by Crystal Dalison I write the words to stories, and I throw them away. I do this all day. I write them in my head while I walk to work. I write them in the notebook I keep stashed under the till. I write them on the backs of my comped drink receipts, one sentence at a time, and staple them together for the accountant to find the next day, hoping that my short stories will distract him from the number of drinks I gave away the night before. I write because I don’t have a choice. I write because I am always in danger of getting lost in my…

by Johanna Kumpula Violence in video games has been a controversial subject for years and many are claiming that this uncensored exposure to violence is causing kids to act out and become aggressive. Games like Grand Theft Auto V are supposedly encouraging kids to take to the streets with weapons and commit theft and assault. Now, as an avid lover of games that are normally considered violent, I find this claim suspiciously lacks a substantial amount of evidence. Blaming an object or fictional portrayal for an act of brutality is misguided, especially when there are always other factors to consider. Take the Sandy Hook shooting. Twenty students and six teachers…

by Elin Johnson Every year on the star filled evening of December 24th, our global community is united in our violation. We are assaulted in the most conniving of ways as our homes lose their sanctity and our very morals are shaken. Good Ol’ Saint Nicholas enters our dwellings and corrupts the minds of our children. His very occupation is appalling. He contravenes the work ethic we try so hard to drill into the minds of our youth and disrespects the beliefs we have established in our society. Our very relationship with the legendary man in red is perplexing. Every day of the year we shield ourselves from the outside…

by Elin Johnson One thought that resonates with me is,“life begins at the edge of your comfort zone.” This is often quoted by English teachers coercing groaning freshman into public speaking, or precedes the enigmatic string of numbers stowed away inside of stale fortune cookies. For me it has always been a mantra. One to convince myself that whatever half-baked idea I was pursuing in order to impress a cousin was worthwhile, and would, in the best-case-scenario, result in the loss of dignity instead of limbs. Growing up, I was described by most of my early elementary school teachers as “free spirited” and a “joy to have in class.” That…

by Sarah Edwards I was the innocent age of seven, and my life was still a simple one, but I was headed towards a traumatizing night that would leave its mark on me forever. It started with dinner. I had a T.V. stand right in front of the couch, waiting for food to be set upon it. I was fixated on the screen displaying colorful shows before my sisters and me when the soup came – it was ramen. I was fond of it then, and somehow I still am today. My mother held it out to me, warning me that it was hot, but I was a foolish child.…

by Keegan Sudkamp-Tostevin What is free speech? Our understanding of this concept seems to be relatively clear. Most Westerners would define it as the idea that speech alone cannot constitute violations in law, so long as there isn’t an illegal call to action or credible threat behind it. We might disagree on the mild semantics, such as the extent of a legal call to action, but there is a fairly substantive definition behind it which the majority of people seem to rally behind. But what is this new idea of hate speech – this bastardized product of the era of the millennials, the era of political correctness, and the personalization…

by Thomas O’Harra When this season started, back in November, I was so excited to race. There’s something in the air in the early season, everyone pumped up and excited. I got so nervous before the races back then, I could barely eat breakfast on race morning. And sure, I still got really nervous before my sprint race in Kazakhstan, and my sprint race in Switzerland, and some of the races at Junior Nationals, but the further into the season that I got, the more comfortable I felt before each event, and about racing in general. That isn’t to say, however, that I was less excited about racing. I love…

by Ashana Armstrong I had observed the Double-crested Cormorant in Washington years ago, but had no clue what all those black birds were that just stood, perched on the piers in Puget Sound. Now I know what these creatures are and the history that they have with humans. These really are fascinating birds that need to be watched more often. Before I get into my observations, I would like to thank Professor Scott Swann, Matt Drennan and Rich McDonald for helping me along the way this term in regards to birding. The main two sites I ended up watching the Double-crested Cormorant was on the shoreline in Bar Harbor and…

by Evan Nasse A Cinephile is defined as, “A devoted moviegoer, especially one knowledgeable about the art of cinema.” It is this definition that has been falling slowly by the wayside as Hollywood adopts a business model of finding profitable, “entertainment,” and moviegoers becoming apathetic about what they view.  The problem goes deeper than that if you look at cinema over the last ten years, compared to what you would find in cinema from fifty years ago. Several publications discuss the decline in film quality as a whole. Some writers on the subject are calling it, “The Death of Cinema,” who believe cinema should be given up, that there will…

by Crystal Dalison After my island cruiser of a car finally succumbed to its lifetime of abuse, I had to hitchhike to work every day. Because I lived out in the jungle, down a sparsely populated dirt road, my morning commute usually involved a lot of walking. Crazy as it may sound, I didn’t mind it too much. Don’t let anyone tell you that hitchhiking on the island is easy, because it isn’t, but it can be a lot of fun – especially if you happen upon a consistent ride like I did. Even though she was always alone when she picked me up, I always sat in the back…