BY Angelena Hymes
LifeAtStart.com Reporter

Everyone thinks Valentine’s Day is a day where people share cards,flowers, and chocolate to those they love, but who thought of Valentine’s day and why was it created?

One legend states Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with families. Claudius outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered he be put to death.

St. Valentine was executed in Rome and buried there in the third century, but much later an Irish priest was granted permission to exhume his remains, and now his skeleton lies under a church in Dublin.

BY Me’Lyea Burton
LifeAtStart.com Reporter

Many people think it’s so easy to be a smart kid. You get good grades, homework comes at ease, and the teachers seem to be fond of your learning abilities. What could possibly be wrong about being a smart kid? Yes, it seems like it all runs smoothly for them, but everything is not what it seems.

All my life, I’d been a little more advanced than most of my peers. I began to walk and talk when I was around eight months, when most don’t take their first steps until nine. I started kindergarten at four years old, most start at five or six. I was in honors classes every year and never got anything lower than an A.

When I was in the sixth grade, I got my first B. My parents were so mad and I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I’d always been a straight A student, but I didn’t think a B was that bad. At that moment, I knew how hard it was to actually be smart. I had set the bar so high, that anything below, even if it was still good, was looked at as me not trying hard enough.

As I got older, I struggled to maintain my role of a straight-A student. It was hard for me to constantly see my parents disappointed, but I was trying the best I could. I wasn’t failing, but since I was used to As, I felt like I wasn’t trying hard enough.

It’s actually a lot more stressful to set high expectations the first time around. When you set the bar low, it’s easier and more appreciated to reach higher. Along with the stress of parents, you have teachers who also get disappointed when you don’t do your best, peers that either make fun of you or try to use you because of your grades, and then worst of all, you have yourself. You hate to fail, if you aren’t at your best, you feel like the complete worst.

BY Madison Mohr
LifeAtStart.com Reporter
On Groundhog Day we let a 12 pound rodent predict the weather. If it sees its shadow we get 6 more weeks of winter; if there’s no shadow then spring comes early. I don’t know about you but I find this ridiculous. How can a rodent suddenly become a meteorologist?

The holiday comes from an ancient Christian tradition, Candlemas Day. This day marked the midpoint of winter. They bless beeswax candles and burn them in the windows. If the sun cast a shadow there would be more winter coming; no shadow, winter was ending soon. German settlers continued this tradition with rodents instead of candles.

The first Groundhog Day was in 1887, Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. A newspaper editor, and member of the Groundhog Club, stated that “Phil, Punxsutawney’s groundhog, was America’s only true weather-forecasting groundhog.”People gathered at Globber’s Knob for the groundhog. Afterwards, the Groundhog Club hosted a groundhog hunt, and picnic, which had a variety of groundhog dishes to serve to everyone. Today, the people still gather for the picnic but there’s no groundhog on the menu.