“THondcupf ^ecem6m / A t995
of pas
sage into adulthood
By Emily Keith
Reporter
Our generation has not lived
a very sheltered existence. We
have witnessed a war. We have
watched the statistics of divorce
grow at a phenomenal rate. We
have seen the AIDS epidemic
grow into a dilemma that almost
seems helpless for us to even try
to control. The future for our
generation has never seemed to
hold a lot of hope. But what’s
sad is that our generation has the
skills and the intelligence to be
able to deal with all the problems
that we are inheriting; we just
don’t have the dedication. We’d
rather sit aroxmd and drink cof
fee in a moth eaten chair and talk
about how unfair life is than get
off our high-horses and DO
SOMETHING!.
What is it that can spur youth
into action? Since the beginning
of America teenagers have never
been offered a meaningful cul
tural experience that values
things that are important to them.
American youth do not have a
meaningful event to mark the
end of childhood. I firmly be
lieve that this is most of the
problem. I think that we really
need a rite of passage that young
adults can experience that can
mark the turning of their place
in society from a carefree teen
ager to a young adult with a debt
to society. Several cultures have
variations of this. Many Native
American tribes send their
young men off around the age of
13 to experience a vision. Jew
ish men and women train to per
form and experience the change
over to becoming a woman or a
man in the Jewish community.
There are even some really
simple rites. In America, the
driver’s license at the age of 16
becomes a symbol of freedom
for most teenagers. Youths of
today celebrate the end of their
high school career with a thing
called prom. Similarly, we put
our exit from high school to
ritual in a celebration called
graduation. America’s teenage
culture seems to be lacking tra
ditional substance.
America is crying for a rite
of passage. Today’s teenagers
are in desperate need of putting
ritualistic rites in to their life.
When I see a young adult with
multiple piercing or many tat
toos, I only see the desperate
need for initiation that their bod
ies and minds must be experienc
ing. It’s incredibly sad. Maybe
I shouldn’t blame my generation
for their own ignorance. Mayb e
I should blame America. The
principle of America steals sig
nificant rites of passage from the
youth. We need to rely on our
selves for what our bodies and
minds need. If our culture will
not allow us to have a national
ritual rite, then maybe it’s up
tous to find out what our souls
and bodies need in order to
grow.
Online love may
anything and everything you want it to
By Alec Ferrell
Staff Writer
“Why must I be a teenager in love?”
I love that song. But more impor
tantly, it does indeed convey a very
monumentous question. The many subtle,
yet powerful levels of teenage courtship
are enough to overwhelm those around
and within the relationship itself to the
point of insanity. However, if one is like
me, it has been a painfully long time since
those powerful waves of romance have
submerged me into a realm of - well, you
get the picture. But alas! For all those who
feel that there is no hope left to salvage
the motivation to re-enter the teenage
dating game, there is an answer: the on
line romance!
Yes, folks! Thanks to the wonderment
of scientific advancement, and through
such computer networking systems as
Prodigy, CompuServe and America
Online, I have now successfully estab
lished cyber-dates witli girls all across the
continental United States, and then some
(total lie)! All you have to do is type in
what you want to say and send it to who
you want to say it to, and then they write
back! It’s that simple! No embarrassing
personal interaction! No gut-wrenching
phone calls to people who will probably
reject you! No worries on whether or not
they think you’re ugly; they can’t even
see you! You have total control of what
you want to do and how you want to do
it! You can even be whoever you want to
be; no one knows what you look like un
less you tell them! It can be absolutely
be, with absolutely no possibility of dis
ease! Utopia for dating! Eureka!
Actually, it is quite a depressing pro
cess. One signs on to their designated
Internet-server, in my case America
Online, and then can proceed to search
through various “rooms of interest,” each
with its own set title or topic. For in
stance, there are many different
“TeenChat” rooms, designed for the pur
pose of creating an open forum for teens
to talk about teen stuff. The process then
involves a main dialogue screen, in which
one sees what everyone says, and enters
their own comments or questions through
a smaller entry window. Sounds fun, huh?
Upon my first entry into a TeenChat
room, I was attacked by myriad “cyber
dweebs” who: a) thought I was a girl, b)
provided detailed scenarios of various ob
scene middle school mating rituals that
they wanted to partake with any and all
available online females and c) had poor
grammar skills. To ward off these
Internet-vermin one can either counter
their offer with the colorful metaphor of
your choice, or simply move on to an
other room. As I began to learn that the
TeenChat is probably the lamest place
that one can go on the vastness of the ser
vice, and also that it is the last place in
the world to go to if one hopes to meet
someone for a mutually stimulating rela
tionship, I simply moved on,
I was now in search of a room in
which I could truly meet some interest
ing, mindful hospit-able and non-vacu-
ous people. I looked down the descrip
tions of all available rooms. Iowa Babes
40+1 Nope. SexlessinDesMoinesI Not
today. Nuttin-But-
Squid? Don’t think so. AHH! I found it!
If ever there was a room in which to find
a wholesome, meaningful cybernetic life-
mate, this was it: JustNicePeople. Upon
entering the room, I was awash with con
genial greetings such as “Herro!”, and
even a few punctuation tricks mimicking
various silly faces like (lean your head
to the left) ;) or !-}. I felt at home with
these people! They were actually just
nice people”! However, the amount of
niceness was painful and annoying. I
bade my farewells and kept on surfin’.
Well, I began to get desperate for
some people who were like me: moody,
likes winter, depressed most of the time
for no reason, and generally had nothing
better to do on a Saturday night than stare
at a computer screen for hours. So I found
my room: the IndieRockChat. (For those
who aren’t sure, “indie-rock” is a genre
of music that involves people making
thought provoking, original sounds but
don’t have enough money to make it big
on MTV - my kind o’ stuff.)
I was in heaven! The several other
people in the room and I complained
hours on end about our crappy lives and
the fact that we never have any money! I
met people from all over the place! Wil
liam in Kentucky, Heather in Atlanta,
Jokie in Carson, C A; all very interesting
people with whom I had stimulating con
versations.
And then I met her. Sarah in Connecti
cut. We started off talking about bands
like Stereolab and The Sonic Youth
which ultimately led to us discussing our
lives and how much we truly did have in
common. We are both seventeen, we both
listen to the same music, we both bite our
fingernails, we both have many of the
same problems with school and with re
lationships; I immediately felt a bond
with her, and she felt the same with me.
It was just a glorious, wonderful thing and
we have been sending actual mail and
packages ever since (this was back in
June). The colleges that we both want to
go to are extremely close to each other,
and we are both working very hard to get
accepted (education is wonderful and all,
but there are some forms of motivation
that will drive seventeen-year-olds above
and beyond any rational scheme of scho
lastic advancement), so I’ll attempt to
keep you all abreast of the developments
of the relationship (because I know you
really want to know about my lame-o per
sonal life, right?).
Point being, the Internet has some
thing for everyone. I dove in, thoroughly
skeptical and pessimistic about it, and
came back a boy smitten over a girl al
most 800 miles away. It was, indeed, a
grand occasion and is a service worthy
of everyone to at least give consider
ation. It is a safe, enjoyable activity
through which one can meet people of
same interest, or people with whom you
have absolutely nothing in common. It is
truly the wave of the future, and should
be surfed with an open mind and a clear
conscience. Who knows? Online romance
may await you yet!
less yuu ICll uicim n V^an ^
Reader response helpful to |ournalists
_ trouble BUT it is onlv worth it if people warm acceptance. I feel the same way. If I repressed environment in whi
By Ted Chen
Reporter
Yesterday, I was reading over our be
loved school newspaper. I soon became
entliralled by all die issues diat were dis
cussed. The topics ranged from stereotyp
ing to teenage drinking, winter sports to the
IB program. After a while of reading all
these tuticles 1 began to wonder whether
anyone was actually truly reading what we
had to say. Sure, people read the papers
but do they actually take what we have to
say with true sincerity? Do we actually
make a difference in the daily lives of
people?
Journalism is a daily struggle between
trying to find something interesting to say
and finishing it by the deadline. Sometimes
it gets hectic and stressful (like now, for
instance), but in the end it is worth the
trouble. BUT it is only worth it if people
actually care. We, as writers, tlirive on the
responses of our readers. We need you in
order to make tiiis paper somediing that ac
tually involves your concerns. If we just
sit here and blabber gibberish from our
mouths then we won’t get anything accom
plished. Please tell us how you, as the gen
eral public, feel about what we publish. If
we know how you feel on certain issues
then maybe we could improve our current
school environment. Whenever I write, I
hope diat it makes an impact upon my read
ers. If you feel that I am completely off
base and don't tell me, it won’t help the
situation. I’ll just keep on writing disap
pointing articles and you will just keep get
ting angry at me. Martin Luther King once
said that he would rather have a person be
outright against his beliefs than to have a
person who took King’s ideals with luke
warm acceptance. I feel the same way. If I
write something, I want to be confronted.
That’s tlie only way that any of us are go
ing to improve. When someone reads ray
articles and disagrees, I would like them to
acknowledge it to my face. I don’t want
someone to resent what I have to say and
not respond. That is about tire worst thing
that anybody can do. Many people don’t
realize that when we speak, we are speak
ing for you. We are your representatives
in this school bureaucracy.
I also begin to question whether actions
are being taken in response to what we
write. Is the school administration doing
anything in response to our complaints? Do
they actually care about what we think? We
try to voice our opinions but maybe it is all
useless. Maybe the administration is play
ing games with us. Maybe they want to
trick us into believing that we are in an un
repressed environment in which students
can actually have an impact on important
issues; you know, just like what the school
motto says-Students First. Anyway, if we
can TRULY make an impact on our cur
rent school situation then it would be wise
for you, the reader, to write to us. I would
like to think that our audience is not just a
bunch of mindless imbeciles, but actually
something worth being called a student
body. If you have any objections against
what I say, write me!
I begin to wonder whether my opinion
on things mean anything to the people who
read my articles, for example, this one that
I am writing now. Do you really care? In
fact, I begin to question whether anything
that this jomnalism staff has to say is sig
nificant to you, the reader. If the answer is
no, then why are you holding this copy of
High Life in your hands?