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Twenty minutes to go. A bass-heavy beat pounds through the air, shaking the doors of beat up lockers. Some joke around and chat with each other while others sit in seclusion, eyes focused on a single tile on the dirty floor, ears full of aggressive lyrics blasting through their own headphones. The room reeks of focus and adrenaline, anticipation and anxiety.

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Renovations and a rising student population turned Lunch & Learn into an outdated system. Though Lunch & Learn became impractical due to the current conditions of the school, the administration still wanted to encourage students to take time during the school day to get additional help or ahead on school work, resulting in the creation of the Learn period. Learn is a concept that all Statesmen had to adjust to, and as the year progresses, its benefits and flaws are manifesting themselves.

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From the self-immolation and death of Tunisian street merchant Mohammed Bouazizi, which catapulted the Arab world and greater Middle East, to the forefront of revolution and even civil war, to the European debt crisis, which plagued European Union nations like Greece with a social discord equal to that of some Middle Eastern countries, 2011 was far from quiet. Greater solidifying 2011 as a crucial year for world affairs was the near-complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and the death of Osama bin Laden, Moammar Gaddafi and Kim Jong-Il.

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“Math class is tough… Party dresses are fun!” A Barbie doll released in 1992 caused a recall-worthy controversy with its inclusion of phrases talking about the difficulty of math and many more about the wonders of shopping in its collection of audio files.
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Gossip Girl. Hannah Montana. The Princess Diaries. iCarly. Mean Girls. Cliques and their drama lie at the heart of so many media portrayals of the teenage years. This depiction of teens creates a vicious cycle of ever-increasing stereotypes.
High school is portrayed as a place where each student has his or her place in a system of cliques. This categorical system, of the jocks and the nerds, of the cool kids and the losers, has been shown in every movie from Grease to High School Musical.
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There I stood, in a seemingly endless line of students, waiting for essay help from my English teacher. I had been standing for a good 20 minutes, and Lunch & Learn was nearly over. A couple of other students were trying to get ahead on reading assignments or were making up class work. All the while, pockets of students were chatting nosily.
I remember how chaotic the Lunch & Learn situation was in English last year. With Marshall’s renovation underway, it seems that the English department is its giving Learn policy a much-needed face-lift.
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Music mash-ups have been around ever since The Beatles and The Rolling Stones began multitrack recording in the late 60s; as many as 12 songs were recorded at once and then were mixed together to create a more complex song. Since then, mash-ups have become an Internet sensation through bothContinue Reading

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When Algernon Moncrieff implores his friend Jack Worthing, who is spinning the tale of his double-life, to “pray, make it improbable,” he hits upon the very message of The Importance of Being Earnest: that deception (and un-deception, as one character puts it) become more trouble than they are worth whenContinue Reading

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As with any fashion fad, yoga pants have exploded into the fashion scene over the past few years. While their presence in schools has generally been acceptable since gaining popularity among teenage girls, recent issues have arisen in regard to the tight-fitting leggings. In March, a student at Battlefield HighContinue Reading