Cracks! a blog by Suzanne Carlgren

CRACK!!!

It starts with one and the next thing you know they are everywhere! I’m talking about the cracks on the tennis courts in our public park. The courts have taken a brutal beating throughout the years and will probably only hold up for two or three more.  But until the city repairs them tennis players have to deal with the cracks. But in tennis, cracks kill or at least kill the point.  When a ball lands on a crack it curves or twists tricking the receiver into believing the ball will go one way when instead it goes another. Therefore the receiver loses the point because the racquet was on the wrong side of the player’s body. The player was expecting the ball to come from one direction when the trajectory of the ball suddenly shifted due to hitting a crack. Now that’s all fine and dandy if you hit the ball on the crack and win the point, but if you’re the receiver the rerouted ball is difficult to recover. Even on the tennis courts, JUST SAY NO TO CRACKS!!!

Suzanne Carlgren

Foreign Visitors by Siri McGuire

Foreigners in Our Midst

                As most of the student body as probably already noticed, we have been lucky enough to host four foreign exchange students this year. So far they’ve come from Norway, Denmark, China, and Slovakia to experience the day to day life of an American student at Concordia High School. In light of this situation, I have thought of some everyday occurrences at our school that might seem odd or out-of-place to a visitor who is not well accustomed to our culture yet. For example, Mr. Morris throwing a fake temper tantrum and tipping a chair or stool for no apparent reason might seem a bit confusing or even frightening at first. It might take weeks or months to figure out that this seemingly erratic behavior is not driven by actual rage, but by a desire to amuse his class. Also think of the number of times you’ve heard Mr. Berger break out suddenly into song, mutter angrily in German, or shout “HUGE E.C.!”  A visitor might be confused by this occurrence until they realize and embrace Mr. Berger’s quirkiness and brand of humor, as we all do. Lastly, what would a guest in our school make of the slang and idioms in our everyday conversations? The phrase “Don’t worry, he won’t bite” suddenly sounds a lot more disturbing when you forget to not take it literally. So as we spend the coming months with these guests in our school, consider what you say and do and ask yourself “Could this be taken in a weird way?”

Siri McGuire

Food Aversion by Courtney Monzon

My love/hate relationship with food.

I love certain foods so much that I end up hating them.  Normally they start off tasting heavenly, and then I end up never wanting to eat them again. Whales is a perfect example. This cheesy, salty snack is at first delightful; then it turns quickly into a nasty nightmare. Another case of my bittersweet experience with food is Sunkist fruit snacks. When I first tried them, they were like a big ball of scrumptiousness. Then they unexpectedly drifted into just another dull snack. The worst one of all is probably Kellogg’s Strawberry Special K bars. Every morning I would eat this as a satisfying breakfast, but now I would rather eat dog food. Ugh. This happens so often... am I the only one who this happens to?

Courtney Monzon

New Jerseys: Not as good as they look.

New Uniforms

                In the age of Nike Pro Combat Uniforms, and brand new Maryland Terrapin Under Armour jerseys, football coach Tim Lambert decided to get the football team new uniforms of their own. When coach announced that the new uniforms were in everyone was excited to get them on and show them off. The new uniforms are very sharp, all red with white lettering on the home jerseys and all white with red numbering on the away jerseys. When Concordia walked on the field against Beloit the fans were thinking, “Man those are some nice looking jerseys.”  But looks can be deceiving. The uniforms are completely uncomfortable. Most are a size too small and can barely be tucked in. Also, you can’t raise your arms very high to get them on because they don’t stretch very far. So as far as these jerseys go, don’t judge a book by its cover.

--Trent Tholstrup

Brittany Randall's September Blog!

Facebook FAILS

People do some really stupid things on Facebook. Seriously, I don’t care that you’re bored, I’m not going to text you. Or I will totally prank call you at two in the morning. I’m serious. It will be something stupid like “Is your refrigerator running? Well, you’d better go catch it!” You like your own status? Obviously you do, because you wouldn’t have written it if you hadn’t.  Uploading pictures of yourself and adding the caption “OMG, I look soooo ugly in this!!! LOL.” Not cool. Instead of that, maybe you shouldn’t upload that picture AT ALL.  And if your relationship is over within 2 days, maybe it wasn’t worth the effort of updating your “Relationship status” and spreading your lovey-dovey stuff all over your walls. Its degrading. And perhaps the whole “Taking a picture in front of a bathroom mirror” thing should stop. I don’t want to see what your toilet looks like, what conditioner you use, or the fact that your little brother is waiting in line to use the toilet. Colleges and employers can look on facebook, so many of their decisions are made on what you act like outside of school. Long story short, don’t be stupid.

Student Council Lock-In

At the beginning of each year Student Council holds a lock in at the high school. It begins with a meeting to discuss the homecoming theme, dress up days and goals for the year. After the meeting is wrapped up a game of "sardines" is played. This is essentially hide and seek, but when the hider is found the seeker quietly joins him until only one person is left seeking. Though it sounds a little corny for high school students, it is surprisingly entertaining at 2:00 in the morning, especially when the whole building is free game. This year the game didn't go as smoothly as in years past. Instead of all the seekers splitting in to small groups, they tended to form one large glob; defeating the general purpose of the game. Also, a few of the young ladies found the dark high school to be a little unnerving. This resulted in an abundance of screaming that persisted through the night. Even with these not so ideal circumstances it still proved just an entertaining night as it always is.  

--Ike Uri

Woellhof's Football Awards

CHS Football Awards

This will be my fourth year on the Concordia high school football team. There are many qualities in my teammates that stick out. As a senior, I have created a list of awards that I would give to my teammates. Here are some of the awards:

Hardest working freshmen: Shea Crum

Toughest freshmen: Zach Kyle

Most picked on freshmen: Russell Dethloff

Loudest: Jordan Brown

Loudest coach: Bryce Wachs

Fastest player: Aren Coppoc

Slowest player: Colton Odette

Person who gets his butt chewed the most: Tyler Snavely

Most laid back coach: Ryan Mortimer

Worst hands- Brentin Hake

Biggest airhead- Derick Nordell

Shortest fuse- Zak Romo

Facebook vs. Twitter

Facebook vs. Twitter:

The age old question, which is better? Facebook, or Twitter? Many swear by one, and others another, but which is truly the king of social networking? Like apples and oranges, sharks and bears, Facebook and Twitter are hard to compare because of their parallelity. Facebook, the king of status updates, boasts a large and expansive playground for it’s users to work with, while Twitter is just as proud flashing a streamlined and small interface for its subscribers.

The basic idea behind Facebook is its one stop shop-yness. (That’s a phrase, right?) It mixes together people’s words, pictures, videos, messages, notes, and anything else social into one great big blue website.

It’s large and easily related message makes Facebook a great platform for people jumping on the social network bandwagon. It’s easy to learn and we know why we use it: To connect with people.

Facebook is unique in the sense that it’s social aspect is limited to the people closest to you. You request a friendship, and someone can confirm and deny you as a friend. Thus, we create more personal connections with the people in our world. Sorry, but you probably won’t be friends with LaQuisha from the Netherlands here.

Facebook’s expansiveness creates a vast land in which people, including myself, can get sucked into for extended periods of time. I mean, who hasn’t looked through hundreds of pictures of so-and-so’s vacations? Willingly too! Remember when it was a chore to have to sit with someone and have them flip through their latest photo album of Cancun? Not anymore, thanks to FB.

Twitter on the other hand, is Facebook’s cousin. He’s the kind of guy who wants to stay in touch, but wants just the bullet points, when it’s convenient for him. He’s not being a jerk, don’t worry. Twitter’s just got a lot on his plate, but still wants to be a part of everyone’s lives.

Twitter is, at its very core, pure communication. You get your information, and get out of there. Back to the real world.

It’s easily mistaken as shallow, but think of Twitter as more of a micro-blog. Twitter is a soapbox for the common man who just wants to get his voice out there. Even if his voice is just saying “Going to lunch.” -- Well that’s fantastic.

The idea behind Twitter, “following” other people to see what they tweet about, makes an opportunity for you to reach out far past your circle of friends into something much deeper. On Twitter, you really can follow and connect with LaQuisha from the Netherlands! Athletes, musicians, celebrities, writers, businesses, they’re all here! Tweeting away about who knows what.

Problems do arise with your followers on Twitter, though. Getting a higher number of followers seems to be a majority of people’s goals - through whatever means. It’s a silent competition that will undoubtedly rage on through Twitter’s lifespan. And tweets like, “100 followers!!!” Don’t help the cause.

Twitter is a bit of a smaller vessel than Facebook, mainly due to the fact that it’s not as immediately appealing as Facebook. People get Facebook, and Facebook gets them. It’s a mutual relationship that works. Twitter, however, is the woman you have to work for. It can be viewed as a bit of an insiders club and its perceived exclusivity can drive many away. But the many who look past that, and get through the learning curve, (Believe me, there is a learning curve) find that Twitter is just what they want in a social network: pure connectivity, no frills.

Twitter definitely feels more like a community. It’s hard to explain, but when you’re tweeting, you get the feeling that we’re all in this together. Many tweeters have described this as, “The old fashioned water cooler, where people can gather to shoot the breeze on whatever topic is on their minds.”

If you don’t “get” Twitter, the problem may be that you’re treating it like a second Facebook. Believe me, this is a whole new machine. You may have to re-learn a few things if you want to make the switch. But for a great majority, it’s worth it.

If you want to compare the two, think of about this analogy:

“Let’s say you go to a wedding or other social gathering where lots of people know each other. The style and tone of communication there will be more like using Facebook; you chat with old friends and acquaintances, mixing and mingling in an intimate manner. In this setting, people tend to feel more relaxed and ‘in their element’. Conversations are familiar and center on shared experiences and connections.
Now, when you go to a party where you don’t know most of the people in attendance, you will use a very different style of communication, more like Twitter; you want to meet people and somehow make yourself known, stand out from the crowd, make an impression, self promote and make new connections.”
Facebook is a tool. It’s used to communicate with those in your life. On the other hand, Twitter is a stage. You either speak what you want out loud or fall back into the crowd.
Hopefully, my unnecessarily long explanation helped you see what separates the two social networking giants. They are both great at what they do, and they aren’t changing for anyone. In a battle like this, there is no winner. Both sides bring something different to the table, and in that sense, neither can win. Facebook and Twitter will just continue to do what they do best - separately. Now, it’s up for you to choose, Facebook, Twitter, or both?

Things We Already Appreciate About Mr. Breese

Coming into a new school can be very intimidating. Although we are only in our third week of school, there are many aspects about Mr. Breese that have stood out. For instance, his friendliness in the halls and around the building has shown. Whether in the lunch room or walking out of the building, he will say hi and ask how you are. Small acts of kindness from a principal go a long way, and show students that although he is an authority, that does not mean he isn’t friendly. The new role of a principal also entails disciplinary actions when a student gets into trouble. There have been a couple incidents in the school, but Mr. Breese has kept his composure very well, and knew exactly how to handle it. Often times sports such as tennis, golf, and cross country are overlooked and aren’t a hot topic to watch. Mr. Breese has made appearances at JV sporting events, and even interacted with the team. Although he hasn’t been here very long, the students appreciate Mr. Breese.   

-Kadin Zimmerman