Old High School Articles

I was looking through my computer and found a bunch of my articles from my column back in high school. I really got a kick out of them so I'd figure I'd post them.

A Cranky Corner Carol

by Laura Peters Raider Staff

Fa la la la la la la la… and all that rubage.

The holiday cheer is all around in expensive gifts on little children’s lists. Department stores sales with not only ten but twenty percent off…EVERYTHING!

Have you got the spirit? The spirit to compete with your friends for the better present. To gather around you family spitting out carols, loving one another and then leaving as soon as you get your gifts.

The season of giving…love? Scrooge says it’s not, but to get out that mindset, you have to see the holidays from all different angles.

Commercialism has hit an all time high around the same time every year. It’s just coincidence hitting that high during the holiday season (everyone just wants to give).

New Years cheer and resolutions appear. Every brand new year it’s the same thing, “I want to lose ten pounds…that’s my resolution.” Or “I’m going to forget about Bobby, who dumped me five months ago…I’m really moving on…”

There’s nothing like the holiday season like food, A Muppet’s Christmas Carol, and the rotation of Star Wars over and over on Christmas day.

I’m not one for the glee of the holidays, but I do enjoy certain songs, dashing through the snow and seeing mommy kissing Santa Clause. Sleigh rides, silver bells, and even Grandma getting run over by a reindeer are all time favorites.

Tradition is key. Let it be a turkey or ham in the oven or putting garland on your tree instead of candy canes. Lighting the menorah or the kinara.

It doesn’t matter what you celebrate; it’s celebrating it that keeps the tradition alive.

Once school is back in session, new outfits will deck the halls, the latest mini-micro-maca-whatever I-pod will be stuck in many ears, and cars with bows may fill the parking lot with cheer.

To all have a very Merry-Happy Chrismakwanzaka! And a great New Years!

Love is for Losers…This is Cranky to the EXTREME!

by Laura Peters Raider Staff

Love, love, love…

All you need is love.

Every February 14th the power of love is skyrocketed. It’s plain and simple…a greeting card holiday.

It’s an excuse for girlfriends to get overly upset at their boyfriends because of their lack of consideration on that special day of “love”.

Do you know where the whole Valentine’s Day originates? Okay, okay…so it isn’t entirely the greeting card Corporation.

The legend of Saint Valentine was that he was a priest in the third century in Rome. Now, Valentine was angry with the Emperor Claudius II when he outlawed marriage for younger men, so he could have more soldiers to fight and be apart of his army. Valentine was so enraged, he continued to perform marriages even after the Emperor’s ruling.

Due to the defiance of his emperor, Valentine was sent to jail. It is said that in jail he fell in love with the jailer’s daughter and wrote her a letter before his death signing it “From your Valentine” giving everyone that expression in present day.

So, basically, Valentine’s Day can be romantic. The basis around it in this light, over Saint Valentine’s death, can be viewed as heroic and very much romantic. But, then again this is America, it’s all about the goods.

Laura’s Cranky Corner

by Laura Peters Raider Staff

Do you ever have that feeling where someone is telling you a story, they build it completely up, and you’re totally psyched about it, only to be let down by the fact that it completely sucked and had no significance to your life, what-so-ever. And then you realize, you never get those thirty-plus minutes back in your life that you just wasted on listening to that person, or even reading this article.

That’s the theme of my high school existence, but not to put a downfall on this school or anything. I’m just so blank and worn out from high school drama, and stupid situations. We’re all ready to move on, and grow up. Which is practically impossible to do in a prison-like campus, where we’re treated like inmates when we don’t have a pass to go to the water fountain.

Deadlines are pushing me to write this one. But the only deadline that I’m facing now is to my freedom; Graduation.

I can feel, see, and imagine it now, walking across that stage, with the gleaming sunlight beaming onto my pale skin, making my freckles darker. I’ve been waiting for that moment since I first entered these halls.

The halls that shone so brightly from the first waxing of the school year, only to be scuffed up the next day and turned into a matte finished that soon fades into a unnoticeable floor that you walk on to go to you seventh period class.

Awkward phases that you never really grow out of, they grow out of you. Bumming rides due to the fact that you have no license and your big brother decides to leave you at school.

Times when homecoming was sort of cool, in your own alternative way. With boas, homemade dresses, and amazing up-do’s. Pancake dinners and after parties.

That feeling of freedom with the wind in your hair with all the windows down in YOUR car, even though it’s your parent’s car, but it’s yours because you’re driving it alone. Music blasting, and zooming around seemingly cool in the school parking lot.

The thrill of winning, the happiness of succeeding, the defeat of failing. The ups and downs of high school seem to be a rollercoaster, but that’s the intensity you look forward to each day, even if you don’t want to admit it to yourself.

Study halls filled with no talking for the fear of getting in trouble, back when the rules were enforced so harshly, only to be let down as the years pass, and then to be replaced by a useless “FLEX” period, that causes more hassle than help.

Last minute projects in attempt to get the seniors more involved with the schoolwork, then realizing that they don’t care, and senioritis has hit an all time high, and everyone is infected. It’s useless. The summer is already here for half of us. We’re practically free.

I feel your pain, for all you underclassmen, as I rant on about the feelings of a senior. We’ve all been there, we know exactly how you’re feeling. You’ll get out soon enough, and have the same feelings as I do now.

Growing, as this article is, is like a timeline. Retracing and remembering your steps is the fun part. Thinking of past experiences, when times seemed to be so hard and unbearable, only now were clearly easy and practically no big deal at all.

With new additions to the school, come great losses. The weathered faces of maturing adults will soon be replaced with different ones. The same repeating process over and over, until the end of time. With ever new generation you see new sparks, different in every way. Just realize that as you grow up, things may be hard and challenging but, that’s the fun of it. Like a winding road with unexpected turns of the life ahead of you.

Laura’s Cranky Corner

by Laura Peters Raider Staff

Senior year…supposedly the best year of your life. You’re moving on, getting ready start your life and enter a new chapter. Everything is supposed to be big, great, and grand.

Or, not. You’re life is now a big confusing mess of college essays and applications galore. It’s one thing after the next of what you want to study, where you want to go. And here’s the catch, you must decide right now.

Many people may disagree with my last statement, saying you don’t need to decide right away but, then again, isn’t college pointless if you don’t have a set idea in your mind of what you want to accomplish? It’s like taking all your life’s earnings and flushing them down the toilet.

Here’s an idea. Maybe somewhat uplifting. No one knows what they want. As much as some people want to have it set in their mind of what they want to do, everyone is just as confused and freaked out by the life ahead of them. Succumb to your fears everyone! We are all in this together. We are not alone!

High school to me is childish. I’ve finished what I need to accomplish here, my brain is done consuming all that it needs to consume as of now. I can’t gather any more information, and if I do I am going to lose it.

All that high school really is is just a popularity contest. Everyone has their little clicks and friends that they have had forever, and once you’re in that group you stay in it, and there is a members only policy.

One thing I have realized is that this year alone, more people have talked to me. Maybe it’s because I have some growth coming out of the side of my head or a booger hanging out of my nose, but the real true people have come to the same realization that I have discovered; I will never see these people ever again, I might as well make the best of it.

Not to put a damper on you’re last year of high school with a depressing note, but I’m speaking my mind. The truth is, that the people you know in high school, you will most likely never speak to again, besides those in which you plan on keeping a good connection with. That’s life, we all are moving on.

Senior year…the best year of your life? No, not for me, maybe the most frustrating year that I have ever had to endure. But, I could say that about my entire high school existence. I’m not going to lie, but I hate going around in school pretending that I really care about it. I don’t. I’m sick and tired of it all. I want to leave and start something new. I’m eighteen, partially legal, and I’m drained of everything.

Is it just me or do you ever just get in your car and drive? Just, no place in mind of where you’re going, just drive. A continuous drive that ends nowhere and starts in the same place. That’s where I feel right now, a figure eight of continuum that will never extinguish. As of now, I’m trying to find my tangent…where’s yours?