“You kinda got to see a different side of everyone, and you are kind of surprised about what people have to say,” said Thomas. “I like that poetry is like a way to get feelings and perspectives out there without being judged.”

Aside from winning the Mudsock award for the school the student attends, winners got a $50 Amazon gift card and a sock Monkey. The top two from each school were junior Nicole Deardoff and sophomore Hannah Eli from FHS and Umaymah Mohammad and Angelo Bautista from HSE.

Next year the Poetry Slam will take place at HSE becoming a yearly tradition.

“The elections took place and each member of the student government was given the opportunity to vote for each position and the person with the highest vote won the position,” Stahl said.

The winners are president junior Bradie Quackenbush, vice president is junior Ryusuke Saito, freshman Marlene Jacocks, and secretary is freshman Kendra Kendall.

Since he was born, Kane has had several blood transfusions due to the disease. CDA 1 is an extremely rare disorder characterized by ineffective erythropoiesis (the production of red blood cells) leading to anemia according to bloodjournal.hematologylibrary.org. Kane was admitted to the hospital several times for various procedures including a bone marrow biopsy and a liver biopsy.

Due to his struggle with the disorder and the number of blood transfusions he has received, Kane’s family is now very supportive of blood drives because of the impact on their lives.

The Lambersons hosted a blood drive near Firestone Complete Auto care on May 5 from noon to five. The Lambersons have hosted other drives before with their church in Springfield, MO, but this was the first one they hosted in honor of Kane. Kane’s mother, Liz Lamberson, expresses how happy it makes her to see people at the blood drives especially for her son.

“Grateful, thankful, blessed are only a few.  Every person that raises their sleeve and gives blood really is a hero. Their selfless act is saving someone’s life, whether it is an elderly person, an accident victim, a cancer patient or someone with a blood disease (like Kane), they are saving the life of someone’s baby,” Liz said.

These changes become effective in August of 2013:

• Students can use non-clear water containers

• The Clinic hours will be from 7:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

• College visits are not allowed before or after breaks without approval

• Students can wear sleeveless t-shirts, but no tank tops or spaghetti straps

“Making these changes is a full year process to try to get these changes from draft to final policy,” Assistant Principal Ryan Taylor said. “The school board has the ultimate decision, they draft all policies and we send them recommendations.”

Sophomore Sean Flannery prepares to travel to set out on his once in a lifetime trip over the summer. In July, Indiana University Honors Program in Foreign Language, (IUHPFL)  is a program through IU, in which Flannery will travel to Germany for seven weeks.

“The trip was pricey at first, but I recently received a scholarship from the Indiana German Heritage society to fund $1,000 worth of my trip,” Flannery said.

He is taking this trip to better his understanding of the German language and culture. While in the foreign country, the students are not allowed to speak any English whatsoever. They will be staying with a host family and will attend school during the week. They will take courses to better their knowledge of the language and speaking skills.

Also, the students can have minimal contact with their family during this period of time. On the weekends, they will spend all their time on excursions to famous areas, including Berlin, Cologne and Frankfurt.

Ten days in France sounded like the perfect opportunity. At the time, ten days did not seem like they would go by as fast as they really did. But in that short time, I visited Europe for the first time, saw monuments I have dreamed about for years, and made a friend for life.

Last year when I hosted Claire Mlakar, I could not wait to go to France just to spend more time with her. Many would be surprised at just how fast the two of us became the best of friends in such a short amount of time. March 28 I, along with 19 other students, took our suitcases to the airport to endure the nine-hour flight to Zurïch, Switzerland and then a three-hour bus ride to Mulhouse, France, located near the border of France and Germany.

Even though, I struggled a bit with having to speak French throughout the entire trip as the days went on the language did get easier. The hardest part was not knowing the words I wanted to say for sure. Thankfully, Claire’s family was extremely patient and helpful when helping me improve my speaking.

I do not have the words to truly describe the amazing experience I had in France, but I do not regret for a second the decision to apply to be one of the students in the program.  Being immersed in the French culture and actually having to live the life of a French student is extremely different from being a tourist.

Two days in Paris was a major highlight of my trip. Standing on top of the Arc de Triomphe, staring out across miles and miles of the city gave me a memory of one the most amazing and beautiful sights I have ever seen.  Our second day in Paris was a free day for the groups to go out and visit where they wish. My group and I set out for Monmarte, the hill home to Sacre Coeur. We ended up spending almost our whole afternoon sitting on the steps of the famous cathedral and staring out at the city. An entirely different, but just as breathtaking view from the top of the Arc de Triomphe. I did not know there could be such a thing as perfect until I spent those two days in Paris. There is nothing quite like sitting back in awe of a beautiful and history filled city.

My last day of the trip was also one of my favorites even if it was bittersweet for Claire and I. Claire, a few of her friends, and I visited Europa-Park, an amusement park in Germany. Even though it was a little cold, the day was filled with screaming, rollercoaster riding, and creating memories. At the end of the day, the sadness over leaving France started to set in for me. It would be the last time I would see many of my new friends with the exception of one of the other hosts. It was the perfect end to my perfect spring break trip.

The early morning to leave was filled with tears and a hope that I will be able to visit the beautiful country and my friends in France again. I will not let it be the last time to see Claire, even if we do not get the chance until far in the future.

The combination of endless hours of homework, overstimulation and a part-time job sends students to the pharmacy shelves to pick up a bottle of Zzzquil just so they can get to sleep as soon as his or her head hits the pillow.

Though the medications make falling asleep an effortless task, upon waking up the next morning, teenagers find themselves in a zombie-like state, making it difficult to maintain coherence in the early hours of school mornings.

These over-the-counter drugs are not safe for teens to be using on a regular basis. After all, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not approve the pharmaceuticals for anyone under the age of 18, mostly because the drugs are not used in trials dealing with children, only adults.

According to the New York Times, Medco Health Solutions released estimates stating that in 2004, more than 180,000 people under the age of 20 took sleep medications in the United States.

What is even more frightening is the fact that these 180,000 people all obtained prescriptions for their medication, proving that there is a significant abundance in the number of prescriptions that doctors write for their patients who have trouble sleeping.

However, teens, especially high school students have started turning to over-the-counter options such as melatonin pills and the more recently popular Zzzquil.

The liquid sleep aid was created in addition to Dayquil and Nyquil, over-the-counter medicines that help treat common cold and flu symptoms.

Teens, especially those still in school, should not rely on medications, prescription or otherwise, to help them fall asleep.

They can become dependent on the drug and think that without it, they will lie in bed, staring at their ceiling all night long, counting sheep.

While these drugs allow teens to fall asleep with little effort outside of crawling into bed, the side effects, such as changes in appetite, dry mouth, dry throat, headache and other various symptoms can cause serious problems.

There are several alternatives to using sleep medications to fall asleep.

NaturalSleep.org is a website that provides valuable health- related information specializing in sleep disorders and how to cure them naturally and safely.

Included in their list of the top 17 drug-free methods of getting to sleep more easily are keeping to a strict schedule each day, read books to relax your mind before bed, get enough exercise each day and eat a light dinner so your body does not have as much trouble working to digest what you ate.

With the rising popularity of sleep aids in society, teens need to evaluate whether it is really worth the cost and zombie-esque feeling to take a swig of Zzzquil before lying down for the night. Really, what is needed is to try simple, natural methods.

Global warming is no joke, and should be considered a much more serious issue than it has been. The negative effects have been seen, of course, but more should be done. There are billions of people on the earth, and a majority have made no decision to try and care for the planet. Many go on in their daily lives without a clue of how much they actually are building up their carbon footprints, the measure of carbon dioxide a person emits (Read more on Pages 8 &  9).

People need to be more aware and more conscious of how much they add into the harm being done to the planet. We live here and we need the planet to continue surviving ourselves, so why do we not do more to protect it?

The school has done an excellent job incorporating recycling and energy efficiency throughout the entire building and pushing students to actually join in on becoming more green. Students are the ones collecting recycling and pushing for the building to be more energy efficient.

The problem, though, is that students do not always pay attention to what they are doing around their homes and other places around town. Do we actually realize how much tossing papers and water bottles in the recycling bins is making a difference for the planet? To a lot of us, the recycling through the school is no different than throwing items in the trash, we are just putting it in a different bin. We do not always understand how much of a difference that the school is actually making from incorporating a few small changes. Changes we need to start making outside of school as well.

According to dosomething.org, in 2009, Americans produced enough trash to circle the Earth 24 times. In a school of over 2,600 students, just having students recycle papers and bottles has made a dent in that amount of trash. If everyone took the opportunity to reduce the amount of trash they create, it would make an even bigger difference.

Recycling is not the only option either. Small ways exist that will help to be more energy efficient in homes all around the country. Take shorter showers, turn lights off when not in a room, use sunlight coming in through the windows instead of lamps and ceiling lights, and change to other smaller actions to help make your home earth friendly.

The change is easy to make and worth it. It is our job to protect the planet we live on, especially since we need the planet to survive. Global warming may not take major effects in our lifetime, but it is noticeable now. We need to take action to help the planet for future generations ahead of us.

“I think that we lost our game because we couldn’t get anything going on offense and gave up a lot of opportunities on defense,” sophomore Elias Handford said.

Although the team lost against Noblesville their record is still 4-4. The varsity lacrosse team will travel to Zionsville on Wednesday April for a game at 7:30.

Recently, the United States of America and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) have been in many tense arguments. These disagreements have not just suddenly come up, they have been ongoing for almost 60 years.

Since the 1950-1953 Korean War, North Korea has feared that the U.S. would eradicate their Communist regime. The new leader of North Korea is Kim Jong Un, and he has been said, by officials, to be quite unpredictable. Analysts have said that the reasons for these threats are because he is trying to show his dominance and that he is not afraid of his enemies.

Korea has several ballistic missiles that are capable of attaching nuclear warheads, but the chances that one can actually reach the United States mainland is slim. Still, these threats are taken seriously, and any launch towards the U.S. will be considered an act of aggression. The U.S. is ready to shoot down any missiles but will only do so if the missile is a threat to the United States or one of its territories, such as Guam.

“Today, the Korean peninsula provides the world’s clearest contrast between a society that is open and a society that is closed; between a nation that is dynamic and growing, and a government that would rather starve its people than change,” President Barack Obama said in a speech. “It’s a contrast so stark you can see it from space, as the brilliant lights of Seoul give way to the utter darkness in the north.”

The chances of a nuclear war happening is unlikely (CNN analysts have said), but there is still that chance that North Korea will launch an attack on American soil.

“I think the Koreans won’t do anything because the benefits don’t outweigh the downfalls. Even if they do something, it will be shut down instantly,” sophomore Andrew Tully said.