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Bee Keeping & Legitimately Fun Facts About Bees!
By Reily Scott, III Form
Bee Keeping & Legitimately Fun Facts About Bees!
Ever since kindergarten, I have been beekeeping with my mother, but we aren’t the first in our family. Our beekeeping tradition goes back four generations to my great-grandmother Charlotte Ames, but I am the first male beekeeper in my family. My sister, on the other hand, does not want to involve herself with bugs in any way. She will go days without using her bathroom if there is a ladybug somewhere inside.
I have loved bugs all my life. When I was three or four years old, I would find stinkbugs, because my old house had an abundance of them, and stuff them in my matchbox cars and drive them around town. Though I couldn’t get my hands on bees to put them in cars, I still loved them anyway. (more…)
Patriotism Is My Life and Flag: I Support the Troops
By Abby Peloquin, VI Form
Patriotism Is My Life and Flag: I Support the Troops
Patriotism, to me, is far more than saying “I am an American” or putting a flag on your front porch. To be a patriot is to understand the past and present of this country, both good and bad. It is learning the history of our nation, from the pilgrims to George Washington to WWII, and accepting that even the greatest countries have their faults. It is seeing a veteran in Walmart and, although you’ve never met them, saying thank you. Patriotism is putting your hand on your heart for the Pledge of Allegiance every morning at 8am, even when you don’t quite understand the words yet. Being a patriot is a lifelong journey, and the people who understand that more than most are the members of our armed forces. (more…)
What Is Cancer: Looking Through the Multiplex Lens of Immortality
By Tony Banson and Tommy MacNeil, V Form
What Is Cancer: Looking Through the Multiplex Lens of Immortality
Cancer is a disease that has touched the lives of many around the world (Figure 1). It is a disease that afflicts both the young and old, and the rich and poor. The American Cancer Society estimates that there will be 1,688,780 new cancer cases diagnosed and 600,920 cancer deaths in the United States in 2017 (Cancer Facts & Figures 2017). Biologically, this disease arises from one’s body when normal, healthy cells begin to grow uncontrollably. Because of genetic and environmental factors, the subset of cells no longer cooperate with evolution’s safety controls, bypassing important regulatory checkpoints of the cell cycle. With the advent of technology and medicine, humans are living longer and the cells that make up our bodies have more time to mutate in ways that can cause havoc.

Figure 1 which indicates total number of cancer cases and deaths globally in 2012.
From a personal standpoint, cancer has touched the lives of many of our loved ones. (more…)
Moral Obligation…in Hamlet & a Fetus
By Lulu Eastman, V Form
Moral Obligation…in Hamlet & a Fetus
Hamlet, a Shakespeare play, follows the tragic tale concerning a deeply troubled Danish prince of the same name. Hamlet is forced to confront his traitorous mother and uncle in order to avenge his murdered father, who, as a ghost, has requested Hamlet takes his uncle’s life in order to bring him justice. However, Hamlet is distressed by the thought of committing such a bloody deed. As he wavers through indecision regarding his proposed mission, he also struggles against the drowning weight of his depression, as the toxic environment of the palace causes him to lose faith in the goodness of people. In the novel, Nutshell, by Ian McEwan, the story of the fetus is based off of Hamlet. With the reflective fetus entangled in the plotting of his traitorous mother and uncle, he finds himself in a predicament similar to that of the Danish prince. Although he has yet to even experience life for his own, the fetus has already lost hope for the vitality and decency of humanity. Every moment of his being is spent listening to conversations that only reveal more and more of the villainous and duplicitous ways of his mother and uncle, Trudy and Claude. Both Hamlet and the fetus reach a point where they contemplate committing suicide, as it seems to be the only way to put an end to their pain. However, both decide to live instead. Though both Hamlet and the fetus have cynical views of the world, and both consider suicide, they continue living through their suffering because they have moral obligations, beliefs, and fears that bind them to life. (more…)
The Thin Blue Line of Family
By Lexi Schumaker, VI Form
The Thin Blue Line of Family
“Cops in the U.S – especially in Texas – are savage animals that will shoot you whenever they please. Now in Dallas is payback time, pigs.”
This tweet, shared to me by a classmate, is what I woke up to the morning after the Dallas shooting. I read it repeatedly until tears swelled up my eyes. I could not comprehend the fact that someone would want my father, a brave cop whom I look up to, dead. I called my father immediately and asked him what I should do and how I should feel. He simply told me to ignore these kinds of comments because not many people view the police force the way my family does. If it does not bother him, it should not bother me either. So, why did it? (more…)
The Mask: Art Inspired By The Loss of My Grandfather
By U Jin Jo, IV Form
The Mask: Art Inspired By The Loss of My Grandfather
“Do you ever wish you could just take off your mask and show people what is going on inside of you?”
I have been asked this question multiple times before. However, I never really understood what it meant before I experienced the death of someone whom I loved. In fact, his absence is still hard to believe today.
My grandfather – my best friend, my mentor, my everything – passed away two years ago when I was in 7th grade. The pain of the loss was unbearable for my 13-year-old self. However, having to tough through each day of school, I maintained the bright smile on my visage and carried my sadness within me. Day after day, I became more tired of burying my feelings inside. Eventually, I could no longer hold back the tears that flooded inside of me. I needed to show people what was going inside of U Jin Jo.
For this piece of art, I wanted the background to be important without having too much information because I wanted the focus to be on the inside. Hence, I used red acrylic paint and created a gradation behind the person. For the hair, I used a black felt-tip pen for the hair-like patterns. Under the mask of the girl, I wanted the section to express an entirely different feeling than the rest of the page because it is the focus of this piece. I looked through fashion magazines and cut out images of thunderstorms, clouds, and tears to create an ominous collage. Everything else was done in pencil. (more…)
Race in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God: an Infographic
By Haley Dion, IV Form
Race in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God: an Infographic
We were given a project that instructed us to create an infographic on a key theme from Their Eyes Were Watching God. My infographic focuses on the theme of race in the novel. It discusses the characters’ connections to race, the relationship between race with other themes in the book, and the presence of race throughout the chapters. I enjoyed creating this infographic because I got to look at the importance of a modern day issue in the 1920s/1930s time setting of the novel. The elements of the infographic are below or you can access the full infographic by clicking here. (more…)
Global Connections of Media and Skin
By June Seong, IV Form
Global Connections of Media and Skin
Amidst the chaos that is my life – including the future I must decide upon, the necessity to be “special,” and my attempt to make this post somewhat grammatically correct – I am struck by my simultaneous privilege and ignorance. This privilege and ignorance is exhibited through myriad ways at this very moment: 1) this dull MacBook Air that I am communicating through and that was probably configured by an underpaid or unpaid laborer; 2) the whizzing air conditioning that is breathing on my neck so that I might not die from heatstroke whilst the world scales up a few sweltering Centigrades; 3) the immensity of the world that is within computer click’s reach via Facebook. (more…)