High School Confidential

By Rina Joshi

	Rina Joshi is a senior and the Arts and Ideas Editor for The Voice, Yorktown High School’s student newspaper.

The other day, my friend innocently probed me, “Why do you wake up in the morning?” With a blank stare upon my face, I wondered where this line of questioning was leading. After pondering for a few seconds, I awkwardly responded, in a monotonous tone, “To go to school, swimming, and hence to live my life.”

At that moment I realized, I was performing activities as an obligation, not of free will. Where was my drive to go to school? Where was my need to improve my timings for swimming? Where was the passion that everyone talks about when it comes to living life? I could not help thinking, “how do I ignite the fire within my belly?”

On dictionary.com passion is defined as, “strong amorous feeling or desire.” Passion can be compared to the concept of diminishing marginal utility in economics. As more of a product is consumed or a drive for a goal is increased, the additional satisfaction decreases.

For example, in Kindergarten we were eager to go to school, wake up in the morning, and do homework, even on the weekends! Some may call this childish innocence. Others would say, “It’s a child thirsting for knowledge.” Either way it is phrased, our desire to learn was beyond what words can describe. However, an increase in age, workload, and responsibilities caused everyone’s stress levels to skyrocket. The passion and desire slowly melted away. The magic that caused knowledge to be a driving force had disappeared amongst the many burdens we undertook.

Passion is a feeling that must come from within your soul. Without passion, life is not worth living. Donald Trump once said, “Without passion you don’t have energy, without energy you have nothing.” Is it the energy that kindles the fire within the soul? Or is it your mind that builds the ability to create a driving force? Either way, both push you to achieve the pinnacle of your limits, while enjoying the journey.

Passion has no boundaries and everything ceases to exist when you immerse yourself in its glory. Next time you decide to go through the humdrums of daily chores, do not forget to keep the flames of the fire burning. I guarantee that it will lift you to amazing heights.

Democracy is the will of the people … who vote

By Billy Cember

	Billy Cember is a senior at Briarcliff High School and writes for the student newspaper, The Briarcliff Bulletin.

Next November, I will be 18, and I will be a man. I plan on taking advantage of this manhood by going out alone at night and fulfilling my duty. Yes, I plan on voting.

For whom I don’t know, and for what I may not understand. But hey, they’re telling me on MTV to “Get out the Vote.” How can I do otherwise?

There is an American tradition since the 1960s that everyone can vote, no matter race, sex, wealth, intelligence, or knowledge. Nonetheless, democracy was rooted in the American Constitution. If anyone tries to become king, dictator, or some other dastardly character, he can be voted out—and there is no shortage of such politicians to put democracy to use.

Democracy, though, is neither infallible nor inherently propitious. As evidenced by elections in the Middle East and our two most recent presidential elections, the bad guys can and do win.

Let’s say that during the next election there’s a tornado or a new Simpsons episode, and only 10 percent of the population votes. Although there would be a greater chance for a candidate who does not reflect the will of the people to be elected, a candidate who reflects the will of the more knowledgeable, more passionate, and more leisured – in other words, those who do vote – would have a greater chance.

Electing incompetence
There is a duty to be familiar with political theory, economic practice, and the specific candidates—well, at least the first two. An uninformed vote is not a benign act. If everyone is incompetent, an incompetent candidate will prevail; if everyone is fundamentally religious, a fundamentalist will prevail; and if everyone is well-informed, a well-informed candidate will prevail. Democracy is the will not of the people but of the people who vote.
I delight when only half—rather than the whole—of the population votes. For then, my vote will count more; that is, it has a greater chance of being a deciding vote.

If Ron Paul decides to run on the Libertarian ticket, I’ll stop what I’m happily doing, drive to the firehouse, hopefully avoid waiting in line, and vote.

By John Luposello

	John Luposello is a junior at Somers High School, where he is on the staff of the school newspaper. His coursework includes AP English and Composition.

My spam folder is filled with emails from universities across the country, each urging me to call their guidance counselors who are so eager to meet (but not accept) me in the near future and schedule a tour. They beckon me to see their fabulous facilities and tell me how many titles their basketball team has won and why they deserve a check from my mother for $45,000+ a year.

“You’re a perfect fit!” they exclaim, joining a chorus of colleges who have competed for my attention the past year. Now that I’m a junior, it’s my turn to flatter them and tell them why they deserve a check from my mother for $45,000+ a year.

With January approaching, high school seniors start to feel the pressure of applying to the schools that look most appealing. “The most stressful part of applying is that you have to do so much in so little time,” explains Lauren Campbell, a senior at Somers High School and president of the school’s executive board.

Lea Bogner, president of Somers’ Class of 2008, adds, “Parents and counselors pressure us into taking the hardest classes and then applying to tons of schools. Then, to top it all off, you have people looking down on you if you don’t get into a Harvard or Yale. People base their opinions of you on where you’re applying.” With the applicant pool growing exponentially the past few years, the standards to get into college have risen just as quickly, and so have the pressures on the average teen, as expectations of counselors and parents can exceed reasonable levels.

Campus visits are key
As high schoolers visit campuses, sometimes returning more than once to first choices, colleges take note to track a student’s interest, a potential advantage in being accepted. Applicants no longer need to sell themselves and their attributes to admissions counselors, but instead are encouraged to fit the mold that admissions counselors from each school see as the ideal student for their university.

Tufts recently revealed that it reviews students’ essays looking for the theme of a certain attribute that appears on a list drafted by the college. They include creativity, wisdom, and practicality. If a student displays one or more of these “key” qualities of the university’s ideal student, the applicant is twice as likely to be accepted into Tufts.

This is one of many tricks to applying that are being picked up by desperate applicants in this year’s pool. Gone are the days of doing “good” on your SATs and having mommy and daddy drop you off the following fall at Yale, your dad’s old college stamping grounds.

In the end, most of us will find ourselves on our way to college with the family van packed to the brim, sacrificing a seat for your little brother for an extra garbage bag of Ramen noodles and bottled water. The majority of us will be happy with our choice of school and will look forward to the next four years of life on our own; that is, until we open our vacant wallets as we collapse into a sea of fast food wrappers, longing for one of mom’s plates of pasta or chocolate cake.

If I can stress anything to the Class of 2008, it’s to not worry, we’re going to do fine, regardless of what our critics may say. As you gaze at your computer monitor into a sea of spam mail urging you to pick any of a number of schools, just remember that college is more than air-conditioned dorms and how many titles the basketball team won.

Sure, your parents may have to shell out a small fortune to pay your way, but, hey, you might just learn a thing or two while you’re there.

By Hannah Berkman

	Hannah Berkman is co-Editor-in-Chief of the Briarcliff Bulletin at Briarcliff High School. This article is excerpted from a report she wrote for a five-week journalism program in summer 2007 at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

I really wanted to hate it. I wanted to emerge from the notorious tent laughing at all those people who actually wasted their time with such insignificant superficiality. Fashion Week, I had firmly decided, was merely a celebration of rich airheads’ intentional ignorance of the problems that plague our world.

Wearing absurdly painful and teetering heels so as to be less towered over by crowds of what I perceived to be 6-foot1-inch brainless women, I stepped onto the slate of Bryant Park. People eating lunch in the park gave me the New York once-over; I felt their eyes scan my ensemble and nearly heard them thinking I was just another fashionista on my way to watch the shows.

I wanted to shout at them, to tell them I was not like all the other shallow people they had seen pass by during the past week. I was there because it was a spectacle. I tipped my nose up, attempting to show them I did not actually buy into this absurd world of glamour and obsession with appearance.

As I entered the tent, I threw my judgments left and right, and maintained my squinty attempt at glaring eyes.

I spotted Carmen Electra reading lines for a camera. As she stumbled over the word “Parisian,” I rolled my eyes in disgust. At the Michael Kors show, sitting in my seat, arms crossed, I tried to refrain from people watching. But the excitement was contagious, and I knew the darkness of the room would mask my interest.

Bulbs flashed incessantly, and I traced them to photographers surrounding the likes of Maria Sharapova, Jay Manuele, Melania Trump, Anna Wintour, and Jessica Simpson. I let myself stand up to see them better; a small concession, I reasoned, because in the anonymity of the upper rows, I was invisible. I didn’t have to worry about people mistaking me for a superficial teenager.

Models in highlighter hues of pinks, blues, and greens stalked down the runway. Because I was sure that no one was looking, I subtly began bopping my head to the music. Models clomped down the runway, and they transformed before my eyes. Yes, they were still wearing exorbitantly priced bathing suit coverups. But with each passing garment, the clothes became more beautiful, more artistic and more verbal.

The clothes were a statement about people, about culture, about society. High waist lines evoked the Fifties, but more sheer, see-through components let on that as a society we are not about to regress into the closed-minded conservatism of that era. As much as I had tried to fight it, I had fallen under the spell. The clothes told a story that was entertaining and full of rich details.

When the lights came back on, I tried to resume my displeased persona. As much as I tried to supress them, my lips were turning up at the corners. I could no longer hide my excitement.

Shuffling in to the crowd exiting the show and returning to the main tent, I had an epiphany. By constantly worrying about appearing as though I had been enjoying myself, I had been even more superficial than I had perceived the event to be. There I was, highly concerned about how others saw me, and yet denouncing the shallowness of Fashion Week. While I was busy judging others, I had failed to recognize my own absurdity.

We all filed back into the main tent, and I realized that it was ok to let myself enjoy it. I opened my mind to a whole world I otherwise would never have experienced.