Beginners Guide to a THIS Summer by: Mikayla Flanz

Well. We're finally back from that whole one and a half month we had off and administrators are trying to pass off as summer. Let's see what you missed...

I don't think people understand how long six hours are. Especially when they are spent sitting on uncomfortable plastic chairs, in the mid day summer sun, attempting to keep eight year old brats from drowning. Last February, I got my life guarding certification and I some what knew what I was getting myself into, but man, I was NOT paid enough for the amount of hours I wasted sitting on that god forsaken life guarding chair this summer. Personally I don't believe nine dollars an hour is the value of a child's life (even though no one drowned, I swear I'm good at my job... please hire me).

Stranded. I'm stuck in Sparta, New Jersey, alone. Sure I get people go on vacation and have summer houses, but it seems every time my friends were in town, I was on vacation, leaving me lonely the majority of summer. Overall, I'm relatively certain the best part of my summer was my college trip to Brown. Since I was little, I've always known that I would play soccer in college, and now it's beginning. Even then, a college visit for soccer should NOT be the highlight of my summer, to be honest I'm slowly becoming more and more disappointed with my standards.

Vacation in the North Carolina Outer banks, sounds great. Wrong. I'm not trying to sound like a brat, I get that I was lucky enough to go on a vacation, and I'm grateful that my parents booked the trip, but the things that went down were kind of out of both my hands and theirs... The weather, day one through five of our week long vacation, the Carolinas were hit with what is called a "tropical depression", which in a nut shell is rain. So. Much. Rain. And I could have even looked past that, but day two of our trip I got sick, and I spent the next few days of vacation sleeping, it was miserable. But I finally got better for the last few days of vacation, and the last three days were beautiful, until the last day of our trip. Somehow on the final day of vacation, I wound up in the ER. Since it was such a nice day, I thought I'd take my board and go surfing for my final day, you know, go out in a bang... So at some point in the time I was out there, I got up, then was knocked off, and landed onto the ocean floor on my head. Five hours at being in the ER later, I had a concussion. Yay.

The summer of 2018, wasn't terrible, but it also was not memorable, it was kind of just there. As much as I love not utilizing my brain cells for about a month and a half, IT WAS ONLY A MONTH AND A HALF. I'm sorry, but that's not summer, that's a glorified and more humid version of spring break, but without the Easter bunny. Yet, even then it wouldn't have been that bad, but because I made the personally choice to play high school soccer, my summer ended August 6, 2018, the beginning of heat week... I'm pretty certain I questioned a good portion of my life choices during that week that lead me to do this for a second consecutive time in my life. Anyway...

Rest In Peace

Summer 2018

June 30, 2018- September 6, 2018

(You won't be missed)






Image Citations:
Bennett, Clay. “The ‘Abstinence Only’ Lifeguard. Don't Go in the Water!” Clay Bennett's Editorial Cartoons, 2008.

Summer Homework (and procrastination) by Akshat Iyer

Summer is a time in which kids of all ages get to chill out and escape the grasp of education for some free time, be it with their friends, family, or being antisocial in front of an electronic device like me. However, this doesn't mean that work doesn't exist in the summer. Starting the summer going into freshman year of high school, students who are taking honors classes have to do something over the summer, whether it be read a book, or write an essay, or both. These assignments are meant to be a big part of their grade, and are normally designed to be done throughout the summer in small chunks. However, for most people, they wait until the week before, or worse, the night before it is due. This is called procrastination. Procrastination follows us around everywhere, even outside of school. The things that don't provide you the gratification can wait until the last minute. I personally like Tim Urban's analogy that he made in his Ted Talk. In humans, we have three parts of the brain. One part of the brain, is the rational decision maker. This part of the brain is the part that actually thinks about the decisions that are needed to be made in the future. However, procrastination comes in when the "instant gratification monkey" comes into play. All he (or she, whatever you prefer) wants to do is to get instant gratification through things that don't necessarily have anything to do with what the rational part of your brain wants to do. This is where procrastination comes in. Whenever you have a deadline, the rational part of your brain wants to get something done, however, the monkey inside of your brain wants to do it's own thing. These symbols make it very easy to understand the concept of procrastination, but when do you stop procrastinating and get the job done? The job gets done when the panic monster appears. The panic monster scares the monkey away from gratifying you, and lets the rational part of your brain work instead of being gratified with more useless things. This is why procrastination is so hard to escape from. Through this, we can infer that procrastination is more likely to happen when people have many forms of easy, but useless, gratification. Video games are an example. They give you the gratification that you need, but they won't help you complete your task in any way possible. However, the truly deadly combination comes when you pair that up with something you REALLY don't want to do. This summer, our history class was assigned to read American Nations, a history of the eleven rival regions of America. The title of this book may intrigue you at first, but unless you are really into absorbing an amount of information an encyclopedia can't hold, then stay away. This book is a trap, because of the amount of facts that is put in it. It makes you want to throw this book far, far away, where nobody will ever see it (that's what my friend did to his summer reading book last year. It was quite comedic, when he casually grabbed his summer reading book and scored a 3 pointer with the garbage can). Anyways, back to procrastination. This summer reading experience for me has been plagued by the gratification monkey for the entire summer except for the last week of summer, in which I started having nightmares of not finishing it and not turning it in. However, my other friends started working on it later. School started on a Thursday, and the assignment was due on Friday. A number of my friends both started, and finished said assignment on Thursday, some pulling all-nighters to get it done.

Are teachers aware of procrastination? Yes, they are! Is summer homework going to be procrastinated on? Yes it is! Are teachers going to care? As of now, I don't think teachers care. Why do teachers assign a summer assignment, when they know that all of their students are going to start working on it a week before school starts? There might be some productive people out there (I can only name 2) but that is just a minority. Summer homework, in my honest and humble and ranting and run-on-ish opinion, shouldn't be assigned, or if it is assigned, make it manageable for the procrastinators. The gratification monkey is a part of every human being, whether you like it or not, and that will always cause the gratification monkey to win.

(Here is an art gallery down below of all of my ranting for this summer)

(Look at this book! Does it look good? No! Please, don't read this in your spare time... Do something better in your life)

(Whoop - dee - doo, another map for you. Time to die, because all things go awry, when you are reading this book)

Procrastination Haiku by Akshat Iyer

Procrastination,

You can't stop it, no one can,

(Hold on, I'll write the last line... or maybe later... or maybe a liiittle bit later. Mom, please wait, I'll finish it later! Jeez, sorry, she was on my tail.)

My Shocking First Experience With a Pumpkin Spice Latte By Chloe Clancy

        For the longest time, I was always super reluctant to try new foods, because of my food allergies. However, this summer, I broke out my shell, and expanded my palette during my summer travels. Surprisingly it was liberating to eat more than just pizza and chicken nuggets. Now, I was finally ready to dive into everyone's favorite Fall craze, the pumpkin spice latte, for the first time. I know what you may be thinking, "You're a teenage girl, how could you not have tried a pumpkin spice latte?" Trust me, I can't wrap my head around it either. I was clean, until last week. 
        It was a sunny Sunday, and I was home all day doing homework. My mom went out to do a couple of errands, and before I knew it, she returned home with two Starbucks cups in her hand. Almost immediately I knew what was in those cups. All over Instagram and Snapchat, they were being advertised. I saw several ads saying, "It's Back!" or "The pumpkin spice latte is finally here!" and just like any guilty consumer looking for adventure, I wanted to try one. Suddenly, I was holding the cup in my hand, and I felt genuinely excited to take a drink. 
        The cup was still warm, after having time to cool during the car ride home. I looked at it for a few moments, bracing myself, and then I took my first sip. Nothing. I took another sip and let it stay on my tongue for a little longer. Still nothing. I waited a couple more seconds, and then it hit me. I would describe this taste as twelve different spices brutally attacking my tongue at once. I hated it. I thought, "This can't be possible, I thought these were so good!" In doubt of my own senses, I took another sip. Then another, and another, and so on. I tried to decipher what I tasted. I thought the pumpkin taste was very faint, and overpowered by what tasted like nutmeg and cinnamon. My mom mentioned that there was whipped cream mixed in the latte, which, unfortunately, I didn't taste at all. 
        I was in denial. With every sip I took, I hated it even more. I like everything that's in a pumpkin spice latte individually, but mixed together, I'm not a fan. I took off the lid and looked inside to see half of a grande pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks. It was a disgusting shade of orange, and oils of some sort coated the side of the cup where there wasn't liquid. It was not pretty. I finally came to the realization that I wasn't going to finish, so I gave the rest to my mom. 
        I was just as disappointed as you are right now, reading about how much I hate the world's favorite seasonal latte. I honestly thought I was going to enjoy it, since coffee has a special place in my heart. Now, a week later, when I tell people about my experience, everyone is astonished. I don't think I have met one person who has disliked a pumpkin spice latte. I've found this drink to be extremely over-hyped and advertised. I mean seriously, Starbucks released this drink on August 28th (yes, you read that right), almost a month before the official start of Fall. In the last week of August, everyone's soaking up the last bits of summer, not thinking about pumpkin spice and Halloween. 
        Now, my hatred of the drink could possibly come from the fact that Starbucks doesn't even make the best pumpkin spice latte, and I should have gotten it somewhere else. Honestly, after my experience I have no interest in trying a different one. I'm going to stick with the green tea latte instead. You can quote me on this, the pumpkin spice latte is overrated.