Amelia Benamara

The First Two Years of High School

May 13, 2019 by Amelia Benamara Leave a Comment

Staff Writer

Lily Bromley

This school year is officially almost over! And when it is done, I will be halfway finished with high school. The first two years of high school are portrayed as the time when you find your place in high school, determine who your true friends are, and to overall find out who you are going to be in for the next two years. I have learned a lot over these two years and I think I can genuinely say that I have grown as a person during this time.

There is a lot of misinformation when it comes to high school and if it isn’t misinformation, then it just doesn’t apply to SLA. The idea of jocks, mean girls, bullies stealing lunch money, haven’t applied to any of my experiences in high school so far. Of course, it hasn’t all been perfect. There are mean people and bad situations just like anything else, but overall I think that high school has been a lot more positive then usually depicted.

I would like to pass on my extensive knowledge of life as an underclassman, maybe you can navigate these two years a little bit better.

In terms of portrayal, I think that movies and TV shows do freshman year best. In the first couple of weeks of my first year of high school, my classmates and I had to deal with some harsh words from the older kids. I remember walking down the hallways while students loudly exclaimed: “I Hate Freshmen!” Granted, this only lasted for a couple of weeks, but while it happened it really sucked. Of course, as a sophomore, I allowed myself a couple “I Hate Freshmen” at the beginning of the year (It’s kind of a right of passage in my opinion). My advice would be to take your time. If your confused about what band it is or what room your next class is in, move to the non-locker side of the hallway and figure it out. Most people would be happy to help you, so don’t be afraid to ask. What makes everything worse is when people stand directly in the middle of the hallway, turning in circles or yelling for their friends, so to keep the freshman-shaming to a minimum, try to avoid this.

Another big concern in Freshman year is friends. For me, the group of people that I hung out with at school drastically changed over the year. In the beginning, I think that everyone is just looking for someone friendly to talk too. Once the stream started to get to know each other better, people were able to make friends that they had things in common with. My main piece of advice is to be friendly to everyone! It’s not a good idea to start any drama in the first couple of weeks, especially since you are going to have to be around the same group of people for the rest of the year!

When it comes to sophomore year, it can seem like everyone is really set in the status quo. People have made their friendships and might be wary to meet and talk to new people. My biggest piece of advice is to continue talking to new people, it’s not uncommon for your friend groups to shift in high school, especially when you start having classes with people you may have never even had a conversation with.

My advice for anyone about to tackle their first two years of high school is to enjoy themselves. Freshmen year is about having fun and finding your footing in your new environment. Sophomore year is the first year that you feel comfortable with your place.

Overall, high school is hard and sometimes it can seem like it will never end. Being halfway there makes me feel conflicted, on one hand, I’m excited to be an upperclassman, but on the other, I’m sad to leave my underclassman years behind me.

Vaping in the Bathroom

March 21, 2019 by Amelia Benamara Leave a Comment

Sukainah Hasan

Staff Writer

It has come to the attention of both the students and teachers at Science Leadership Academy that students are vaping in the building. The most common place for students to vape is in the bathroom. They will either step out of class to do it or during their lunch.

On March 11th, a note in the advisory memo stated how much of a problem vaping has been during school hours and with a reminder about how vaping is not allowed at SLA. Also, it stated that if students are caught vaping anywhere on school grounds, they could get suspended.

In my advisory, Ms. Siswick explained how if we are found in the bathroom with people that are actually smoking, there is a possibility that all of us would be suspended for it.

I don’t like this at all. I feel as though that instead of blaming everyone that is in the bathroom, drug test should be provided to see who’s guilty and who’s not. Not everyone is apart of doing drugs, so not everyone should be blamed for it.

I asked Ms. Siswick to explain more about her statement that other students could get in trouble if found in the bathroom while vaping was occurring.

“When it comes to students vaping in the bathroom, we will come to the conclusion if who’s guilty and who’s not,” Ms.Siswick explained. “For example, if two students are smoking next to the window, while another student is washing their hands, if a teacher walk in, they will know who was smoking and who wasn’t.”

Her comments reflected that teachers are capable of observing who’s doing what by the actions they are pursuing. Also, part of the reason why this is a big problem is because tobacco and nicotine is illegal for students to do.

I think that, if students want to do drugs, they should do it outside of school, so that they don’t potentially ruin other student records. And overall, students should save all smoking activities outside of school. What’s the point of even doing it in school if all your going to do is get in trouble?

Intimidation of Journalists

December 17, 2018 by Amelia Benamara Leave a Comment

Faryn Heffer

Staff Writer

Journalism is a very important part of our lives, and while it is a big factor it can also have many sides to it. Journalists give us the most information about what is going on in our world. Different news sources may all tell the same story but told a different way.

From Washington D.C. to Florida and from New York to Los Angeles, at least 14 pipe bombs had been addressed to CNN headquarters, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and many more influential people. The fact that the bombs were planted only 5 hours after Trump tweeted “fake news” was very suspicious. The pipe bombs were targeted at people who Donald Trump had mostly criticized. A southern man called CNN headquarters saying 5 bombs had been placed through CNN headquarters. CNN was then evacuated and hours later was given the all clear.

Another incident including Jamal Khashoggi, a missing journalist who was interrogated, tortured, and then dismembered. Khashoggi was in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul when this happened. Khashoggi was a frequent contributor in Washington Post’s global opinions section. Khashoggi was killed by a team of Saudi agents with orders from the highest levels.

These Khashoggi and journalists at CNN are being targeted. But why? Is it because of what they say that upset people? Do they hold information they shouldn’t be? Some of you might be asking, what’s the big deal. There is no reason for violence in any situation. Especially towards people who are just doing their job.

Journalism has begun to turn into a scary thing. Journalists should not have to hold back information because they are frightened of what may happen. Journalists report breaking news to us and give us the information about the world we need to know. Without them, we would all be in the dark.

The world would fall apart without journalism. No information about any events around the world would be reported. We would not be able to communicate with other countries. People would not be able to get their opinions out about events or tragedies that take place around the world. Countries all over the world would not be able to communicate with each other and that would lead to not knowing if countries were allies or not.

Threats have been made and people are worried. Some people are angry because they believe journalists lie to them and twist the truth. The intimidation of journalists has not gotten any better, and may only get worse.

Column: Senioritis At Its Finest

October 27, 2018 by Amelia Benamara Leave a Comment

Amelia Benamara

Staff Writer

Only a little over a month into the 2018 senior year, students already have senioritis. This isn’t shocking to teachers and staff at SLA, but students did not expect this so early in the year.

Senior Breakfast 2018.
Photo was taken by Pearl Jonas.

There are multiple students who decided to commit to the Early Action or Early Decision deadlines due just at the start of November — a date that’s soon to come. More seniors take daily trips to the college office as November 1st inches closer.

One of these students struggling is me. Like many of my fellow seniors, I have decided to commit to the early action decision for most of the colleges on my list. This summer, I was given the advice to do early action and to prepare for the fall because it will be hard to balance college applications and school work. I prepared myself less than I should have this summer, and now I am regretting it.

I was enrolled in a college course, continuing my internship, and working on top of that which made it difficult to prepare anything for college with the very little free time I had. I realized that as I get older and closer to being an adult, I have less time on my hands — even during the summer. The shocking part is that I grew so fond of staying busy that when I see myself unoccupied, it feels unusual.

I came into school thinking that senior year — at least just the fall semester — wouldn’t be stressful and that teachers would take it easy on us, but I sadly thought wrong. I have never felt more stressed in my life. Everything that can possibly go wrong has gone wrong. Talk about perfect timing!

The application process isn’t stopping teachers from piling work on top of students. This is part of being young adults who are soon to enter college. Stress? We haven’t run into real stress just yet.

The amount of panic attacks and tears I have witnessed so far this year is unexpected. Ms. Hirschfield’s (SLA’s college counselor) office does the best she can, however, the amount of stress towards the college process is understandable, as the senior class is huge.

In my opinion, SLA’s system for seniors in the college application process is a bit flawed. The process everyone is taking is very individual where they go through their own process and if help is needed they take a trip to the counselor’s office. However, the problem with this is that there are way too many people who do not know what they are expected to be doing.

Another reason for the stress that seniors have is the many low SAT scores. I constantly wonder why a school like Central has very high averages for the SAT until I found out that Central students are required to take an SAT prep class all throughout their high school years. SLA is a project based school which is more the reason why an SAT prep class should be required. Now, multiple seniors are stressing about their low SAT scores because of the fact that SLA has given no amount of test prep all throughout the 3 years of their high school experience.

Is this level of stress avoidable? Or is this all planned to push students to learn skills for serious responsibility before college? Either way, this is only a phase which will soon be over. The senior activities planned for the rest of the year are soon to come almost like a stress reliever because, at the end of the day, we will all miss High School — the good that comes with it and as well as the stress.

Column: PSAT Memes Taking Over

October 26, 2018 by Amelia Benamara Leave a Comment

Lauren Nicolella

Staff Writer

Screenshots of Twitter tweets under #PSAT2017

Dolphins, tomatoes, shrimp, what else could be needed in a practice standardized test? Many students end up making memes out of the content in the PSATs. These memes end up being very humorous –

– but only to the test takers who took the same test that day. They are the only ones that reference portions of the test that the majority have the same opinion on. However, they are discussed vaguely enough their scores cannot be canceled.

When you take the PSAT, it is required to sign the test acknowledging that you will not share its information online. However, that’s exactly what people decide to do anyway — vaguely or not.

I personally get paranoid about posting online, so instead, I watch the memes from afar and laugh about it with my friends in real life. Since I saw that the official College Board Twitter account was acknowledging students posting online, I made sure to back away and directly message instead of publicly commenting.

Being a senior, I missed out on the PSAT jokes this year, due to having to take the real SAT. This makes now makes me feel old like a middle-aged woman who doesn’t understand the new and hip memes that the kids are into. I accessed the PSAT hashtag the day everyone took them but because I hadn’t taken the same test the younger classmen took this year, I failed to understand the content the memes.

I was observing what was being said about this year’s test, what kind of reading could have been included to have a large number of students answer questions about superweeds and Chinese soldiers? It just doesn’t make sense that random topics of two completely different things are put in for students to read about.

When it came time for testing, being aware of the memes made me look forward to testing in high school, making the idea more bearable. I can remember sitting in class almost completing the last section, itching to move around

and talk to someone about the ridiculous mention of a “shrimp husband” in one of the English segments.

I didn’t notice anything specific when it came to the math section, probably because everyone was actually focused on just getting through it without any complications. I know I blocked the math section out of my brain, I probably didn’t do as well as I wanted.

Regardless, these memes exist for a reason. Emotionally, I probably wouldn’t have been able to make it if I didn’t have a dumb sense of humor with my friends. It is inappropriate to discuss the test questions, but I don’t think it’s doing any harm. It is a stressful time for students to have to sit still for five hours and put their brain to work, so the least we can do is look forward to some laughs after it’s done.