Reflection

            I thoroughly enjoyed this film. It was very interesting and made me think about how truthful the news really is. I had never thought about the fact that news could be fictional. We wouldn’t know the difference unless it was brought to our attention or we dug for the truth ourselves.  The movie was very well produced and was very relevant to me due to me wanting to go into the journalism field. Not so much written journalism, but it definitely has its similarities. It kept my interest the whole way through and it was a very good choice of movie for this class.

Like the movie, I deeply enjoyed this class because it was taught by one of my favorite teachers as well as it being relevant in my life. It taught me the importance of written journalism in a world where it seems to be fading out. I liked the feature piece just because it gave me a chance to dig deeper into my past and then translate that into words. I wasn’t a fan of all of the notes at the beginning of the quarter, but hey, that’s part of school. It was a very eye-opening course and I’m very glad that I took it.

RocketBoard

Editorial

                With spring sports well underway for the 2011 season, many teams have gotten into a groove of when and where practices are each day. All of the athletes know where they need to be for game times and are always certain that they have priority over lesser sports. But this is not the case for Eastview’s zEUs Ultimate Frisbee team. Since the team is student run and organized, they do not have priority over even middle school teams.

                It is extremely frustrating for the team when they are getting all warmed up for a big rivalry game and then all of a sudden, the coach for a 7^th grade girls lacrosse B team comes up to the captains and says “Hey guys, we have this field checked out from six to eight o’clock.” Where is the team supposed to play now?

                Even during practice they get booted to the small soccer field behind the stadiums bleachers. The field is uneven, has many divots, random patches of dirt, and is usually covered in goose feces. This team has been around longer than the girl’s varsity lacrosse team and yet they still have zero priority over sports that are actually school sanctioned. It is unfair to the team that they still don’t get the respect they deserve even though it is popular with students and is a much enjoyed sport to watch for the parents and friends of the players.

                It is a lose-lose for the team because then if the school did sanction the team, the students would have to pay for a mandatory bus fee for away games instead of just carpooling, they would have to drop their name of zEUs, which has been a player favorite for years, for Lightning Ultimate, and they would not get to enjoy the simple freedoms of being their own players because the school would have to sign their own coach instead of the players choosing their own adult leader. The team is in between a rock and a hard place.

                If they were to get sanctioned, they could have priority of fields over lesser sports, they would get due recognition for their achievements, and they could be supported by the school. There is a lot of give and take here for the team.

                Until something gets fixed, the team has simply decided to buckle down and work through the adversity and play the game they love.

Editorial Questions

1. What is a problem/issue that our entire student body (our school, community, country, etc.) faces today?
The issue is how the zEUs ultimate frisbee team always gets jipped on field choice and isn't sanctioned by the school even though it is a legitimate sport that students are interested in.

2. What is your view/position on the problem or situation?
My opinion is I am frustrated about it being a member of the team. It gets annoying when 4th grade girls lacrosse get priority over us just because they are an organized sport.

3. What would you like to achieve with your editorial? (What is the desired result?)
I would like the school to see how prominant the team is getting and that we deserve to have more respect compared to other sports.

4. How will you persuade your audience to adopt your viewpoint as theirs? List at least 4 persuasive points.
I will show how important this sport is to many students and parents that that it isn't getting the respect it desereves.

5. How will you motivate your readership to action in your conclusion?
I will show how hard we work and how much we deserve to be treated like any other team in this school.

6. How will your editorial serve a public purpose?

The team might get some time in the spotlight which means that we could get our foot in the door and maybe it will lead to more prominance in the high school sports world.

Revisions

I revised Averi Haugesag's (ahaugesag.blogspot.com) story about her uncle and Kelly Schueler's (kellyschueler.blogspot.com) story about her birthday.

Modern Day Miracle

Modern-Day Miracle

When a young couple finds out that they are pregnant, many questions, concerns, dreams and ideas come rushing through their minds. Will it be a boy? Will it have your eyes or mine? What should we name it? What color should we paint its room? These are some of the most common questions asked by expecting parents. But what happens when the concerns run deeper than will it have brown hair or blonde? This was the case for two young Minneapolis parents when they went in for a routine ultrasound and discovered some unsettling news.

                Jeff and Erin had been happily married for over six years at this point. They had 2 young boys; one was five and the other who had just turned 3. They lived a comfortable life in their Rosemount home with Jeff working and Erin staying home with the boys. Life was good. They then made the decision that two children just weren’t enough. This is when they found out that they can be expecting a third.

                Everything was going well during the first couple weeks of pregnancy. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Life continued on the way it always had. Go to work. Bring boys to swimming lessons. Make dinner. Take boys on a bike ride. Put them to bed. Repeat.

                But soon, the young couple was due to go in for a routine ultrasound. All of the normal excitements of pregnancy rode with them as they drove up I-35 E on their way to the hospital. Little did they know that their excitements would soon be replaced by dread.

                As the small picture was being displayed onto the screen, the doctor noticed something that wasn’t there before. The young embryos head was almost twice the size that it should be. A common symptom of a brain disorder called Prosencephaly. This means that the area that should’ve separated the two hemispheres of the brain was not there. They were connected by a lateral ventricle. The news shocked the couple to the deepest part of their being.

                What had they done that was deserving of having their child be born with such an ailment? What started with the couple being curious about color the child’s eyes would be turned into will our child take its first breath. The doctors did not give any hope for the child lasting through the full-term of the pregnancy, much less a few hours after entering this cold world. The doctors simply explained that it is better to start preparing to continue their lives with two young boys instead of three.

                But Jeff and Erin wouldn’t take any of it. Being strong Christians, they prayed and prayed and prayed some more. Pleading with God to let their child live. Getting angry with God about putting such a burden upon their shoulders. Many tears were shed and many late nights were filled with the young couple wondering what sort of impact this would have on their lives.

                They continued going to weekly ultrasounds only to discover a growing list of disabilities that were embodied by their unborn son. The child would be born blind. He would have to have numerous surgeries done to fix his skull. He would have to have a shunt placed near his brain stem to drain the excess fluid from his head. He would have to endure many painful treatments just so that he could hold onto the life that hadn’t even been able to start yet. The young parents knew that there wasn’t much hope for the child to have a fulfilling life and that his disabilities would far outweigh his abilities by the dozens. The only action they could take is to treat the pregnancy like any other, pray, and hope for the best. 

                The pregnancy was carried all the way through a little over 8 months when finally the doctors decided that it was time for the baby to be born for the best chance of survival. The best chance for survival. That was what the couple had to hope for. They weren’t hoping for their child to be an athletic all-star. They weren’t hoping for their child to be a straight A student. They were hoping for their child to take his first breath. No parent should ever even have to consider that.

                It was time for the baby to enter this world. Erin had to endure her second C-section. Jeff had to watch as the woman he loved was faced with one of the hardest moments of her life; giving birth to what doctors expected to be living vegetable. The child was extracted from the womb and immediately wrapped in blankets and brought to various machines to have tests run. What happened next cannot be described by modern-day medicine.

                The child took his first breath. Then his second. Then his third. The medical experts were speechless. Although the baby boy was severely disabled, he was living on his own power.

                That was the day that prayers were answered and tears were dried. Zachary Jacob Wipf was born August, 21^st, 1995.

                After a few weeks of hospitalization undergoing numerous surgeries, the couple was able to bring the young child home. Life was still very difficult for the young parents. An ambulance would wait outside the house 24 hours a day for several days after the homecoming. Every time the child was put down for bed, it was a constant nightmare. The parents never knew that if that night would be the night that their child wouldn’t be breathing when they would check on him. They never knew whether or not their family would stay at five members or dissolve back to four.

                Although the child was alive, the doctors gave little to no hope of the child’s life ever amounting to anything. They gave him less than a month to live --- at best. The family had already started making funeral arrangements for their infant son. Family members were being called, invitations were being sent out and the poor child was still holding onto life with his small, chubby hand.

                Weeks past by and Zach was still around. The on duty paramedics had not been needed any longer. Zach was starting to make progress as well. The doctors had said he was born completely blind, but he had made a breakthrough when he reached up and touched his young mothers face and looked her directly in the eye. Erin was ecstatic as she called Jeff at work to tell him the news.

                Life was looking up for the family of five. That was the late part of 1995 and the early part of 1996. Today is May 5^th, 2011. Almost 16 years after the birth of the miracle child. As I write this story, Zachary is sitting about 5 classrooms down from me as a freshman in high school. The boy that doctors thought wouldn’t be able to do much of anything with his life is almost 16, is reading at a 10^th grade level, and is like any other high school freshman. He can talk with only minute differences from typical speech, and he can be as sociable as anybody else in the school.

                Zachary also happens to be my little brother and I can’t imagine life without him in the family.



Online Dangers Story: Revision by Averi Haugesag

            On Wednesday, April 20^th, Eastview high school was alarmed to see what a sophomore student had posted on his Facebook wall as well as on his Twitter account. These posts  contained aggressive, eerie, and threatening meanings that the school administration just couldn’t look  past. The updates, speculated by those close to the student, were a result of a constant struggle with hurtful words and exclusive actions made by other students.

            Facebook and Twitter has become the bullet to many destroyed careers and educations. In Eastview’s case, the student was expelled and immediately brought to a detention center until the police department and the school’s administration could Take proper action.         After the incident, many students were unsure  how the situation had been resolved. The current status of what had happened was still a mysterious combination of online rumors and speculated ideas conjured up by ignorant high school students.

 “I didn’t know what to believe,” says senior Averi Haugesag. “I wasn’t so sure whether or not being at school was even safe.”

            The school was holding  information back from the students and the public until they could clearly determine the entire situation and produce a solid statement.

“There were so many versions of the story spreading around”, continues Haugesag “I had no idea what was truth and what I could forget about.”

The dangers of threatening posts can carry further than the poster had originally thought. What some see as harmless venting via the internet; can be interpreted as violent idealism by others.

 It is unsure to the students if what the boy said was the beginning of yet another act of violence against a school or if his only goal was to gain some much needed attention from anyone who would listen.

Many student’s skin crawled as they opened up the haunting twitter updates that read “Forgive me, God, for what I am about to do. I am going to bring the walls of Eastview crashing down.” As well as “It’s my birthday next week and all I want is for Eastview to disappear.”

Nobody knows for certain what the students intentions were, but with the help of the internet and a few discomforting posts, the student’s actions were immediately halted and the proper precautions could be taken.

 However, there is another side to the power of Facebook and Twitter. Diego Perez, a senior at Eastview, says that he knows someone who had been suspended for  three days  forburning a picture of a boy in the parking lot long after school had ended.

There was  a controversy over  whether or not this should be taken as a threat or just an act of teenage drama.

The fine line between what is considered harmless and what is seen as threatening is sometimes very hard to distinguish.

“I think students should have the right to express themselves online,” continues Perez. “The school administration should only become involved with what we say [online] when we endanger other people.”

The schools administrative leaders could not be reached for a statement due to conflicting schedules. They just want students to keep a sharp eye on what they say online so the question ‘Should we do something about what has been said’ doesn’t need to be asked in the first place.

Kids should watch what they post to avoid starting the conflict No one has time to deal with it and  a student doesn’t want to have something they said out of a temporary fit of anger or frustration stick with them the rest of their life.