Guidance: Please notify students about SAT’s

By anon0121 (A Concerned Student)

September 29 was not only the day most seniors were told about the November SATs, but the deadline for registration. If you were to observe what I was doing on September 29 at 5:02 PM, you would have seen me running. You would have seen me breathlessly running, with SAT materials in hand and praying the post office would remain open for just a few more minutes. Fortunately, I saw my SAT forms postmarked and mailed. I was lucky.

But quite a few of members of BMHS were not. They now have to pay a late fee of $15 and risk the test center of their choice being filled up. For those of you who have not yet had to register for a SAT with guidance, I’ll give a quick rundown of how the process works.

First, guidance will neglect to tell you of the SAT deadline, but you’ll find out about it from some concerned teacher. As soon as that class ends, you (and your classmates) will scurry to the guidance office and plead for SAT registration booklets. About 90% of you will be turned away because you need a letter from your English teacher, math teacher, priest, rabbi, mailman (etc., etc.) in order to get one. Once these letters are procured, guidance will let you take one. Around 4:30, you will remember the forms and spend a stressful half-hour filling in tiny ovals and begging your parents for a check to pay for the SATs. Finally, you’ll sprint to the nearest post office, praying all the way the worker you ask to postmark the forms will not be of the disgruntled variety.

Guidance could save a lot of anguish, frustration, (and running) if they just did these simple things:

1. Write an announcement listing the date of the next SAT and its deadline. Send this to A/V and have it read on the morning announcements at least two weeks before the deadline.

2. Make the SAT registration books readily available to all students (my priest is tired of having to write me letters). Have enough copies for everyone.

These two measures are simple and easy solutions to the SAT registration problems that have been going on at BMHS for years. But until they’re implemented, students should have their running shoes and late fees ready.

Schedule Fun

By PMK1 (Feris Weele)

Yes, the theory of this new schedule, aside from fitting more course instruction hours in, was to wipe out studies. Evidently, this has not happened. There are many schedule mix-ups and confusion of a lot of two period per week classes and other scheduling difficulties. It all makes you wonder what the School Council was thinking. No, a seven day rotation schedule does not make sense. As Bush (Meghan McFall) wrote, it’s ludicrous to say to a friend, “Meet me period five, block ‘G’ on Day Six.” The logic behind that, however, is that it allows us to keep seven classes per semester like we used to have last year.

Something else that needs to be worked on is telling the bus company that school starts about fifteen minutes later than last year. Teachers and students alike become aggravated over this. Students have almost a half hour before homeroom. What else can they do except hang out in the halls? Teachers should go to the source of this problem instead of becoming angry at students.

The new rotating schedule is definitely a mess. I’m writing this not just to complain, but to remind students (and teachers) this is the first year we have it. You can’t expect things to be perfect on the first try.

The point is that complaining isn’t doing any good. Go to Student Government meetings, go to School Council meetings, become educated on the subject and try to help fix it. Remember, for the longest time, the biggest changes B.M.H.S. has gone through have been five minute corridor traveling and different home room times. This year is going to be a “trial-and-error” year. Things will be worked out before you know it. For myself and other “twelfth-graders,” this is a screw-up for our last year, but the rest of you will be around to see positive changes.

Why Are The Bathrooms Locked?

By Meow (Meow)

I’ve had it with the bathrooms being locked during classes. Students end up wasting more time walking around the school trying to find an open bathroom than it would take to just go to the nearest one. There’s one in almost every hallway. There is hardly any time to go in between classes. Especially with this stupid new schedule. What I also think is stupid is that during 4th period, they lock all the house bathrooms and send you to the cafeteria. If you have a class in the memorial building, you end up missing like ten minutes of class. Besides this, most people aren’t just going to use the bathroom if they have an excuse to be near the cafeteria.

What also gets me mad is when you ask a teacher if you can use the bathroom and they say “no” because they know it will take you forever to find an open one. It’s difficult to concentrate in class when you need to use the bathroom. I really think that all of the school’s bathrooms should be left unlocked as much of the time as possible. If the administration is worried that students will skip class and use the bathrooms to hide, then a simple solution might be to check them more often. Monitors could easily check the bathroom for students who are smoking or avoiding class.

Letters to the Editor

The last day for registration for the November and October SATs and SAT II has passed. Guidance did not announce the dates for these tests to the entire student body and asked teachers to discourage students planning on taking the test on these dates from doing so. On the last day for November SAT registration some students in level 1 classes and honors were told about the test. Many of these students could not fill out the forms for taking the test and get them in the main by the five o’clock deadline, resulting in many having to pay an extra fifteen dollar late fee.

Only certain students in the highest two levels were told because guidance expects them to score higher than people in other levels. So if only the kids in the two highest level classes take the test, the school averages will look higher, and the administration will look like they are doing a better job than they really are.

For those of you not in the top two levels and still need to take the October or November SAT I or SAT II, you still have a few opinions, all of which are going to cost you $$$$. If you need to take a November test and still have not signed up, you can register late and pay a fifteen dollar late fee, or attempt to take the test as a walk-in. When you take the test as a walk-in, you have to pay an extra thirty bucks, show up early for the test, and then wait to see if they have room for you to take the test. If they don’t, then you’re out of luck. If you want to take the October test your only option is to try to take it as a walk in. If you need more information on the SAT I and SAT II, go to guidance and demand a SAT bulletin. They may put up some resistance, so be persistent. For those of you who have to pay an extra late fee, be sure to thank guidance as you fill out those checks.

Guidance

By Brian (Brian Ristuccia)

Although Roger W. Waugh, Head of the Guidance Department, declined our offer to print a written statement from the Guidance Department, he told us that “We try to make sure that everyone who should take the test is able to do so.” But he mentioned as well “The students should also be responsible [for getting information about the SAT registration deadline.]” He emphasized the importance of advance notification. From the look of things, the guidance department has made a more definite and successful attempt at notifying the students of the December SAT’s than they did of the November test, and this shows an effort by the department to respond to student needs when they are brought to attention.

Ray, The Amazing Light Man

By Panthera Onca

The title’s not my idea. My name isn’t even Ray. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I was ever amazing, either. I spent most of my time in the West Wing of St. John’s Memorial Hospital, the bed closest to the window in Room W-207. Really, I’m not insane or anything. I’m pretty damn normal, except something’s growing in my skull that used to be a part of me. Probably used to think for me, or wiggle my toes for me, or something. Now there’s a hole in my head to let out the pressure of its growth.

The doctors tell me that I shouldn’t worry, and that everything will be all right, and that I’m not going to die. I noticed that they don’t have any holes in their heads.

I wear my old Jaguars hat to cover it up. There aren’t any Jaguars anymore, I guess. Doctor Feneste asks me where I got the hat, and I say Seattle. That’s why they’re the Seattle Jaguars. He asks me what they play, and I say What do you think-croquet? He gives me this blank look, and I say tag. He kind of smiles. I say freeze tag. I say Provincial League. I say Western Division? I say Fred Hobbs? Jack Tarsal? Ed ‘The Slip King’ Hanson? ‘Rocket’ Parks? Five straight undefeated seasons, 1937-39, then a break for World War II, then ‘46-’47. I say the Improbable Dream, 1971? He almost smiles for real, not that fake doctor smile, at that last one. He asks me the same question every day.

Once, I lied, just to see what would happen. Once I said there are no Jaguars, okay? Once I said, just leave me alone, okay? Once I said, there are no stupid Jaguars, so just stop asking me about it and forget it. Forget about it. I’m probably just imagining this hat, probably pulling Jack Tarsal and the Improbable Dream right out of my Swiss-cheese head, and none of it really exists. Just stop asking me about it, okay?

I wanted to hurt him again and again, but I didn’t. He’s a really nice guy, inside. Just a little confused.

He looked at me funny. He said he was very glad I said that. I’m not sure he was. He asked me the next day what the Jaguars played and I said, What do you think-croquet?

There’s only one window in W-207. A guy named Emilio who used to be in the bunk next to me said there was two. He said the TV counted as one, too. He used to look out his window and watch Bob Barker and Vanna White and Peter Jennings, while I looked out my window and watched the Rockies rise out of the horizon. He used to see in his window Transformers fly from place to place and G.I. Joe’s zoom around and explode things, while I saw in my window an old Chevy or a Volkswagon Beetle drive by every once in a while. He checked the newspaper every evening to see when the original Star Trek was going to be on, while I checked my Farmer’s Almanac for the sunset. We both saw the same things every time, but believe me-I’ve seen more than you have. It’s always the same, just the colors are in a different order sometimes. It still makes me shiver a little until the picture is burned into the backs of my eyelids and I can see it when I blink my eyes. Every time.

I haven’t watched TV since John ‘Buzz’ Kennedy landed on the moon in 1969. Poor guy was hardly back when some jerk shot him. Some jerk put a hole in his head. He never made it back to his wife. He should have stayed where he was, where she could still see him in the moon and think about his smell and wish he was closer by. The way it happened, she had to see him in an oak box and smell embalming fluid and wish somebody had done a better job of making his head look normal again.

I had a wife, once. Well, I would say that I still do, but I guess she doesn’t exist anymore either. Her hair was black like a jaguar, and she smelled like clouds would, if you could smell them, and a little bit like the ocean, and when the moon was in her eyes, I used to wish that the image would burn in my eyelids forever.

I can’t remember the color of her eyes. That makes me cry at night sometimes, when the window is just a little open and the breeze blows through W-207, smelling a little bit like the ocean. I wish I could see her when I blink my tears away.

ONE IDEA

By Gina Hirwan

Lies, like venom, spew from the fangs of hypocrites. I’ve seen them. Watched as they lied to me, looked me in the eyes and spoke untruths of pandemic proportions. I smiled, and laughed along, and as they told me the fibs, holding dear the precious moment when I would have my pride back. I took them in, and destroyed them. Why did you lie to me? Did I ever lie to you? I tried to keep it honest and open, but you took it upon yourself to make me out to be a fool. I am not a fool! I have never been, nor will I ever be! I am a woman, I am proud of who I am, and I will not be looked down upon by the freakish likes of you! I will find the ills in the hearts of your oppressors, and tear them out with my bare hands! I have no tolerance for your kind, and I will not stand for being a victim of your hypocrisies. I shall be free, no matter what the cost, your life or mine... only the strong survive.

As the cold wind blew in, I knew the day was upon me. I heard the willowy whisps of cotton and cat’o’nine tails swaying in the breeze. A strong gust erupted, tearing weeds from their roots, as small furry woodland creatures sought shelter from the cold. My eyes shifted to the sky, and I saw a hawk, majestic and awe-inspiring circling above me in a menacing manner, probably seeking scurrying rodents to feast on, quench his thirst for blood.

I envied him.......

The air was thick now with anticipation of a kill, my heart raced as I closed in on my prey. I am the hawk as I reach the soul of a rodent-like politician, and I grasp blindly for the jugular. If only there were water, a place to feed the sharks, his bloody remains would deceive no more the people who trusted him. Those held captive by a capitalist society, and loving every lie they fed you. Believing all the tales of glory which were meagerly disguised tales of horrifying slaughters, and the idea that you are in a free society, and you are a free people....

What you are are victims.

Victims of a society that never loved you. You are a tool for the rich. If you are rich, you are a tool for the government. If you are involved in the government, you are a tool of greed, jealousy, corruption, and pure, hellish, demonic evil. Driven by money, driven by greed for more, and values that are set by the wrong morals. How proud are you to be an American? Why? What is so great about this nation? A hypocrite is a hypocrite, no matter the reasoning. Freedom is not freedom if it is not granted to every tortured soul, and America only grants freedom to the rich, and that is the freedom to make more money for your Uncle Sam. To make his image pearlier to those in distant lands, and in the hills, while those in poverty curse the mans words he chooses so carefully, as not to accidentally speak the truth.

You see the homeless, the ghettos, the victims, but you believe Uncle Sam when he says those people choose to live in violent, unstable, dirty living conditions, and that they should just get out if they want. Get out of the projects? Or did you mean out of the country? Why should they have to leave a free country, just because it’s not granting them the freedoms they were promised. Why weren’t these freedoms granted?

Because they have no money to offer Uncle Sam. If he’s not getting paid, he doesn’t know you. You’re one of those long lost relatives that he never remembers your birthday.

I am struggling with the veins in his neck with my claws, but he does not bleed. How could he, with no heart?

I struggle, sweating in the feverish heat, and gain a hold on the target I have so readily anticipated. Finally, I have in my grasp, the manifestation of evil, I am the manifestation of good. A one on one contest, the victor takes all until the next show of strength.

I lash out, and strike a blow to the temple. His thoughts are shaken, so there’s no time to waste. I lunge for the eyes and pluck them out, and tear at the ears till none were left. I searched and found that forked tongue and pulled it out. With all my resources tapped, but momentum previously unknown gathered at my heels, I killed the head of the beast. I watched as the body fell, and kicked the wretched corpse to make sure it was dead. A shout rose from the crowd; a shout of thanks? A shout of gratitude? A cheer for freedom?

No. The masses did not see the same evils I could see. The masses saw the mask, the shroud... but never the thing. Their eyes clouded by lies, his face clean shaved and smile so bright was not a lie to them. They saw only what they were taught to see, and believed only what they were taught to believe. They didn’t see a future where ignorance of historical facts is wiped out, and a brighter future coming out of it; they saw a future of pain, living in real life instead of denial. Instead of reality, they wanted a shroud to keep them out of the light of responsibility. They wanted their security blanket back, like a small child, but I felt, as the bearer of that child, that they had outgrown such needs, and it was time for them to move on. Start to consider other people as well as themselves, and earn happiness, true happiness, through learning what it is you want for yourself, and not what you’ve been taught is most important. Learn to think for yourself.. fulfill your own destiny.

Be the hawk, not the hypocrite.

NooK

NooK will be playing with One on Friday, November 3, at the Electric Wave in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire. This is an 18+ show, so bring(make) your ID.

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