The Misses of January

By Cody Schmitz

Now that January is nearing a close, I’m able to look back and deem my “Misses” for the month.

Miss: No Sun
My Northern European descent haunts me on a daily basis. Not because of my ancestral demons, but because I am literally as white as a ghost. May through mid October, I look like a normal caucasian person. However, once the earth rotates and the sun lessens in intensity, I revert to looking terminally ill. I can’t wait for the sun to bring me back to a normal skin color.


Miss: I Don’t Own a Winter Jacket Anymore
It’s a sad, sad fact. I mean, I live in Bipolar Kansas. I should have no less than three acceptable winter coats at my disposal. And I did have one! Until like, November, I had a great jacket - that I lost. I spent all of December looking for said jacket and by the time January rolled around, I figured winter was close enough to over that I wouldn’t need to spend my money on a new one. But winter is winter, no matter how much is left. I’ve spent the past month coat-less; surviving on light jackets is no way to live your life.


Miss: No Snow
Even without a coat, I still prayed for snow. And I can now officially say this: IT DIDN’T SNOW FOR THE DURATION OF JANUARY 2013. In fact, the last snow Concordia saw was on December 31st, 2012. Truly infuriating. All I want is a snow day. I haven’t had a snow day since my Freshman year!


Miss: No Major Holidays
Yes I know, MLK Day is a big deal. However, I want an Easter, a Halloween, a Thanksgiving. Even New Year’s Eve is in December! Let’s petition up a new holiday. I vote January 8th - my half birthday.


Even with these (and more) misses around, I still enjoyed my January 2013. However, I can eagerly say, bring on February!

Cold Weather vs. Hot Weather

By Leyli Beims

 

1. Summer equals sweat, and sweat equals stink. Everyone smells better in winter. Point cold.

2. In the winter, there is one thing that plagues me: dry skin. It’s like a disease. My skin starts flaking and itching like nobody’s business, and start look like some infected creature. I also find myself spending twice as much on lotion in the colder months, and I hate lotion! It’s a gross substance and takes up so much time to apply. Why, Winter, why?! A point goes to hot.

3. It’s called the “Most Wonderful Time of the Year” for a reason. Hello holidays! It’s starts getting chilly around Halloween, we get to stuff our faces in the cool month of November, and then comes the mother-load… Christmas. Plus, out of the seven people in my family, five of us have birthday in January or February. The excitement never ends! Cold for five.

4. Have you ever  tried cuddling in July? I don’t recommend it. January, however? Cuddle away, my friend! Point cold.

5. Many of us have found ourselves needing to run out to our car to grab something. No big deal, right? Wrong, if you happen to find yourself in the dead of winter. You have to pile on a sweatshirt, a heavy winter coat, sweats, boots, mittens, etc. just to walk ten feet!  Then you have to take it all off again. Who has time for that? In the middle of summer, you don’t even have to put on shoes. Hot scores.

6. One word: rain. A rainy day is my absolute favorite type of day, and they’re even better with thunder and lightning. The best rainy days occur in the spring, when it storms and storms, and then it ends and  the sunshine starts to peer through the clouds. I absolutely love rain. Point hot.

7. Let’s talk clothing. Come about May, booty shorts and skin-tight tank tops start making an appearance, and I start wanting to slap on a blindfold. I really don’t want to see everybody’s business constantly exposed for the general public, but summer doesn’t care. I HATE shorts. But if I tried to wear jeans on a hot summer night, I would die. In winter, everyone’s always covered up and comfortable. Major points go to cold weather on this one, I’d say about ten.

8. Fall and winter are way prettier than summer. Just imagine a flurry of crimson, titian, and golden leaves floating from the trees and softly settling on the ground. Picture a quiet meadow, covered in snow, gently sparkling in the sun, untouched by the world. What could possibly be more beautiful than that? Besides, sunshine and flowers are overrated. Cold shoots, it scores.

9. Regardless of whether or not you like cold weather, you have to acknowledge that in the winter you only have to deal with being cold. In the summer, not only will the heat be suffocating, but it may also be muggy. That is the worst weather in the entire world! You can’t breathe, you’re constantly drenched in sweat, you can never get your hair to look good, and you just want to curl up and die. My personal slogan: muggy days are NOT OKAY. Five points go to cold.

10. The absolute best argument for summer can be summed up in two words: NO SCHOOL. Twenty points for hot.

And the final score is: Hot Weather 23, Cold Weather 23. As you can see, there are many valid arguments that can be made for both sides. It just comes down to personal preference.

Why Winter is Better Than Summer

By Courtney Monzon

Cold weather is my absolute favorite, I love winter and I love cuddling. Who wants to cuddle when it is hot outside? No one. Coffee (one of the best things on earth) sounds amazing to drink on a cold winter morning. But in the summer, a hot cup of coffee really doesn’t sound very appetizing to me. The main reason I love winter is that I personally love wearing sweaters and boots, really anything that is big and baggy. Sweatpants for example, are my best friend in the winter. Just imagine wearing sweatpants in the summer, the thought makes me want to vomit. I hate sweating, which is exactly why I hate summer. Even if you are wearing shorts and a t-shirt, you still end up sweaty. Sick.

            Skiing is like the best thing ever, seriously. YOU CAN’T SKI IN THE SUMMER. If you haven’t ever been sledding you haven’t lived. So to the crazies who wish it was always summer, you wouldn’t be able to sled, and that there should change your mind.

 

            Although we have not had any snow days in a while, snow days are the bomb.com. I love the feeling of waking up in the morning and realizing you don’t have to go to school. I usually spend those glorious days watching movies, cuddling, sledding and sleeping.

I might have exaggerated about how much I hate summer but seriously winter should be all year long.

               

 

Wise Up

By Siri McGuire

Recently, I’ve been reflecting on the differences between the concepts of knowledge and wisdom.  To those of you in senior lit. this might sound familiar. This blog might seem somewhat out of place from the other winter themed Newspaper blogs this month, but this prompt from senior lit. got me thinking how to apply this concept to high school life.

Now I can give you the standard dictionary definition of wisdom and knowledge that we’ve all heard 100 times, so I’ll give you what pops into my head when I think of them. Knowledge, in my mind, is equated with facts, statistics, the ability to solve math problems, remembering historical dates, and yadda yadda yadda. It does not usually require you to search your soul and evolve as a person to truly understand, it just requires you to remember. Not that this isn’t important, it’s just half of the equation.

The other half is wisdom. Wisdom meaning that you’ve taken the stuff you’ve learned, practical, vocational, and/or academic, and you think about what it means. About yourself, about life, about who you want to be as a person. What you want to do better. Wisdom is not blindly reciting statistics or facts; it’s being able to take what you know and truly understand a situation in whatever context it’s in.

Okay! Time for a little social experiment. You ready? This might make you uncomfortable, but that’s the point. This is a total, true to life application of this idea.

Right now, think of a person that for whatever reason, you absolutely can’t stand. Somebody that just grinds your gears, rubs you the wrong way, or really fulfills any standard cliché for describing somebody that annoys you. Got it? Okay.

Now think: what do you think of them in terms of?  What do you think of when you think of them? The way they talk, the way they dress, the friends they have, an off-kilter laugh, an odd mole, that they show up to class late, or a story you heard about them?

These things are your statistics on the person, and as we can all admit, some of them may or may not be actually true. Nevertheless, these statistics represent what your knowledge is of this person, from what you’ve observed and gathered, true or not. Many choose to stop the process here, wanting to believe that truth lies on the outermost surface of a person, which I’m sure we can all testify usually isn’t true. Believing this is simpler and takes less effort, certainly. We all do it now and again, and it isn’t a crime.  But there is a responsibility that comes with knowing that your “statistics” on another person is only half of the equation, half the process.

If you are willing to take it a step further, continue.

Congratulations! You’ve made it to the next level! *Mario 1-Up noises chime in the distance*

So, with this person still in mind, I want you to think again about wisdom. The second half. Displaying wisdom in this situation means taking your basic knowledge of the person and assigning causes and human value to it. In essence, what makes this person the way that they are? Take what you know to be true about your own life, your knowledge your own circumstances, and apply it when you think about this person. There’s a lot more going on than what is always visible on the surface of any given person’s life.

Taking time to think about what is going on below said surface is not only practicing wisdom, but also basic human kindness and empathy, which can go a long way, especially for people who need it. When you begin to see the world through this lens of empathy, it’s very difficult to make it go away, and that’s a really good thing. Your word will be used in the direction of good, and not in a way that is mean to hurt another person.

One last thought to leave you with. This is a quote that has somewhat haunted me for the past several years ever since I heard it.

  “Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”

                                                                                                                                -Eleanor Roosevelt

Which one of these do you want to be? Stay wise, CHS.

 

My Favorite Winter to Date!

By Micah Fabarez

My favorite winter so far in my life happened this year on Christmas Day. This was the second time overall that I got to have my nephew over to my house. It was pretty awesome to have him over at my house along with my older brother and his girlfriend. I think it is clearly obvious who the kid got his good looks from! Anyway, it was really cool to get to spend more time with my nephew, who is not yet to the walking stage, but he is getting there! My brother allowed my family to pick him up a few days before Christmas. My mother had him all to herself and it let my brother and his girlfriend to relax and not have to worry about a baby to take care of. This allowed my whole family to be able to enjoy having Braedyn at our house. I think we can all say that we had fun, except maybe for my sister because she was the target for Braedyn’s projectile vomit! I thought it was pretty funny, but apparently she didn’t think so for some reason. The only thing that wasn’t spectacular about this visit was the fact that he had recently been sick and was still fighting it off. Thankfully it wasn’t serious or threatening, and he was basically pretty healthy when he was at my house. Unfortunately, my brother and his girlfriend took him back to their house L. At least we got to see some of him at our church’s Christmas Eve service. He was showing off to everyone there because he was the most dressed up out of the whole family!

My 6 Foot Snowman

By Amanda Lawrence

     A couple years ago, I set out to make a giant snowman. While building the snowman wouldn’t be too hard, keeping him alive during the snowy season would prove to be a challenge. The house where I built my snowman was directly in the path of many elementary boys who had previously proved their destructive behaviors (VILE NATURE). Many snowmen I had made before were destroyed almost immediately when these boys would walk by our house. However, I chose to accept the challenge, starting and completing my project during a weekend.

     I understand that it might not have been the greatest idea to create my masterpiece right next to the path of the elementary kids but I didn’t have many options. I set to work making the bottom of the snowman, realizing that it had to be huge to support a six-foot-tall snowman. I worked and made the bottom, stopping when I couldn’t push the ball anymore. However, the next layer proved to be even more challenging. Not only did this snowball have to be huge, I also had to lift it a few feet into the air to place it on the first snowball. After a few hours I was exhausted and went inside to warm up and rest.

     The next day I went back outside to finish my snowman. My snowman soon became too tall for me and I had to bring out a chair to finish it. I know, I know. It probably wasn’t the best idea to stand on a chair on an unbalanced, slick, and hard yard, especially with wet shoes, but I was on a mission and refused to quit until I had finished.

     My masterpiece was finished by the end of the day. I used Oreo’s for the mouth, a carrot for the nose, and a shoelace for his mouth. I then made my sister take a few pictures of my amazing creation and me.

 

 

     Of course, my great feeling could not last. I came home from school that week and saw my snowman after its destruction by elementary children. Actually, it was only half of my snowman. The rest was obliterated and scattered around the yard. I must say though, I was very proud of my snowman and wouldn’t hesitate to do it over.

Real Winter Memories

By Fernanda Santos

I grew up watching Christmas specials on TV. Seeing all the main characters playing in the snow, making snowmen and drinking hot chocolate was very painful for me, especially because, as some of you may know, I wasn’t born in Rio but in Brasilia. Brasilia is not only the capital of the country but literally smack-dab in the middle of it. This means no beach or hardly anything to do (I’m sorry people from Brasilia but you know it’s the truth).

Since no one is fully happy with what they have, I have obviously always loved cold weather instead of the heat. I’m not being unfair; I have great memories from winter break. Most of them, however, I honestly just spent tanning somewhere.

After I arrived here, it didn’t take very long until the subject of cold weather came up. When I heard that for the past couple of years Concordia’s winters weren’t very severe, it was like a punch in the face. To be very honest, if for the 10 months I spent here had no snow… I would be beyond mad and disappointed. And Apple, your awful weather forecast app giving me fake expectations was no help.

So here I was, an exchange student wanting nothing but a white Christmas. I was already getting fussy with the fact that winter was almost half way over and not even a single snowflake had fallen yet, that is until Wednesday the 19^th, the happiest night of my exchange year. During youth group I got a text from my dad saying “hey go look outside it is snowing”. No doubt I was the crazy girl trying to eat snow in the middle of the street (not even sorry). The next day we were given a late start so I went on I walk that I will never forget. I walked silently through this tiny town, so pretty and white, just like in the movies and how I always dreamed.

Since that first snow, there has been only one more big snow. I got to go sledding with my friends which was a lot of fun, drink hot chocolate, and almost had amputate my feet from the cold. I’m in love with winter and I’ll miss it more than most things in America. I cannot wait to go skiing in Colorado over spring break with my youth group. Speaking from experience, it’s better to roll with your friends in the snow, freezing, and then go for a coffee or something than roll in the hot sand and feel like a fried chicken for the rest of the day. So stop complaining, everyone. The snow will melt and it will all be over very soon. But for now, let me just live my dreams.

Which reminds me… I still have to build a snowman.