Issue 25 (2013-2014)

Issue 25 (September 30, 2013)

Sidebar

So Bad, so good...

AMC series Breaking Bad ended last night. I won't include any spoilers and istead give my predictions from before watching it:
"Walt bankrupts the Schwartzes and uses the money to help his family in some way that the DEA can't prevent. Walt kills all the Nazis with the M60 and in a final act of redemption saves Jesse by giving his own life. Todd escapes and flees to the Czech Republic with Lydia. Skyler and Marie make up and form the world's most dysfunctional family with Flynn and Holly. Someone gets Ricin'd, possibly Saul."

Due Dates

Seniors, your common app rough drafts are due to college counselors today. So are your update surveys. And your transcripts. Also: physics labs, lang papers, spanish lit notebooks making up 50% of your grade and math homework. But don't stress, those are all paper tigers.

In lighter news

Be grateful that it's not "the killing season" or worse "Black Wednesday". These are terms used by doctors for the week in July when new doctors join the National Health Services and hosptial fatalities increase by 6% due to their mistakes. Oh well, no use in crying over spilled blood transfusions as they say.

Shoutouts to Matt Healey

For such a great job formatting this sidebar. Also for getting last week's riddle correct. It was a French pun.

Congrats to everyone cast in Shorts!

Classical Music Quiz:

"Badadaduuuum *lowers voice* dadaduuuum"

Articles

My Ginsberg Story

By Matt Healey (DU Raconteur)

Last Monday, I went home promptly after school and went to bed hoping to regain some of the lost sleep from working on apps Sunday night. I was too beat to set an alarm and figured my mom would wake me up when she got home with the usual, "Why are you sleeping? Don't you have homework to do?" Fast forward a few hours to when I actually wake up. It seems strangely dark for six o clock. I look at my phone and realize it's in fact 9:30. Darn. I should really get started on my homework. I question why my parents didn't wake me up so I go looking for them, only to find that no one's home. I call my mom and ask, "Hey...are you and dad planning on coming home tonight? And did you leave any food for dinner or should I figure something out?" My mom responds, "Oh sorry honey! Dad and I totally forgot to tell you we wouldn't be home tonight and sorry I flaked on the dinner front. We're listening to Dr. Ginsberg to learn how to parent you better!" She didn't see the irony...

Things to point out about Dr. Ginsburg’s Speech, and Bishops in General

By Leo Li (DU Lucy Liu)

1) What Dr. Ginsburg said was 100% on par with what is going on right now; students are put into this paper-tiger illusion that SATs, your next math test, or colleges are what your future is hinged on. We burden ourselves with the responsibility to be “perfect” and “the ideal student.”

                2) Bishop’s specifically has a problem I like to call the Expectations Effect: The view of Bishops that it’s a great school of Renaissance scholars, star athletes and talented artists trickles down to the students, and then the students are convinced that they must also be all of those things, even if he/she isn’t, or doesn’t want to be, all of those things.

                3) Bishops, at times, sends wildly mixed signals. At times, we have speeches like Dr. Ginsburg’s or Chi Chi’s, which tell us to be who you are and do discard the “perfect” idealism. Then, when we head to our next class, our teachers say things like “I expected nothing less than perfection on this assignment,” or “Everyone should get an A on this next test.”

                4) Parents do really say, “You can be anything when you grow up, as long as you’re a doctor,” or “We love you, but you have to get an A.” This isn’t motivation. This is stress that parents induce on their children because they think it inspires them to work harder.

5) People will listen to speeches like Chi Chi’s, or Dr. Ginsburg’s, or this article, and be so convinced that the SAT coming up still determines their future, that they will ignore all of the above.