Cringe. By Owen Welsh

Even my captions were awful

If you've ever written something before, (which I'm sure at least a few of you have) you know that after a period of time, say six months or so, if you look back at it you'll think "Wow what was I thinking, god this is awful.". This happens without fail to most things we do, as soon as a hobby becomes uninteresting we quickly grow detached and repulsed by the idea of ever being a part of that community. Yet even if we recognize this vicious cycle of love to hatred, we still repeat it day after day and year after year until suddenly you're in your mid-fifties with your kids moving out and you realize that you pushed away every friend you did have just to satisfy the wants of other people.

But I can't just let you sit through the ramblings of 15 year-old High Schooler without some sort of anecdotal evidence to back up my claim. If you took a cursory glance at this blog back around October of 2016, you would have noticed a post entitled, "Desks are important too!" It even included an exclamation mark in the title to show my faux enthusiasm for the topic of desks. Reading through it now, I can tell you that the content is mediocre at best, the post just states lists and the reasons why I selected a particular part of each list, not quite the next Tolstoy. Though at the time I felt as though Shakespeare had risen out of his grave and possessed my pale and dainty hands as I wrote the ballad of desks in an English classroom. Looking back at my sonnet now, however, tells me how I'd be insulting any famous writer by even thinking about comparing my work to theirs.

Yet I still fall into the same trap as before, I still look at my work now as if it is the best thing I'll ever write in my time on this pale blue dot, even as I know that by the time the school starts up again I'll forget about my current feelings and look upon this very blog post with disgust and disdain. The frustration this realization causes is unimaginable, the fact that your best work will never actually be your best work kills all motivation to continue, and is the basis of the philosophy of Nihilism. Nihilism states that if you aren't furthering anything with your actions, you shouldn't do it, yet by pursuing these futile attempts at writing, I'm furthering myself to become a better writer and thus eclipse my previous ideas. So I resign myself to this infinite cycle of progression and disdain towards my erroneous ways, as the only thing a person can do is to endeavor to try.

Chairs are also Important! By Alyssa Stouch

A similar model to my beloved chair

Recently one of our classmates, Owen Welsh, published a post describing the importance of desks in the classroom. As moved as I was by this unique piece of writing, I felt as though he left out a very important contributor to one's overall comfort in school. Surely, the desk is the place you lean when you feel tiresome and writing is done best on a leveled and smooth surface, but the chair in which you sit on will truly affect your performance. There is nothing more irritating than sitting on a cold plastic chair, where one of the front legs is three centimeters shorter than the other legs, and the entire period all you do is awkwardly wobble back and forth as you shift your weight. But just when the situation could not be any more uncomfortable for you and the people around you, the room gets silent in preparation for a quiz, and as you place your body onto the chair you discover you are sitting in the squeaky chair. Yes, we've all been there and we all dread it the same. Cringing every time the seat squeals is very distracting especially during a test because the whole class period I focus on being as still as I can to save myself from the pain and embarrassment. Then came the day my life was changed. I walked into Mrs. Kopp's class and found an old cushioned chair parked in front of my little desk. This beautiful worn out seat included features such as, faded red padding along the top and side, to provide maximum comfort for your back and bum. It was so oversized it could not fully tuck between the legs of my desk. This was the type of chair you would find in the exclusive dining halls of the school, (more commonly known as the teachers lounge) or maybe in the waiting room at the dentist or doctor's office. I loved every inch of this chair and my heart was broken when I discovered it had been moved to another area of the room. I mourned for my seat like  king Hrothgar mourned for Aeschere when he had been taken away. Although our time together was short, it was satisfactory and I do one day hope my cloud of cotton returns to me. As Owen stated previously, location, classmates, and view all contribute greatly to a students capability to concentrate, and feel comfortable, but these again are not the only factors involved. I never understood the value and importance of chairs in a classroom until I situtated myself between those two cushions, and now I strongly believe that the furniture a student is given will impact their performance in class.

Desks are important too! By Owen Welsh

      Desks, everyone uses them, and if you're like me, then you want the best desk possible, preferably one next to a heater or with some sort of beautiful view of nature, you get the picture. So naturally both my curiosity and interest were piqued when Mrs. Kopp mentioned new desks were arriving, my mind dared to hope for one of the new whiteboard desks. Acquiring one of these new desks was merely step one to achieving ultimate comfort while in my English class. Three more factors had to be considered; people, location, and view, allow me to elaborate on each of these. First we have people, which mainly boils down to who will be with you at your desk or in close proximity, I would want to stay near to the people I started out sitting with, as they don't smell badly and I can't confirm that for any of the other students. Moving onto location, this is simply where the desk will be placed, there are three good locations for a desk; by the door, by a window, and by a heater. Each of these three locations offer their own individual services for your pleasure, being by the door means being the first one out when the bell rings, usually a very critical thing to have, however I don't have to travel far for my next class so it doesn't really matter. Next on the list is having your next located near a window, it seems like a no brainer to have that beautiful view of the Sparta High School parking lot,    but I maintain that it would be a distraction in the long run, so being by a heater is my preferred option for those cold winter days. Finally the last factor is view, so what constitutes a good view of the teacher, and the board at large? Well there is a few things to consider, such as distance and the height of people in front of you, ideally I would be at the centre back, not too close to be constantly called upon, not too far to able to properly see. After considering all these factors, I realized that the perfect location was to the west as I walked into the room, now this desk already had inhabitants and the new desks had already been placed elsewhere, so I'll have to settle with taking the best chair in the room and sitting at my normal, whiteboard-less desk.

 A picture of a beautiful, whiteboard-less desk.