page 6
features
December 00
College
Bring it!
From
PAGE
r
D.J. Dore
Don’t take the SAT’s
5 or 6 times your Junior year, but
it’s not a bad idea to get them
out ofthe way early. If you need
the practice, useful SAT prac
tice books and computer pro
grams are available.
“Don’t apply to 12 col
leges,” says Senior Janie
Dickens. Besides the fact that
there will be more work and
• money involved, if colleges see
they are one of many on your
list of schools, they will give
you less priority than someone
else. Instead, choose one or
two ‘fall-back’ schools.
Get your transcript re
quest forms into the Counsel
ing Office on time, tell teachers
when to send recommendations,
and meet any Early Decision or
Early Action deadlines.
Remember that Early
Decision is legally binding;
however, with Early Action you
can find out early without be
ing “binded” legally to a col
lege. Your application will ofter
be reviewed again with the
Regular Action poole if you are
not accepted the first time. It
may also qualify you for con
sideration for certain scholar-
sh.ipS-»E?rly_Actjion may .not be,
advisable if you are fairly cer
tain that your grades will im
prove your Senior year and you
want colleges to see that.
Make sure you answer
the prompt when you write es
says. It is a way to show your
creativity but also you are try
ing to persuade them you can
follow the mles. College admis
sions staffs are reading a ton of
essays. Get a book on writing
college essays, talk to teachers,
or talk to the colleges them
selves. Let colleges know why
they should want you. And
don’t forget to proofread.
Remember that college
should be a place of discovery.
Make sure many options are
available and remember, while
you will be spending at least the
next 4 years of your life at col
lege, you will not be spending
the rest of your life there. Don’t
strees the application process,
look at it as a time of opportu-
Senior Laurin Ariail has
only one thing to say when
asked about her teams’ chance
of winning this years confer
ence;
‘Bring It!’
Set, Spike, Kill. Laurin
Ariail does it all. Last year, the
senior who hails from Rich
mond Senior High in
Rockingham helped lead the
Women’s Volleyball team to an
impressive second place finish,
falling only to the nationally-
ranked women of Cardinal Gib
bons. And Laurin’s role has not
gone unnoticed. The fact of the
matter is Laurin’s contributions
got her a spot on the TISAC
All-Conference team! But you
will never hear Laurin brag
about her accomplishment, “It’s
a team sport, it’s very competi
tive, and I love the team. I love
the people on the team. I
couldn’t ask for better team
mates.”
Laurin started playing
volleyball six years ago as a way
to stay in shape for basketball.
her first love. Little
know that she would
devoted to the game.
“Yeah, in
middle school I
wanted to do some
thing before bas
ketball, so I went to
a volleyball camp
to check it out,”
Ariail said. “I had
never even played
before I went to the
camp. 1 guess I kind
of got hooked.”
Although
the team finished a
disappointing third-
place in the regular
season, Ariail is
confident that the
team will live up to
their goals set ear
lier in the season,
and play a strong
conference tourna
ment. It’s funny that
Laurin should men
tion living up to the
teams’ goals, be
cause when she
first came to the
did she school last year, she didn’t know team, but we really came to-
soon be what to expect. gether. We are definitely play-
“I never expected the ing in sync.”
This is picture number two oj Laurin
Laurin expects to play collegiate volleyball next year
team to be this good, the
whole drive of the team is
really remarkable, and the
seniors this year have re
ally stepped up. I couldn’t
be more happy with their
performance.” When asked
to comment on what the
team could do to improve,
Laurin stated that she
wished the school would
give sports a bigger prior
ity: “I mean there is only so
much a team can do on their
own. The school’s attitude
is just as important as the
players skills.”
And the team’s late
start on practicing didn’t
help them at all. And with
only one non-conference
I game before regular sea-
^ son, some might cry out-
^ rage. But not Laurin stating
that, “[the team] really ac-
Laurin hopes to con
tinue playing volleyball next
year. Among others places, she
is hoping to play at Duke,
Princeton, William and Mary,
or Davidson. But she knows
that college is much tougher
then high school, and she has
been preparing. Last year in the
spring, twice a week Laurin
would drive to Raleigh to attend
practice for the U-17 select
Club Raleigh volleyball squad.
And if that isn’t challenge
enough, because of the no car
rule, Laurin would sometimes
be resorted to begging for rides
to practice from teammates,
SLIs, and her high school Coach
Lloyd!
But for now, the only
thing on Ariail’s mind is the up
and coming tournament. In the
words of teammate Shaleka
Covington “Bring IT...You
cepted the challenge. It’s Know?”
hard not knowing half the
nity.
More random acts of strangeness
Michael Mueller
-Not exactly a strike, but
eighteen techies at a French fac
tory at Strasbourg were sus
pended after pom e-mail they
were sending to each other ac
cidentally wound up in a female
executive’s inbox. The female
executive was not pleased.'
-In music news, German
chancellor Gerhard Schroder has
become a one-hit wonder with
his single “Hoi mir mal ‘ne
Flasche Bier”. Apparently re
porters quoted him as saying
“Get me a bottle of beer before
1 go on strike here” at the end
of a stifling hot day touring
eastern Germany last summer,
and German comedian Stefan
Raab turned it into the refrain
for a ballad. This puts Schroder
as the -number two pop singer
on German charts, leading Ma
donna and Britney Spears. Ac
cording to music industry
executives, Schroder could re
ceive up to 1.5 million DM in
royalties.
-In a shocking corruption
scandal, Turkish census work
ers are under fire for miscount
ing the national census.
Apparently workers, who re
ceive $36 per head counted,
took names off of headstones
in cemeteries, thereby earning
themselves more money and
bloating the country’s popula
tion figures.
-Through extensive stud
ies, researchers discovered that
songbirds actually dream about
singing. They discovered this
by analyzing brain patterns of
singing songbirds and dream
ing songbirds, which were simi
lar.
-A survey conducted by
the University of South Austra
lia showed that one in every
three executives falls asleep
during meetings. Similarly, 40%
claimed they had “stormed out”
of meetings, 68% said they had
raised their voice in anger, and
87% claimed they daydreamed
during meetings. Researchers
concluded that these ineffi
cient meetings were wasting
huge amounts of company time
and money. Duh.
-Royal entertainment-so
refined, so sophisticated,
so...tacky? Queen Elizabeth has
lately taken to entertaining
guests by doing duets with a
rubber, singing “Billy Bass”.
Apparently the Queen bursts
out laughing every time the fish
bursts into song, and has taken
to mounting it on her grand pi
ano, where she often sings along
with the fish.