Homecoming 2017

Devon Beacham

Staff Writer

New Hope-Solebury annual Homecoming is quickly approaching. Homecoming week/weekend, is known to be the most exciting time for the high school students in the fall season. Last year, there was conflict on where the dance should take place. It is well-known to take place in the middle school gym every year, but, last year due to construction, it was held in the high school gym. Now that the high school gym is closed because of the renovations, everyone is excited to hear that this year it's back to old traditions! Even more exciting than the dance being held in the middle school gym this year, it also happens to be completely renovated.

 The Homecoming dance this year is taking place on Saturday, Oct.14. The game is the day before, Friday the 13th. That week, Monday is Columbus day and Tuesday is professional development day. Thus, being a short Homecoming Week, themed days leading up to the game and dance have not yet been announced on whether they exist this year or not.

 To add to the excitement, Fall Fest is also a part of the Homecoming festivities! Fall Fest being a time where clubs and sports teams create booths and put together games and raise money for their teams/club members. Sadly, last year Fall Fest was cancelled caused by the rainy forecast. Hopefully this year we will get perfect weather like previous years!

 The exciting time of season is coming up very soon and students are filled with anticipation for the fun packed weekend. In the old location, students will hopefully have an amazing time talking, singing, dancing, and snacking together from 7:00-10:00 to conclude homecoming week. Don’t forget to bring your best attitude and semi-formal attire for a great time!

Construction Plows On

Amanda Horak & Parker Miele

Staff Writers

  It is year two of construction at the New Hope-Solebury High School and some major pieces of the project are complete and already being used by students. The office has been completely redone, and has even moved to a new location. The lobby area around the office has a high ceiling with big windows above the front doors. The old office now is the new home of the Guidance Department, yet it still looks the same as before.

  The biggest change that affects the students is the new hallway, which  features work created by the art students and new glass-front cases where the school can put its trophies. Many students don’t feel the hallway is big enough for the traffic in the halls, but some staff claim that once the senior hallway is opened the halls will become less crowded. Some people say that it is difficult to just have one hallway, but the students and staff are still managing.

  A 12th grader, Olivia Keenan, said: “The school is moving in a positive direction, but it is impacting my education.”

  There are multiple places in our school that are still under construction too, like the high school gym, locker rooms, and the fitness center. The high school gym has boards up and around it along with the fitness center, which means no one can see outside the windows.

  Teacher Mr. O’Hara said ironically the “glass behind the walls [makes him] feel insignificant.”

  Mr. Sherman, one of our Physical Education teachers, said that the new fitness center is to open on Oct. 19 if everything goes as planned. The machines should be delivered by Oct. 18 and the floors are being installed Oct. 9, 10, and 11. Many students, like those in Fitness for Life, are very excited.

   This is a very exciting time for our school with all the new and improved classrooms, gym, and lunch rooms we have been given. Many students are thrilled about all the new upcoming gyms and classrooms we will receive, but we still have a little bit of time to wait!

The Rise of Street Style during Fashion Week

Riley Brennan

Co-Editor In Chief

At the beginning of every September, for most people the school year begins, and for New York City, Fashion Week runs rampant. The season of shows came in a blur of designers, models,  and show stealing street style looks.

 While the motivation for this September’s fashion week was the designer’s display of their Spring/Summer 2018 collections, the people who attend the shows often stole the spotlight. It’s no secret that those lucky enough to frequent the shows throughout the week, dress to impress. Often times the looks the audience shows up in gain more attention than the actual work on display. Vogue magazine’s website even has an entire tab, featured on their homepage, dedicated to street style. In fact, there’s an article with a total of 223 photos, solely made up of “The Best Street Style from New York Fashion Week Spring’ 18.” Among the photos were common themes, warm toned colors, loose fitting jeans and trousers, flare pants, skinny stripes, plaid, pencil skirts, ruffled blouses, denim (x5), draped dresses and jackets, and a variety of fun patterns.

 Photographers line the street outside of show venues to snap photos of the attendees. This is one of the ways press is able to interact with fashion week, as not everyone will be invited to attend the shows. However, this whole concept of focusing on what the guests are wearing rather than what the models are wearing is troublesome. The concept of caring about what attendees wear to a fashion show is expected, but the line between caring and overshadowing is very blurry.

 An increasing interest in what the celebrities and bloggers are wearing to the shows seems to stem from social media, and the theory that anyone can be a celebrity in today’s pop culture. None of this is inherently bad, but with more and more focus going to the people at the fashion show, rather than the actual work on display, the fashion industry has the potential to evolve into one that is purely driven by social media stunts, instead of the artistic vision and talent. As always, it’s the masses that determine the future.

Security Cameras Added to the High School

Thomas Detlefsen

Staff Writer

At the back to school meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 1, Mr. Seier announced that a number of security cameras would be installed this coming year during renovations.

 In an interview, Mr. Seier confirmed that twenty-four cameras are to be installed, but there may be more.

 When asked why we needed these cameras, Mr. Seier responded with three main reasons: most other schools have them, they enhance the safety of the students and staff, and they are a mischief deterrent. On the cameras stopping mischief, Seier stated: “Cameras are a deterrent...people know there’s video evidence...if someone was planning something...either something serious or just mischief, they tend to not do it if they know it’s going to be on film.”

 Mr. Seier also stated the additional benefit of security cameras in conflict resolution, “If something does happen, maybe just accidental...the cameras always can give you a reference point to truth: people’s opinions, their memories, recollections can all...be different even though they lived through the same thing.”

 Mr. Seier further supported the addition of cameras, with a story from another school district.  At his old school, there was a car accident in the parking lot during a football game. The two drivers had different stories on what had happened and so the police used the security footage to determine what had happened.

 Mr. Seier seemed confident in the benefit of the installation of security cameras in the school, but the true mark of their ability will be proven later this year during the senior prank.

I did it because

I didn’t say go away because I didn’t want to see your face

I did it because seeing you is still the thing that makes my day

I didn’t stop talking to you because it put me in a bad mood

I did it because I’m still stuck in our little honeymoon

I couldn’t face the truth that I wasn’t good for you

Because I was still in love with you

Every second that passes by I wonder why I said what I did to you

And I also wonder how you could hurt me the way that you do

How you could pretend everything was nothing or act like nothing was real?

I didn’t hurt you because I hate you

I did it because I was afraid to lose someone as wonderfully incredible as you

This fear became a reality as I watched you disappear

Disappear from a life that we made that I believed was equally treasured

I didn’t move on because I wanted to

I did it because I had to

Because the decision you made was depressing and rash

And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive you for something as brutal as that

But I’m happy to see you’ve found what you need, even though that something wasn’t me

-Kayla Paul-Koch

Student sociologists take a look at student life

Sociologists Thomas Detlefsen and Steven Elser, graduates from UFDDQ (TheUniversityofFreeDegreesDoneQuick.com) recently conducted a survey that found the correlation between workload and outlook on life for high school students.

 Both agreed that stress was a problem in the lives of the high school students and hypothesized that the most likely contributory factor is the amount of homework and how much time it takes them to complete it.

 With this in mind the two decided to create a survey in which students answered questions concerning stress, workload, and happiness. From this they gathered that oddly enough that most of the students were both high on the scale of 1-10 on stress as well as happiness regardless of how much homework they had.

 Although the results were not very exciting or profound. The two were still happy with the process that had been done. Thomas stated that “Although we could have edited the questions so that they were more descriptive and yielded better results, the whole process was pleasing.” (Detlefson, 2017) Performing a full experiment and interpreting the results so that it could contribute to the greater knowledge of the field of sociology.

Sources:

Detlefson, T. (2017, April 15). Personal Interview.

Netflix influences teenage relationships

Brooke Black and Skylar Sherman

Staff Writers

As we have grown up in a world of technology and social media, students and young adults have gradually changed their mindset on relationships which could be influencing pop-culture nostalgia because of Netflix. Our parents grew up watching shows in the 80’s and maybe even the early 90’s and as a result they have shared with their children how influential all of them were. Netflix became insanely popular over the past five years so they have expanded their variety of shows especially after hearing what was popular. They have added Friends, Vampire Diaries, The Carrie Diaries, Gossip Girl, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Beverly Hills 90210, That 70’s Show, and more. As a result, we believe that teenagers and young adults have started longing for the relationships portrayed in those type of shows which is old fashioned dating rather than snapchatting and “hanging out.”

 Almost every single college and high school student has an account with Netflix and admits to binge watching shows and movies over the weekend and even during the school week. And since people believe that pop-culture nostalgia comes in 20-year cycles it makes perfect sense that the 90’s would be so in right now because so many teenagers think that they missed out on that decade. We decided to create an experiment for our hypothesis that states “If you regularly watch Netflix Shows from the 1990’s to the 2000’s, then you are longing for the relationships portrayed in those shows.” Our survey consisted of questions referring to the volunteer’s age, gender, amount of netflix watched per week, what shows they watched the most, and what their ideal date was. Our results weren’t exactly what we expected to get since most of the volunteer’s were not avid Netflix watchers but we were able to take that information and still made a solid argument about how when you don’t watch a lot of netflix or show from the 1990’s-2000’s then you think that the present day dating is the “best.”

 After about 15 surveys were sent out and 12 were returned, even though the information we received wasn’t exactly what we wanted, it did still prove our hypothesis, but in the opposite way we were planning. Of the 12 people whose survey’s we received back, eight of them stated they watched little to no Netflix per week and preferred today’s dating to the dating in the 1990s- early 2000s. While this wasn’t exactly the responses we were searching for, it still proved our theory as true. The students we surveyed didn’t watch very much Netflix, so they preferred today’s dating life. These students may have not necessarily ever witnessed or watched any shows that were portrayed or created in the earlier time period, so they only know of the dating that goes on in today’s society.

 In the perfect reality, we would have received surveys from a mixture of students who do and don’t watch Netflix and proved our theory completely right; however, with the information we collected, we can still state that our theory holds true. The more shows you consume from the early 1990s to late 2000s, the more you will long for the dating lifestyle portrayed in that time period and shows. If you don’t watch Netflix or don’t watch those shows, you will prefer the dating lifestyle of current time.