Hinting at the Inevitable
BY Meghan Vogt
He can’t help but stare
At her graceful beauty
She walks down the aisle
Between the school desks
He works up the courage
And professes his love
When she removes her veil
Her heart shows the same
He has intentions of forever
So he offers her a gift
She holds the flower gladly
In agreeance to his plan
She makes it down the aisle and lifts up her veil with tears
His hand will now replace her bouquet for the next hundred years
BY Abelino Ruiz
LifeAtStart.com Reporter
The majority of Americans have some sort of social media network such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Pinterest. Users can create profiles, communicate with friends and strangers, do research, and share thoughts, photos, music , links, and more.
While social media can be good in moderation, the majority of it is desensitizing our culture. It reduces face to face contact, causes people to waste time, influences the behavior of children, exposes users to predators, and allows false information to spread at an alarming rate.
Social media allows people to spread information that is not true and can potentially cause public fear or panic. In 2012, rumors of fires, shootouts, and gunmen in a Mexico City suburb spread via Twitter and Facebook. People panicked and flooded the local police station with thousands of phone calls and schools were temporarily closed. After hurricane Sandy, one man on Twitter claimed that the New York Stock Exchange was flooded and the power company was going to cut all power throughout Manhattan. The news was picked up by CNN and The Weather Channel. One man can influence millions due to social media.
Privacy on social media is very limited and is often transparent, allowing the government and corporations to keep a close eye on people. According to freerepublic.com, the IRS training manual teaches their employees how to use Facebook and Twitter to look for information that may help “resolve a taxpayer case.” Nowadays, potential employers can scope out your social media before they hire you to see if you will represent their brand well. Most people leave their Facebook and Instagram pages open to the public. They should probably think twice about using that privacy option.
Students who are heavily dependent on social media tend to have lower grades. According to edtechmagazine.com, students who used social media had an average GPA of 3.06 versus non-users who had an average GPA of 3.82. Their studies showed that two-thirds of teachers believed that social media does more to inhibit students’ learning ability rather than help it. They also found that test scores of users were 20% lower than the students who didn’t use social media.
Social networking can cause stress and offline relationship problems. A University of Edinburgh Business School study found that the more friends a person has on Facebook, the more stressful the person finds Facebook to use. A separate but related study found that 15% of adults ended a friendly relationship due to an occurrence on social media.
In my opinion, social networking is the biggest waste of time in a person’s life. When we think of all the time-wasting activities that we do such as watching TV, playing video games, or casually socializing with friends, we can come to the conclusion that social media is the biggest time-waster of them all. Oftentimes, what happens is we get a notification for something, we check that alert, and then we stay on our phones for another half hour or forty-five minutes. Americans also spend way too much time playing FarmVille or Mafia Wars.
All in all, I think the vast collage of social media outlets are zombifying the American population. We are so enveloped in our handheld devices, that we lose track of time and space. It turns out that we don’t need guns and a large food supply after all. We just need a Nokia flip-phone and a cheap Sprint plan to avoid becoming one of them.
BY Meghan Vogt
LifeAtStart.com reporter
There is a wide variety of stereotypes known in our society. People use stereotypes to assume personality traits of an individual based upon a single aspect of the individual’s life or appearance. Stereotypes are commonly extremely incorrect and sometimes insulting to the group of people they describe.
Some general examples of stereotypes are: blondes and athletic students are not smart, Caucasian males are poor basketball players and Asian students are good at math. Stereotypes apply to certain groups. As a member of marching band, you are grouped, and, therefore, vulnerable to stereotypes, the moment you join the class. I explored the accuracy of common stereotypes about different sections in marching band by asking members of select sections how a specific stereotype applied to them. These are my findings.
Stereotype One: Tuba players are slow thinkers.
Result: Inaccurate
Start’s lead tubist, Christopher Dauer, responded, “Not at all. I am the exact opposite.”
Stereotype Two: Trombone players are cool.
Result: Accurate
“Because bow ties are cool, and, therefore, I am cool,” explained Start’s junior trombonist, Justin “BowTie” Hockman, who can be seen sporting a bow tie every day at school.
Stereotype Three: The color guard is always off step.
Result: Partially Accurate
For Adam Garçia this is true “all of the time.”
However, veteran marcher Hayle Pant pointed out, “Sometimes I’m off step, but you have to be in step to spin right.”
Stereotype Four: Percussionists are loud and annoying.
Result: Partially Accurate
Nathan Haueter, lead snare, commented, “Personally, I don’t fit that stereotype, but yes it’s true for a certain drummer on this line.” Nathan politely did not want to give names, but after prying, he confided that the certain drummer was tenor player Matthew Gebhardt.
Matthew Gebhardt admitted that he was indeed, “very annoying, very noisy.”
Stereotype Five: Woodwinds can’t march.
Result: Inaccurate and very insulting
“You know that is… [male cow’s feces],” responded sophomore clarinet player Phillip Dutridge.
“Total [male cow’s feces],” agreed fellow clarinetist Sam Gonia.
Marissa Shuster shared, “I feel like I want to kill those people who think that.”
Mitchel Borst more calmly commented with what the rest of his section was presumably also thinking, “I’m a pretty good marcher.”
Stereotype Six: Trumpet players are egotistical and arrogant.
Result: Partially accurate
Mylisa Boright, sophomore trumpist, believes “that is the upperclassmen guy trumpets… Like Dan.”
When questioned, Daniel Smith, responded, “No, it’s not true because I’m not full trumpet; I’m half baritone.” Although Daniel marches trumpet he plays the baritone during concert season. Andy Roberson, senior, agreed, “It’s pretty true. I mean, look at Tim.” Andy was then asked if the stereotype reflected him as a trumpet player. He responded, “Yeah, I’m pretty great.” Timothy Warring, current first trumpet, admitted, “My ego is off the scale.”
Andrea Gowdy shed some wisdom on the topic, “Well, you know, it’s people who know they’re good. Nine times out of ten people who think they’re good are good.”
Unfortunately, not all trumpet players are as confident. Terrance Peavy described his attitude towards his abilities, “I’m self-conscious, and I’m like the only one that doesn’t play out… I’m not good enough.”
Conclusion: Most stereotypes only apply to the few individuals that stood out that caused the stereotype to form. No stereotype defines everyone. There will always be exceptions and stereotypes should never be used to judge anyone. It’s always better to get to know someone before deciding if they’re egotistical, annoying or a poor marcher. If anything, maybe use the stereotype as an ice breaker. Believe me, you’ll hear some interesting things.
BY Kaylah Kislan
LifeAtStart.com Reporter
When I asked my sister, Dasia Kislan, a freshman here at Start, what the school colors were she quickly replied, “Green and gold. Duh.” Many of you might say the same thing. Whether you heard a football cheer or actually took the time to read the high school handbook, you probably believed the same. However, I came across something that made me question what I have believed to be true since my freshman year here.
With a quick Google search, anyone could pull up information on our high school. And that is exactly what I did. Listed on the right sidebar of the webpage was various information that, at a first glance, appeared accurate. Looking for a juicy journalism topic, I knew I would not find inspiration from the high school’s address, so I continued to scroll until I got to the bit of information labeled “Colors” in bold face print. What I read piqued my curiosity.
Right there, next to the colon, stood the words “White, Green.” Maybe I was wrong after all. I grabbed my handy high school handbook a thumbed through the pages until I found what I was looking for. When reading our Alma Mater in comparison to the school’s fight song, I noticed nothing seemed to match up. In the Alma Mater, it mentions the colors green and gold. Yet in the fight song green is completely removed from the picture. Leaving only green and white.
While this minor slip up may seem unimportant, it caught my attention. Sure, Google isn’t always one hundred percent accurate. It was created by humans after all. Still, I can’t help but to wonder where the information on the side of the website came from. Who wrote it? Who verified it? Did they even bother to consult the handbook?
Handbook or no handbook, whether you see green and gold or green and white, Spartans will always be seen proudly sporting their school colors.