Crazy Ways Students Have Paid for College

       In a few months, the entire senior body of SHS, myself included, will walk across a comically small stage to receive a comically presented piece of paper that simply states that we had survived four years of the comically acclaimed Sparta High School. After that, we’re on our own, our friends will part ways, our parents will do their best to kick us out, and our college applications will carry us to colleges where we will become brand new people and follow our dreams. In a few years time, we’ll have new friends, see new sights, live new lives, and everything we once thought was everything will amount to nothing in our professional lives and simply be lost in a dusty old yearbook hidden away in the back of a bedroom closet.

     Other than all of that soul crushing drama previously described, one topic that takes up space in at least 1% of every senior’s brain, including mine, is the idea of going to college for 2 or 4 years, sometimes even more, and then spending the rest of our mortal lives paying off the college we went to. Of course, this idea is completely fair, and we students have nothing to complain about, but some students feel that it would be better if they could use some of the money they will have to spend on school for other things, like food, or a house, or an occasional trip to the Caribbean. You know, nothing really special or anything.

       There are ways that students have beaten the system, though, and have either almost, or completely paid off their entire college debts. Here are a few examples of these students. We here at The Oracle do not condone any of these ideas, and you can try them at your own risk.

       First, I present Mr. Mike Hayes, who came up with a genius plan to pay for college without having to pay a single cent from his own pockets. He contacted a columnist from The Chicago Tribune, who ran a column in the paper that asked readers to donate a single penny to his cause. It seemed crazy, but after receiving hundreds of letters, and a total of 2.8 million pennies, Hayes was able to graduate the University of Illinois with a degree in food science. (Source:http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2015/04/teen-funded-college-education-asking-people-pennies/)

   Next, here is Robin Martee, who attended Western Kentucky University. While she had an array of scholarships and part time jobs, she still had a substantial amount to pay to the college. In order to pay off of these debts, she took part in the school pep band who played at every basketball game. It was a paying gig that covered the cost of textbooks, and by the time she graduated, Martee had almost no student debt to pay off. (Source:http://www.kiplinger.com/article/college/T042-C011-S001-9-unusual-ways-to-pay-for-college.html)

     One more example is Ginger Dean, who attended Marymount University of Virginia. To help pay for college, she looked on Craigslist and participated in multiple medical experiments she found on the website, mainly sleep and medical trials, and was payed $300-700 for each session. This was enough to help her pay at least a portion of her student debt and ease the burden of college fees. (Source:http://www.kiplinger.com/article/college/T042-C011-S001-9-unusual-ways-to-pay-for-college.html)

    Hopefully, these stories show you that student debt is a beatable beast, and that through clever thinking, and a little bit of time, anyone can pay for any kind of student debt. We wish our seniors the utmost amount of luck. 

When the Music’s Over: What Student Actors are Doing After the Musical

 

Well, the time has come, made itself known, and has now blown past us like an express train heading to New York City. The Addams Family Musical, like all musicals I’ve done in high school, was a rocking roller coaster of practice and perfection, all leading up to three days of pure excitement and fun. Now that it’s all over - the productions, the makeup, the costumes, the long hours of practicing, the Saturday rehearsals, it feels like there is a large hole of time where the whole experience used to be. I feel that’s what a lot of my fellow actors feel now that the curtains has been closed for the last time and an array of metal supports and water has once again taken up residence in the auditorium pit. To find out more, I asked what they’ll be doing now that they have all of this free time.

Blaze Dalio, who played Gomez Addams, said that he had “Absolutely nothing,” planned and when asked what he’ll use his new found free time for, the answer was simple, “Sleep.” The same answer came from Steven Sullivan, who played Mal Beineke.

Zander Papandrikos, who played Lurch, jokingly replied, “Crying,” before saying he would be involved in other student productions.

Nina Strowe, who played one of the ancestors, answered, “Fixing my sleep schedule.” Another Ancestor, Ryden Mederos, had absolutely no idea on what to do now that the Musical was over.

Kaela Panicucci replied the same as Blaze and Steven, “Sleeping.” It can be seen that sleep is now in the mind of almost all of the actors now the musical is over, and after all of the hard work put into the production, it can be said that they deserve some good R&R.

      Personally, now that I have a large portion of time back in my life, I hope to put it to good use. First, I want to get back to writing my science fiction stories that I have been working on for just over a year now, and one day hope to publish in a book. Not only that, I would love to get back into the swing of things with The Oracle, now that I have all the time in the world to discover great new stories and share them with the world. I can’t wait to get back to work and provide your, the reader, with the highest grade reporting a SHS student can ask for!

"Alan Turing: The Enigma": Read It.

Written by: Sylvia Sochacki

Do you have an interest in math? Science? Biographies? Overall incredibly cool, world changing people? Then pick up this brick of a book that explores the genius behind the victory of World War II that is one hundred and ten percent worth the time it takes to read - Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges. No matter your interest or level of capability in math or science, any person who respects the immaculate would enjoy this biography. Even if you strictly read fiction and have zero interest in the lives of the world’s dearly departed, you’ll still love this book! Alan Turing, “Atheist, homosexual, eccentric, marathon-running English mathematician, A. M. Turing was in large part responsible not only for the concept of computers, incisive theorems about their powers, and a clear vision of the possibility of computer minds, but also for the cracking of German ciphers during the Second World War” (Hodges). This man is the inventor of the modern computer and artificial intelligence, not to mention his middle name was Mathison and he was a mathematician. His tragic backstory will send the most cynical of people to tears; the story of a young gay british boy dealing with the loss of his only true friend, while constantly dealing with the cruelty of the classic British school yard bully. The same school yard bullies that continue being school yard bullies even out of the school yard. However, through his hardships he remained openly gay in conservative England while striving in his intellectual brilliance. The book itself is written by Andrew Hodges who is also a mathematician and currently teaches mathematics at Oxford. Inside one will find personal letter correspondence between Turing and his friends and family, as well as other primary sources. Although this book is rather monstrous in size, it is completely worth the extra weight in your backpack and the continuous stream of renewals at the library.

Recommended playlist to listen to while reading this: Turing was one of the first to figure out how to program music on the computer using a synthesizer. The original recordings were found and restored. Enjoy “God Save The Queen”, “Baa Baa Black Sheep”, and “In the Mood” by Glenn Miller http://blogs.bl.uk/files/first-recorded-computer-music---copeland-long-restoration.mp3

Students of Sparta: Torey Prol

She's beauty, she's grace...but she's so much more than that. You know her for slaying the fashion game, voice of a singing bird on a spring morning, but more than anything, its her spark for life that draws us to Torey. She explains to The Oracle how change impacted her and it is, in fact, a good thing. 

      "For those who aren't musical, trust me, get involved in music. There are a lot of different aspects to our music and arts program that you can be involved in, on stage and off. For me, music has always been a good outlet to express myself. Every step served as my inspiration to make my work that I was involved in original because I knew in this realm, I could be who I wanted to be. Even if a lot of people are involved in a project, you still have creative freedom to make it your own. I tried tech crew this year for the musical and it widened my view of how I look at the entire production. I've always been on stage, which I do miss because it's not something I haven't done before, but I found out that I really enjoyed getting involved in a different way, hanging out with peers who are different than me but also similar. I understood and appreciate more of the work that goes into making an entire production as we do for the musical and even our music concerts. I'm thankful that I got the entire viewpoint of what really goes on and why some things are the way that they are. Music is really for everyone, even for those who don't want to be seen and don't see themselves as musicians for a multitude of reasons.  It's important to experience new things like I did this year to widen your horizon! I know I'm not going into music moving past high school, but being apart of the wonderful program has helped me grow. That's why I recommend it for everyone - you learn team building and life long social skills that will definitely follow you."

The Great Wall Movie Review

Written by: Sean Hannon

The Great Wall was directed by Zhang Yimou and stars Matt damon and Jing Tian. It is based on an Ancient Chinese folktale about The Great Wall stopping monsters from plundering the Chinese countryside. The trailers for the film looked campy and it was mostly advertised as your typical action film. To be honest, the movie is interesting in the worst ways. It is one of the first major movies I've seen that directly panders to Chinese audience, and shows Matt Damon and other European outsiders as mean and greedy outsiders.

Overview

Matt Damon and his group of traders are on their way from Europe to China in the search of black powder or gunpowder. But when they stop in Mongolia to camp, they are attacked by a monster who kills most of the party besides Damon and one other. They make it to The Great Wall where they are captured by the Chinese who are intrigued by the monster attack. The attack signals to the Chinese military that monsters that attack every 60 years are coming to besiege the wall early, and they immediately mobilize to defend the wall against large hordes of monsters.

Positives

This movie is funny, not in the intensional way but in a campy or cheesy way. Some of the action shots look cool, and the advanced defences of the wall are intriguing. Otherwise there's nothing much to say about this movie

Negatives

As I’ve said before this film blatantly panders directly to the Chinese audiences, it describes China in the time being more advanced than Europe, more progressive than Europe, and morally superior to Europe. These themes are stated horribly as some of them are just blatantly stated in the dialog. Speaking of dialog, I'm 90% sure all the English dialog was roughly translated from Chinese, a lot of lines are phrased oddly and most of those mistakes are very funny. The plot is not great as there seems to be a lot of major events that when thought about, don't make much sense. Finally the CGI for the monsters looks very outdated which makes the movie even more cheesy and campy.

Overall

It's clear that I have a negative opinion on this movie, and if anything that I've mentioned before in the negative section do not even think of watching this film. One thing which I've mentioned might kill any joy in this movie’s stupidity is the theme of Chinese superiority in this era. It breaks up the action and very quickly becomes obvious and annoying. If you want to have a laugh and are willing to put up with the theme, you should see this film. If not than avoid it like the plague!

Classic Films Can Never Be Replaced

Written By: Kanita Tariq

People tend to dislike old films simply in terms of their technical quality, but many of the classics resonate in our hearts today. Whether it be the fan-favorite adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, or a Hitchcock thriller, many of the best films to date are the classics we all sometimes love to hate.

Music geeks love to watch 1964’s A Hard Day’s Night to commemorate legendary British phenomenon, the Beatles. The ‘50s and ‘60s were musicals galore- with Singin’ in the Rain (1952), Mary Poppins (1964), and The Sound of Music (1965).

Disney made its animated debut with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937), and Fantasia (1940) was another magical adventure. Anyone can appreciate a Hepburn classic, like Roman Holiday (1953), Sabrina (1954), and my personal favorite, Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961). Another thrilling drama is To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), based off of one of the most important pieces of American literature.

With these options and more, it’s easy to see that an “oldie but goodie” is not as bad as you think it might be!

From Eric Carle to Shakespeare...

    Let me be that person and just say it: we're lucky to have a great school system. Quit abusing it and use it to your benefit.

I have a brother in kindergarten. It's Love of Reading Week, and you should see his excitement - we already read together, but now even more so. At Alpine Elementary School, they have proposed that if the students read ten thousand books, Mr. Leone and Mr. Miller will sit in a dunk tank and The Cat in the Hat is coming for a visit, so it's everything right now. "Aba, can you please take a break from homework and read The Very Hungry Caterpillar with me again? Please??" He asks me this with such genuine desire that, without even thinking about it, I put aside my AP GOPO assignment and we read. Then another book to add to his daily total, of course!

The kids are genuinely excited. They're helping themselves by reaching towards higher level reading and thinking, but they don't dread it. We were once those kids as well. Why has the dynamic shifted as education becomes bigger? Some people I asked shrugged it off with the typical “it won't help me in the future” excuse. I tilted my head a little and nodded, but what was really running through my head was how? We're lucky enough to not know life without an education, but if we didn't have it, we would be eager for it. Make the time to read Malala Yousafzai’s book, I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot By the Taliban to discover the message I’m really trying to portray.

Yet when I asked another student, typically the more quiet one of my peers, why genuine effort in school diminishes in some students, she told me, "It's not that not everyone just doesn't care. At the end of the day, they do for one reason or another. But I think it's related to the fact that the grade matters more than the interest. A teacher won't base how hard I studied for a test to change my crappy grade. So we just kind of do it to get it done, to get the full credit, and hope for the best."

She does have a point. Our colleges aren't going to see the effort we put in, they'll just see the grade we end up with in the course. However, I still believe everything is in our control. Effort, as we've grown through the school system, has lessened when it shouldn't. Put in the time, and the test grade won’t be a crappy one. I hope, if anything, I teach my Jonathan to value the education he has and to use it to his benefit, to always keep trying in kindergarten and beyond. Put in the hours, put in the time to go to Academic Assistance, put in the effort. A mantra I like when it comes to education is, effort counts twice. When you work hard towards your goals, it counts when you fully understand the topic to take the test, then again when you get the ‘A’ grade you've been yearning for.

Education is more than just tests and confusion. It's furthering yourself. We all know hard work pays off, so let’s start to apply it. Read a book you genuinely like - there are SO many great ones. Talk to a grandparent or great aunt about how life was in their time. Explore the culture of a country you've been dying to go to, and learn some common terms. Look up a fun science experiment you can do right in your kitchen. Whatever it may be, incorporate education into daily activity and appreciate learning. Find yourself while gaining extra knowledge like we did when we were little and I promise you'll find a whole new calling.

My overeager best buddy ready to read.