The Advanced Placement Program offers thirty four courses in an array of subjects to give students a unique learning experience run by dedicated teachers. However, the Advanced Placement Courses equal the academic rigor of college courses which means an extraordinary amount of work for high school students taking as many as six AP courses. Essentially the whole year is spent in preparation for the AP exams, which take place every year for two weeks in May. Why would you take an AP class if not to take the AP exam in order to get credit for it? Some students, every year, decide not to take the AP tests. Although the cost of $87 dollars per test is deterring, in the long run it can save students a large chunk of change in college – depending on which university they choose to attend. Even if students are just taking AP classes because they enjoy the academic challenge and intensity AP classes offer, they might as well get credit for all of the hard work they’ve put in over the course of a year.

Megan Wisniewski, Staff Writer

   With the multitude of features that Facebook offers to the public, the social networking giant will continue to surpass a variety of the competing social networking sites. The company’s innovative structure allows it to prosper in the market as well as generate a more prominent site on the internet.

   Although Facebook is not a public company, it has received a majority of the market share due to the fact that the release of the site allowed users to be attracted. Therefore, competing social networking sites face severe threats that could be detrimental to the progress their sites.

   Along with this, the social networking site has a large global presence that allows the site to maintain its prosperity within the internet. The site that has allowed for numerous means of connectivity for example, started the Egyptian protests through the group and event feature that the site launched a few years back.

   In essence, the multitude of features that the company offers on the site allows Facebook to prosper. With the 500 million members that is continuously increasing by the second, Facebook’s presence across the globe is constantly expanding. This is a severe threat to competing social networking sites as Facebook has already received a large portion of the market share.

   The case of Facebook can be compared to that of Google. Before the release of Google, users could go to various other sites such as Ask.com in order to search a query. Although this was a fine option, the presence of Google also came with the presence of innovation and intuitive ideas. Much like Google, Facebook’s presence in the market is largely due to the innovative factors that create the company.

  Therefore, due to the large presence of the social networking giant as well as the constant call for innovation, the structure of Facebook will continue to prosper within the web.

 Shamil Shafi, News Editor

   As learned in health class, having a healthy mental state is essential in achieving total health. When a student is not focused or just cannot force themselves to even care about what they are learning school basically becomes pointless. The student then walks from class to class like a zombie and basically sits in class staring at a wall wishing they were at home sleeping. For school to actually be productive students must be present in class physically and mentally.

   School, especially High School, is very stressful for students. It is known as a transition period in your life, you choose who you really want to be in life, which college you want to go to and what you want to do with the rest of your life. No pressure though, this is just one of the most important times in your life. All of these constant changes and feelings of uncertainty are just some of the factors teens experience in just one day.

   The cure to maintaining this stress is not only getting sleep but also finally taking a break from school. This is impossible to do after school because homework just piles on you, this coming from experience. The homework seems to double as you finally get a rest from high school. With a full day off students cannot only finish all of their homework, but also have the opportunity to relax.

    Parents usually do not understand the amount of effort and work it takes in order to excel in a high school as large and prestigious as Neuqua Valley High School. They are often stuck in the past where they had to walk “5 miles to school uphill both ways, through rain, snow and tornadoes”.  The regular classes right now are so much more advanced than what they are used to, unless they went to Harvard which in that case you are sort of stuck out of luck. Although it is good that parents encourage students, sometimes it can be overbearing. They do not understand how overwhelming it can be and how much a break is needed every now and then. This has more often than not resulted in students faking sick just in order to catch up on sleep or catch up on homework

   It is hard to have a job and always be doing the same thing every day but having to learn something new many times every day is at least twice as hard. At a job the same procedure is repeated everyday about the same subject. At school, there is always something new to learn, something new to study, and homework due. The expectation of students, especially honors students, is to learn that information that day and then test on it the next day. This is seemingly impossible! Even if the students are able to do that the brain almost seems to go into overload and efficiently becoming “fried”.

 Colleen Shearer, Staff Writer

   The average high school student wakes up at an ungodly hour to go to school—earlier if involved with a sport—and then goes to bed at an equally ungodly hour, homework trumping sleep. In between these two times are hours of work, school, and other extracurricular activities. As much as students procrastinate and push things off, it doesn’t change the fact that more than half of our day is spent in school or working. In fact, we give ourselves more work to do each day. Taking AP or Honors over regular, choosing to participate in a club or a sport, playing an instrument, these are things that aren’t forced on us, we do these things because we either want to or personally feel the need to based on our want to achieve and excel.

   Starting from preschool, we are all trained to feel the need to achieve and associate that with a feeling of accomplishment. One accomplishment opens the door to something else waiting to be accomplished. All in all, it’s a vicious circle of striving to achieve. These expectations are ingrained into our very being. Our lives are driven by not just the expectations parents and teachers place on us, but primarily our own hopes and aspirations. We joke about senioritis and how we plan on blatantly refusing to do any sort of work, but we can’t stay away from the overwhelming urge we feel to be successful.

   The amount of stress we place on ourselves is ridiculous, but the determination to strive towards excellence is nothing short of commendable. But with everything that goes on in our lives, in and out of school, we all need to remember that it’s okay to take a breather every once in a while.

   In reality, we aren’t fooling anyone. Showing up to class hungover from the night before or walking in from a trip to the bathroom smelling like smoke isn’t stealthy in the least. We are under the misconception that the lack of reprimand we receive for our escapades means that they’ve asserted themselves as one step ahead of the all-ruling, all-seeing adults in their lives. Are we, as students, so desperate for the things that we are told not to do that we put our health and integrity on the line in exchange for the momentary sense of relief? Is this the accomplishment that we want to strive for as young adults? We are essentially throwing whatever ethics we know out the window.

   Our rationale for not cheating, not smoking, not drinking always comes down to the fact that someone else doesn’t want us to and somewhere it says that it’s against the rules. But the consequences of going against them don’t affect anyone but ourselves and we’ve lost sight of that. We’re under the impression that we follow these rules for the sake of other people when it has nothing to do with other people. If we truly want to be recognized as adults and independently-functioning adolescents, we first have to accept the responsibility of knowing when not to push the issue.

   However, the group came under intense criticism from the US government in late fall when they announced they had obtained thousands of secret diplomatic cables, revealing the inner workings of diplomacy. Inside this stack of secret wires is the key to transparency in government. The United States public and politicians alike have called for years to open the doors of our legislative process and to expose the dirty inner workings of how the United States is run. Instead of embracing these leaks as we should have, Politicians pounced on Wikileaks, creating an imaginary enemy that they termed, “cyber terrorists”. But Julian Assange, the head of Wikileaks, showed us our government. The public saw gossipy diplomats who mocked world leaders and the influence of corporate lobbyists on our policy making. While we could have taken these leaks as a wakeup call to get our government to change, the very government officials who were made out to look so bad, are trying to close off this information from the public domain. They are encouraging citizens to ignore the documents because to them they are still top secret, despite being plastered all over the internet.

   But one of the most dangerous threats came from Connecticut Senator Joe Liebermann, who threatened to not only investigate and try Julian Assange for espionage, he has called for an investigation into the New York Times, the first US newspaper to publish the cables. People should be very alarmed when powerful members of the United States government are attempting to infringe on journalists first amendment rights. However, most people ignored this and the public cannot let this go as freedom of the press is as essential to democracy as elections are. Wikileaks was, in a time of a closed government, one of the best things that could have happened, and is the first step towards transparency in our system.

 Tom Rowland, Entertainment Editor

   The rules are fairly simple. No bare midriffs, thin straps, disturbingly short skirts, jeans around your ankles, etc. In short, if it’s questionable, don’t wear it. But as the year progresses, it seems more and more people get by the supposedly strictly enforced dress code.

   The school planner has an entire section on it complete with repercussions for violating it, but if it were as enforced as it makes itself seem like, less of our student body would feel inclined to dress like they found the most ill-fitting clothes in their closet that day. It is not the skirts barely to the end of the fingers in question, it’s the girl wearing the bright pink thong under the tights she considers pants and it’s the guy who seems to think that his pants belong at his knees. Why even nitpick at the lesser offenses when these extremes go unaddressed? This lack of enforcement simply allows students to feel that it’s okay to dress in a blatantly inappropriate fashion. If a see-through top that pretty much bares it all is okay mid-semester, why isn’t it at the beginning of the year? It’s reasonable to say that everyone has seen their share of questionable dress at Neuqua, outfits more befitting a club than school.

   In a public school like Neuqua, self expression is valued and appreciated, but there’s a limit for just how expressive one can be in public and for good reason. School, ultimately, is to promote education to its students, not to make a statement. If low cut tops, baggy pants, do rags, and jeans with holes everywhere happens to be your scene, by all means, go for it. But that type of “personal statement” is much more appreciated in a setting other than school.

Hong-Ah Do, Editor-In-Chief

   These royals are so popular, not only within the countries that they rule, that news, information, and gossip about their lives captivates people’s attention globally. The monarchs of Polynesia, Nepal, Buganda, and Great Britain are all inherently regarded with a substantial amount of respect and awe due to their status.

   For centuries alone, the citizens of their respective countries have heeded the ideology which entitles these monarchs to rule with the belief that they have been ordained by God.

   Although that belief has somewhat faded in today’s society, persons of royal blood maintain their claim to the throne and power out of tradition. The timeless tradition in which they are granted the power of royalty explains their popularity due to familiarity.

   Americans, although they have been distinct from Great Britain’s royalty for two hundred and thirty four years, are still involved with the everyday life of Britain’s royalty. Whether it is in gossip magazines or websites devoted to celebrities, Americans are guaranteed to get their daily dose of news on people of royal status.

   This has been most evidently recognized in the amount of press Prince William has received upon his recent engagement to Kate Middleton. Similarly, when the Crown Prince of Nepal murdered eight of his family members before shooting himself and leaving the Crown to his uncle, the news of this instance reached the world within hours.  

   With United State’s citizens own disregard of our national government officials, the high regard – and ultimately the obsession we have with British royalty is linked to our intertwined history with British royalty and our timeless honor of all descendents royal lineage.

   Americans are evidently obsessed with the news and whereabouts of our modern day royalty; information about royals captivates our country on a daily basis flooding us with useless information about people who do not directly affect us.

   However, Americans see royalty as the ultimate social status – something people wish to be. This obsession with the peak of social status causes our obsession with the lives of those who embody this social status, i.e. the royal families.

 Megan Wisniewski, Staff Writer

A study shows that less than twenty percent of eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-olds said they were proud of how democracy worked in the US, as compared with fifty percent of those over fifty, and only twenty-six percent of those between fifteen and twenty-four believed that being involved in democracy and voting was “extremely important”. 

   In short, those younger than middle-age just don’t care as much about politics. This is all too apparent in the current day and age, where teen pregnancy is glorified and politics are for “old people”. In what appears to be an attempt to pull in the younger generation and future voters, TLC has aired a show about Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska and running mate of John McCain in the 2008 presidential elections.

   In truth, the show really is not about Palin, but rather about her introducing the world to her native Alaska. However, many viewers of the show have pointed out that the show tends to focus more on Sarah Palin and her life and less on the nature of our 49^th state. And, in reality, it is too apparent that Sarah Palin just is not important anymore.

   As many teenaged viewers have pointed out, Sarah Palin is vapid, unintelligent, and is just trying too hard.  This is one such futile attempt that, in the long run, surely won’t work. In the same study, researchers claimed that the voter turnout has been increasing ever since the 1960’s. It seems to be that teenagers just don’t care about voting nor do they want to. Can we attribute this to the claims that the past two generations are considerably dumber than others?

   We may not know the answer, but if either Sarah Palin or Tea Party frontrunner Christine O’Donnell is suddenly elected in 2012, we may have an idea.

Jake Johnson, Staff Writer

   The sad fact of these situations is that it took two tragic occurrences for forestry departments to realize that the levels of safety and security needed to be changed. Is it really fair that two lives had to be lost for these changes to occur? Absolutely not. Zuleg’s death has been coined a “freak accident” by the Chicago Tribune and Keller’s was stated to have been preventable had security and surveillance in the area been better maintained. Following the scrutiny, both places of incidence have been making changes. But what does that make Zuleg and Keller in all of this? Examples? Safety regulations exist so that nothing else has to be risked in the fight to prevent injury and death.

   Perhaps it is no longer a matter of fairness but one reflecting a tendency to try to do the right thing after something has gone horribly wrong. We ignore the things that are most obvious to us and hope that nothing bad will come out of it. This misplaced faith is what puts us all at risk. Not doing homework in the hopes that the teacher doesn’t check it the next day, not picking up a staple or a pushpin because we don’t think anyone will step on something so small, we fail to realize that we surround ourselves with everyday preventable risks and it takes the worst of a situation to bring us back to reality. The ‘it won’t happen to me’ lifestyle that so many of us have adopted keeps us from seeing the truth. Accidents spare no one. As long as we live and breath, there are a plethora of things that could happen to us. Sure, we can’t dodge every single one of them, but why let the preventable hurt us or the people around us?

   Keller and Zuleg are a sad reminder that accidents surround all of us and the choice of one person can ultimately affect hundreds of other people. While commendable that the respective forestry departments are doing what they can to prevent another accident, but it is heartbreaking to know that it took the lives of two young, amazing people for them to realize it.

   What started out as a collegiate tradition has trickled down to high schools where swarms of boys hope their ability to grow a beard surpasses that of their friends’. More often than not this ability yields patchy neck beards and flesh colored peach fuzz. While competing to grow facial hair reminiscent of 1970s news anchors and Grizzy Adams are humorous pursuits, No Shave November begs the question of whether the event is intended to be funny or a platform for a juvenile showcase of manliness.

   Like many other situations in life, approach is the key. If a participant in No Shave November sets out with the goal to look like a mug shot by the end of the month, he has the proper spirit. No Shave November is about acknowledging dirtiness and reveling in the humor of sleaze, not measuring manliness by the ratio of jawline to stubble.

   Making an effort to look ‘cool’ and ‘mature’ produces the opposite effect. Taking pride in the amount of growth achieved throughout the month, done consciously or not, is a glorified pissing contest that everyone can see. It is an immature, unnecessary, and ultimately humorous way to gauge a concept that is not tangible.

   Whether for calculated humor or misplaced pride, November will be filled indefinitely with an increase in the number of teens and twenty-somethings sending their razors into exile. It is best to simply laugh at the outcomes of both types of participant, for they each have respective humorous qualities that contribute to the status of No Shave November as an annual male landmark.

Allyssa Pollard, Front Page Editor

   Ever since Neuqua’s opening in 1996, this council has been a way for students to voice their ideas and opinions. Members represent the entirety of the student body, and therefore take on an important leadership role within the school community.

   Principal Bob McBride, leader of the meetings at the Main campus, states that the participants are a valuable asset, “weighing in on the decisions that are made in the school.” He voices that they have a “big effect” on what goes on, and that “students can often solve the problems better than [he himself] can.” Members aid him by “brainstorming” on how to proceed when a problem arises.

   While the Main campus hosts meetings composed of students from the three higher grades, the Gold campus holds PAC meetings as well. At Gold, students’ advisory teachers select one or two students from each advisory that they see fit to personify the entire class. Once a month, the freshmen gather and meet during their option period, led by assistant principal Mrs. Russavage. 

   At the Main campus, interested students can make the choice to join. Often, past participators from Gold continue on when they reach the Main campus; yet, there are also new additions with no prior experience on the council. Anyone interested is welcome to join if he or she desires to have an effect on Neuqua happenings. This group meets once a month on a Wednesday to tackle the issues students wish to be discussed.

   Currently, fifty-five Main campus students are involved with PAC. Several chief traits are vital to one holding a position on this committee. These qualities include leadership, confidence, and dedication. The formation of personal opinions is an necessary skill. One must also be comfortable sharing the ideas and pronouncements made by the council to one’s peers, however unpopular the notion may be. Commitment is also essential. Members must regularly attend the monthly meetings; PAC must be a priority. Solving minor and major issues alike is a duty of the group.

   Anyone within the Neuqua community can, and has, proposed the issues to be acted upon. In the past, subjects such as Take Nine, Guidance Essentials, disciplinary action, security, and the councilors continuing on with a single class all four years have been dealt with by the committee. McBride reports that rules have been “reworded, reconsidered, and revised” due to inquiry by the PAC.

   The significance of this assemblage is reflected in the results produced from preceding meetings. The next congregation is to be held on Wednesday, December 17, in the large forum room at the Main building. Anyone interested in getting involved should contact Principal McBride or one of the student representatives.

Cassidy Lemley, Staffwriter

    Now during second periods, Take 9 features videos that focus on issues such as school safety or other relevant issues during a nine minute extended second period. However, in the past Neuqua Valley would use advisory to explain them.  
   Dr. McBride, basing his decision to cut advisory off opinions of students and staff, feels that Take 9 and newly added mandatory council meetings during option will be more productive. “The idea of option when Neuqua Valley was created, that was unique to Neuqua and other schools when it was created, was that Neuqua students would use their option wisely,” he explained. “They’d make wise choices for eating, studying, homework, and for seeing their academic councilors. What I think option has become is ‘I eat, and then I hang out.’ It’s not a bad thing, but it can’t always be that.”

   With the changes installed, Neuqua aims to be more productive. However, option is called option for a reason. Students should have that choice to eat and take a break if they want to. While the mandatory options are only every three weeks and Take 9 is useful to getting out information to students, advisory was used for both the goals above. It is still debated if students should be forced to change their ways to this new system.

   Although, it’s arguable that advisory was simply a waste of twenty minutes, but thinking back it took care of the essentials students needed.  While Take 9 accomplishes of getting information to the students and in reality is a faster way, it is really unclear if Take 9 really benefits the students. Take 9 claims to be more productive than advisory, it still needs to be seen how actually productive it is. Even Dr. McBride agrees it needs to be judged, but he claims it is supposed to help students overall.

    “Are students receiving more of that information? We won’t be able to really test that information till the end of the semester, the end of the year. So it is really designed to engage students in the non academic portions of life at a high school.”

   Whether Take 9 lives up to its design remains to be seen.

 Matt Paras, Staffwriter

   Whether it is the obscene groups standing in the middle of the hallway or those who decide it is okay to walk at one mile an hour, Neuqua students have clearly not caught on to the idea of “hallway etiquette”. Therefore I think a definition is in order, hall politeness can be described simply as getting to where you need to go on time while having the option to socialize when wanted, but at the same time respecting the 4,500 other students that are trying to do the exact same thing.

   We all run into the typical group of friends who think that the only logical spot to chat about minuscule things is right smack dab in the middle of the hall. They seem completely oblivious to the people around them trying to squeeze past on either side, so probably even ignore the annoyed glares that are constantly aimed at them too. Even better is when the distracted person in front of you sees a friend walking in the opposite direction and decides to just stop right where they are to talk.  Not only is there the possibility that you might run into them and have to utter the awkward “sorry” because they regretted to inform you they were stopping, but it causes one of the most widely known incidents at Neuqua: the hallway jam.

   Besides these holdups in the hallways that often occur, there are some individuals that don’t cause a hallway jam, but make it a little more difficult to walk. We all know the boy that has the huge backpack that sticks three feet out behind them, who when walks past us just happens to bang into us as he scurries to class. Or even when we’re jammed so close together in the halls that someone seems to always step on the back of your flip-flop on the day you decide to wear them.  There’s also the contrast between the person who can’t wait to get to class and almost seems to be at a dead sprint in the halls, to the one who could care less when they get to class, even if it takes them a half hour.

   So a word of wise to the hallway goers of Neuqua, it doesn’t matter to me if you get to class on time, as long as walking the halls of Neuqua doesn’t continue to be the complicated task that it has become and we uphold the good manners we should have.

Molly Sonricker, Intrigue Editor

   Late arrival was one of the best ideas that Neuqua ever had and changing it to early dismissal is not the best decision for the students. Late arrival gave students twenty extra minutes of sleep. Although it may seem like a small amount of time, it helped teens get better amounts of sleep that one day a week.

   Doctors state that teenagers need 7 hours of sleep each night to be fully rested and ready for the day and late arrival assisted in helping students get closer to that amount of sleep. Studies also show that allowing students to have late arrival helps students pay more attention in the classroom and do better in classes.

   Taking away this very important schedule has a bigger impact on students as well. Even though students get out twenty minutes earlier than expected, it does not seem to make much of a difference than getting out at the normal time of 2:25.  Also, by getting out earlier it is a huge inconvenience to those who do clubs and sports. They have to wait an extra twenty minutes before they have their club sponsors or coaches available to start practice. Although the thought of giving students twenty more minutes after school was nice, it is not as beneficial as students getting an extra 20 minutes of sleep.

   Hopefully, this next year the administration will take into consideration the addition 20 extra minutes of sleep does to help students’ health and make a permanent change in the schedule by reinstating late arrival.

Gretchen Andsager, Staffwriter

   As it has developed, Frontier has become a prominent topic to students approaching their senior year. Classes are offered in 90 minute blocks, and students have fifteen minute passing periods, giving them time to go off campus for a quick lunch. Students enrolled at Frontier also do not have school on Flex Fridays, giving students an extra day off every week. It is more like college, with no bells, and little reprimand for being tardy or not turning assignments in on time.

   Frontier is now a very important part of Neuqua Valley, and it seems to be having a good impact on students. The classes have a more relaxed, mature environment, and there are more opportunities to expand horizons, because dual-credit courses are offered through the College of DuPage. Currently, of the 520 students at Frontier, 321 are enrolled in Dual Enrollment courses, and 407 are in Dual Credit courses. This shows that Frontier is not a waste; students are taking this opportunity to earn college credit and experience a different senior year, filled with responsibility, maturity, and Flex Fridays.

Michelle Schubert, Layout & Design Editor

According to the school handbook, students can be punished for making racist remarks, but students ignore those rules and assume that they will not be heard by a teacher. However, students hear the remarks in the hall and many are offended. To combat this, students who hear people making these type of comments should use the district 204 tipline if they feel that a specific person is being targeted in the remarks. This would help prevent fights and at the same time discourage people from making comments. While some words may be empty threats they are taken as seriously as a person’s actions.

Racism extends beyond a person’s ethnicity into the most trivial of traits. Most are things that students cannot control. While it may be seen as a joke to some, to the people targeted it is not a laughing matter. These jokes turn into long lasting prejudices against a certain group of people. Another aspect of an individual that is targeted is their religion. This is a very touchy subject for some people, and name calling can hurt someone especially if they are a very faithful person.

A major outlet for this has been the media. Whether it is television shows or music, prejudices are becoming more common within them. It is also becoming accepted as a means of comedy and can be seen in nearly every show. Most shows try to satirize racism as something only ignorant people do. However, the satire is often missed and adolescents think those comments are a way to impress others or to appear funnier.

Despite all of this, some students still make the wrong decision. Racism should be a thing of the past, but people still do not see the disrespect and hatred that it breeds. Whether it is to be funny or it is a serious threat, people should be beyond prejudice. Words are very powerful and just because they can be said, does not mean that they should be said.

ECHO Staff Editorial

As time has gone on, boy bands have faded away, with rap and R&B music becoming more and more popular. Thankfully, some of the boy bands have stuck around to keep their aging fans happy.

The Backstreet Boys have been around since 1992, but took a two year hiatus from 2002-2004 and decreased in numbers as Kevin Richardson left to start a family.

This is Us, the Boys’ 6th and newest studio album, reminds everyone of the great boy band music that is missing from today’s music genres.

Another boy band that recently made a comeback was late 80’s heartthrobs, New Kids on the Block. Releasing The Block in September 2008, the New Kids went on a worldwide tour to prove they still had “the right stuff.”

Sure most of the Kids are old enough to have kids themselves, but they still manage to produce great music that can be enjoyed by all ages.

While many people were happy to see the boy band genre go, these people fail to see what the choreographed, crooning boys bring to music in general.

The boy bands help those who feel they are growing up too fast to connect back to their younger days when they would sing and dance to LFO or O-Town in their bedrooms.

They provide a sense of security, standing strong while a person grows up and life changes around them.

While The Backstreet Boys and New Kids on the Block continue to rock on, *NSYNC continues to lose ground on one of their boy band rivals.

This boy band genre revival will only be complete once *NSYNC decides to reunite, before the boy band genre goes “bye bye bye” for good.

Hopefully it will never have to come to that, but sadly the boys that once made up boy bands, will become men and will be unable to perform as they once did.

So while they are still somewhat in their prime, people should appreciate the unique style that boy bands have to offer.

Elizabeth Maluta, Sports Editor

First, I would like to provide you with some suggested guidelines for public displays of affection. Number one: you must remain vertical at all times. Number two: absolutely no tongue involvement. Number three: no unnecessarily prolonged embraces. And number four: all hands involved must be visible.

The key point here is to practice appropriate levels of affection. For example, when you leave your boyfriend/girlfriend and go to class, you will see them in roughly 45 minutes. This is not a long enough separation that it must be preceded by full frontal physical contact.

Might I suggest sending your girlfriend off to class with a kiss on the cheek. This way you and your said companion can say goodbye without nauseating those around you.

Now that we have discussed how to appropriately display your affection, a question of where to do so arises.

It seems that several couples have favorite locales around the

school, creating competition for P.D.A. space hot-spots. One of these popularized sites is the gym hallway. This location offers comfortable benches (please note rule number one), and can be used after school while waiting for athletic practices or rides.

Another favorite location is just outside the rotunda. This area escapes the crowding of the hallways and can serve as a middle ground between a couple’s classrooms.

Unfortunately, some couples choose sites that are more heavily crowded, such as the entrance of stairwells, water fountains, the middle of the hallway, or the edges of locker banks.

This last location is one that can create very awkward situations. “Hey um… can you guys move this somewhere else? You’re kinda in front of my locker…”.

In some cases the couples are oblivious to the person’s remarks and continue, leaving the locker owner with no option but to uncomfortably hover until the couple has finished.

As the school year continues, couples claim their territory. So what happens when they find someone else in their PDA space? Needless to say the situation can become quite unsettling.

Kelsy Ensign, Opinions Editor

Some might choose something of monetary value to save, but not me. I choose the tattered piece of pink cloth that I received at birth.

Little did Grandma know that the blanket she quilted would continue with me beyond my toddler years and into my adolescence.

Geeky and I have had some trying times in the past 17 years. It has been left behind in a hotel room during a road trip, hidden by family members for practical jokes, and has been re-sewn more than a few times.

But the remnants of my blanket have also soaked up my tears and even my blood from a skinned knee or two along the way.

Whatever the experience has been, my Geek has always been there with me.

It is nearly impossible to find pictures of me from my childhood without my blanket somewhere in the frame.

Even today, my blanket accompanies me to sleepovers as well as the occasional early morning drive to school.

Some might be embarrassed to publicly declare their attachment to a baby blanket, but I embrace it. Just the smell of my blanket is enough to lift my spirits.

Although this might make me more than a little biased, I suspect that most teens have some sort of security object. Whether it is a blanket, a stuffed animal, or a pillow, these items can all provide a sense of comfort.

But with college approaching, it is harder to hide your quirks. Does this mean a time comes when we need to let go?

Some people have varying opinions on the matter, but I personally will be taking my Geek with me on my collegiate adventures. It’s a wild world out there and I do not want to be caught in it without my blanket.

Kelsy Ensign, Opinions Editor