Tag: Articles from 2011-2012
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Short Stories June 2012
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The Hunger Games!
Happy Hunger Games! But was it really, though? Last month marked the big screen premiere of Harry Potter 2.0- err, the Hunger Games, and people went capital C crazy. I couldn’t walk through the hallways without hearing “OMG HUNGER GAMES” or something about how “hot” Josh Hutcherson is. People were staying up all night to watch the midnight premiere and hustling to read the whole series before the movie came out, which seems a little counter-productive to me- if you’re not already a fan of the books, why not just wait a week to see what happens in the movie? Why put in the extra effort to read the books super fast when you can just watch it and be surprised? But I digress. For some reason, I never got into the Hunger Games like most people did. Yes, I did read the first two books, and I did get pretty excited to watch the movie, but I was never a hardcore fan of it. I think my expectations, of both the books and the movie, were what led to my ambivalence towards the whole series.
But about the movie. The first problem I had with it was with its shaky camera work. Seriously, I spent half the movie with a raging headache and whiplash because whoever was holding the camera was suffering through a
Towards the end of my senior year at BSGE, one of my friends, Kristopher Kesoglides said: “college is what you make it.” Now that it is the end of my freshman year at Washington University in St. Louis, I can confidently say that he couldn’t have been more right.
Seniors, you can spend the next four years hating where you are. It’s easy, I’ll tell you how: arrive knowing you’re going to hate the school, judge your classmates immediately, and blame everyone else for everything that goes wrong.
Or you can spend the next four years indifferent to where you are. It’s even easier: don’t sign up for activities, only talk to people who talk to you, and take classes you know you’ll do well in.
Or you can spend the next four years loving where you are. That’s a lot harder and I can’t tell you how. But I can tell you that I love it at Wash U.
Some people are unbearably strange and others are unbearably annoying. Some classes are so boring and others are so difficult. I’ve spent many weekends doing nothing but trying desperately to catch up on work. Yet, I absolutely love it. I avoid the annoying people, entertain myself by staring at the strange people, drop the boring classes, and work through the difficult ones. I’ve made friends who are fascinating, loving, and fun. I’ve had amazing experiences. And I still get three more years.
It’s not always sunshine and butterflies. Sometimes I love it less. Right now, I’m sick of studying for finals, sick of writing essays, and sick of my tiny dorm room. But it’s still only partially cloudy (please excuse my nauseatingly corny extended metaphor).
So Seniors, please don’t stress about where you’re going. You’ll love it if you let yourself love it. Have a great summer everyone. And congratulations to the Seniors!
As the school year is wrapping up, seniors have some time to look back on the college application process after submitting their final choices. They thought that one of the hardest parts of the process was the beginning of the school year. “The first few months of the college process, it’s really hard because you have all your college essays to do on top of all your schoolwork,” explained Sofia Chelpon ’12.
However, for many, the offers they received made things even harder. “The hardest part for me was deciding where to go in the end, because I ended up having to choose between a lot of schools that I wanted to go to,” she added. Ram Bhadra ’12 felt that sometimes the results were difficult to accept. “I think the hardest part would be when you work so hard toward getting into a really good college, and you don’t get into your dream school,” he said.
One challenge seniors will face in the next few months is making the switch from high school to
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BSGE’s 2012 IB Art Show
The BSGE Senior IB art exhibit is a main product of those working on the IB art show in which artwork is displayed, graded and sold through auction. The art show occurs every year in the month of April. However this year might be the last time because next year will be different. Students will submit work digitally online next year. According to Ms. McCabe, the teacher in charge of the show this year, “this will allow for there to be multiple art shows or exhibits at different times of the year. This is the last year in April but dates are set by IB.” The art show grand opening and reception, held on April 17th, went over extremely well. Students felt that it was very professional and the pieces were impressive, showed a lot of hard work. According to Robert Gajda in the tenth grade “I was surprised how many pieces each student had and I really loved how much color there was. The finished pieces in the show are only part of the work the students completed during the 2-year course. In total students chose 12-18 pieces to display. A big part of the IB art course is a sketchbook that contains written research and plans for their
Where are you from? What is your background?
I’m Peruvian American. I guess that’s what you would technically call it. My parents are Peruvian and I was born here.
Do you have any siblings? how many? do you get along with them?
Yes, I have two siblings. An older brother and an older sister. We get along very well.
Really? Are you lying?
Yes, really and no I’m not lying. I mean me and my sister used to fight, not me and my brother when we were younger, but we’re adults now.
How would you describe the kind of music you listen to? Favorite band?
I don’t think I have a favorite band, I like to listen to chill music: r&b, soul, something that’s pleasing to my ear nothing raunchy or loud.
What would you consider to be ‘raunchy or loud’?
Something that I can’t understand basically most of the music from now.
Why did you choose to work here?
I technically didn’t choose to work here, I had worked at queens vocational for a year, then got laid off, then when I was reassigned back to the board of ed I was sent here.
What do you think of the students? Be honest.
To be honest, I enjoy working with this group of students because if
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Pi Day Celebrations
This March 14th, 2012 BSGE celebrated Pi Day like none other with Pi Day songs, games, presentations, food and of course, pie. Pi Day is a holiday committed to celebrating the mathematical constant of Pi, or 3.141596… It goes on forever. “Pi Day is the best day of the year. I love eating pie on that day. I learned how to find the circumference of an actual pie” commented an excited 9th grader, Christopher Birsan. Students got creative by writing new lyrics to familiar songs by artists such as Adele and Drake and turned it into a mathematical songs. Hopefully the BSGE tradition of celebrating Pi Day will keep on going. When asked for a comment on Pi Day, Mr. Mehan and Ms. Lambrini did not have a comment.
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Private vs. Public Schools
Some seventh graders who came from private schools think that their transition to BSGE was big but manageable. Private schools have been believed to be more organized and strict compared to public schools. Some also feared that they may feel out of place a little with the new setting. “at first it was hard but, what made it easier was that both of them were small settings and friend from my old school helped me to adjust.” said Eleni Zamagias
According to seventh graders private schools seem to have a better approach in organizing their events compared to public school, and specifically BSGE. Many private schools seem to think about their events ahead of time while BSGE seems work down to the wire. Many of BSGE’s events seem to be informed to the students through announcements made at the end of the with the written notices being sent some time later. “My old school seems to have informed us earlier of
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What Makes a Good Teacher?
Good teachers are the main part of getting a great education. They provide the necessary support and guidance in an individual’s academic career and take on the role outside of mentor. Being that a teacher inevitably plays such a large role of a student’s academic career their qualities will ultimately manifest themselves into the welfare of the students. This arises the question of what specific attributes of teachers are optimal to the education of students and which are not. Being that the teacher body is as disparate in their attributes and as the student body, it is hard to generalize the attributes of a good teacher. Some teachers are cute looking, some are funny, some have hairy eyebrows and some wear outfits that pleasure me. Nonetheless the BSGE student body does have a stance on what is believed to be the attributes of “the ideal teacher”
One characteristic of teachers that always seems to emerge is how exactly the classroom is run. The fact of the matter is that most people like to attend a class centered on group work as opposed to individual work. The chance for group collaboration may create a sense of confidence for each individual in the group when tackling unfamiliar material or may simply give chance for all the members to contribute without being scrutinized by the teacher. Simply put by seventh
7th graders in BSGE think that the teachers are better than the teachers they had previously in 6th grade. “The teachers in my old school didn’t really look like they knew the stuff.” Jay Schleyer commented. “The teachers are nicer and they really try to get you to learn the concept and all the information while the other teachers may not know the difference of if you’re falling behind or not.” Leeana Johnston added. 7th graders had liked BSGE teachers better because they feel that the teachers were more helpful and supportive. “Well they really tried to help you if you fell behind and they really, like, they seem that they just really care if you passed or failed.” Leeana Johnston said.
Not only did the teachers change when 7th graders started going to BSGE, the schedules have also been different from the 7th grader’s old schools. “I like the 70-minute classes a lot.” Jay Schleyer admits, “We learn so much more in a day than we normally would with 45 minute classes. The A/B schedule is a little confusing for me. At the end of a long vacation, I’m going crazy, frantically calling and texting students, asking them, ‘ is tomorrow an A day or a B day?’ But in some ways, is
The BACC Rag 