Senior Wills for the Class of 2016

We're bring back a tradition from many years ago, senior wills!

I, Katie Murray, leave my love for FFA, positive attitude, and my love for our Class of 2016. We are the only class who hasn’t won a lip sync or powderpuff and to only have one dedicated class advisor who hasn’t left us, Ms. Thompson. I will never forget all the pep rallies, our amazing librarian Lynn and the crazy lip sync by Duey, Kausen, and Benbow.  

I, Bounthouy Vonglakhone J.R., leave my kindness, my family blood or not, and my friendships that I have gained throughout the years. These 4 years have been the best because of my friends and without them I would probably be nowhere. To my crew Caleb Pockett, Hannah Gregory, David Reed, Rachel Dias, and Sarah Vandendriessche from Belgium.

I, Sarah Quintrell, leave my love and appreciation to all my close friends that I have made this last few years. This includes Kitana Neller, Paul Gibbens, Julie White, Austin Cunningham, and Jephrey Catalan. I love you all, and high school would have never been the same without all of you. You guys are awesome, stay awesome!

I, Hannah Williams, leave my Sarcasm, Happiness, and my memories to my friends Sara Torres, Damon Linharess,Thomas Cramer. To all my friends who I have the pleasure of walking across the stage with, who are Jacob Torres, Saber Jones, August Brown, Freda Hauck and Kassie Andrew, thank you for sticking with me these years, I love all of you guys. PS, Sara please don’t forget the locker combination. Because I won’t remember that. So don’t ask me.

I, Geovani Huerta, oh never mind, I thought you get credit for this, but you don’t so I am going to work on other stuff.

I, Nicholas Ruf, leave my communist manifesto written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Englels, to any who see the true light of Stalin and Lenin. I leave my communist shirt to all those who wish to embrace the greatness of socialism. And I also leave my Army stuff to any of  those stupid enough to enlist like me, Patrick and Renner. P.S.Renner stop talking about it, you can’t defeat ISIS.  

I, Freda Hauck, leave my Neopets account to Hannah Williams because I know she won’t kill them like she did our love. Heh.

I, Lily MacMillan, leave my love for this school, and dedication to the FFA to my younger sister Sierra. I hope you finish your High School career never regretting a decision you make, enjoy it while it lasts. I will never forget all the fun memories with my classmates participating in Homecoming activities, traveling to Tennessee, Kentucky, Washington DC and New York. My last four years have been unforgettable and I owe it all to the Class of 2016.  

I, Luis David Ornelas, leave my passion for music production, hanging out, having fun and branching out to new people. I'm working super hard this year and the following years to become a well-known rapper and a dubstep music maker. It's been a long and crazy ride these four years. I've met a ton of people that are chill and others that are strict but in the end, where all one happy crew. I respect everyone and well, from the looks of it that's what I get in return too which is neat.  I feel blessed meeting everyone from the people I hang out on a regular schedule, to the people I barely know. I would appreciate it if we could hang out some days and kick back. I believe that everyone graduating this year will be accomplishing many big tasks that they might not even see themselves accomplishing. To the teachers that touched every senior hearts this  year please, don't stop doing what you do.  We learned a lot from you and I feel that it will help us in our future and the upcoming seniors. I hope you all will remember us as one of most unique graduating class to graduate by far.  My final words are these, follow what you love and don't stop because of what other people think, and just be the real you whether people like it or not.

It’s strange to think that existentialism and pop culture could be similar in any way

By Melina

It’s strange to think that existentialism and pop culture could be similar in any way. Connecting those ideas are difficult, especially if the ties are obscured. Unbelievably, these two are kinda close in a weird way. Tom Stoppard wrote Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, an existentialist play. It’s a different point of view for Hamlet, seen through the eyes of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. If you're wondering what this has to do with anything that's happening right now, existentialism can actually still be seen in modern society.

Maybe existentialism is easier to see if we focus on celebrity deaths. A morbid topic but important for this conversation. It seems that the only time the public actually ponders death and what comes after, is if someone that's loved by that public dies. Celebrities are treasured in our society, which isn't really a big deal. Except we treasure them the most when they pass away. That's not our fault, sometimes we get so caught up in living we tend to forget what comes after for all of us. That's also not our fault and it's also not a bad thing. Sometimes we'll think about existentialism at random moments with no explanation of why it entered our brain, but it's depth can be limited. The death of a celebrity can be a very clear reminder that time, for everyone, is limited.

In Rosencratz and Guildenstern are dead, Guildenstern says something kind of peculiar.

“A man breaking his journey between one place and another at a third place of no name, character, population, or significance sees a unicorn cross his path and disappear. That in itself is startling, but there are precedents for mystical encounters of various kinds, or to be less extreme, a choice of persuasions to put it down to fancy; until-”My God” says a second man, “I must be dreaming, I thought i saw a unicorn,” at which point, a dimension is added that makes the experience as alarming as it will ever be. A third witness, you understand, adds no further dimension but only spreads it thinner, and a fourth thinner still, and the more witnesses there are the thinner it gets and the more reasonable it becomes until it is as thin as reality, the name we give to the common experience…”Look, look,” recites the crowd. “A horse with an arrow in its forehead! It must have been mistaken for a deer.”

Sometimes we become so familiar with the things and people that surround we forget that at one point, it was all wonderfully new. It was all foreign. However, as time passed and we were able to become more and more acquainted with everything that had a part to play in our lives, the wonder started to wear off. It slipped quietly away, along with our fears of what lay under our beds and the silly bedtime stories. The world's biggest mystery, what happens after death, is solved by everyone but no one lives to tell the tale.

In pop culture, existentialism isn’t really a popular topic but it does still exist. It just breaks through more when someone like David Bowie passes away. There’s bands that sing about and artists that paint it. But our culture doesn't focus on it like it used to. Live in the moment, right?  ... YOLO

Heads

By Kendall

If you haven’t read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, I suggest you do, because in all honesty, it is a really good book to read. In this book, a lot of events happen that also take place in the book Hamlet, but this book goes more into depth about just Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s life and their journey.

As you read throughout this book, you will notice that a lot of things they say are examples of foreshadowing. There is a scene where they come upon a play that the Tragedians were doing and this play that the people were doing was actually deciding Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s fate, but they were to oblivious to realize that anything like that was going on. As Rosencrantz and Guildenstern continue their journey, they also flip a coin multiple times and every time they flipped it the coin landed on heads. They didn’t realize that the coin was deciding their fate either because their death ties into the symbolism of their coin flipping. The play that the Tragedians did also reflect on the play in Hamlet with the events in Elsinore and The Murder of Gonzago. Rosecrantz and Guildenstern are also just really confused people because from the start to about the middle of the book they don’t even know their own names let alone the foreshadowing happening around them. Even in the play that was shown, there was nothing in there that would’ve explained why Rosencrantz and Guildenstern will be sentenced to their death, because it doesn’t show that they did anything did wrong.

I would suggest this book to anyone who would want to read a book like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. In all honesty, I didn’t think that I would actually be fascinated in this book at first, but as we went through and read it the book really caught my attention. When we first started reading, I thought it was going to just be super slow and not attention-grabbing, but it gives you a lot more knowledge of their journey and a different perspective on the story of Hamlet. There is a lot of events that happen throughout this book, some take a turn for good and some not so much. I think that this is a very enjoyable book once you grasp the characters and what they say means, you really start to engage and relate to the characters’ mindset. You, of course, would want to read Hamlet first to grasp the plot and all the characters, and the relations between all of them. Hamlet is a little harder to understand because it is not written in our language to where we can fully understand it, but Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is written to where it is so much easier to get the full effect of the book. I also think that all the foreshadowing in this book is really fascinating because you don’t really know that it is foreshadowing something until that event occurs. I really think this book will take people by surprise, and I think it is a good shorter book to read and get into.

Life is the most important gift

It's the month of gift giving, and also getting gifts. Anyone 16 and up, give the gift of life on December 10th. Donate blood and possibly save a life save a life. Just go to the office and sign a time slot. Also, if your 16 get a parental form when you are at the office. Happy Holidays to everyone!

Donovan G. is a senior student who loves food.        

Poem for Thanksgiving break from guest poet Victor/Homer

The days get short 

Nights stay longer 

The hot sun leaves 

Cold winds start 

Smell of pine needles

Cold air fill your lungs

Yaste of eggnog touching your lips

Jingle bells ringing  

Guest poet: Nanci

Thoughts of Happiness

As thought sets in and fear is apparent

And yet reality is left opaque

With clarity gone, nothing left to take

All this “happiness”, no one to show it

A word of color, a world of such joy

Why then a sight so unfamiliar?

Anxiety, despair, familiar.

Emotion and reality a toy

Fear and darkness, unknown to all the rest

The image shown, peace and together

The constant gnawing of anguish, a pest

However still, a hope for the better

Feelings of Impossible Love

A love so distant, out of reach

Sad to many, curse to each.

Confusion packed and solution sought,

Voo-doo done, guard un-caught.

Witchcraft, sorcery, lies, deceit,

Sad to many, curse to each.

A love so terrible, mind overload,

As much alike, dark magic, dark road.

Say yes to the...college?

On October 30th, all the senior students that applied to HSU attended HSU Early Acceptance day. The students attended workshops, ate lunch in the many different restaurants, and attended an interview with an answer. Some were awarded acceptance certificates and others a "we will see."

Melissa, a senior at Fortuna High School, was accepted to HSU and plans to possibly attend this next fall. At the HSU Admittance Day, Melissa said that she  “...learned a lot about different options for housing. I got to go into several students rooms and see the different room arrangement.” The housing tours were given by HSU students and to show all the dorms HSU has to offer.

HSU is a great school to attend even with it being so local. If you're considering applying, Melissa said, “Go for it, HSU is a great school.” Also applying locally can keep your wallet from breaking!

So seniors, say yes to the...college?

Molly, a senior, writes for Modes of Writing and also attended HSU Early Acceptance Day.