Ben Brenner, a senior at Somers High, last wrote for this column on Feb. 20, 2008.

It was my first year in Somers, my first day at Primrose Elementary School, my first 30 minutes of recess in the first grade. My only friend was my neighbor, Robby, and as I searched frantically for my missing friend, my curious eyes drifted towards the middle of the Primrose field.

Two sets of bright orange traffic cones rested 10 feet apart from each other on opposite sides of the field as a mob of first graders chased after the black and white ball rolling between them. That was my first experience with the game that would dominate the next decade of my life, the game that would introduce me to new people and places, and the game that would teach me how to win – and how to lose.

Since my first grade year, my life has been dedicated to soccer as I played on several club teams—among them, two teams ranked in the Top 50 nationwide – junior varsity and varsity. Countless camps, countless practices and countless games have left me with memories of fun, memories of torture, memories of victory, and memories of defeat.

I remember the highs and the lows, the goals scored and goals allowed, the games when I played every minute and the games when I never left the bench. I remember the cleats, from the $30 size four, synthetic Adidas, to the $200 kangaroo leather, futuristic size 10 Nikes.Yet, every new pair of cleats were accompanied by a new blister, every turf field accompanied by a dirt field, and every win accompanied by a loss.

As the end of my career looms closer, what am I left with – which memories are destined for permanence? I will never forget that soccer has escorted me around the country, from the most remote areas in Virginia to Disney World in Florida, and has gifted me with mentors and teammates. It has taught me not to take success for granted and has shown me that winning is not the only type of success.With three varsity coaches in four years, it has enabled me to deal with change, to transition, and to accept what is out of my control.

More than anything, I know the influence that soccer has had on my life extends far beyond the field, and the most important skills it has left me with have nothing to do with a ball. My soccer game has not lasted a mere 90 minutes, it has been stretched to 10 years, and it has coached me into the best condition of my life.

So have I left everything on the field? I am confident that when I finally untie my cleats and take off my shin-guards, I will have the satisfaction of knowing that my endurance lasted 10 years and that everything I have gained far ourweighs everything I have left behind.

	Heather Clausen is a senior at Hendrick Hudson High School.

We are in high school, which means we are invincible to everything. There is no such thing as death, injury, or disease. That is not until we are older – much older. Right?

This is my fourth and final year of walking the halls at Hendrick Hudson High School. We have been very lucky to not have suffered any tragedies like many other schools do, which may be the reason that so many of us think we are Superman.

I play for the varsity softball team. One of our teammates, Shannon, is the happiest person we know. We have never experienced a game or practice without her laughing hysterically or grinning from ear to ear. Unfortunately, she was diagnosed with cancer this year. We realized we were not so invincible after all and knew we had to step up to the plate and help her any way we can.

When I heard about the Stay Awake-A-Thon, I immediately thought of getting our team together to participate in this event in honor of Shannon. The Stay-Awake -A-Thon, which is on May 3 at Hen Hud High School, is a community event designed to celebrate with cancer survivors, remember those who lost their battle, and provide support and encouragement to those currently battling this horrible disease. You can stay for an hour, or all night!

We are hoping that Shannon will be able to join us at the event and participate in the survivor parade and other fun activities that will be going on all night including a live band playing music from the ’50s on up, family wacky relay races, karaoke, and much much more!

In order to raise money before the event, teams can do individual fundraising or team fundraising. We are doing several team fundraisers. Next week will be our main fundraising week. During the four lunch periods we will be holding a bake sale as well as selling lollipops. Also, we will be asking for donations and spare change. If we raise $1,000 or more, two of our teachers, Dr. Barcomb and Mr. Hallock, have agreed to shave their head in honor of all cancer victims!

We will also be hosting IPod Day where students will pay $1 in order to have the privilege of using their IPod for one day during study hall and lunch periods. In addition, we will have onsite fundraising which will include a pie-throwing booth!

No person should have to fight this terrible disease, especially someone so happy and so young. We need to find a cure for this. If you would like to make donations to Team Shannon please visit www.active.com/donate/cancerneversleeps/hhvs2007 or e-mail HClausen10@yahoo.com for information on how to send cash or check donations.

For more information about the event and how you can join us, visit www.henhudleos.org and follow the link to the Stay Awake-A-Thon.

Cancer never sleeps, and neither will we!

	Hannah Berkman is co-Editor-in-Chief of the Briarcliff Bulletin at Briarcliff High School.

Anyone growing up in today’s world has been exposed to enough prom references in pop culture to know basically how planning the event should go.

We’ve seen the trials and tribulations of Cameron and Joey as they plot to get Bianca to go to prom with them in the movie “10 Things I Hate About You.” We watched countless suntanned boys execute over-the-top gestures, most of them involving candles and limos, to ask their manicured counterparts to the prom on “Laguna Beach.” Ren won our hearts over in “Footloose” when he fought the authorities to protect the senior prom in all its holiness. We breathed a sigh of relief when Spicoli finally made it to the prom, despite his teacher’s attempts to keep him away, in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”

One common theme rings throughout all these pop culture staples. Prom is a huge deal, and planning it should be no less of an affair. At Briarcliff High School, this seems to be true as well.

There are undoubtedly elements of prom that must be planned months in advance. Finding a limo cannot be put off till June. Rates are ever-increasing, and availability is decreasing. Briarcliff students have not lost any time in organizing and booking their limos. However, they’ve also begun the processes of finding dates and dresses even earlier than last year – for an event that isn’t until June.

Whispers of “so-and-so’s already asked so-and-so to prom, and his ex-girlfriend doesn’t even know yet” started around February break. Back in March, such exchanges had become full-blown, out-loud conversations about those who have yet to find dates.

It’s easy to shrug and say that prom is silly and doesn’t mean anything.

It’s easy to be one of those people who act like they are above the anticipation of that one night at the end of their years in Briarcliff schools. It’s easy to say that prom is overrated. Prom is an event that sets itself up to be ridiculed as the most mainstream, corny American tradition that high school students regularly experience.

And yet, in renouncing prom, we are engaging in a practice that is possibly even more typical of teenagers than the fanfare itself. Without making the effort to make prom enjoyable, without trying to work it out in a way that fits our personal styles, those among us who renounce prom are participating in the single most conventional attitude that we as high school students are practically born with: feigned apathy.

When things don’t end up exactly how they were planned, the automatic reaction of people our age is to spit out something along the lines of “whatever, I don’t care.” (Although this phrase usually includes more harsh language that this newspaper can’t print.) Do we really not care or are we just copping out because we feel defeated by circumstances we think we can’t control?

Luckily, many of the trivial concerns we occupy ourselves with, such as prom dates and limos, are merely tests of personal attitude. So the person you wanted to go to prom with is taking someone else. So a junior has the same dress as you. So your group of friends is going in two different limos. The typical response of people in these situations is to turn against prom, to say that it is an overrated night that doesn’t have any bearing on our years in high school. And though prom may be built up to be more than it should be, we effectively rule out any possibility of having fun by assuming such a conventional attitude.

When it comes down to it, prom is just as much fun as we make it. If we feign apathy, pretend it doesn’t matter to us, and secretly sulk about everything that went wrong, we are doomed to go through the same motions of our miserable predecessors who renounced prom. But if we choose to enjoy it, to make the most of prom, we can not only surprise ourselves at how easy it is to make an attitude adjustment, but also we can have an incredible time. In the case of prom, but also so many life experiences, we really will get out what we put in.

Americans have long enjoyed watching people our age sweat over prom and whatever else comes our way because in the years of SATs, college admission, and innumerable physical and emotional changes, it’s easy to get “dazed and confused.” So perhaps the wisest advice we can listen to would be from someone who has not yet hit such an erratic stage. ‘Tween pop star Hannah Montana sings to thousands of 12-year-old girls at her concerts that “life’s what you make it.” Prom is revered as the ultimate celebration — a sendoff from our primary school education and to a certain extent, our childhoods.

We can choose to diminish its importance, or we can celebrate it.

	Rina Joshi is a sophomore at Yorktown High School. She is co-editor of the Arts and Ideas section of The Voice. In addition to writing, she enjoys dance and competitive swimming.

Have you ever noticed a garden? When one weed emerges, it causes several others to sprout around it. The same theory can be applied to religion.

The creation of the Bible sparked three different interpretations of the messiah, messenger of God. The Bhagavad-Gita created new ways and ideas to perceive Hinduism all across India. The list can continue on forever, since there are millions of ways to decipher god(s). To some people, religion means the world. But to others, such as those who are atheists, don’t care for God. Why is it so hard to accept others for their religious differences? What makes religion so dominating?

Religion is important to many people. It is evident that their passion for religion is so powerful that nations continue to be torn apart. For example, during the mid-1900s Muslims felt inferior to Hindus. Muslims wanted to be free of Hindu rule. They fought for a separation of India into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. As the war between Hindus and Muslims raged on, the clearer it became that they both fought for one apparent reason: religion.

Even the Arab/Israeli conflict was fought over Jews and Muslims. They fought to decide who the “sacred land,” Israel, truly belonged to. Arab Muslims believed Mohammad was the messiah, who made his mark on Israel; where as, the Jews believed otherwise. For years, Jews were tormented by the Arabs and left homeless. The conflict ended, as the Jews slowly began to prevail in gaining Israel. However, gaining Israel was all the Jews received. No one in the Middle East respected them, or attempted to acknowledge them. Today, Jews are still fighting a century-long battle against Anti-Semitism.

Religious discrimination doesn’t just occur in the world. If you look hard enough, you can see it in our schools. There are some religious groups who are not accepting of others and who cause a lot of tension throughout the student body.

Through the eyes of a Hindu girl, I perceive school and academics differently than a Christian girl. That is not to say I’m less dedicated to my work, nor is the other girl. I’m just saying our religious backgrounds have a huge say in the way we understand and accept certain aspects placed in our lives.

Our school seems like a diverse learning center; even with a very small minority population .We still seem to see a good variety of religions walking the halls. However, some students are more accepting of religions than others. There have been numerous instances where a fight has broke out over a difference in religion. We are one family, one student body, and no matter how different we seem to be, we really are not.

I agree that religion is a huge part of life, if you choose to believe in God. But is that the only thing that separates Hindus and Muslims or Jews and Muslims? What it all comes down to is knowing that there is always someone to believe in, whether it is after death or during a tough situation. Religion is a reason to have faith, and to be spiritually connected, not only with the environment but with others.

Why is it so hard for the world to come to an agreement that religion is based on peace and having pride in who you are? What is the big deal about another man or woman sitting next to you on the train believing in a different religion? As long as you know that your messiah, bhagwan, prophet, or however you would like to word it, exists, then all is well.

Religion is a complex and nail-biting concept. It exists not only in the real world, but in our small community in school. Accept those who are different and learn from them, because that is the only way our hearts learn to love, and our minds begin to understand life.

	The author is a sophmore at Briarcliff High School, where he is arts editor and writer for student newspaper The Briarcliff Bulletin.

You know how some people find little tidbits about other people to be extremely fascinating and interesting? Well, there’s one fact about me that really seems to excite people when they find out about it.

I am a triplet.

Now, I know of at least two other people who find it as equally uninteresting as I do, however, I also know of a ton more people that find it completely spellbinding. All my life there has been excitement over the fact that I am a triplet and, to me, that’s nuts.

People tend to ask really ridiculous questions. For instance, after finding out that two of my siblings and I, two girls and a boy, make up a set of triplets, we still get the coveted, “Are you guys, like… identical!?” Just to clear that up…no. No, we are not. My sister has brown hair, I have blonde hair, and… my brother is a boy.

Then there’s the ever so popular telepathy question. Once, my brother and I made up a series of questions and answers for the question, “Can you read each others’ minds?” For example, I would say to the inquisitor, “OK, tell me to pick a number and I’ll bet Alex can tell you what number I’m thinking of.”

Of course, we’d already have it planned out in our secret code what number we would pick and we would proceed to boggle people’s minds with our little trick. But truthfully, Alex, Rachel, and I do not have telepathy and I’ll bet if you ask them if we have telepathy, they’ll say no too.

But the one question that we get most often is: “What’s it like being a triplet?”

Now don’t get me wrong. I understand that it is rare and that it is a little interesting, but what kind of question is that? I’ll bet nobody asks you what it’s like to be a singleton. Well, that might not be true. When people ask me what it’s like to be a triplet, I almost always respond, “I don’t know. What’s it like being not a triplet?”

It’s a tough question to answer because I’ve been a triplet ever since I was born. I’d like to think that it’s just like having other siblings close to your age. We’re all different, have different interests, and stuff like that. Believe it or not, recently, after discovering I was a triplet someone replied, “So, there are three of you!” No; there is one of me, there is one of Rachel, and one of Alex. That reaction, in all fairness, made my day. I mean, it was really funny.

I hope to enlighten past and future triplet inquisitors all over the county; all over the world, for that matter! Sure we are statistically special, but in reality we’re no different than any other singleton or any other multiple you will ever meet.

Although my siblings and I get little kicks and giggles out of the silly questions we get asked, I am formally asking you, reader, to think before speaking. Realize that a boy will not be identical to a girl. Realize that telepathy is a gift that only Jedis have. And most of all, realize that triplets are just three singletons born at once who can excite people with one sentence: “Did you know I’m a triplet?”