, I know sports will always have a connection in my life. I know it will be difficult right away not playing sports if that is the path I choose because when track got canceled last year it was hard knowing that I may never run track again. But whichever road I take after high school I hope sports will still be in my life.
Mayhem was a Norwegian Black Metal band that had a more complicated history than any other band. They gained notable fame in the late 80s with their dark image and genuinely insane band members. The lead singer Per Yngve Ohlin (who went by the nickname "Dead") viewed himself as a creature from another world and painted himself to look like a dead body. He also had pig and sheep heads impaled on sticks at the concerts which is somewhat concerning. He had constant feuds with the other band members Euronymous and Varg Vikernes. It's rumored that Dead stabbed Euronymous at one point. In 1991, Dead shot himself with a shotgun and left a suicide note saying "excuse all the blood". The band used this event to promote their black metal image and Euronymous made a necklace out of bits of his skull. Another band member "Necrobutcher" left the band after the trauma, leaving just Euronymous and Varg. In 1993, Euronymous planned to blow up the Nidaros Cathedral (which was featured on their new album's cover) to coincide with their upcoming album release. However before he could do this, Varg murdered Euronymous by stabbing him 23 times. This was reportedly because Euronymous threatened to torture Varg to death and videotape it. Varg was arrested and sentenced to 21 years (maximum sentence in Norway), only getting out in 2009. He was also arrested on charges that related to the 150kg of explosive and 3,000 rounds of ammunition found in his home (which he was going to use to help Euronymous blow up the cathedral). The history of this band is genuinely insane and I don't even like their music, and I especially don't like Varg (who is a confirmed murderer and neo-nazi) but the history of this band is one of the most interesting and really left an impact on the European Metal Scene.
This year is going to be great for track and field. I made a decision to quit basketball this year so that I could get an early start on the pole vault. It was a hard decision to quit my senior year since I’ve been playing since 2nd or 3rd grade. The basketball season cuts many months into the start of the pole vault, months I didn’t want to wait. Since Mueller asked me in church one Sunday morning to try out for pole vault I’ve never been happier. I love our practices after school, moving the pits to the outside when it gets warm enough, putting up the pit on jump days, and of course, getting to fly high in the air. There is nothing better than the feeling of your feet leaving the runway as the pole takes you 13 feet into the air. The rush of adrenaline is almost addicting and it just makes you want to go again and again.
I have been collecting vinyl records for about 3 years now. I have collected anywhere from about 140 - 160 and my collection is still growing today. I have tried to have my music taste as diversified as possible. From a young age, I was mainly exposed to rock artists, particularly growing up on artists like Marilyn Manson, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Primus, Slipknot, etc. But I found myself going through an identity change when I moved to South Dakota in 2010. I wanted to diversify my music in every way possible. I started off getting into more rock bands like Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, and Live. But that quickly was not enough for me. I wanted more. So I turned to rap music after a friend introduced me to Childish Gambino, and another friend did the same with Kendrick Lamar. I quickly fell in love with their music and began expanding from there with artists like Anderson .Paak, Frank Ocean, Kanye West, Juice WRLD. Of course, there are a lot of artists I am not listing here. I could go on for days about every artist that I have in my Apple Music. For example, I grew up on Pink Floyd too but did not list them above. I grew up on their basic hits like Wish You Were Here, Money, and Time. However, recently I have decided to deepen my understanding of their music. Listening to albums like Meddle, Animals, and The Division Bell. I have done the same with artists like Alice in Chains too. Of course, with me doing this, the number of records I own has only increased.
People say quitting means you're giving up. I think the complete opposite. I was in band for three years, and while I am forever grateful for the opportunity it presented to me, I struggled poorly with self-esteem and my mental health to the point of almost no return. It was crazy for me to do. I was the first chair, I paid attention, I did a great job, however, I was just over it. The atmosphere I felt walking into the band room quickly became hostile during my sophomore year and. I knew my hours were numbered. However, my feeling of walking into Mrs. Koehn's classroom has made all of the difference. Whenever I walk into the interp room, I feel loved. My teammates are my brothers and sisters, and Mrs. Koehn is my second mom. I can't believe how well I have excelled in this activity and how much it does for my mental health. When I graduate, I will be so sad to no longer compete, however, from scholarships to the competitions, to the bonds I've formed with the small team we have, will stay with me forever
Bush dogs are adorable little canines few people are aware exist. They were first identified by Peter Lund through fossils found in Brazilian caves and, at the time, were believed to be extinct. However, the prehistoric pups are still very much alive. Bush dogs are rather small animals and weigh around only 13 pounds. Their small size, combined with their blunt snouts and rounded ears, makes them look a bit like a bear cub. Nonetheless, some of their distinctive features, such as their medium-length stubby tails, and long, stout bodies ensure they cannot be confused with any other mammal. Unfortunately, there are few bush dogs left in the wild (only around 15,00); and they are currently classified as near threatened meaning they are likely to become endangered in the near future. Luckily, many zoos, dedicated to their preservation, keep bush dogs so they will be around for years to come.
Life, it amazes me how fast it can change. Everything can be going well one moment and in the blink of an eye, something happens. You don’t know why and often wonder what you did to deserve it. Good or bad, I believe everything happens for a reason and sometimes that reason is not clear. We all have our days where we wish they were better, oftentimes our days are great blessings. You could wake up and have the best day where everything is going well, and once you get home you find out some bad news and everything turns upside down. Why does this happen? Why do bad things happen to good people? This is often what people ask themselves. We all deal with our own hardships and we all experience different things as well. This is what makes life interesting because you never know what will happen or when.
Being a senior was something that I have always looked forward to but now that it's here, I want to go back. I can remember classes that I took freshman year with the people that I am still friends with. I remember being on the bottom of the totem pole in cheer. It's hard to wrap my head around the fact that I am now in charge of the cheer team as co-captain and I am a senior. I already had an idea of what I wanted to do once I got to college but now that the date is getting closer to picking one, it's terrifying. Picking a college and a major at this age is weird because I want to make sure that I like what I am doing ten years down the line. It'll be weird because I will no longer go to school with the people that I have been with for the past twelve years of my life. Everything is moving so fast that it is hard to keep up with what is happening between friends, family, and school sometimes.
Something I realized last night as I was trying to fall asleep is that bridges and tunnels are technically the same thing. While it may sound like a weird thing to think of, it is actually very true. Whether it is a bridge or a tunnel depends on your perspective. For example, to the people passing on top, they are going over a bridge connecting two places. However, to the people who go under the “bridge,” they are really going under a tunnel, as a tunnel is something one passes under to get to the other side. It may sound stupid to care about something like that, but I think it interesting that people say, “We are going to drive under the bridge.” Why? Because they are labeling it a bridge based off of the perspective of the people above, not their own. For them it should really be a tunnel. Not that this realization is going to impact anyone’s life or anything, but I still think it is interesting to think about.
-Eva Malsam
There is a case study about how birth date affects player development in sports. For example, most players in the NHL currently are born in the first three months of the year. Why is this? The answer is quite simple. It lies in the way that youth hockey is divided into age groups. Players born in the year January 2002 are fit into the same category as a player born in the same year in December. This gives them an extra 11 months to develop physically as well as mentally each year. Players with an early birth date are often seen excelling because of these advantages. This same effect can be seen across multiple sports. It becomes especially pronounced as time goes on and players exponentially grow. Not to worry however if you're a player of a sport that has been born in a later month, research has shown that the difference in skill level and physical maturity levels out by ages 16-17. So if you ever have kids and wonder why they may be lagging behind their peers, consider this.
Something that I think is interesting is music. That sounds kinda dumb but I am absolutely fascinated by it. I can play tenor sax, trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn, mellophone, french horn, guitar, cello, and a little bit of clarinet. Everything about band and music fascinates me, I am always thinking about some sort of music. I mostly think about marching band and drum corps. I even got into a drum corp (unfortunately I wasn’t able to march because of COVID but they have extended my contract for this summer). I am in a jazz band and orchestra. I have learned that there are some things in music I don’t like. I have played the cello 9 years and I have learned that I no longer find joy in playing it. Every day I come into the orchestra and dread the next 45 minutes. It’s kind of ironic considering the very thing that introduced me to my new passion has itself faded from that same passion.
The idea that we can understand some people but not others is a crazy thought. There are over 7000 languages in the world and so much that we don’t understand. The Bible is the most translated book at 700 languages but as big of a number as that is, it only covers 10% of the entire world’s languages. There are so many more ways to communicate with people than just the languages that might first come to mind. In fact, people can communicate without talking at all! For example, 5% of the world has a disabling hearing loss. These people can communicate through sign language and hand gestures, some can read lips, or use other ever-advancing technology to help them. People also communicate through art or music or dance. When people find a passion you are likely to see them using it to communicate their thoughts and emotions through. Languages are a curious thing but it’s what makes people unique and feel connected to one another. Even as more and more languages disappear it is important to remember that these separations don’t have to be barriers but instead a welcomed variety to our world.
I am finally a senior, the year everyone is the most excited about in high school. Now that we are in senior year, I am starting to develop senioritis. It is hard to balance school work when all I want to do is relax and have fun after football practice. I have realized that senior year is about a quarter way through and it is very nerve-racking to think I will be graduating soon and yet I don't even know what I want to study in college. However, I am excited about the future and the next step being college makes me realize how much closer I am to being thrown into the real world. Soon I will be playing football for Augustana and after that, I will be getting a full-time job and hopefully settling down somewhere. As the year goes on I will want it to slow down because high school is much easier than the real world.
In the deep remote of rural North Dakota, this story takes place. The old farmhouse is worn but sturdy. The rest of the complex contains a shabby stable, a broken-down coral, and a nearly dilapidated aluminum shed. As a child, this place was warm and welcoming. Now, it only tells of decay and age. I park the truck just outside the house’s front porch. As I walk up the front steps, old memories of childhood joy and adolescent energy return to me. I hear my mother call me in for the first time in decades. I walk in as she puts the hot pork roast on the table, telling my father to turn off the TV and join us. My little sister jumped into the chair beside mine, ready to eat. I take my place at the table as my father asks me about my day. However, as the meal goes on, I slowly let the visions disappear into the dust. Then, I am left alone with the memories of the day that I lost all of them, wishing it was my time to join them.
Minnesota Sports fans have the toughest time as any sports fan. Out of all cities with all four major sports teams they easily have it the worst. Only one of the 4 teams have ever one the championship, the Twins did it twice in 1989 and 1991 but since then no team has even made it back to a championship. The Timberwolves are one of the worst franchises in the entire NBA due to horrible front office decisions. The Wild are the definition of mediocrity due to the twin 13 year 98 million dollar contracts that they gave to Ryan Suter and Zach Parise which was supposed to lead the team to success but just ended up sputtering out. The Twins who cannot overcome their demons with the New York Yankees in the playoffs. Also fun fact the Twins have lost 18 straight playoff games which is the worst in all of 4 major sports leagues. And finally the Vikings where do I even start with them they are the definition of a choker. So many important games blown and horrible luck affect the team that it is next to impossible to expect any success from them ever even when things look good.
Deciding which next-gen console to buy can be a difficult decision for some people. If this will be the first console you will be buying you will want to look into all of the specs of each one. Most of the time the specs are generally the same. One may have more storage but the other has expandable storage. You also may want to consider what your friends have bought or already have. This is because you might want to play with some friends that you have. Some new consoles are completely online, you only have to pay a monthly subscription fee. Some may like this because with the physical consoles you have to pay a monthly fee to play online with friends anyway. It is a lot easier to decide if you already have a console. You will probably be choosing to buy the same brand as the one you already have unless you did not enjoy the experience with the console you already have. In which case you might consider switching.
I noticed you used a "Good Mythical Morning" background as the picture for this blog post. I love watching Rhett and Link whenever I have time. They are funny and beyond creative. My favorite videos have to be when they eat gross food; those are my favorite because of their faces when they realize they have to eat something nasty. The food games are also at the top of my list. They will either throw darts at a map, trying to guess where a certain dish is from, play shuffleboard to guess which decade the food was created, or even spin a lazy susan to see who has to eat the nasty food. Sometimes they leave an item in a certain substance for a month; these are interesting to see what the substance did to that certain item. Nevertheless, Good Mythical Morning is one of my favorite youtube channels and I was inspired to write about them when I saw that picture.
I am an only child which makes the college application process absolutely awful. My parents refuse to let me go anywhere other than somewhere east river in South Dakota. That sounds terrible to me because I would like to leave this state the second I can. Neither of my parents have good arguments for why I should stay here so it makes talking to them about college very frustrating. It's even more annoying when all of the other adults in my life, including my doctor, agree that my parents should let me leave the nest and go where I please. Minnesota would be perfect for me and they are acting like I'm moving to a different country. I think they just don't want me to leave. My dad will be fine but my mom will probably have to be admitted to a psych ward the second I move into my dorm. Ideally, I think she would love to live with me forever.
High school has been interesting, to say the least. I have changed a lot since I started and I am proud of that fact. Now all I can wait for is the next chapter in my life, college. I have heard some very good things about college. Looking back at my freshman year I realize how I have changed not just with my friends but as a person. I am a lot more mature, which does not seem to be true but it is. I can not wait to see how much I will change in the next four years. I have already made such a large jump with these four I can not imagine where I will be in the next four. I have not yet decided where I want to go but I will soon enough. This decision will be the one to change me and my future and I just hope it is for the better.
Do you want to play soccer in college? Where do you plan to attend college? These two questions seem to only be the only thing people care to ask me. Being uncommitted and asked these questions makes me nervous—even though I have a pretty good idea of where I will be attending/playing. It gets me thinking, do I say the truth or do I tell them what they want to hear? When people ask these questions I feel like they are expecting me to know right then and there the plans I have for my future. When I tell them that I am not committed anywhere they tend to look at me with a puzzling look, as if it is a joke and they are trying to figure out the punch line. Lately, I have come to terms with myself and have decided to tell people the truth. In case you were curious I’ll answer those questions for you. I do want to play soccer in high school. I have some of my fondest memories on the soccer field. I do not know where I’m going to attend college. I have been on some visits and practiced with some college teams. But for now, I am just going to go with the flow.
Tonight is a big night for the varsity soccer team. We will be going head to head with Roosevelt, who is much higher in rank than us. It will most likely decide whether we have to travel to Sioux Falls for the first playoff game, or somewhere far like Rapid City or Pierre. It is very nerve-racking, to say the least. It will also almost certainly be the senior's last home game for the rest of our soccer career in high school. By this being the last game of the regular season that also means that the actual end to it all is soon to come. I have been playing soccer since I was just 3-years-old. It will be a bittersweet goodbye whether we win or lose in the playoffs. I am not planning on playing soccer in college so this is the end for me. I just hope to score one last goal, or even better, my first in-game bicycle kick.
It is finally October! October is one of my favorite months because not only are the leaves changing colors, but it is the month of Halloween. Halloween is an interesting concept when you really start to think about it. Children dress up as different characters and wait until it is dark to go around to neighboring houses and get candy from strangers. It sounds like kidnapping bait, to be completely honest. Who even thinks of that? Halloween is actually a tradition that originated from the Celtics during the eighth century. The Celtics believed that on this day, Hallow's Eve, is when the ghosts return to the earth for this one night. While it might sound similar to the Latin celebration, Day of the Dead, it is actually quite the opposite. Halloween was a night created to ward off spirits instead of inviting them in. The Celtics would light huge bonfires and wear costumes in attempt to scare away unwanted entities. Farmers would even go as far as to sacrifice their own cattle in hopes to protect their crops from dying. The annual tradition has been passed on for hundreds of years and is now known as a fun, light-hearted evening full of tricks and treats that just about everyone gets excited for.
Snowboarding has come in leaps and bounds; rising to the top with its own culture, equipment, and athlete superstars, it is a well-established sport today. Its competitions and events have become international staples; for example, the Air and Style snowboard competitions, the Swatch Freeride World Tour, and the FIS Freestyle Ski and Snowboard World Championships. Snowboarding has evolved into many different styles of riding including freestyle, alpine racing, backcountry, and more, but where did it begin? Well, it started in 1929 with a plank of plywood, a clothesline, and some horse reins. M.J. "Jack" Burchett could be seen gliding down hills with his new invention. In 1963, Tom Sims created what he called a "skiboard." Sims was obsessed with skateboarding and he wanted to do it in the winter as well as the summer. His invention consisted of a rounded pine plank with a nose kick in the front, carpet on top, and aluminum with candle wax underneath. The snowboard didn't commercially catch on until 1965 when Sherman Poppen—a father trying to get his kids out of the house on a winters day— invented the "Snurfer." Two children skis bolted together and a length of cord for balance later, Poppen soon had all the kids in the neighborhood on his doorstep, begging him to build them one. Patented 6 months later, the Snurfer was mass produced; 6 million units were sold over the next few years, but it was mostly seen as a kids toy. Meanwhile Dimitrije Milovich, inspired by sliding down snowy hills on meal trays, began producing boards for himself and friends. In 1972 he would begin to produce the first snowboards as we know them today and experiment with iron edges. In 1977, Milovich and other snowboarding pioneers went on to get these snowboards onto slopes–facing many irritated ski resort managers on the way. These were the origins of the winter sport, snowboarding.
I have played baseball since I was five or six years old. This past summer we played in the junior legion state tournament. Going into the state tournament, our record was the worst of all four teams. Brandon was hosting this tournament, which gave us a subtle advantage. We were going into the first game against Post 22. Post 22 was a very fundamental team and we had not played them in the regular season. We ended up not letting them score a single run on us. Throughout the entire tournament, we had not let up a single run until the championship game. We ended up winning the state tournament. This was the first state championship game I have won since I was nine years old. This was a very surreal moment. I don't know what to expect going into my senior year season, but hopefully, I make the most of it.
Everyone who told me my senior year was going to be a breeze was a dirty liar. I am somehow more stressed than I was in my junior year. Between my job, extracurriculars, homework, and applying for colleges—I don't know which is worse. The biggest factor playing into my stress currently is that I'm trying to develop my portfolio. I decided I was going to major in illustration a bit too late, and now I'm scrambling to make enough art pieces to submit to colleges. I really want to go to KCAI. It's an art school in Kansas City that seems so fantastic. I won't be that far from either side of my family, and I have family that lives there as well. I am so afraid that I won't be accepted, so I'm very stressed about creating my portfolio. I need 10-15 pieces for the college to review and determine if they will accept me, and I currently have about four. The fifth one is a work in progress, and I have about four more ideas for pieces, but I currently don't have the time to start them all. On top of all this, I have a commission for my uncle to draw as well. This is terrifying because I don't want it to look bad. I was also planning to make little charms to sell to try and make some extra cash, but unfortunately, I haven't found the time to sculpt them yet. On the bright side, even though I am swamped by all this art I have to do, it has made me realize this is really what I want to do for the rest of my life. Yes, it is so stressful and a LOT of work, but I truly wouldn't have it any other way. Being an artist is truly my dream job, and I really hope I get the opportunity to pursue further. Everytime I get down on myself because I hate my artwork or I don't think it's good enough— I just remember that fifth grade me with a dream of being an artist would look at me now and be so proud.
The youngest child tends to get away with more things than any previous children. Being the youngest I have noticed this myself, as well as my siblings often commenting about things I have gotten away with that they never would have even tried. I believe this is because the parents are suddenly realizing that this is their last child and once they leave their job of raising their children is over. Naturally, this is a scary thought, so they want to try and entice the younger child to stay longer or ensure their baby child will remain in their good graces. Or they are worn out from raising the other children and as long as they see the youngest within two to three business days everything is alright. I say this because that’s mostly how it is at my house. I am free to go out and do things, but being the opposite from my siblings I would rather sit in my room and read. The other two would have benefited much more from relaxed parental control than I am currently.
I have been playing soccer my whole life, it has been my favorite sport ever since I was 3. This season, being my senior season, has been very weird. Last Saturday I was quarantined after my dad tested positive. This took me out of the last two weeks of soccer. I thought I would care more, but for some reason, it hasn't affected me at all. We lost last night in the playoffs and I guess I don't really care about it. I loved playing in my last season and working with the team. It might have been my last time playing my favorite sport. I think that I've realized that all good things must come to an end. One of my best friends moved away this summer, while I was bummed out, it honestly didn't seem to be that bad. With this year being my last in high school, I know that I won't ever talk to most of my friends in a couple years. To me, that is a difficult concept to grasp.
The other day my friend told me something very interesting. She said something along the line of the way that our atoms and molecules are composed is merely on a chance. This got me thinking, everything in life is a chance. There is always a chance you will not wake up in the morning, or that the Yellowstone volcano will erupt, or that it will be the best day in your life. Humans have taken it upon themselves to help minimize the risks of the bad. An example of this would be as simple as looking both ways before crossing the street, or taking medications and being vaccinated to eliminate being sick. Humans have also celebrated the good. We throw birthday parties when we make it around the sun, we celebrate people that will bring more life into this world, we treat ourselves after getting a good grade on a test, and more. In 2020 it is important to remind ourselves that everything is from chance.
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