Let’s get one thing straight. When I’m walking to class, the last thing I want to see is some nasty couple making out in the hallway. I’m not one to shy away from PDA, but when I can see your tongue in someone else’s mouth, you have taken it too far. Have some self-respect. You want to to be cute and disgusting with your dearest? Save it for a place that’s not around other people.
If I can hear you kissing from the other end of the hallway, please re-evaluate your life choices.
There was this especially gross couple two years ago on the third floor of the science building. Everyday during lunch they would be jumping all over each other, and grinding, and just generally being nasty. No offense, but I don’t need to see that when I’m trying to eat. I’m tempted to go full Dolores Umbridge and say “Boys and girls are not to be within eight inches of each other.” I’m not that cruel, but still. There is no need to be kissing each other in front of other people.
This is not only uncomfortable for me, but also for the couple. Being seen by others while you’re kissing your partner must not be fun. If I were the girlfriend, I would be uncomfortable when everyone passed me with a disgusted look on their face. And not only do people have a habit of looking, they also have a habit of talking, and you might get a lot of unwanted “publicity”. If you’re into that sort of thing.
Category: Opinion
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Nasty Couples are Nasty
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The Everyday Stresses of Being in High School
Yes, teenagers experience stress. We as teenagers know that it is not easy being a teen. As high school students, there can be various reason why we have stress, especially because we are also so close to adulthood. We cannot always control everything ourselves.
If a person is feeling stressed, seek help. One should not feel afraid to ask for help or be afraid of what other people might say. Stress can lead to anxiety, which we would not want right.
Stress can come from trying to control things that we cannot, or from something traumatic. Always remember that we can only control our attitude and our actions in life.
Some real life examples are schoolwork, tests, exams, moving, sports, violence, etc. There are also some very common reactions to stress which can just suck the life out of you, like not being able to remember things or having trouble sleeping or even having trouble concentrating at school.The Care Center’s Michael Grey said, “ A great deal of stress is relieved when we quit trying to control everyone and everything around us.” If you would like more information on stress, feel free to read Mr. Grey’s book, “The High School Guide to Significant”. The last few pages are all about stress and how to deal with it.
We’ve all probably felt stressed at some point and one of my best ideas to relieve stress, is to do something you enjoy doing, for example a sport. It helps a lot, trust me, it’s helped me to clear my mind from things.
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Black History Month
I remember in middle school and elementary school when we used to spend time in February learning about important Black Americans and their impacts in American innovation, culture and society. I never realized that we would no longer discuss any of this once we “promoted” to high school. The only ways for Poly students to discuss or learn about even the most minute piece of Black Americans’ role in America is to take Black History or Ethnic Studies as an elective, or be lucky enough to have Sarah Schol for English.
It is beyond annoying that as an African American I spend most of my life learning only about the accomplishments of people who look nothing like me. I feel like many people of color feel the same way that I do. In all honesty, I can’t even remember a time when we learned about Hispanic Heritage month in class. Even when the High Life staff discussed writing about Black History Month, one staff writer didn’t even know February was Black History Month.
For this reason I feel like public education system is failing students of color in the history department and it is time something is done about about it. The district should put more emphasis for students to learn about minorities and the influence that they have in American culture.
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The Bachelor: The Pros and Cons of Corinne
Pro:
This season of The Bachelor features Nick Viall, age 36, who has been on two seasons of the Bachelorette – twice as a runner up (how unfortunate) – and a contestant of 2016’s Bachelor in Paradise. Now Nick is ready to find love as the Bachelor. But this is only the beginning.
The first episode started with 30 women and the number has now dwindled down to a mere four. It’s so bizarre… each one of these women considers herself the Bachelor’s girlfriend. So many women have been sent home heartbroken and the tears are quite overwhelming. The show needs a theatrical factor, and that’s where Corinne Olympios comes in.
Disregarding some of the things she does in her “relationship” with Nick, Corinne, who is a twenty-four year old co-owner of a billion dollar company, is hilarious.
She naps after almost every time she talks with Nick because she’s completely over it, but can we blame her? She can be found eating and drinking as much as possible at the cocktail parties before the rose ceremonies and is, in my utmost opinion, the most honest contestant on the show.
Corinne keeps it real and said she feels “like I’m not being myself, but I am trying really hard to be myself, but because I am trying really hard to be myself it’s making me even more not myself.” Yes, this is an actual quote from the twenty-four year old herself.
Watching Corinne cry for sushi is what makes Bachelor 2017 memorable. Although it is a reality TV show where love is molded and synthetically created for an audience, Corinne is the actual entertainment, what would you really expect more?Con:
As I was scrolling through Hulu one night trying to find something new to watch, I noticed a new season of The Bachelor had started up. I figured I would pop my Bachelor cherry and I watched.
I was shook by the fact that initially 30 women were all fighting for affection from one guy, granted Nick Viall is bomb fire delicious. I became super invested in the first couple women in the show, like both of the Danielles because they are just such pure beans, because they seemed to have good intentions and were super likable, then Corinne Olympios popped up.
She is the epitome of everything I hate. She thinks she is all that because she runs her own business and has a nanny. She is super disrespectful; she once slept through a rose ceremony because she had already received a rose (immunity). She is constantly napping at the most important time – I guess she really needed some beauty sleep.
In one episode, a group date consisted of a wedding photo shoot. She was jealous of Brittany, who was chosen for the Adam and Eve wedding and her “wedding dress” was nothing but a leaf bikini bottom and her long hair covering her bare breasts. In order to catch Nick’s attention, she decided to take her top off and have Nick cover her boobs with his hands for her.
She won the photo shoot and earned extra alone time with Nick, even though she already has plenty because she snatches him away from the other girls constantly to increase her alone time.
I believe her winning was totally unfair and sends the wrong message about how to get a man to like you. She disgusts me in everything she does. She is making everything about sex and she’s SOO whiny and I just can’t deal with her. Her personality is your typical Regina George Mean Girl.
It makes it seem like Nick just wants someone to fool around with when he is on The Bachelor for the third time because he wants to settle down. It’s unfair to all those women who are there to get into a serious relationship.
I cannot believe Corinne has lasted and made it into the final four. Since the beginning I have been rooting for Raven, a sweet Southern girl who once walked in on a boyfriend cheating on her and who honestly deserves better. Corinne is the reason that people bash the Bachelor and is only there to be the butt of the joke. -
Everyone Deserves Respect, Including Our Teachers
Sadly, the reality nowadays is that many students do not have much respect for teachers. Since the day I entered middle school, I witnessed many students who came to class calling their teachers some derogatory terms and talking back for no reason.
Talking back to a teacher doesn’t make a person look cooler.Sometimes teachers are acting “extra” and getting us in trouble for no reason, but that does not give anyone the right to talk back because I think that we are educated or at least we can be. But some people start talking smack and it even seems like they want to get that teacher mad just so they can start an argument. This is really stupid, why argue with someone that you know can kick you out of class or even worse, depending on your behavior.
Teachers deserve respect. Some teachers come up with tons of ideas about why some students act so disrespectfully, such as conflict at home, lack of upbringing, and other excuses. So think before talking back to teachers, because it destroys parents’ images, too.
They are the ones that raised you and I do not think that they raised you in that kind of environment involving violence, screaming and arguments. They showed you love and you should learn to do the same. So respect your teachers and remember you might end up relying on them to get into college. -
Dear D.J.T., It’s Time We Have the Talk
Can we talk about Donald Trump’s hair? What he thinks is soft corn silk actually looks like a bleached animal died on his head. For a person with an ego bigger than his towers, you would think he would be concerned with his appearance. He spends all day watching TV, monitoring what people think of him, but apparently it has never struck him that he’s ugly. Forget the small hands, the too long tie, and the Oompa Loompa tan, his comb-over (of approximately 6 hairs) has got to go. Pray tell, how does the American public think Trump is competent enough to run the country when he can’t even do his hair? How bad does it have to get before people start saying “Wow, that looks really bad.” To add insult to injury, Trump adds so much gel to his hair, it’s more probable that a person will get into Stanford than it is his hair will move. I speak for the whole country when I say President Trump, please fix your hair. It’s really ugly.
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Zoe’s Recent Rants
There are 365 days in a year, multiply that by four, add one, and 1461 is the number of days I will be a legal, voting adult with Donald Trump as my president. That’s fine, because he legally won, thanks to the electoral college, but it’s not fair, because I didn’t vote. And it’s not that I chose not to vote because I think my vote doesn’t count. I didn’t vote because I couldn’t, because I turned 18 after November 8. But I turned 18 before January 20, so the entire 1461 days of Presidents Trump’s reign *cough* I mean presidency, I will be of voting age, and yet not have been allowed to voice my opinion. All citizens who will be of voting age on or before January 20 should be allowed to vote, especially since they will feel the impacts of the president just as much as those born two months earlier.
Straight-Haired People, Shut Up!
As a proud member of the curly-haired community, I can with little reserve say that if you have straight hair, you need to shut up. Not only is your hair ridiculously easy to deal with compared to my corkscrewed rats nest, it also conforms with the majority of images touted by fashion and beauty magazines of today, making you just that much closer to modern standards. I’m sorry you think your hair is boring, but at least you don’t have to douse it in conditioner in order to run a brush through it. Don’t get me wrong—I love my curly hair, but can the straight-haired people of this world please stop complaining?The Bowling Green Massacre
It is embarrassing that an atrocity such as this has been ignored for so long, and no, I’m not talking about Kellyanne Conway. I’m talking about the terrible Bowling Green Massacre. How could the citizens of America go on with their normal lives without so much as recognizing that nothing is going on in Bowling Green, Kentucky? It’s not like nothing happens in Kentucky that often! I am asking for you to wake up, open your eyes, and look at the stunning number of dead bodies (zero), and say, “I will not stand for this! I will not idly stand by and let nobody be killed! This is America, damnit!”Don’t Discredit the Media
Since I write for the school paper, I have plenty of opinions on newspapers and the media in general, and I am the first to say that media isn’t perfect. But now is not the time to turn against the media, because it is the counterweight, the last source of truth. By discrediting the media, the current government is manipulating the general population to believe that journalists are criminals who make up news. This is helpful because when an important story that is disagreeable to the government is aired, it will be easy to believe it is just another lie. Do not discredit the media; it is the media’s job to fact check, and if that bother’s you, deal with it. -
I Hate High School Couples and You Should Too
“Oh my God I have like the best boyfriend ever! He’s so romantic!”
Who. The Hell. Cares? Stop bragging about your boyfriend, you both are so irrelevant. What? You think you’re something special because he took you to Denny’s and you guys saw a movie? Sweetie, that is not romance, he is just trying to get you in bed by the end of the day. Did he show up to your house with a box of chocolate and a rose? How cliché! First of all, he got the gross chocolate from Wal-Mart and he ate half the box anyway, then he picked the rose from some random old lady’s garden. He put minimal thought into this. And honestly, if you are going to buy into his crap you can at least keep it to yourself; there is nothing more frustrating than trying to get to class and having to walk slowly behind two idiots trying to cuddle and walk at the same time. You look ridiculous. By the way, I hope you realize all your friends hate him too; they think he’s a douche. They are right to think this. You wouldn’t notice, though, because you’re too busy thinking you’re in love. You girls really need to calm the hell down. No, you don’t need a boyfriend, what you need is to do your damn homework. So does he. I know he’s failing at least three classes because he’s too busy flirting with you (and your best friend when you’re not paying attention). But that’s none of my business. *Sips tea* Bye, loser. Happy Valentine’s Day! -
Teachers Diss Ditch Day
This year, Senior Ditch Day was on Wednesday, April 20th. Senior Ditch Day is an unofficial annual holiday for seniors to take a break and celebrate all the hard work they have done in their soon-ending high school careers.
Although half of the teachers at Poly were expecting to have empty chairs in their classrooms, the other half knew their students would come because they placed traps for seniors to come that day. The word going around the day before was that many senior students had tons of work assignments due on Senior Ditch Day. Many teachers threatened their students with zeros and losing participation points if they chose to be absent. “It was definitely intentional to ensure that students come to school. It was very unfortunate for some students who still decided to ditch,” said senior Aldegundo Camacho.
The fact is that with just 41 more days till the class of 2016 graduates on June 15, all seniors are focused toward that specific day. Most of all, seniors are prepared to drop dead due to the end-of-the-year homework and class work we are all receiving.
“It is so unfair, we are seniors and it is the end of the year and getting lots of work assigned.Teachers should remember what it is like to be a senior and realize that there is more in our lives than just school. Due to us having to be here by law, school is very high priority,” said Senior Saul Ruiz.
“I had two test that day,” Lorena Ordaz said solemnly, “I wanted to hang out with my friends.”
The last two months should be the resting period for all seniors, not a time for more work to be given because seniors already gave their very best throughout the last four years: many sleepless nights, skipping out on fun, and even having to lose some event or associate important to you.
Seniors are the Kings and Queens of Poly High School, and having worked their butts off to get to this point, we at least deserve the last two months to be some of the easiest and best of high school.
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Who Needs TV Anyway?
I am seventeen years old and I have never lived with a functional television set. But six months ago, my family bought a gorgeous flat screen and installed it on the wall in our living room.
Most people, when they heard I did not have a TV, were shocked. Living without a magical box in the 21st century is a phenomenon equivalent to not owning a washing machine in the late 50s.
Having a TV these past few months has not changed how I live from day to day. I still come home, do my homework, and for the most part, ignore the screen in the next room. I’ve watched a few John Oliver pieces and a Friends episode or two, but besides that, it is like my family never bought one.
I do believe that growing up with a TV is poisonous for the child’s brain. The constant advertising being thrown at a fresh mind is damaging, and raises children to want everything they see. Studies show that some shows will cause Attention Deficit Disorder to develop in children who watch it.
I appreciate the bar from Disney Chanel and Cartoon Network that my parents placed when I was very young. I appreciate having been told “no” whenever I asked for something I saw on billboards and other advertisements.
A life without television is better for everyone. It leaves more time to do enjoyable activities and it prevents you from frying your brain when you are bored. So if you have a television, consider smashing it to pieces, and go out for a walk in the fresh air.
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California Bans Teachers’ Assistants
The controversy over the elimination of teachers’ assistants involves a series of issues, from where to best spend money to the activeness of teachers’ assistants to tax cuts.
Unfortunately, California does not see this particular class as helpful for the students and not just the teacher. Assistants helping alongside the teacher provides valuable life lessons. The California Senate has been very skeptical about the worth of these teachers’ assistants. Their lack of confidence is based, in part, on studies, including a report that shows that immediate and secondary learners supported by teachers’ assistants made less of an average knowledge increase than those of similar ability and gender who do not receive help. Some say that the students tend to look upon the teachers’ assistants for a helping hand.
The teachers’ assistants’ role is a success, giving them the opportunities to experience the real duty of an actual teacher and giving teachers extra help in the work that they do. On the other hand, teachers’ assistants should not be used to make up for the lack of teacher attention, but rather their support should allow teachers to spend more time with their students. They are trained and supported in understanding the teaching methods and how to apply them.
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College Rejections
March 25, 2016
Ms. Andrea GarciaDear Andrea,
Thank you for applying to ____________. The Committee on Admissions has reviewed your application, and due to the large number of highly qualified applicants, we regret to inform you that we –.
Thank you for applying to –.
Thank you –.
Tha – .It didn’t even matter anymore.
What did I do wrong? What could I have done better?
It was as if door after door had been slammed in my face. Nine out of twelve doors, to be exact.
As all my fellow seniors know, college season can be either the worst or best time of the school year. For me, the entire process, from testing to filling out applications to the actual moment of truth, was hell. I like to think that I am a person who would not be completely devastated by a college rejection, that I am someone better than the system. I know that neither a college acceptance nor a rejection defines me or my future. Yet, it is hard to feel confident about my accomplishments and myself and feel secure about my future when that goal I have been working towards these last four years becomes meaningless. Everything I have accomplished, all the hard work and late nights – meaningless.
I tried to make sense of things and put everything into perspective. However, the truth is that as much as I tried to put “things in perspective,” I really just could not. The college process always seems so subjective and it makes me furious.
WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT? I know one thing though: they did not want me. YOU WANT THEM, AND NOT ME? Are you serious? I know it sounds ugly, but do not even try to deny that you have not thought that way at least once. We all are entitled beings, and we all get somewhat bitter when we see someone succeed over us.
I was disappointed in myself. My pain became my parents’ pain and that definitely was the worst part. I would lay awake thinking about what I could have done better: my test scores, grades, and essays, but no matter how hard I thought about it, the matter of the fact is that there is nothing I could do about it now but move on.
“It all happens for a reason.”
I would roll my eyes so hard every time I would hear that. But this time around, it seems to be the most comforting line. Even though that reason is not as clear right now, hopefully four years from now, I will be grateful for the ways things worked out.
Let me tell you seniors, you are not alone and it is not just me. The first step is accepting the fact that even though we will not be where we imagined, we all must learn to be grateful for the opportunities we have. Take them and run. Berkeley was my dream school; however, I will be across the country for the next four years at American University in Washington, DC.
We all must be excited for our futures, and if we are not, we must work towards something that excites us. With the college wave behind me, I wish you all the best of luck in your future endeavors. If a door was not opened for you, it was because there was not anything behind it for you, so find one that does. Get up, take a deep breath, and dust yourself off. Take advantage of all the opportunities presented to you, and work hard for those that are not. Be great wherever you go.
