Student Artist freshman Braden Schroeder
Tag Archives: Spotlight
The Big Apple: live blogging from senior Jared Murray
By Jared Murray
Guest Reporter
It’s 5:05 am on Feb. 28, and we are only in Pennsylvania after sitting in traffic for two hours waiting for a wreck to be cleared. The kids in the back are laughing hysterically, attempting to recreate musical numbers from Pitch Perfect, and going slightly insane from lack of sleep and possibly considering canibalism due to severe hunger pains. The adults in the front are probably frowning at us, wishing they could put us to sleep for the rest of the trip. After that exhausting two hours of waiting for a plethora of fire trucks to put out a flaming semi, I’m ready to sleep for the rest of the ride up, but I doubt that will happen now that everyone is riled up about how close we are. And if you’re still wondering, we haven’t resorted to eating each other. . . Yet.
Make sure to keep checking the Bagpiper Online for more updates on our travels!
Student spotlight: Sophomore Grey Peterson
Columnist holds beliefs of accepting others for their differences
By: Claire Gapsis
Growing up I have attended a Unitarian church. The basic idea of Unitarians is to create your own belief and ideas, accept people and their beliefs, and to respect everything. As I progressed through the religious education classes I learned about world religions and the stories of the bible. Once a month the church would come together as a whole and have a Celebration of Life service; sometimes taking form of a Day of the Dead service. For Christmas we would light all the candles on the Menorah, sing holiday songs, carry out a Yule Log and have a moment of silence in a darkened sanctuary that was lit by everyone’s candle. Sounds accepting, loving, and just fabulous, right? It was! I felt I was living the life; I was not being told how to believe or what to believe in.
Things changed, though; in seventh and eighth grade the kids enter a program called Coming of Age that helps us identify our beliefs. I had a hard time because growing up in such an open environment I had no input or direction for what I should believe in. That was the point, though, to figure out what I believed in. It was just too hard for me to pinpoint what exactly pushed me forward and woke me up everyday; what I looked to in my troubling times. In the end I just slapped different religions together – mostly Buddhism and what now seems to be Native American beliefs.
What changed me, though, was not the struggle or the self-reflection but the acceptance my church gave me, embracing my ideas and loving me even more for them. This is when a new belief fell into place. Variety and individualism are beautiful and necessary. It also is not limited to religion but includes the people I meet and my every day happenings. I search for the differences in people and learn to love them for the beauty their difference gives them. People often say uniqueness is good but they hardly ever look at it and say, ‘This is beautiful.’
Everyday I find something different and say to myself, ‘I accept this unconventional beauty.’ This, I believe.
Transition
By Senior A.J. Adams
The leaves drop in an auburn waterfall, falling down into the soil of the earth
Rusting in the wind, go and hear her call, when Mother Nature states a season’s birth
Hot to warm, warm to cool, then cool to cold, Fall is of course a season of contrast
Leaves of green are now colors brightly bold, That the wind’s fine blade cut through as it passed
The trees and animals shut their front doors, and prepare for the pale blanket to fall
The birds align and travel to the shores, of the tropical islands, big or small
So shut out your eyes and see with your ears, and watch the transition as fall
appears