Special Features
The Moment
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Hot Chocolate
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The overwhelming stress
Bubbling inside of him Homework towered on like the Tower of pisa Ready to fall down At any moment The list of things to do was as long as The nile river Ready to overflow At any moment Opening his laptop to find Missing assessments that went forever Like the sahara desert. Ready to disappear At any moment. Yet time seemed to stop when he looked Outside the window He saw the sun say goodbye And the moon smile back at him In the pale moon, he decided to walk Leaving his assignments and evidences behind For just a moment, he said to himself He moved with the wind as cold as The Juneau air Ready to take him away For just a moment He passed by Christmas lights That shined as bright and big as the Paris moonlight Ready to bring happiness to him For just a moment The snow felt like pillows under his shoes Compressing under him The air smelled like sweet coffee He could even taste the cinnamon buns As he walked past a bakery, making his way back home. But before he went back to his unfinished assignments Piles of homework and his undone list He heard himself say, My mind will be stronger and my heart fuller Promising himself that everything will be alright For just a moment |
Her ruby red lips touched
The rim of her cup. The smooth creamer went pass her throat And into her stomach The aftertaste was bittersweet. Tastes like a good memory from long ago Pictures of her middle school came back Mini science fair projects and gossips Social studies and basic math Petty dates and valentine cards The aroma of the hot chocolate brought Melancholy It’s been four months at her new school She misses how simple things were Now she faces challenges after challenges. She continues drinking the warm hot chocolate The second sip was sweeter this time Pictures of her new high school came New friends, a fresh start Classes that she likes, no drama so far Teachers that support her Change was something difficult for her But Just like hot chocolate, it’s difficult to drink at first But as time passes you get used to the hotness And it cools down just enough To savor the moment. |
Recipe of the Month
Corinne Kronschnabel
It's Alright Guys, I Saw It In A Christmas Movie Once
Mya Bailey
It’s that season again; The time of year where my average self finds a way to tumble into every tacky Christmas movie reference or pun I can get my hands onto. Christmas has it’s own kind of feeling for everyone, and this year more than ever, I feel as if the spirit isn’t as hyped as it normally would be for my peers and I. I’m still on the cliff of summer vacation, where my responsibilities were dialed down a bit more than they are presently, so I decided to dedicate my time in between the stress towards...BINGO! Christmas movie marathons. To influence that Christmassy vibe a little more in my life, as it would seem. It all just kind of happened quickly--you’re looking for notecards, scrambling through loose sheets of paper and snippets you haven’t seen in years, and something as casual as the Elf Movie DVD slips on your lap. This escalated from watching things like The Polar Express to A Nightmare Before Christmas, and then over to finding the classic A Christmas Story DVD, which is a movie I’ve seen far too many times to be watching... again. After seeing these films growing up, my perceptions on them have really changed due to me becoming a more matured adult ( not really ). In that focus, I will be discussing some things I have learned from these recurring Christmas hits.
My mother’s sarcasm and her need to show me films that feed onto these horrific excuses of humor has all come together to create my favorite Christmas flick — Elf, which stars Will Ferrell as Buddy The Elf. Will Ferrel was in my life alot growing up, so this movie has contributed a lot of influence into my view of Christmas. The movie features a nice story about a human named Buddy, which is narrated by his elf father who raised him. He finds out that he originally (biologically) isn’t an elf and actually has a human dad back in New York. His real father, however, is a popular member of Santa’s naughty list. Insert gasp here. Buddy, literally so immediately that I kind of feel bad for his elf dad, decides to head out of the North Pole to meeting his father; taking on the mission of getting his father back to the greater sides of things. Is it the life lesson to never stop believing in things, as the movie originally tries to teach the audience, the lesson I picked up? I ended up absorbing more valuable knowledge like how syrup can be a sufficient topping for spaghetti or that gum sticking on the sides of things are just free pieces without cost. These are some of the best of life lessons. Elf is a gift.
We take a strict turn into the more animated sides of things, more like a turn while being aboard a train, and make our way to the movie The Polar Express. This movie has always somehow freaked me out as a kid. I don’t know, I used to not enjoy the animation style at times and the bell scene at the end gave me this eery feeling in my chest. Weird. However, the movie focuses on a boy named- actually, he isn’t given a name, instead he is called Hero Boy which is something I hadn’t known- who is awaken at night by a train called The Polar Express. It basically picks up children on Christmas Eve to follow onwards to the North Pole. Hero Boy, so weird just calling him that, throughout the film goes through many adventurers with Hero Girl ( not joking, she is just “hero girl” as well ) and a kid named Billy to find out their purpose on the Polar Express and overall to get a present and meet Santa Claus. It kind of taught me the lesson of things I never want to do, no matter how good the hot chocolate looks on that Polar Express. Why would I pull myself out of bed in the middle of a blizzard to get on a creepy train that appears out of nowhere? I mean, I get that he ( spoilers ) wakes up and it’s all like, “Oh wow, it was a dream!” , even though he has that bell from Santa to signify him believing again, but I still believe I’d watch the train from my window go by and go on with my night. Dream or not. Not to hate on the film or anything. I just grew up not really connecting with the kid cast because it’s hard to believe I’d participate in that. Oops.
More animation making its way into the Christmas movies I somehow waltzed into watching, instead of getting my responsibilities, in range was The Nightmare Before Christmas. This movie will never fail to disappoint. The plot consists of Jack Skeleton, who is the leader figure for Halloween, feeling a little uninspired by the same old traditional Halloween. He finds his way into a unique Christmas realm, and slowly gets this idea that Halloween should be just like Christmas. It features many great songs, and this is where I learn that this movie by far has to have one of the most brain indulging soundtracks in all of the Christmas movies I’ve watched over the years. The songs, more directly “What’s This”, will be in my head for weeks with just one single mention of it. If my mother and I hear my younger brother sing even the slightest bit of lyric, and we both groan in agony. Bravo to Danny Elfman ( isn’t it ironic that his last name is “Elf” “Man”? ) for composing a soundtrack that’ll haunt my life one song at a time.
The last movie I can never deny from speaking about during this holiday season is A Christmas Story. This movie is my dad’s favorite, and I know this because each year on both Christmas Eve and day we watch only the 24 hour A Christmas Story special that appears on a channel my father always seems to find somewhere. If you haven’t seen it, it’s just your average christmas story about a boy named Ralphie and his life around Christmas time. It’s more than it sounds , believe me, and watching it is a whole other experience; especially if you see it annually. Every year I hear my dad murmur the quotes like “Fra-gee-lay”. Every year, I again have to watch Ralphie’s younger brother be sheltered in thousands of coats, gloves, and scarves to protect him from the dangers of the cold while being unable to place his arms down to his side because of the layer amount. I get to rewatch the classic scene of Ralphie, at last, getting the Red-Rider BB gun, that he’s been straining for over the entire duration of the film, to shoot his eye out, just like everyone said he would. The things I learned from this film can go on and on, but something I will always receive is how much a movie can really mean to someone, like it does to my father. Although it may get overbearing to see him lip sync every scene possible, laugh extremely loud afterwards as if to give himself an oscar for his work, and then nod at me because I would understand- he really loves that film, so I like it very much as well.
That’s the thing about holiday movies or just films in general; They mean something different to someone else because of how they experience it. Like how I love Elf based on my humor and watching it around my mother who laughs incredibly hard at it, thus becoming a happier scene, or when it comes to The Polar Express, because I watched it alone that shaped how I see it. While they’re all great films, they feel different and have different meanings to everyone. In retrospect, this Christmas, try to keep that in mind when watching things you don’t like or seeing things you’d rather not , that people close to you love, because it mean something to them.
My mother’s sarcasm and her need to show me films that feed onto these horrific excuses of humor has all come together to create my favorite Christmas flick — Elf, which stars Will Ferrell as Buddy The Elf. Will Ferrel was in my life alot growing up, so this movie has contributed a lot of influence into my view of Christmas. The movie features a nice story about a human named Buddy, which is narrated by his elf father who raised him. He finds out that he originally (biologically) isn’t an elf and actually has a human dad back in New York. His real father, however, is a popular member of Santa’s naughty list. Insert gasp here. Buddy, literally so immediately that I kind of feel bad for his elf dad, decides to head out of the North Pole to meeting his father; taking on the mission of getting his father back to the greater sides of things. Is it the life lesson to never stop believing in things, as the movie originally tries to teach the audience, the lesson I picked up? I ended up absorbing more valuable knowledge like how syrup can be a sufficient topping for spaghetti or that gum sticking on the sides of things are just free pieces without cost. These are some of the best of life lessons. Elf is a gift.
We take a strict turn into the more animated sides of things, more like a turn while being aboard a train, and make our way to the movie The Polar Express. This movie has always somehow freaked me out as a kid. I don’t know, I used to not enjoy the animation style at times and the bell scene at the end gave me this eery feeling in my chest. Weird. However, the movie focuses on a boy named- actually, he isn’t given a name, instead he is called Hero Boy which is something I hadn’t known- who is awaken at night by a train called The Polar Express. It basically picks up children on Christmas Eve to follow onwards to the North Pole. Hero Boy, so weird just calling him that, throughout the film goes through many adventurers with Hero Girl ( not joking, she is just “hero girl” as well ) and a kid named Billy to find out their purpose on the Polar Express and overall to get a present and meet Santa Claus. It kind of taught me the lesson of things I never want to do, no matter how good the hot chocolate looks on that Polar Express. Why would I pull myself out of bed in the middle of a blizzard to get on a creepy train that appears out of nowhere? I mean, I get that he ( spoilers ) wakes up and it’s all like, “Oh wow, it was a dream!” , even though he has that bell from Santa to signify him believing again, but I still believe I’d watch the train from my window go by and go on with my night. Dream or not. Not to hate on the film or anything. I just grew up not really connecting with the kid cast because it’s hard to believe I’d participate in that. Oops.
More animation making its way into the Christmas movies I somehow waltzed into watching, instead of getting my responsibilities, in range was The Nightmare Before Christmas. This movie will never fail to disappoint. The plot consists of Jack Skeleton, who is the leader figure for Halloween, feeling a little uninspired by the same old traditional Halloween. He finds his way into a unique Christmas realm, and slowly gets this idea that Halloween should be just like Christmas. It features many great songs, and this is where I learn that this movie by far has to have one of the most brain indulging soundtracks in all of the Christmas movies I’ve watched over the years. The songs, more directly “What’s This”, will be in my head for weeks with just one single mention of it. If my mother and I hear my younger brother sing even the slightest bit of lyric, and we both groan in agony. Bravo to Danny Elfman ( isn’t it ironic that his last name is “Elf” “Man”? ) for composing a soundtrack that’ll haunt my life one song at a time.
The last movie I can never deny from speaking about during this holiday season is A Christmas Story. This movie is my dad’s favorite, and I know this because each year on both Christmas Eve and day we watch only the 24 hour A Christmas Story special that appears on a channel my father always seems to find somewhere. If you haven’t seen it, it’s just your average christmas story about a boy named Ralphie and his life around Christmas time. It’s more than it sounds , believe me, and watching it is a whole other experience; especially if you see it annually. Every year I hear my dad murmur the quotes like “Fra-gee-lay”. Every year, I again have to watch Ralphie’s younger brother be sheltered in thousands of coats, gloves, and scarves to protect him from the dangers of the cold while being unable to place his arms down to his side because of the layer amount. I get to rewatch the classic scene of Ralphie, at last, getting the Red-Rider BB gun, that he’s been straining for over the entire duration of the film, to shoot his eye out, just like everyone said he would. The things I learned from this film can go on and on, but something I will always receive is how much a movie can really mean to someone, like it does to my father. Although it may get overbearing to see him lip sync every scene possible, laugh extremely loud afterwards as if to give himself an oscar for his work, and then nod at me because I would understand- he really loves that film, so I like it very much as well.
That’s the thing about holiday movies or just films in general; They mean something different to someone else because of how they experience it. Like how I love Elf based on my humor and watching it around my mother who laughs incredibly hard at it, thus becoming a happier scene, or when it comes to The Polar Express, because I watched it alone that shaped how I see it. While they’re all great films, they feel different and have different meanings to everyone. In retrospect, this Christmas, try to keep that in mind when watching things you don’t like or seeing things you’d rather not , that people close to you love, because it mean something to them.