Teens: How Can They Change

By Brandon A., Senior Guest Writer.

Every year, teenagers change in many ways. One of the biggest ways a teen can change is within themselves. A very good example of teens changing within themselves is when they meet a certain person or group of people. Sometimes, teenagers don't understand the different ways in which people deal with certain things or the differences in how they live. We wouldn't know anything about anybody until we got to interact with them.

Meeting new people would be a great way for teenagers to learn about how they could get to know somebody and change their entire perspective about that certain person or group of people. There are many different reasons for us to meet new people. We could learn about the different lifestyles of these people and we could also have lots in common with the people we meet.

I am stuck in a personal situation of my own. I have a crush on a girl who is a sophomore here at Campbell County High School. I always want to walk up to her and start conversations with her and introduce myself. I am always nervous about talking to her. I am worried I might say the wrong thing to her, and I am also worried of what she might think of me. She is very nice, funny, smart, and friendly. I barely even know her.

Many people may ask me how this girl has anything to do with teens and how they can change. In my perspective, getting to know her will make me feel better about myself. I would feel a lot less nervous, and I could be myself. I would want to start out by being friends with her. I would always give her nice complements and I would always respect her. Who knows, maybe a little ways down the road, we can be more than just friends.

The point is that the people we meet or the people we get to know could make a huge difference in the way we think about them.

Is 18 the Correct Age for Voting?
By Nick W., Junior Op-Ed Editor

To spill it out or keep it in

By Natasha C., Senior Photo Editor

I always think of counselors as people there to help you when you need someone to talk to. Unfortunately at school that isn't always the case. They are so caught up in college help, tests they have to give, and mounds of paperwork that they never seem to have time to just talk. On top of them being busy there is also the worry of how much you can tell a school counselor without you getting in trouble.

Overload of homework, problems with friends, college stress, sex, and sexuality are all the kinds of things you can openly talk to a counselor about at school. Once you get into things like drugs, cutting, and drinking, the counselor has the right to call your parents or even the cops if there is any possibility of harm to be done to yourself or to others around you. If you write a paper for class about drugs they will send it to the counselors to be looked over, and that piece might not even go in your portfolio at all.

Teens have a lot of things they honestly need help with, but how will they get it if they can't even trust a high school counselor to let them freely talk to them without judgment or without them calling their parents? Where will that get a troubled teen? It will get them right into suppressing any problem they have until it becomes a huge problem. Then where will they be?

More willingness to listen without their first action being to call a parent would be a great start to fixing this problem. Counselors need to be able to do more listening and more helping instead of doing paper work and tests. They are counselors, not office workers. They are there to counsel students and help them not rush around doing all the paper work. Schools should let them focus on the students, not tests and paperwork. Let them help the students like they trained to do.

“I wish I could see more kids sometimes because this is what I truly enjoy, talking with kids about their future and giving them advice on their careers and college choices,” says Doug Wainscott, CCHS Counselor. “At such a big school, sometimes it becomes very difficult especially doing all the paperwork.”

Seniors Getting Sick of School

By Bryan S., Senior Staff Writer

There is less than two more months of school left and many seniors are coming down with a serious illness. It causes the student to go through their classes with very little concentration and decreased motivation towards studies. Is this a real disease or is it all in their head?

The tendency for most seniors is to get through their senior year with the least amount of work possible. If it's too much, they will simply not do it. Senioritis happens to most seniors because they are just being lazy and really don't care about school anymore. They are just trying to get to the next stage of their lives and that is college.

Senior year mainly consists of easy classes and most students think that it's a waste. Senioritis often appears at the middle of the year after most students have been accepted to universities and met graduation requirements.

The worst case this year of Senioritis was senior Nick Vukich, who missed nearly 40 days of school because of it. When asked about Nick's view on his senior year he said, “I think that senior year was meant to let us have fun and party.” He has been living up to his quote ever since the beginning of his senior year.

Current research has shown that Senioritis is a mental illness, but it can be cured by taking harder classes Senior Year and developing better study habits. For most seniors, though, the only cure is graduation.

Toastee and Snoopy Rant

Toastee says:   Novels are the companions of people around the world. People read, and with every word they are drawn into the pool of readers that have already been caught by the web of imaginary characters waiting to entrap you in their clutches.

Sometimes novels don't just get recognized by a few people; sometimes they get discovered by a few people and then a few more and then a few more until the entire population is engulfed with fans of that book. You'll turn the corner in the hallway at school and hear murmurs of the title; you'll sit in your desk and attempt to learn about radicals, past tense verb conjugations, or about the Constitution and you'll see the cover of the book a few rows across from you.

The book becomes your own little stalker. IT'S EVERYWHERE. At first you're happy; I mean, hey! The book you love has a following; people feel the same way as you! Its name is on the lips of every semi-acquaintance and friend you know. At first its fine, it's wonderful, it's comforting. But then, you realize, “Oh! It doesn't belong to me. It doesn't only love me.” It's like your boyfriend saying “well I like you of course, but I like her, too.” Then at that point you realize: I hate everyone.

So maybe it's a little self-centered and perhaps selfish to say but I hate how EVERYONE LOVES TWILIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, so maybe that's not completely true. I'm really glad that the Twilight Series has been exposed to the world and everyone has taken it in with open arms and they're all like WE LOVE JACOB! or WE LOVE EDWARD! I mean, Stephenie Meyer and her writing is amazing, though Breaking Dawn didn't quite meet my high expectations, and I still love her and the series. It's just that it's everywhere I go I hear people talking about it, and it was fine the first few weeks but then I realized Woah! Everyone loves it, everyone has some type of connection and now it's not like my own little secret obsession. It's gone mainstream, it's been swallowed up by the masses, it's being devoured to its core with fan love and admiration from everywhere! And what's worse is this is only the beginning!!! The movie is coming out two weeks from now. That means MOVIE+MORE PEOPLE = MORE LOVE = LESS PERSONAL Or at least it = LESS MINE. That is selfish.

I'm really not into the whole fan thing like T-Shirts, dress up as the characters, make it become your whole life, movie/book posters everywhere, Twilight -themed room, obsession with vampires, blog constantly, refuse to fall in love with anyone else besides Edward Cullen (or whomever your preference is), and so on. I think that the Twilight series was like reading your own thoughts if you were in that position and with every word you read, the deeper you fall in love with the characters, but now it's just so.....I don't even know the right words, just that I'm sad and beginning to hate hearing about it....and that just adds to the sadness.

I really hope this doesn't become like Harry Potter where everyone loves it and it is the most amazing thing they've every read/seen for a few weeks or maybe months and then they start making fun of it and hating it. I hope the movie ends up being just as good as the book, but I doubt that the movie will meet the high expectations of fans in love.

Snoopy says about The Peanut Gallery:

When the sanctity of a discussion gains unnecessary commentary, what would you do??

People are mean, that's an established fact. Yet what's worse is when people just jump into conversations willy nilly from the sidelines. It's like white noise with voices. It makes me feel as if I need to comment back. So I have a message for you in the galley over there.

Conversations are a private or public act that anyone may eavesdrop on at any given time granted. I understand anything I say around people isn't private; I'm not one to be shy about my private life. But why is it that people feel it's necessary to give their commentary without joining in? Me, I'm ready for a heated debate at the drop of a hat. Just got out of the shower? Who cares? Let's talk about fat pants. I'm talking about private matters whatever I want your two cents worth.

But if I'm in the middle of a discussion and someone quotes me from the sidelines, I'd rather they join in so I can give them a piece of my mind. Attacking the peanut gallery isn't an acceptable thing to do. That's like attacking a baby zebra.

On the record or off the record I will say you have something to say; butt in, no one cares, people would rather be talked at than talked about. Unless you like being a solo nobody too scared to share your opinions, so speak out to people. Eavesdroppers of the world, we want to hear your opinions on what you've just heard!!

           Most teens are excited about turning 18. Along with being considered an adult, becoming 18 gives U.S. citizens the right to vote. But do 18-year-olds really have enough experience to be able to vote? Furthermore, do they think like adults and make good decisions when voting? Generally not. For this reason, the voting age should be raised to 21.

            When teenagers legally become adults, they have to face new challenges like working, owning a car, and paying taxes on their own. They are allowed to vote for city, state, and national leaders.

Those elected are the ones the people feel will represent them and address their needs best. It takes years for a person to gain a firm position on issues and obtain the experience needed to make wise voting choices. New voters, especially 18-year-olds, do not have nearly enough real-world experience to vote for the best candidate. The issues a teenager feels are important are often not the issues that are most important to America as a whole. They haven't known and understood good and bad times the nation has gone through. They have not faced the struggles other Americans have and should not be able to vote on issues until they turn 21, when they will have more experience and be better able to take a position on political matters.

            The minds of most 18-year-olds have usually not transitioned from a teenager's way of thinking to an adult's. Teen voters often make impulsive, uninformed decisions and do not consider the issues at hand. They may vote for a smooth-talker or a seemingly popular candidate. They do not think of the consequences and benefits of voting for each potential official and can be easily influenced by friends and the media. They may think one candidate is better but have no real reasons to do so. Many do not even care; they only vote to vote. They think like teenagers, not adults, but voters need to think like adults so they can make the best possible decision.

            The legal drinking age may seem unrelated to the voting age, but the two have a certain connection. Or rather, they should. The drinking age is 21, as opposed to 18, because that is when people are considered “responsible” enough to drink. However, the voting age is 18. Why are people allowed to vote before they can legally drink? Why are they considered able to make good voting decisions before they can make good personal decisions? Voting privileges are much more important than drinking privileges, yet they are allowed at a younger age. The drinking age proves that the voting age should be 21 as well. The truth is that teenagers are no more able to vote responsibly than they are to drink responsibly at 18.

            “Young men and women of 18 really aren't responsible and don't really care about issues. They're not informed and are not mature enough to make the kind of decision that good voting involves,” said Abi L, a junior at CCHS.

This is entirely true. Young people need to become more mature before they should be allowed to vote.

            When I think about the voting age, some questions come to mind: Are 18-year-olds thought by the country as a whole to have enough experience to vote? Should they be able to affect the lives of others with so little experience? How can someone with their priorities out of line make such an important decision? Is it fair to allow teenagers, some of them still in high school, to vote on issues that have never affected them? And finally, why can they do something that affects the nation before they can do something that affects only themselves?

            Clearly, the voting age should be increased to 21. While some young voters are capable of making good decisions, the majority are not. When large masses of them prefer a candidate for reasons not related to their policies, that candidate may win, though other informed voters may vote against them. 18-year-olds do not know enough about issues at hand, are not ready to make responsible decisions, yet they are allowed to vote. Many may disagree, but 21 needs to be the voting age, for the good of the country.

By Brandi L. Senior Staff Writer

If gay marriage were legal in the United States, in every state, I think people would stop obsessing over this as a problem. People would just have to accept it. And eventually, maybe they could see a homosexual's side of things.

            Why can't same sex couples get married? What is marriage really about? I thought it was about love. How would you feel if you loved someone and you believed in marriage, but you could not marry them?  Love knows no gender. Love cannot tell if you are a woman or a man, with another woman or a man.

Skip to next paragraph But this year shades of gray are everywhere, as eight more states consider similar ballot measures. Some of the proposed bans are struggling in the polls, and the issue of same-sex marriage has largely failed to rouse conservative voters.

“The opponents of these measures have had a lot more time to organize and fund their efforts; that has made for a bit of a different complexion,” said Julaine K. Appling, the executive director of the Family Research Institute of Wisconsin, which supports a constitutional amendment in that state defining marriage as between a man and a woman. The constitutional amendments have been changed so much from the beginning. How much harm could one more do? None. In my opinion, people are just looking for reasons not to allow it.

 “As it stands right now, conservative turnout is not going to be as strong as it has traditionally been,” said Jon Paul, the executive director of Coloradans for Marriage, which is supporting a ban against same-sex marriage.

Scholars who look at gender-law issues say that gay rights groups and their allies have worked hard since the last election to create a middle-ground position on the question of partnership rights that could appeal to voters who might not vote for same-sex marriage.

Marriage is about love, and deciding who you want to spend the rest of your life with. It is not about laws or what is socially acceptable. Not allowing same sex marriages is like telling someone that they aren't as good as everyone else; that they do not deserve the same rights as everyone else. But here in America, aren't we all supposed to be equal?