Becoming a senior means several things. It means sitting in the front row at basketball games and choosing the themes. It means being the rowdiest section at the pep assemblies even though all the other sections (excluding the freshmen, of course) are just as loud. Most of all, it means that I will be one of the oldest in the school for the first time since the Mission Valley days. For the past three years, the Class of 2012 has always been there to help me through high school and offer advice. Next year, instead of looking up to the grade above, the grades below will be looking up to me and my graduating class.
My senior status will give me the opportunity to run the school. I can park in the front row of the senior lot without getting tagged, go out to lunch without teachers saying a thing, leave seminar without any chance of getting in trouble and best of all, I’ll have the responsibility of continuing East’s sacred traditions.

On the other hand, senior year means that my time at East is nearly over. In 12 months I will be walking out the doors of East for “the best four years of my life.” Even though I have been counting down the years until I become a senior since my freshman year, I am getting hit with the bittersweet reality that my days at Shawnee Mission Wonderful are very numbered.

With my last year at East, I want to make sure I don’t have any regrets and leave my stamp on the school. Senior year is about giving back to the school that has given you everything you’ve learned the past three years. Whether it’s through Link Crew, SHARE, sports, theater or in my case, journalism, it’s important to remember what you’ve learned the past six semesters and prepare to hand it down to the next class.
If the class ahead of the junior class doesn’t leave behind any of their experience or insight, the next class will just be a step behind, confused and unready for seniority. A senior class is only as good as its predecessors leave it to be, and I think it’s safe to say our senior class did a superb job.

Now, it is our job as seniors to take the torch and run the school like our prede-seniors would have wanted. Whether it’s giving the underclassmen advice on classes or teaching them what Club Baño exactly is, it’s our duty to prepare the seniors of tomorrow. We will be the class looked up to and will be expected to be East’s role models. For some juniors, it will mean stepping up in STUCO; for others it will mean being the captain of the soccer team. For me, it will mean helping incoming writers get the feel for working on the Harbinger, as well as taking over the holy pre-meet rituals in cross-country. No matter what it is, it is important to reflect on what we’ve learned and pass it on.

I can vividly remember the days when I was taken on a tour by my Link Crew leader and when I discovered what would be my home away from home for the next four years. I discovered the hallways I would stumble through every morning in a half-asleep coma. I also discovered the place that would shape me more than any school had before and a class of seniors that taught me what it truly means to be a Lancer. I’ve grown more at East than I ever have before and it is hard to believe that in a few months I will be saying goodbye to the school.

When I look back at high school I’m not going to want to regret any part of it. So, I would like to make the best out of my last year at East because I know I’ll never be able to be a high schooler ever again in my life.

In a couple weeks, I will be throwing my backpack in my car for the last time until the middle of August. Unlike my previous last days, I won’t just be thinking about my summer, but also how I want to spend my last year as a Lancer.

McKenzie Swanson | Harbinger Online

It’s probably one of the most commonly portrayed scenes in TeenNick shows. It is a recurring nightmare for many kids before their first days of school. It’s something that you hear about and think, “That’s so stupid! I would never let that happen to myself!” Unfortunately, I let the inevitable happen. Freshman year, I did in fact walk into the boys’ locker room. When I tell people, they usually think I’m just trying to get a laugh out of them.

I’m not joking. It is a true traumatic experience that I had to go through, it’s easy to talk about now but it was a very sore subject for awhile. Here’s how it went:

It was a Friday afternoon in April of 2011 and I was rushing out of school to get ready for this phat rager I was going to (OK, just kidding — I was really rushing home to finish my Conjuguemos before my teacher closed the assignment.) I decided to take a different path than usual. I took the staircase all the way down on the first floor by the weight room, since I knew that it would be the least crowded. Of course, since I was a freshman I didn’t know the school very well yet, and I took a wrong turn: what I thought was the door to the stairwell turned out to be the back door of the boys’ locker room. I took one step in and got a huge whiff of B.O. and Axe body spray. I saw three confused, stubbly male faces staring at me with eyes full of disgust. I don’t know if they were more embarrassed than I was… I mean, they were the half-naked ones in the situation.

Once I finally realized where I was and that I had probably been there for an uncomfortable 30 seconds, which felt way too long, I sprinted my behind out of there. To this day I have still not seen those three boys again (maybe they transferred schools?).

Traffic Jammed

I know for a fact that everyone at one point in their high school career has caused a traffic jam on the stairs. What separates my experience from many others is the fact that I stood in the middle of the staircase, stuck, with about 50 people surrounding me, for almost five minutes.

Let me tell you that five minutes could’ve easily been three hours because, being in my position, it felt so much longer.
It all happened because my stupid backpack strap got stuck on the railing of the stairs. It was literally intertwined with that railing — I don’t even know how it got so stuck, but it was like a little boy scout had tied it into one big knot around the railing while I wasn’t looking. I stood there with a face of embarrassment and pain because I was still struggling to unravel myself from that dang railing.
People were starting to get angry. I was being pushed and shoved and scratched. I felt like I was being attacked by a herd of cats — except these weren’t cats. They were just some angry, judgemental high-schoolers. After I was finally released from the railings grasp, I hustled away from my crime scene, because I was still afraid of an after-the-fact shove or two.

Toilet Tunes

I’ve always been quite the song bird.

I don’t think that there has ever been a day that I don’t randomly belt out the oh-so famous masterpieces created by Nicki Minaj. I’ve always looked at my talent of singing as a blessing — but in this case, it was more of a curse.

It was the beginning of the school year, I was getting into the flow of things. One particular day, I left my fourth hour for my routine three-minute roam of the hallways (which I did to keep myself from falling asleep during the lesson).

This day’s roaming session was one of the less interesting ones — until I walked into the bathroom. I hadn’t realized it, but I had been singing a song quietly to myself as I walked, and I kept on singing to myself. Right as I was walking into the bathroom, I reached the chorus of the song “Dance (A$$) Remix.” I guess you could say I got a little overly excited and started loudly singing and shouting each word.

At the time, I assumed I would be the only one in the bathroom, but of course, with my luck, there was a timid little freshman standing in front of the sink. Her face got one of those expressions on it that only comes out when you see a teacher at the grocery store, or when your mom attempts Dance Dance Revolution in front of all of your friends at the arcade. There was no way for her to leave the bathroom without making awkward eye contact with me, so as she walked by I just stood there and smiled at her — I think it kind of freaked her out even more.

At first I just thought to myself, “Wow, that was uncomfortable.” Then I walked out and saw the same girl sitting on the floor, working on a project with her friend, and got a terrified look from both of them. I knew it was one of my not-so-shining moments.

Rising Stares

I always thought that Choir was a place where I could be comfortable and open in front of all of my friends. That thought changed completely after a rehearsal for our spring concert. We were practicing on the risers in the auditorium, which has always been a scary thing for me to do because I have terrible balance and a fear of fainting. We started off the rehearsal by singing one of our fun upbeat songs.

Mr. Foley had said, “I want you girls to end this song in a funny pose.” Of course, my friend Victoria and I came up with this scheme that would help us achieve the most outrageous ending pose — which eventually put me in a bit of a pickle.

The incident went a bit like this: I had conducted a plan for me to jump into the Victoria’s arms since she was standing next to me. It was supposed to look very well-planned and humorous. Right as the end of our song was approaching, I took a big leap off the place I was standing on the risers and tried to swing my legs up high enough for Victoria to catch me. Unfortunately, she forgot our “amazing plan,” and in turn left me on my hands and knees on the bleachers facing a room full of laughter coming from my peers, directed toward myself. Luckily, only about half of the people at rehearsal had seen me fall but I was still mortified.

The only good thing that came of that incident was that I got to sit out of cheer practice after school due to my “injured knee.”

The increasingly common approach is to point to teachers — the scapegoats of student and parents alike. However, this method is too easy and too lazy, and it demonstrates the paradox of respect for the teaching profession but not for the individual teacher. Arguments by students and parents with teachers about grades and behavior foster a negative learning environment — one that could be avoided if we students assumed responsibility for our actions.

In a poll of 44 East teachers, 26 believed the number of confrontations in which a student or parent held the teacher responsible for poor grades or behavior was on the rise since they began teaching (13 had not noticed a difference and 5 believed that number had fallen).

Now, not all teachers feel under-appreciated, just as not all students and parents attack teachers on a weekly basis. In the end, however, these confrontations continue to occur — and they harm all parties involved. When conflict arises, it is harder for teachers to teach and students to learn.

To find a better learning approach, we should turn to Europe. Finland’s students consistently top the charts in science, math and reading scores, a fact which Scholastic Administrator Magazine attributed in part to student respect for teachers. Julie Walker, a Finland educational system researcher, compared the degree of respect for teachers in Finland to that of doctors in the U.S.

Some have argued that American teachers receive a similar degree of respect. The 2011 PDK/Gallup Poll concluded that most American parents regard teaching as a worthwhile profession for their kids. In fact, PDK International Executive Director Bill Brushaw and Gallop Senior Scientist Shane Lopez wrote that, “Not only do Americans understand the need for great teachers, [but] they also trust and support teachers who are in classrooms now.”

However, the poll does not address how students and parents act towards teachers. Respecting the profession does not equate to respecting a teacher in the classroom.

Finland, on the other hand, showed that a classroom devoid of conflict and filled with mutual respect fosters successful learning. Clearly, heated confrontations about homework, tests and grades can be easily prevented, but it takes initiative on our part. Here are three simple steps to creating better relationships with teachers:

1. Actually read the course handouts — knowing late work policies and project deadlines prevents any negative surprises. “What does the syllabus say about that?” is a common question teachers ask students who plead ignorance.

2. Meet with teachers before or after school to settle any disputes. Teachers are more flexible one-on-one than in front of thirty sets of eyes, especially when they are not in the middle of trying to explain how to write an FRQ.

3. Keep a cool head. Tone and body language are just as important as speech, so when a teacher calls you out for rolling your eyes, do not claim, “I didn’t say anything.” Teachers are much more likely to listen to a calm, composed high schooler than a stuck-up teenager with a strong sense of entitlement.

If these steps are way over your head, remember this simple rule: empathy goes a long way. Teachers deal with a lot, after all. With public school budget cuts, they have picked up more classes and more students. A new teacher might be unsure at first how to handle a classroom full of kids, and an experienced teacher might be skeptical of your excuses because he or she has heard the same ones for twenty years. Understanding is the first step to preventing unnecessary confrontations.

But why bother improving your relationship with your teacher? After all, we move on after only one year or even one semester.

We should bother, though, because aside from our parents, teachers are some of the most influential adults in our lives. They affect everything from our political beliefs to our communication skills, and that in of itself should demand respect.

Disrespect from students should not just be “part of the job;” instead, students need to take initiative. Grades are usually based on merit, but our relationships with teachers are based on effort.

Who wants to deal with angsty teens all day? Honestly, I annoy myself. Kids in my classes bother me, with their constant bickering and petty problems. And group discussions are the worst.

Not to mention all the grading. In my class, I would either a) never give homework or b) give everyone, except the people that I didn’t like, an A.

And seniors? No way. I would never want to deal with their senioritis. Just because they’re leaving doesn’t mean they can act like they have no cares in the world.

Because, unlike them, I would have cares.

I would care that they were leaving, and that the possibility existed that they would forget about me. I would care that I might never see them again, or that we would lose touch. I would care that they had a future, a life, a career ahead of them.

I would care about whether they learned as much as they could from me, if I did my job as well as I could and if I was one of those teachers that they would always remember. I would care about them seeing me cry. I would care about saying goodbye.

But mostly, I would care about the changes, about the new group that I would have to say goodbye to, the new memories that I would make and worry about forgetting.

I can’t be a teacher because I couldn’t deal with losing them every year. Although the impact of one person may seem small and insignificant, it has meaning. For me this year, it meant a new passion for journalism. It meant a new sense of humor, a new perspective on music. It meant friendship.

I admire teachers for their perseverance, their courage, their acceptance. Because, quite frankly, I could never be one of them.

Nervously walking up to your manager, asking when you are supposed to pick it up and where, until they lead you back to their office and hand you a piece of paper with the magic numbers on it. You leave the building feeling slightly older, more responsible, more adult-like than you felt when you got there.

I’m 17-years-old, and I got my first paycheck about a month ago. It was $60 and I was as happy as a toddler on Christmas morning when I got it. I held it in my hand, thinking to myself, This is my money that I made on my very own.

It’s kind of sad, actually. My brother got his first paycheck at the age of 14, three years earlier in his life than I did. He teases me for being so old when I got my first job. But better late than never, right?

So here’s my message to you: You work when you work. Who cares when Betty Lou or Sally got their first jobs? It’s your life. And when the time comes for you to receive your first paycheck, treasure that moment. Be proud. And don’t be afraid to act a little younger than your age.

]]> http://smeharbinger.net/opinion/blogs/blog-bringin-in-the-dinero/feed 0 http://smeharbinger.net/opinion/blogs/blog-the-best-advice-youll-ever-get http://smeharbinger.net/opinion/blogs/blog-the-best-advice-youll-ever-get#comments Mon, 07 May 2012 17:28:30 +0000 Anna Danciger http://smeharbinger.net/?p=62535 I spent a long time thinking about what I wanted to say in my final blog. Instead of reflecting on what a fantastic four years I’ve been privileged enough to have at Shawnee Mission East, I wanted to send people off with some words of wisdom. Quick tips on ways to figure it all out. But unfortunately, I can’t. Because here’s the sad truth: I know nothing.Nothing about the real world, anyway. In fact, a few days ago I realized that I don’t even know what kind of laundry detergent my parents use. How am I going to make it in the world if I can’t even properly wash my own clothing? Keeping that in mind, who am I to sit here and try to advise you on the way to structure your life?

By the time you reach the end of your high school career, try as you might, you still won’t know anything. Sure, you might know how to conjugate a Spanish verb in the past tense or that a2 + b2 = c2. But what do you really know?

When you’re finishing high school, you’re beginning life in the real world. People will look down on you like the naïve infant you are, but this time, they won’t coddle you and help you out when things are rough. They’ll shrug their shoulders and look for someone who’s got a handle on things. Someone with experience, who’s figured it out.

You may think you’ve seen it all during your time in high school, and maybe you did. Maybe you had a life altering experience while traveling abroad. Maybe you found Jesus. Maybe you broke a leg and had to quit track, only to discover that painting was what you were looking for all along.

But what has that taught you?

No one has it figured out by the time high school ends. The only thing I know for sure, is that I really don’t know that much. But this isn’t a bad thing! All it means is that you shouldn’t freak out if you don’t have any idea what to do with yourself after high school. Just relax and see where life takes you. You’re going to figure it all out eventually, you just need to live a little first.

High school is the time to realize that you’re not as smart as you think you are; you have the rest of your life to change that.

Luckily, I have this blog to compensate. Here are a few tricks of the trade about how to live high school, and life in general, to the fullest.

***

Do something you are bad at. You are going to be bad at things, especially in high school. But guess what? Growth and change are part of the struggle. I am the last chair in symphonic band’s trombone section, lacking skills in almost every aspect of music, but I am surrounded by people that are good. I am surrounded by passion and dedication. I have a front row ticket to the future of instrumental music almost daily. Who cares if I didn’t get a division I rating in my solo?

You are the least important person in your life. You have your whole life to spend with yourself. Take some time and talk to new people and maintain the relationships you have. Other people have stories too, and more often than not, these stories will help to shape you.

People are horrible, but love them anyway. Like the rest of you, not all of my interactions with the human race have been positive. I have learned that second chances aren’t always opportunities for you to realize that you were wrong all along and that people are great after all. What I have learned is that it isn’t worth it to stay angry at someone. Occasionally, people will do their best and those are the moments you should remember.

Live under a rock. I fear technology. I am scared that we will all end up addicted to our iPhones and Kindles and when they are ready, they will awaken their inner states of being and destroy us. So in order to act like I am capable of avoiding my computer that wants to enslave me, I give up my electronics for an afternoon, day or week. You will be shocked by how much you can accomplish, how few excuses you have and how easy it is to live freely.

People want to kill you. We go to what I see as the best high school in the country. I don’t care how many people say otherwise. We have the best programs, the best staff and the best students. We don’t have the highest test scores but we have the highest drive and a sense of inquisition that I haven’t seen in a secondary school. Do you know how lucky you are to have this? I know from some experience that we are rivaled by more schools. This loathing is proof that people would almost literally kill for what we have. Education is your key, and with the best resources, there is no excuse not to try.

Remember what you wanted to do when you were four. Before you were exposed to the pressure of your peers and standardized testing, you were cool. You ate bugs and asked questions. You could do anything. You wanted to be an astronaut? What would the current you say to the dreams of your childhood? “I couldn’t do that now. My ACT survey said that I should be a….” No. Rediscover that you that loved to inquire and loved to learn. It’s easier than you think to apply worm races to physics.

***

This blog can’t hold the messages to the hundreds of people that I ought to thank for making my time at Shawnee Mission Wonderful as great as it has been. This blog can’t show you all of the memories I have made, the tears I have shed or the friends I have gained. Heck, this blog can’t even allow me to relive all of these moments.

The point is that unless I turn into that person that never leaves high school, it will all end on Thursday night and a new class of seniors will emerge. After that, a new class, and so on (at least until we all are overpowered by my iPod.)

After Thursday, my mark will be made and it will be someone else’s turn. Leaving a legacy, being at the top, looking out for yourself; that isn’t what high school is about. High school is a raw, crude thing but you should remember that it is up to you to make it count. No one can do it for you. Make it fun. Give it value. Make me want to fly back from Oregon and live it all over again. And when it is your turn to walk across that stage on a May evening, with bugs nipping at your ankles and Dr. Krawitz beaming at you, make sure you don’t have any regrets when it’s time for you to give your final say.

Crossovers
One of the most popular categories in the fan fiction universe, this “trope” (a fanfic term for scenarios) involves the combining of two stories. For example, the story could center around Harry Potter waking up one morning and finding himself trapped in the Hunger Games.

WAFF
“Warm And Fuzzy Feeling” stories are those designed to elicit the occasional “oh that’s so cute!” from the reader. They usually explore unfinished relationships from television show or look at what would have happened if two characters who hated each other fell in love.

Episode Codas
These usually only pop up in the week after a series finale. An episode coda merely looks at what would have/could have happened after the last episode of a television show. Not to be confused with Futurefic, codas pick up exactly where the episode left off and continue the storyline just a bit farther. The best examples of this categorie popped up after the last episode of “Heroes” ended on a cliffhanger. Within an hour, hundreds of stories were popping up across the blogosphere from fans wanting to know what happened next and figuring they might as well make it up themselves.

Futurefic
Similar to Codas, Futurefic explores the distant future of a world. The best examples of this are the stories telling the adventures of Harry and Ginny’s kids at Hogwarts and beyond. Often Futurefics fall under the fanfic category AU (alternate universe) and involve invented characters who talk about the characters from the original work with reverence.

Het Fiction
Unfortunately, the most popular genre of all is romance. As you can probably guess, these stories include the steamy details of the “what if ___ and ___ made out” category. Mostly written by forty-year-old basement cretins, this genre is laughable for the ridiculous scenarios it proposes. Thankfully, fanfic sites provide a rating system for this section so you know which ones to avoid. Sites can either use MPAA ratings or the Fanfic standard of K, K+, Teen, and Mature. So feel free to head to the web but I highly advise that you check out some of the other fanfic sections and save hetfiction only for when you need a good laugh.

It didn’t end there, either. It wasn’t long before she was using ‘ttyl’s and ‘brb’s. Some people may not realize why I’m making such a big deal about something teenagers have been using since the ancient days of AOL Instant Messaging. The reason is that text speak is our thing. We use it because we need to get information out as quickly as possible while we are busy illegally texting and driving, discreetly texting during class, or if our Call of Duty game is seconds away from starting and we want to respond to our girlfriend’s last message before we become preoccupied for the next ten minutes. As high school students, we just don’t have the time to spell out full words.

The other reason that my mom using text speak is not okay is because of how incredibly technologically incapable she is. My dad claims that before we were born, she was better than him at computers, but when she became pregnant with us and left work, Microsoft came out with its Windows software, and my mom was rendered useless with computers. This is still hard for me to believe, because I knew how to use a computer before I knew how to write in cursive.

My mom’s lack of electronical ability doesn’t just involve computers, however. Despite me trying to teach her, I doubt she could watch a dvd if she was home alone, and she still claims that the TV is broken if she turns the television on but forgets to turn on the cable box. And don’t even think about Netflix- for her to turn on an episode of “Arrested Development” would be as great a task as me working on the latest NASA mission.

The issue for me isn’t that my parents are using texting, because sending a text is way faster and more convenient than having to call my mom whenever she wants to know “Where are you and what are you doing?!”. It makes sense that they are using new technology. My dad is much more tech-savvy than my mom and he has an iPhone like us, which he uses a lot for work-related things. The problem I have with their texting is that it’s much harder to take any disciplinary action from them seriously. That’s as if your boss were to send you a message that said “Good work 2day, ttyl!!! .” You can’t pretend that that emoticon didn’t just happen.

When my parents first got phones with texting, I had to teach them how to read any new messages. Now, they are using abbreviations and emoticons (my dad too) like 11-year-old girls. I guess I will just have to forget about the anti-texting campaign and turn my focus on my latest crusade: Keeping them off Facebook.

When it comes time to decide what school to attend out of the ones a student got into, price often eliminates some choices altogether. In a Harbinger survey of 104 seniors, 32 percent reported that cost prohibited them from considering at least one of the schools. A restructuring of the university system for better management of tuition funds would allow universities in the U.S. to do more with less.

Cost shouldn’t remain as the determining factor in a student’s decision to attend a certain college or not. Students shouldn’t be forced to make decisions about which college to attend based on price, and should instead be able to make the decision based upon things important to the experience, such as academics and atmosphere. And while increasing financial aid offerings would help, they aren’t long-term solutions. To solve the problem, the universities need to rethink and completely restructure the methods in which they spend students’ money to make it more affordable for the students to attend first-choice-school.

A student attending the average public university can expect to pay $29,657 a year at sticker price, including tuition and room and board, according to a survey by the College Board for the 2011-12 school year. However, the most prestigious universities in the United States happen to be private—the top 20 universities on US News and World Report’s 2012 list of the best universities are all private. Private universities had an average sticker price of $38,589 a year, according to the College Board’s survey. Unlike at public universities, where students rarely pay full sticker price, because of greater government assistance, at private universities students are 10 percent more likely to go into debt to pay for their education, with the average debt per borrower at $28,100.

Student debt is a big problem, and inflation is not to blame for the rise. Tuition and fees at universities for 2011-2012 rose an average of 4.6 percent from the previous school year, which exceeds the rate of inflation of 3.16 percent, according to a survey by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. Instead, the problem rests with inefficient management of tuition dollars by schools, where tuition dollars are spent on items of questionable importance to students’ educations.

It’s unlikely that some of the expensive perks that universities are providing to students like free laundry service at Davidson College and free housekeeping at Trinity University are improving the quality of education, and can be gotten rid of.

It doesn’t make sense for undergraduates to be funding the university’s research program. Federal grants, in many cases, are unable to fully support university’s research programs, and so many schools, like the University of Rhode Island, turn to tuition dollars to bail out research programs. While research is good for the public, English majors shouldn’t be subsidizing physicists. Their money should only be spent on the things that are directly related to their education—most of it should go towards teaching.

Next, the universities need to reorganize their administrative models by eliminating bloat. Schools spend an average of $7,000 per student per year on “administrative support” according to the Economist. These costs aren’t just spent on the deans, but also on psychologists and human resources managers. While these administrators are nice to have around, colleges can educate their students without, or at least with fewer of them.

Schools should also reevaluate class sizes. Studies show people generally prefer smaller classes, but the research and studies into the effect of class size are inconclusive as to whether they provide better education. Large class size does not reduce the ability for students to learn in economics classes, according to  a 2002 study published in the College Student Journal. Furthermore, most business and law schools already do well with large classes. Schools should look into what classes are best served by smaller, discussion-oriented sizes, and which ones can be equally effective with more people. With a larger student to teacher ratio for certain areas of study, schools could save money and be just as effective.

Myers is not alone. She is one of many students who are unable to attend the school of their dreams—ones that they worked hard to get into—because of cost. Schools need to get creative, and soon. Reducing the cost of education should be a top priority.

Grant Kendall | Harbinger Online

If, by mistake, a page of one of my wholesale Moleskine notebooks is exposed on my lap and is read by one of these dogs, I am bombarded with compliments. “How old are you?” they ask me. “When did you come up with the concept for a second-century slave overthrowing the bourgeois of that time to publish an incitement for worldwide revolution?”

I will say it now — I reject like the taste of meat in my mouth all claims that my prose is akin to Kerouac’s. It is, simply put, better.

Sitting on these benches, my lit cigarette looks like a quill in my right hand. Broadway frequenters have come to call me “The Bard,” shaming both me and themselves. The dogs ask me to “bum a cig,” as if one of my metaphorical quills will somehow help get their Beatnik-copped manuscripts published. Please. I can see right through their “worldly” facades, can see the Billboard-Top-100-listening skeletons inside of them, whose only aspiration is to be spit on by an inebriated Drake in a sold-out Sprint Center show downtown. I mean, Drake? Please.

Music is one of those things that I have come to think about less and less over time. I can’t risk revealing the artists I do listen to, as my writing their band names down for the public eye would squash any chance I might have of ever listening to them again. I can tell you that when Spike Jonze called me up to inform me that he was featuring Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” in the trailers for his film adaptation of “Where The Wild Things Are,” the Canadian buzzband became D2M (or, in layman’s terms, dead to me). I shortly thereafter took to tuning my car radio to white noise on an AM channel — I bet no one is listening to this, I thought. A Grammy last year? Dead. To. Me. I would’ve snapped my first-edition copy of “Funeral” in half again if I had the chance. I was a level above, am a level above, but you don’t hear me bragging about it.

No offense, but I don’t think there has been or ever will be a baby born with such pristine bone structure as my own. When I was laying in my redwood crib, not but two feet tall, my parents’ good friend Wes (or as most of you know him, Wes Anderson) saw my shining face smiling up at him and halted production on “The Royal Tenenbaums,” for, I kid you not, two weeks, trying to convince his team to wait 20 years until I was old enough to play Margot Tenenbaum. Even at the tender age of nine months, I knew how to turn down a bad offer — and did so, with what my parents documented on VHS as “Baby’s First Eye-Roll.”

Around the time of my 12th birthday, I found myself in an unassuming gas station in The-Middle-of-Nowhere, Wisconsin. As I leafed through the racks of ironic souvenirs in the back, a man that the world has come to know as “Bawn Eye-vuhr” (ahem, it’s Justin Vernon) strolled through the door, slouching and brooding in the manner that I’ve come to know so well in the past six years. We struck up a conversation, as I had recognized him as the face of Volcano Choir, a project he had posted on a Myspace music page, and he sullenly told me he was currently recording a new album out in the woods. Some of you may know this album as “For Emma, Forever Ago,” but you may not know the part I played in its production. I’ve tried to deny the claims of the media that I am Justin’s muse and the sole influence on “For Emma,” but lying to the general public has just become too tiring. Sadly, I haven’t spoken to Justin since his appearance at the God-Awful Grammys last year and I don’t plan on doing so any time soon.

Before that, when I was on my Buddhism kick in the fifth grade, I sold all of my worldly possessions and moved out of my parents’ home in Fairway, choosing to rent out a single-room loft in the Crossroads district when it was still in its prime. The only items in the flat were my original Salvador Dali pieces that I had collected as gifts from foreign museum curators, who thought that my own street art should be preserved and hung in their institutions and told me so. Often. “You’re the original Banksy,” they cooed in their respective tongues, hoping I would reveal the secrets of my urban art trade. As if.

After months spent traveling abroad, I would return to my loft for short periods of time to litter the floor and walls with these gifts and focus on my art. I slept on the finished hardwoods, ate organic berries from a neighbor’s unattended garden and had a single exposed light bulb hanging from my ceiling by which to scribe my eventually-Pulitzer-prize-winning works. I sold the place just last year, actually, when I read about the Zuccotti Park protests in my AdBusters subscription and set up a tent outside the Liberty Memorial. What can I say? Activism comes as naturally as breathing to someone like me. I wonder how my low-life classmates feel when they wake up in their Pottery Barn bed frames every morning and eat a meal prepared by their loving mother or father, I think every time I wake up in a damp sleeping bag. They must have nothing to live for.

You might’ve seen me in one of those YouTube (or BoobTube, as I have come to call it since its sell-out to Google in 2006) videos documenting PETA protestors who destroy furs at runway shows. When I was 14, I once threw a full liter of stage blood onto Jessica Stam’s fox-fur parka during New York Fashion Week. After the show was over and she had washed the congealed red starch out of her hair, she approached me to tell me that she admired my nerve and asked me out for drinks. I politely declined – “I don’t fraternize with murderers,” is what I said. You should’ve seen her face. Besides, fur is so 2004.

***

I’ve played in 110 degree weather, watching teammates faint from heat stroke. I’ve played in 10 degree weather, sloshing through snow and feeling like Frankenstein’s monster with numb, iron boots for legs. I’ve played for 11 coaches with four clubs in more than 1,000 soccer games. To say I’d do anything for the game would be an understatement.

My earliest memory of soccer was from when I was four years old. I remember I had gone in for a tackle and had gotten a particularly nasty scrape on my knee. Although this was the equivalent of a concussion for most of my preschool teammates, I remember refusing the Disney princess Bandaid from my coach and insisting on staying in the game.

That attitude hasn’t changed in my 13 year soccer career; however, your playing time isn’t guaranteed like it is in preschool. I’m an average player, but usually not a starter. I’m not the fastest or the strongest person on the field, and long runs are my seventh circle of hell. I’m not saying I’m some underdog or a weakling (I’ve dislocated one person’s shoulder and two people’s ankles, thank you very much). I’m just not the best.

But it doesn’t bother me. Nothing could pull me away from the smell of freshly-cut fields, the anticipation right before kick-off and the satisfaction of destroying the opposing team. But there are some things you see from the sidelines that you can’t see from the field.

For one thing, while I was picking acres worth of grass and watching my game in my younger years, I got a better sense of how the game really works. If you figure that I have watched around 60,000 hours of soccer, it’s safe to say I have a pretty firm grasp on what is expected for every aspect of the game. This made it easier to recognize every opportunity during the game, making the most of my play.

Most professional soccer players will only have control of the ball for less than five minutes of every 90 minute game. So when you’re a high schooler playing maybe half of an 80 minute game, it’s even tougher to prove yourself in the time allotted. That’s how I learned that you have to take advantage of every chance you have on the field. It may be for two minutes or 10 minutes, but you have to leave everything you’ve got on the field every time you’re out there.

This is especially true if you have a coach who thinks he’s training the next Messi. At some point in their careers, these coaches decided that channeling their professional dreams through pre-pubescent teenagers was a good idea, so they started coaching soccer. Most aren’t willing to face the facts that most fifth graders aren’t getting up for 8 a.m. games on a Saturday to be verbally abused by their coach while watching the “stars in training” for an hour, but would rather play a game they love and enjoy with their friends. For most developing kids, especially teenage girls, excessive criticism and punishment doesn’t have good results. I know my already overly-emotional, freshman self got severe confidence issues from such a coach.

It’s a big reason why I always look forward to high school season. I’m thankful that my coaches in high school have upstanding character as well as soccer skills. The coaches are impartial and play their players based on work ethic and success. It’s in this environment that my skills have improved and excelled, with encouragement and constructive criticism and actual coaching.

So as I realize that I can count the days left in the spring season on two hands, I am more determined than ever to keep sprinting faster and shooting harder. Whether I’m screaming for the cross or cheering from the side, one thing’s for sure: I’ll see you at the game.

Jake Crandall | Harbinger Online

This game may seem simple enough for some kids, but for me, it presents a problem. Because as much as I want to go to a great college, I don’t want to play to get in. I don’t want to suck up to colleges who I don’t believe truly have my best interest at heart. I don’t want to tailor my high school experience to what I think colleges want. And if this means that I don’t get into top schools, then so be it. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying. I’m just going to try my way, not theirs.

Throughout my years in high school, I have seen kids who seem to be willing to do anything to get into the right schools. Resume padding is actually quite common at East. In a survey of 153 students, 41 percent admitted to padding their resumes with things they didn’t care about, while only 31 percent believed that it was wrong to do so.

To those 31 percent, let me tell you that there is a problem with this type of resume building: it’s disingenuous. Students who play the game present false versions of themselves to colleges. You’ve probably heard these kids justify their involvement in activities by saying, “I’m just doing this because it’ll look good on my resume.” Resume stuffers like these lose integrity by doing what they think colleges want them to do and not what they want to do.

This disgusts and saddens me, but I don’t judge these students; I judge the colleges who hold them to expectations that are too high for teenagers, even highly talented, highly motivated ones. A study from UC Irvine found that the average age of emotional maturity is 22. Apparently other colleges never read this, because it seems that most of the top schools forget that their prospective students are still teens, not emotionally mature adults. Kids at our age are more inconsistent and emotionally unstable than they will ever be, and top schools expect them to transcend the turbulence of their development. I mean, lighten up, we’re still kids, not presidential candidates.

Another reason I don’t judge the students who play the resume game is because they’re just trying their best to reach their lofty goals, the ones they’ve been conditioned to have by external influences. The society we live in has exacerbated the problem of admissions competition by evaluating success in relative terms. The kids who so desperately endeavor to get into top colleges often do so because they believe admission to the best schools officially validates their superiority over other students. This equation of success with status rather than happiness lies at the heart of the problem.

If students who play the resume game realized that they don’t need to be comparatively more successful than others to be happy, then more of them would be fine “settling” for state schools, which actually offer educations that can be just as good as those offered by top private schools. What many students who play the game fail to realize is that the true value of a college education is determined by what a student puts into it, not where it comes from.

But because many kids my age don’t realize this, or just don’t agree, they continue to play the game. They cut corners in school, they dip their feet in activities here and there without ever really committing, they cheat and they give effort only towards their resume. This growing behavioral trend has diminished the educational quality of high school. When kids and parents only care about their grades and the end result, they take shortcuts and often fail to benefit from the real purpose of education: learning. In the modern high school, where getting into the right college rather than learning is the end goal for students, knowledge becomes lost in translation.

After considering all of this, I came to a conclusion that I have stuck with ever since: I will do the things I love. When I apply to colleges next fall, I will present to them the true me, not some fake type-A teenage powerhouse. If the best me isn’t enough for the schools I want to go to, then so be it. After all, if I have to change who I am in order to go to a school, then I’m probably not meant to go there (nor do I want to).

Since I stumbled upon this revelation, I’ve done things differently. I’ve poured my heart into journalism. I started “The Breakfast Club,” a club that combines my love of people with my passion for writing in an effort to help break down social barriers and promote social tolerance. I’ve invested myself in classes to learn, not to get A’s (although that’s an added bonus). Above all, I’ve stopped doing things just to impress colleges. By doing what I love and doing it to the best of my abilities, I’ve learned to play the game by my rules, and not theirs.

You should too. I understand that not all of you can. Financial considerations, among others, force many students to play the game. But if you aren’t burdened by a less-than-stellar track record or the need to get scholarships, then I ask this of you: just consider whether admission is really worth it.

If a school expects you to be in five AP classes, four clubs and three sports, and you’re bending over backwards to meet their expectations, then do you really want to go there? Do you belong there?

After all, college should be about having fun as getting a good preparation for the future. But so should high school. So go out, have fun, be yourself, do what you want to do. And if you can’t get into your dream school by being you, then remember: it’s not the end of the world.

It’s just the beginning of one that might just be better.

My love for the ocean originates with my Grampie, who was an avid diver through most of  his adult life and continued sailing well into his eighties. When he passed away on April fifteenth, and my family went down to Florida for the funeral service, I felt the only way to really stay connected with him would be to spend every moment of free time I had in the ocean.

The Saturday after my Grampie’s service, my dad and I met up with some of the surf buddies he grew up with for a day of stand up paddle surfing. Being lifelong surfers, my dad and his friends use the sport to catch more waves and get better views of said waves as they roll in. I prefer the mellow route. I don’t catch the waves (mostly because I can’t); I just paddle around. It’s a beautifully peaceful way to pass the time.

So there I was, paddle surfing in the middle of the Atlantic, when a pod of seven dolphins swam up to me and started leaping all around my board.

I have been going to Florida every year since I was born, and I have never once seen a dolphin. Needless to say, when I realized that the finned creatures circling me weren’t sharks, I squealed with excitement and nearly fell off my board.

And as cheesy as this sounds, my first thought when I saw the dolphins was, “This has got to be some sort of sign from Grampie”. I really think it was. I think it was my Grampie’s way of telling me that he’d still be watching out for me even though he’d passed.

I spent the next two hours paddle surfing with a pod of seven dolphins. They would follow me and then I would follow them. When I finally came back to the beach, my dad and his friends commented on the fact that dolphins were following me while I was paddle surfing. I told them my Grampie theory. My dad laughed and said, “Somewhere out there, Grandpa Ed has his baseball cap slightly askew and a gleam in his eye”.

I know this is overly sentimental, but I’d like to think my dad was right.

Over-exaggerated hair, colorful trousers and skin-tight tops may sway you from the latest creation in teen-pop boy bands, or possibly draw you in; either way, it’s safe to say that Britain’s latest sensation, One Direction (1D), is having no trouble ensnaring fans worldwide. Their album “Up All Night” premiered at No.1 in America, as well as Italy and Sweden, making 1D the first UK group to do so with their debut album.  While their album is filled with catchy guilty pleasures, it may not be just their music that has landed them to on the top of the charts, as well as in the center of million teen hearts. What sets 1D apart is the quirky, mischievous and honest charisma of the boys themselves.

Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson all auditioned separately two years ago for Simon Cowell’s “The X-factor”, a British singing competition. After they were each eliminated, they were brought back to

One Direction | Fanpop.com

The single from their album and most widely known in the United States, thanks to its new-found radio play “What Makes You Beautiful,” won the boys a 2012 Brit (the UK equivalent of a Grammy) for Best British Single. The boys have also just recently announced, in their beloved mix of British and Irish accents, a 2013 United States arena tour which will be making a stop at the Sprint Center on July 19. Their three music videos,  “What Makes You Beautiful,” “Gotta Be You” and “One Thing” have nearly 200 million views, collectively, on “Youtube” thus far.Whether the song is intimate, quick or danceable, the entire album remains light-hearted and sweet. The music feels genuine, which results from both the strong sense of friendship fans feel they hold with bandmates as well as a non-existent auto-tune.

But is it just their music that has earned them the title ‘biggest boy band in the world?’ Or featured them in Rolling Stone Magazine? Or landed them their recent performance on “Saturday Night Live”? One Direction’s true hook is the boys themselves. Their connection to their fans and their relatability is the real fuel behind the 1D frenzy, not to mention their notable good-looks.

The band is famed for their Video Diaries that dominate the “Youtube” search bar, which they started in their first week together on the X-Factor. These diaries have continued throughout the band’s journey, made and filmed completely by the boys themselves. Their diaries have morphed into homemade game shows such as ‘Megamind’ and ‘Spin the Harry,’ created by the band as new ways to answer fan questions  as well as bizarre intricate plotlines and short films to entertain their fans.

You get attached to Liam’s humility, Harry’s charm, Zayn’s mystique, Niall’s constant laughter and Louis’ adorable, unpredictable humor. The boys have done a remarkable job of remaining unchanged by their recent super-fame. Their attitudes and down-right crazy antics of their latest video diary still match those found sitting in a poorly-lit stairwell of “1D Video Diary X-Factor Week One.”

Louis Tomlinson |Onedirectioninfection.wikia.com

The boys are also open about everything to their fans, nearly. They don’t try to hide their immaturity and irresponsibility, and aren’t working to uphold that fake innocence and “picture perfect image” most teen bands are pressured to maintain. The way they disregard their production team to remain who they are, teenage boys that is, with constant mischief. The boys are known for cracking dirty jokes during their interviews or highlighting their fake interband relationships such as the famous Larry Stylinson, Louis and Harry’s couple name, they reveal the attitudes of any five normal teenage boys – unchanged by fame. Even their concerts have a honest quality about them, with minimal choreography and production, each concert is original and holds spontaneous quirks only ever experienced by the crowd in the stands at that time- making it all feel more personal and unique for every fan.

The boys’ enticing desirability has spawned millions of fan-girl Twitter accounts, thousands of dedicated fan-sites, entire tours sold out in 12 minutes, mass-produced replica 1D dolls and one of the largest and most dedicated fandoms, consisting of hundreds of millions of ‘Directioners’ worldwide.

No matter your opinion on pop bands, the second you hear a snippet of one of their songs, catch a glimpse of their addicting video diaries or read a story of their rebellious and carefree antics, you’ll be hooked. Yes, to many people of the world, hating the entire “boy-band” phenomenon seems to be the most dignified thing to do, but it’s a right challenge to try and avoid the lethal epidemic that is One Direction Infection for which, there is no cure.  

As the school year comes to a close there’s an excitement in the air. Students are hiding in bushes with water guns, planning extravagant Prom proposals and saying “Yes!” to the college of their choice. It’s a time of change and, yet still a time for seniors to celebrate the little time left with your favorite teachers, underclassmen and best friends.

Even though I’m a junior, I have to say that I love assassins…actually I may just love it more because I’m a junior. Hey, I don’t have to be afraid to leave the house for fear of soakage, but I still get to stay up to date with all the latest kills and creative ways that people are hunting their prey.

The hopeless romantic in me will tell you that prom time is pretty awesome. The cynic will say it’s lame and a waste of money. Well, as someone who can actually purchase a ticket this year (i.e. a junior) the romantic is winning the argument. I love talking to people about their gowns, how they got asked and their after-prom plans. And can I just say how obsessed I am with the theme this year? “Under the Big Top”? Circuses in the ‘20s-’40s? In love.

And let’s not forget college. Being on the Harbinger has its perks and my personal favorite is seeing the Senior Spreadsheet: an excel spread of who is going where and what they may major in. This is compiled for the senior issue which everyone eventually will see but I like being privy to the knowledge a little early.

Plus, deciding on where you’re going to college is a big deal. All the work of high school has culminated into one goal: getting into the schools you want to go to. It is so great to see all my senior friends finally stop stressing and picking a college; not only does it give me hope for when I go through the same next year but it also has taken a huge burden off their shoulders. They can relax and thoroughly embrace senioritis.

So, yes, finals are coming up and there are only a few more weeks for us to get grades to where we want them, but hey, next time you are stressing remember that this is a fun, beautiful time of year. And if worse comes to worse, shoot someone with a water gun and claim you thought they were your target.

As college looms, I can almost feel the shoving. The pushes to make a schooling decision. The nudges to graduate and free up some space at Shawnee Mission Wonderful. The one friendly jab I don’t appreciate is the jab to grow up.

Childhood is powerful and I’m not quite ready to give it up. Mine wasn’t cinematic; I didn’t battle the monsters from my closet or revolutionize medicine. My youth has been incredibly happy, incredibly normal and incredibly, well, uninspiring. But through the monotony observed by the outside world, I have had the thrill of a lifetime. And for that I am forever indebted to my parents.

There aren’t too many of us out there that can say we had a childhood that was truly remarkable to the outside world, and that is what makes it so surreal.

How can something so simple, so carefree, be so complex and mystifying?

The following anecdotes exemplify all that childhood has held for me.

***
One of my favorite parts of coming home late at night as a little kid was the magic of falling asleep in one place and waking up in another. I have always been a drifter, weaving in and out of sleep when driving, with longer distances between the awakenings each time.

I would start off in a car seat or booster chair in the backseat and end up in my bed, pajamas on, a silhouette leaving my room. On occasion, I would wake up pulling into the driveway and experience how my parents managed to get my brother and me inside without waking us. Each parent would take a kid, carry us through the house, trying to avoid the creaking wooden floorboards, whispering to each other on which drawer had pajamas, the bottom or top?

The silhouettes I became so accustomed to seeing are still there for me but in a few months, I will become accustomed to a new silhouette, my roommate.

Becca Brownlee | Harbinger Online

The whole condo complex was my world, and they all heard my sudden outburst. My family and I had made it down the five stories of stairs of our family’s Florida condo to the gravel road, preparing to head off to the beach. My dad, mom and brother waved up happily to our neighbor on the third floor who was freeing sand on a rug by shaking out over his balcony. He temporarily rested the rug on the rail, waved and shouted to us: “See you later, suckers!”

My parents laughed, and continued walking while I stood frozen on the spot. Without hesitation, I screamed at the top of my lungs, “See you later, f-!” (Hint: it rhymed with suckers) My parents froze, dropping buckets, shovels, beach chairs and coolers. My neighbor had dropped the rug off the balcony. Other neighbors came out onto their balconies, all gaping at me with amazed looks on their faces.

“What did you say?” my dad asked. “What was that?”

As a four year old, I had no clue as to what I had said; I had never even been exposed to the word’s existence. All I knew was, it rhymed with sucker, so what could be wrong with that? From my four years experience, I knew that adults in my life rhymed things to make them funny, so why shouldn’t I be able to?

My mom took the safer approach on discovering the source of the word, “Rebecca, tell me where you learned that.” When I shrugged my shoulders, explained the rhyming method and lost interest, the scare was over. Little did my parents know that this was only one bullet they would dodge in their daughter’s language habits.

I learned that words mattered that day. What I said would be heard. It doesn’t seem remarkable now: speak and they will listen. The power of expression had come through loud and clear.

***
Like most people, I love family gatherings. For several years, every Brownlee family member that either lived or traveled to Kansas City for Thanksgiving would meet up the day after at a crummy Mexican restaurant.

We have quite the range of people. There are several men are over 6’7’’, a former state senator, a candy company owner, former college athletes and pretty much everything else mixed in. I have been exposed to nearly every American lifestyle in these meetings.

“There aren’t too many of us out there that can say we had a childhood that was truly remarkable to the outside world, and that is what makes it so surreal. How can something so simple, so carefree, be so complex and mystifying?”

I grew up knowing what the world held for different people. I knew about tax returns, college acceptance rates and decisions made for our state in Topeka from an early age. The Brownlee family isn’t one to hold back on the truth. All the cards are on the table and more often than not, people would clear out when they saw the pack of 40 loudly enter a normally calm establishment. (When I say they usually left, I meant they always did, in the end. If you saw a seven foot tall man enter a restaurant, swat at the ceiling fan and then demand to be seated in the section right next to you, how would you react?)

This day was always a big one, the day where I got my extra enlightenment. The knowledge of an adult would enter my naive mind, and let me tell you, I was not ready to process a lot of the information. Driving home that night, my imagination would soar.

“Second cousin Karin has to pummel her opponents to do a good job in Topeka? Bobby is secretly Willy Wonka? Does Mike have to take medicine to stay so tall?”

The little Mexican restaurant on the corner, with low ceilings and bad food will be one of those places I look back on and realize that I have learned more about life during these family created holidays than nearly any other. The exposure, the stimulation to put myself out there and accept other walks of life, those aren’t things you can teach a child without hands on experience.

***

With any luck, a few decades down the line I’ll be at another reunion. It won’t be for my family in the Mexican restaurant. It’ll be the East reunion. I will have white hair, wrinkles and a few more checks off the bucket list. My goal, my dream, is to maintain the attitude I have held onto for 18 years: more than anything I long to be a child at heart.

So for the recipe:

Potato Soup
serves 6-8

• 2-2 1/2 lbs of potatoes (Yukon golds are fab but your standard Idaho will work too), sliced into 1/2 in cubes
• 3 or more large stalks of celery, cleaned and chopped
• 1/2 -1 large onion diced
• 2 cups of milk
• Red pepper flakes and/or garlic chili paste
• Salt and pepper
• Olive oil

1. Saute the onions in olive oil until almost clear in a Dutch oven or large pot, add celery and saute.
2. Next, add the potatoes and enough water to cover. Complete with a dash of salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Leave on medium heat with the lid off until the potatoes are cooked through.
3. Once the potatoes are done, pour in the milk and garlic chili paste to taste. Bring back to heat and serve.
*optional* garnish with arugula and some whole wheat toast

3 very easy steps to heaven in a dish

Is it so hard to give a few minutes of your time to a fellow Lancer? If you said no, you’re lying. And here’s how I know:

Today, I spent a solid 10 minutes waiting in my car in the junior lot. Not for a friend to come join me, not for a phone call or a sign from God. No, today I waited 10 minutes for someone to let me in the line of cars to get out of the junior lot.

Car after car, person after person, nobody let me through. Ten minutes may not seem like a long time, but go sit still by yourself for 10 minutes and get back to me. I was on my way to pick up some neighbors from school, and I was worried that I would be late. All because some fellow juniors wouldn’t spare me a spot in the line.

People, where’s your humanity?

Goodness gracious, I go out of my way to let people in the line because I know if I was in their spot, I’d want someone to do the same for me. Apparently, very few others do that. And I find that sad.

Sure, in the grand scheme of things it’s a small factor in my life, even in my day. But that one act, just letting someone into the line, could make someone’s day. So, my fellow Lancers, think about that next time you’re leaving school. Or, next time you’re leaving anywhere for that matter.

Marisa Walton | Harbinger Online

And then he bought every other Beatles record. He bought all the merchandise, too – figurines, lava lamps, board games, t-shirts, pillows, phones, clocks, mugs, puzzles, cookie jars – literally anything with a Beatles logo, he collected. When he became a father, he finally found someone to share it all with.

My mom was still pregnant with me when Dad took us to our first Paul McCartney concert. Sure, I was just an embryo, but the music must have struck a chord with me. Throughout my entire childhood, I believed that the Beatles were the only band that made music. I wore concert tees to school. I watched “Yellow Submarine” and “A Hard Day’s Night” instead of Saturday morning cartoons.

My memories with my dad are different too. I don’t really remember playing catch in the backyard – I remember roadtripping to St. Louis to see Ringo. I remember my second Paul McCartney concert and how I had to cover my little ears for every explosion in “Live and Let Die.” I remember painting a big Yellow Submarine on my bedroom wall. I remember playing “Hey Jude” at my fifth grade talent show, knowing full well that it was one of my dad’s favorite songs. Our relationship, our bond, has always revolved around the Beatles.

From a genetic standpoint, we have nothing in common. He’s 6’2”, I’m 5’8”. He’s got brown hair and pale skin, I’ve got black hair and dark skin. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find a single physical feature that we do share. When my dad shows off wallet photos of me to his friends, they probably assume the saintly white man adopted a needy child from Mexico. But there’s no denying that I’m his son. I remember one particular trip to the record store when I was six and my sister was 10. Dad told us that we could each pick out a CD. My sister selected *NSYNC’s “No Strings Attached” – I thought he was going to cry. But then I handed him “The Beatles 1,” and he looked at me as if I had validated all his efforts as a father. He had raised a fan.

But it’s not easy to simultaneously raise a child and a company. Dad’s airport business frequently took him out of the country. He wasn’t always there to see me off for the first day of school – or the last. But, during those times, I found such great comfort in the music we shared. Even when he was across the world, I could listen to “Across the Universe” and he suddenly didn’t seem so far away.

I grew up. My hormones and pre-teen angst brought me to the years where my parents became the most uncool people in the world. The stage where I begged them not to linger when they dropped me off at school. Where the Beatles were no longer the only band that I loved. I wasn’t a baby anymore – I was old, hardened and experienced. I wanted to do things my way and listen to the music I wanted. So I found a new band to adore: The White Stripes. But my dad supported me through it. He gave me their entire discography, bought me an imitation Stratocaster guitar and drove me to all my lessons at the Toon Shop until I could play “Seven Nation Army” to my heart’s content.

The truth is, he was a fan of the band years before I was, but he wanted me to have an experience of my own. So he took me to their 2005 show at Starlight theater – I was just eleven years old and had to stand on the seats to get a good view of frontman Jack White. Three years later, we saw Jack White with the Raconteurs at the Uptown. After the show, we stood outside the Uptown, “Icky Thump” CD in hand, hoping to get an autograph from Jack. I didn’t get my autograph. My dad waited for three hours with me in the bitter February cold so that I might meet my rock idol. And when I got sick, (you know, from waiting outside in the cold for three hours) my mom was there to take care of me. Rock stars aren’t the real heroes.

Marisa Walton | Harbinger Online

I’m a man now. I’m going to college next year to lead my own life and make my own mistakes and discover my own passions. I’ll go to concerts on my own and illegally download music. But I’ll never get tired of the way my dad answers every musical question with a lengthy “VH1 Behind the Music” type explanation. We’ll still go concert hopping at the South By Southwest festival over spring break. And I can always make time to break out the XBOX and kick his butt at Beatles Rock Band. I’m growing up and going away, but I’ll always be my dad’s son – a Beatles fan.

Hiba Akhtar | Harbinger Online

The Shawnee Mission School District (SMSD) should allow East and its fellow high schools to tailor administrative policies to their unique needs.

With the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year, East’s students and staff faced a major administrative change: the schedule.

After three years of one seven period and four block period days per week, East was forced to conform its schedule with the four other SMSD high schools. The 2011-2012 school year launched a standardized three seven period and two block days per week schedule. At any time on any day of the week, the five high schools are in the same class period.

Unifying East, North, Northwest, West and South through this compromised schedule change creates consistency within the district, which theoretically allows teachers who split their time between schools to manage their schedules. At East, however, changing the schedule was unnecessary and inconvenient.

“I just didn’t see the need for us to do that,” Krawitz said. “But that’s a very biased statement on my part because we don’t have the dilemma that the other schools have in terms of specialty teachers that have to be shared with one building and another.”

At East, only a handful of teachers travel between buildings within the district — namely specialized music teachers. Replacing beloved block period days with seven period days didn’t benefit East. Although unifying the schedule may benefit other schools, East should be given the liberty to choose a schedule that best benefits its staff and students.

The SMSD fails to adapt its administrative policies to the individual needs of each high school. Scheduling isn’t the only SMSD policy that East is forced to comply to: the grade point average and class rank system also harm students.

GPAs of high-achieving students at East, which makes the class rank system hyper-competitive. Students with 4.0 GPAs, who would rank well at other high schools, may not even be in the top third at East. Dr. Krawitz hopes to eliminate the class rank system, but changing this policy throughout the SMSD is unlikely.

Though all five high schools are a part of the unified school district, each is located in different communities and has different skill sets. East offers a learning environment and extracurricular opportunities distinct from the four other high schools and therefore has different needs; students in Prairie Village have different needs than those in Overland Park or Shawnee. The SMSD should grant the freedom to different schools to adapt their own administrative policies.

Even if policies are the same across the district, the student bodies, staff and buildings are diverse. Each of the five high schools are unique and should be treated as such – especially with policies like block scheduling that directly affect the students.

My Grampie is absolutely the most important and influential person in my life. He immigrated to America from Latvia when he was nineteen in order to escape the Nazis. He had nothing with him but the clothes on his back and a few old photographs. He had to give himself food poisoning in order to stay in a hospital long enough to miss his boat and stay in America. He built himself an entire business empire in the South.

He is the ultimate American dream.

And for the past week, I have I have been relentlessly praying for his death.

I pray for his death, and then I pray for forgiveness for praying for my ninety-four year Grampie to die. But right now, I truly think death is the only thing that will bring him peace. He hates living this life; returning to the hospital every few months or so, constantly feeling pain radiate throughout his entire body. If death is the only thing that will finally put him out of his misery, then death is what I will pray for.

For a long time, I didn’t think I would cry when my Grampie died. I thought I had mentally prepared myself for his death and accepted the fact that it was what’s best for him. But hearing the words, “He won’t be conscious again” has a way of tearing down any sort of emotional walls I may have built for myself.

Death is a tricky thing, whether it comes by surprise or if you’ve been watching it slowly approach for seventeen years. But ultimately, I think it’s good. You appreciate more when someone dies; your love grows more indefinite. Life begins to taste just a little sweeter and even though most of your questions are left unanswered, there’s still a sense of assurance. You’ll be ok.

So Grampie, I want you to know I love you. I enjoyed talking on the phone with you even if you weren’t able to respond. I am so proud to call you my Grandpa. I wish we could have had more time together, but the time we did have was perfect. Thanks for taking me crabbing and teaching me how to sail.

Rest in peace.

Spencer Davis | Harbinger Online

“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” told me that principals will stop at nothing to destroy students. “Mean Girls” said popular girls exhibit no human emotions and break men’s hearts for sport. “American Pie” pointed out that guys will sell their soul to the devil for the promise of female interaction. Heading into my freshman year, with overworn stereotypes branded into my memory, I was conditioned to believe that every high school had impromptu food fights, a high concentration of letterman jackets and a dumb jock who only answers to “Buzz.”

Well, four food-fight-free years later, it’s hit me like a book of cliches to the face: tawdry teenage comedies got it wrong. With teen “dramas” I watched throughout my adolescence, as well as something called ABC Family Original Programming, the image of brawny quarterbacks, blonde cheerleaders and calculator-wielding nerds have been beaten into my brain. But that’s not what it’s like. Any student at East knows that high school isn’t the popularity-based kingdom movies make it out to be; people don’t judge an individual’s merit off of sports cars or cool leather jackets. They also don’t scoff if you think the french horn is rad.

Yes, I understand that films are a dramatizations of the real world and most of the actors cast to play teens look old enough to have a mid-life crisis. However, movies can leave an impression. When I started high school, I remember feeling scared that I would inadvertently tick off a senior or flash the principal a funny look. I felt like I needed to be “Buzz;” I wanted to do football and find a clique. But after realizing up-downs aren’t as much fun as they look in “Remember The Titans” and there was no speech profound enough I could use to win the begrudging respect of my teammates, I dropped the sport.

To my surprise, I didn’t get shoved into a locker.

When I changed my path from letterman-jacket-wearing jock to theatre/journalism nerd who occasionally sports spandex for a cross country meet, my football friends didn’t care all that much. I like to think they missed my honest efforts on the kickoff team or my ability to carry the water cooler from the bus to the field, but no one gave me crap. In fact, this year when I was in “Bye Bye Birdie” and wore enough face powder to look like Casper The Friendly Ghost, some of my old football friends were in the audience. They didn’t even throw tomatoes at me.

I never ran into that mean bully asking for lunch money. At East, I’ve felt generally welcome. When I was a junior, I stumbled into the Little Theater for the first time after years of limiting my abilities to the journalism room and the track. I still had crippling social anxiety back then — the kind that makes guys freeze up when talking to a pretty girl or what made Colin Firth stutter in “The King’s Speech” — but I tried it out anyway. After auditioning for a couple shows and getting a couple parts, I instantly felt welcomed. I never bumped into that bully.

Dating back to the time my parents were sporting puffy mini-skirts and perms to school, TV and movies have perpetuated a negative idea that high school is split into sectors. There’s the jocks, nerds, cheerleaders, goth chicks, super nerds, stuck-up snobs, social outcasts, calculator-watch-wearing-nerds, sensitive girls with a rough exterior and, of course, leather-jacket-wearing rebellious youth. At East, we’re more of a social melting pot. Football behemoths dabble in choir, Shakespeare-quoting-thespians are in the Homecoming Court and basketball players are on the honor roll.

I’m not saying that every person who walks through the halls of East is as accepting as Ghandi, or deserves a Nobel Prize for their efforts in abolishing old stereotypes, but I find Shawnee Mission Wonderful to be generally, well, wonderful. There’s a million and a half ways East is different from the movies — like when cheerleaders walk through the halls on game day it’s not set to Guns N’ Roses and students don’t relish ding-dong-ditching the principal — but in my mind there is just one. Students have an easier time embracing the differences in others.

I know my years of anecdotal proof does not necessarily mean the same is true for everybody. I know that some people have not been head-over-heels for high school. But at East, there is an undeniable trend of acceptance. Four years ago, we had a gay Homecoming king and it was a big deal to everybody except East students. There can be a male cheerleader without panic ensuing. A girl can wear sweat-pants without a flock of self-proclaimed fashion police running to the scene.

If only incoming freshman could know. It’s sad that so many have to go off of ideals hastily thrown at them in the form of half hour melodramas and straight-to-DVD trite-fests. If I got to redo my freshman year with the information I have now, I would do it differently. I would get more involved earlier, make an effort to go to school functions and not live my life by values from “Saved by the Bell” re-runs.

I wouldn’t blow 50 bucks on that letterman jacket, either.

Planning ahead has never been my strong suit so when forced to sit down with my suitcase I often find myself staring at it in hatred for a good 15 minutes before moving on to the closet. From there it is a 20 minute hand-on-hip stance staring at the clothes, wondering which outfits are the most versatile and which will end up in a corner, never being worn.

After yanking the poor pieces out of my closet comes another unforgiving task. Aimlessly shoving everything into my bag and trying to fit it all in. Most of the time my bag ends up lopsided and awkwardly bulging. Sometimes it ends up needing two people to sit on it in order for it to close. Other times I beg my mom to please just help me fold the clothes properly. No matter what, eventually the job gets done.

Of course unpacking everything in a neat and tidy fashion can be just as difficult, but that’s a story for another blog.

The novel, for those who haven’t read it, centers around Nick, a recent graduate from Yale, as he tries to make his way in the jazz age that arose after WW1. Rather than play an active character, Nick merely watches as those around him, Jay Gatsby and Gatsby’s love Daisy being the most crucial, take part in affairs, drunken rages, murders, car wrecks and other life-wrecking activities.

So why should you care? The book takes place in a long past decade and besides, “The Hunger Games” are way more exciting and bloody, right? That is like being offered the Mona Lisa and choosing to look at the art displayed by East students in the hallway. Not that “The Hunger Games” or local art don’t have their place. But Fitzgerald has offered a way to escape to New York in the twenties and follow a group of young people making increasingly painful decisions all described in the most beautiful and exciting language of the last century.

So yes, “The Hunger Games” are enjoyable, exciting and I myself could not set them down for a moment. But the book that will forever sit on my shelf, go with me to college and probably be quoted in my marriage vows is not some cheap gore entertainment novel. It is the greatest novel produced by an American author. “The Great Gatsby” can be read again and again and will never cease to entertain, never cease to make the reader shout in frustration. “The Great Gatsby” is, quite simply put, a masterpiece.

The following was written by junior Helena Buchmann in response to the Harbinger’s editorial in our past print issue.

When I first started reading the criticisms against Invisible Children after the release of KONY2012, I was ready to jump on the cynical bandwagon. As a leader of Coalition, it hit especially close to home when I read that the organizations that I have avidly supported aren’t necessarily who they say they are. A great example is Greg Mortenson’s Pennies for Peace, who faced similar charges (in a brilliant piece by Jon Krakauer on a much less drastic scale). At first, I was angry. Now, after doing many hours of research, I am excited about the controversy and its effect on the future of the campaign against Kony.

The blog “Visible Children” is where most opposition to the KONY2012 campaign tend to get their ammunition. It is the initial criticism I read, in part, because so many people cited it. However, there are a few things one must remember when reading the blog: it is written by a 20-year-old Nova Scotian college student whose sources have since been deemed less than credible. Here are the main arguments in his post that I find important:

1. “Last year, the organization spent $8,676,614. Only 32% went to direct services (page 6), with much of the rest going to staff salaries, travel and transport, and film production.”
2. “This is far from ideal for an issue which arguably needs action and aid, not awareness.”
3. “The group is in favour of direct military intervention, and their money supports the Ugandan government’s army and various other military forces.”
4. “Kony is no longer active in Uganda and hasn’t been since 2006 by their own admission.”
5. “But these problems are highly complex, not one-dimensional and, frankly, aren’t of the nature that can be solved by postering, film-making and changing your Facebook profile picture, as hard as that is to swallow.”

What I think many people fail to realize is that Invisible Children is not and has never claimed to be a direct action organization. They are an awareness organization, and that has been their mission since they were founded. Any direct services that they have established have been in addition to their main goal. Why doesn’t more money go to these direct services? When you donate willy nilly to Invisible Children, you give them license to do whatever they want with your money. By being proactive and researching Invisible Children’s programs, you can give your money to people you feel need it the most. If you want Ugandan women to receive it, buy a bag through their Mend program. If you want to build a school, participate in Schools for Schools. But don’t just sit there and complain about how they’re not using your money the way you want it to be used.

Obviously this issue needs action and aid, but you aren’t going to get that without awareness. Before KONY2012 was released, only a handful of people knew who Joseph Kony even was. Now there are millions of people globally who have seen the video, and though they may not necessarily agree with Invisible Children’s plan to catch Kony (like myself), they at least know who he is. No government who is not directly affected by this wants to get involved, but public demand increases the likelihood of politicians paying attention and from there stems action and aid.

The blog claims that Invisible Children funds and supports the Ugandan government’s army. Invisible Children in a statement has said that they do not financially support either, though they do feel that the Ugandan military and government are the solutions to this problem and we should support and train them.

That is where I disagree with Invisible Children. I can think of a few instances where our support and training has ended up stabbing us in the back (can you say Taliban?) and I think the United States should be extremely cautious when it comes to providing military training to unstable and corrupt countries. I believe that, since Joseph Kony is the #1 most wanted war criminal in the International Criminal Court, and since his reign of terror has expanded past Ugandan borders, this is a situation in which the UN should get involved, not the US government alone. Not only would this help when it comes to actually catching him, but it would also create a balance in interests, since there have been rumblings implying that the only reason the US wants to go to Africa is to establish capitalism there before China can get to the oil-rich continent.

The fact that Kony is no longer active in Uganda is irrelevant to me. He is active in other countries and he needs to be caught. Yes, many people say that the LRA is not nearly as strong as they once were. However, Kony has proven to rise again time and time again. Moreover, who cares if he is no longer there? He has kidnapped, enslaved and killed many children. We started two wars in an attempt to find Osama Bin Laden, whose influence was far less on the American people than Kony’s has been on the Ugandans.

Finally, the author is correct in asserting that most problems cannot be solved by postering and posting Facebook statuses (his condescending tone really grinds my gears, though). However, I would like to remind readers that we should never underestimate the power of social media. The Arab Spring would never have happened without Facebook and Twitter, and though these are not identical situations, there is obviously no harm in raising awareness of issues via social networking platforms.

I don’t necessarily agree with Invisible Children in all aspects of their work. But their KONY2012 campaign got me excited. It got me excited that though Coalition has been preaching this for years, and though some only recognize him because of the Invisible Children controversy, my friends actually know who Joseph Kony is. It got me excited because we are one step closer to getting this man to be held accountable for his actions. Invisible Children’s plan may not be perfect – and I’m not saying that we should use an imperfect plan – but it is making others think of better plans, which is the most exciting part of it all.

This super simple recipe makes some of the most artisan looking treats in little to no time, offering you the freedom to concoct a snack appeal to the most random of your taste bud instincts. Hey, and you don’t have to tell people it took no time, just let them be amazed with the homemade nature.

Quick Crackers

• 1 Package of instant pizza dough (best choice or great value brands)
• Olive oil
• Water
• Pumpkin seeds, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, etc.
• Salt, pepper, cumin, etc.

Preheat oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit.

Prepare the dough as described by the package instructions.

Mix in half your seeds (if using) into the dough thoroughly.

Spread the dough out with your fingers onto a well oiled parchment sheet fitted to a    cookie sheet.

Make thinner than you would like the final cracker to be as the dough rises a bit in the oven.

Drizzle with olive oil and top with more seeds, salt, pepper, cumin seed or whatever toppings you desire. Cinnamon sugar would be good as will for a sweeter take on the treat.

Bake for 30-60 minutes, until crispy (this is a long slow process as you are essentially drying out the dough and you don’t want it to burn before it’s ready).

Director and head of the organization Invisible Children Jason Russell uploaded a 29-minute documentary about the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Joseph Kony, that sent the world into a whirlwind. The movie was a persuasive use of media that called viewers to “change the world” and take a closer look at the happenings in Uganda.

Millions of social media users began to retweet or post the link, but those retweeting, reposting and reblogging the video might need to take a closer look at what exactly they’re advocating with Invisible Children, instead of blindly following the cause.

The Kony 2012 project was launched to raise awareness about Kony, a man who, in the past, has had a griphold on the nation of Uganda, committing atrocities such as enslaving thousands of children to kill or become sex slaves. The video encouraged the world to make Kony’s name popular so that lawmakers and members of Congress could use their power to stop his reign. Many became outraged and took the link and posted it on their personal Facebook or Twitter accounts.

This brings up the first main issue with the Kony 2012 campaign: the approach of simply educating people doesn’t fix the problem.

There is nothing wrong with awareness, but merely posting a link to a documentary didn’t, and won’t change anything. Problems aren’t solved with a simple copy and paste on a computer. It could be a nice jumping off point, and helps to get the word spread and to get people educated sure, but there are better ways to help the cause. Like, for example, donating to other organizations.

Invisible Children gives you that option with the Kony 2012 “action kit,” which brings up the next problem with the campaign: The donated money doesn’t go toward what you may think it does.

They suggested purchase of their 30 dollar kit, which comes with a T-Shirt, a bracelet, an action guide, stickers, a button and some posters. But according to the Invisible Children audit, only 31 percent of their profits actually go towards direct relief, meaning that of the 30 dollars you spend on the “action kit,” 69 percent goes toward different promotional costs strictly for Invisible Children, not the Kony 2012 campaign. So really, only 10 of your dollars actually mean anything to the campaign — whatever that is.

According to Russell’s appearance on the Today Show, over 500,000 action kits had been sold, meaning they brought in at least $15 million in the first week of the Kony 2012 campaign. Though a flashy number, all that means is that over $10 million of the $15 million raised by the sales of over 500,000 kits, didn’t go to the cause.

This poses another problem with the campaign: people blindly followed a campaign they didn’t know about fully.

You can’t blame Invisible Children for leading people to believe they were going to fix the problems in Uganda — they’re actually just doing what they intend to do: raise awareness. Russell told reporters, “the truth about Invisible Children is that we are not an aid organization, and we don’t intend to be. I think people think we’re over there delivering shoes or food. But we are an advocacy and awareness organization.”

The problem with that, is that most people don’t know that.

The final issue is that things in Uganda aren’t nearly as bad as the short film portrays them to be. According to Nikita Bernardi, a Ugandan woman interviewed by Guardian News, “northern Uganda is no longer what it is portrayed as in the [Kony 2012] video. He is no longer terrorizing northern Uganda and the region is now relatively stable.”

So not only has Invisible Children fooled you once with your money, they have also fooled you again with their dramatization of the footage shot in Uganda.

The solution would have been simple if the 85-million-plus people hadn’t already been mislead by Invisible Children’s campaign without doing research and actually knowing what they were advocating before they promoted it.

However, by informing friends and family of the misinformation being fed to the masses via the media, you can still make a difference. You can donate to organizations or relief efforts that actually help out countries like Uganda, like blood:water mission, Kiva or Love146. Each help make the lives of the impoverished by improving living conditions, and help to free enslaved children — both things Kony 2012 fails to do.

Kony 2012 is a nice try, and is helpful to spread a message, but it’s not the answer to the problem, as much as it may seem.

It stood at the top of the street, sneering at our futile exploration attempts, laughing cruelly at games of chicken to see who could take the most steps towards it before fleeing. Its morose shadow daunted sparsely clouded skies, sobering otherwise fearless games of tag or Cops and Robbers. It was the core of a long list of unfulfilled dares — a small fluttering curtain always prepared to contradict a mother’s soothing, a distant hollow noise ever present to fuel a four-year-old’s imagination.

An abandoned white house used to stand at the top of the hill in the middle of my street. I swear to God, a vampire lived there.

Though reclusive when confronted by flashlight-wielding school children, he was social among his own kind — his closest acquaintances included a poorly groomed werewolf. His pets, naturally, were all venomous: a rattlesnake whose rattle the vampire had torn off when the sound annoyed him, a boa constrictor, and a few dozen red-eyed mice.

One of the most exciting days of my childhood was when we found evidence of this — a band-aid in the house’s front yard with the slightest amount of absorbed blood on it. You can’t deny that.

Despite this beast’s constant threat to the wellbeing of myself and all fellow first graders who walked home from school, I wasn’t terrified of an immediate vampire attack until after it was announced that the house would be demolished. An older boy from up the street said his dad was going to take him inside.

It didn’t matter if we were getting too old to be afraid of an empty family home or the occasional fluttering of a dusty curtain in the breeze. My brother and I waited for him in anguish. But, of course, he returned — safe and sound, to our surprise. (I still contend that he should have at least been turn into a werewolf for his brashness.)

The single most disappointing news of my life came that day — worse than any college rejection email. The house, he said, was empty other than collections of dust and piles of trash. In that moment, childhood wonderment, imagination, and curiosity flashed before my eyes, waved a final adieu, and, it seemed, died forever. He did, however, attest to the red-eyed mice being very much real.

In a roar of Bobcats and construction workers, West 51st Street’s very own haunted house was replaced with a young family’s attractive suburban home.

Our parents told us to leave the previously haunted land alone; our neighborhood gang’s adventures tamed. Explorations were replaced with tag, Bomber, kickball, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Runescape, television, and, finally, Facebook. Only once, in 2006, when out trick-or-treating, did I catch a glimpse inside what once used to be a vampire fiend’s lair. A little girl was descending a well-decorated staircase in a golden Belle dress as her mother handed out candy bars from a designer bowl. The vampire — our vampire — had been replaced by a Disney princess.

Adventures just aren’t what they used to be.