Important Dates!

At the time of this post, there are only 22 school days left.  22 days till the Senior class is unleashed upon the world.  There are several important dates coming up that you Seniors need to remember.

Graduation Orders – April 26th; if you did NOT pay off what you owed for your cap and gown or other items and have not received any information about what you need to pay, then you should probably talk to the office.

Honor Day – May 11th.  Tell your parents/family/friends so they can be there.  Starts at 9am.

Prom – May 12th.  Get your tux soon (or your dress if you procrastinated).  Papa John’s Stadium in Louisville at 7pm.

Last Day of School – Tuesday, May 22nd.  Finals each day for all students, starting Friday, May 18th.

Senior Trip – Thursday, May 24th.  Holiday World!

Graduation Practice – Friday, May 25th.  Seniors need to be here by 11am to practice walking in for graduation.

Graduation – Saturday, May 26th.  2pm.  Salem High School.

The Butterfly Project

by Caitlin Campbell

Writing or doodling on teens’ bodies has been around for a while.  For some people it is a way to doodle, expressing their self, remembering homework, and things like the butterfly project.

For Elizabeth (Lizz) Conley, it is a way of expressing herself and her art. She not only writes on herself, but on other people as well. One person that she writes on quite frequently is Miranda Palmer. When asked, Palmer said, “I really don’t care. I think it looks cool.”

Some people, like Cyrena Jones write on their hand what homework they have, but for the most part people write a lot of people write on themselves out of boredom. Like Tossie Kinnaman, “It’s just something to do”, said Kinnaman, “I like the way it looks.”

But for others, like Rachel Smith and I, We wrote/write on ourselves for inspiration. For Rachel, she would write inspirational quotes on her arms to “get her through the day”. For me, I am doing the butterfly project. The butterfly project is where you draw butterflies on yourself and name them after people you care about. This is a project for people who self-harm. The people who created the project said that if you cut with the butterflies on yourself, you kill a little bit of the people that the butterflies are named for. For me and others, it works, but for some it doesn’t. If you or a friend, anyone you know, self-harms, give it a try. Whether it works of not, it is always worth a try.

The Vow makes you cry…and cry…and cry.

by Paige DeNardi

In the romantic tale of love found and lost again, Channing Tatum stars as Leo and Rachel McAdams is his beloved wife Paige who sustains serious brain injuries in a car accident and forgets everything about her life since she met her husband. Now she feels the need to reestablish her relationship with her mother Rita (Jessica Lange) and her father (Bill Thornton). Once she does this, she starts to have feelings for her ex- fiancé Jeremy (Scott Speedman) as she can’t remember why they broke up. Now Leo sets out to save their marriage before he loses the love of his life forever.
Personally, I loved this movie. Tatum and McAdams have amazing chemistry together and make you truly believe they are in love. Because of this amazing acting, I guarantee you, if you have a heart that is, that you will cry at least ten or twelve times… in the first twenty minutes. With all the memory loss, falling in love, falling out of love, lying, and sadness, you come out an emotional wreck, but it’s worth it.
There are also plot lines within the plot lines that leave you staring at the screen yelling, “Come on Paige! Just realize the truth and go back to Leo!” I won’t spoil them, but there is a deception in her family that made her walk away from them when she married Leo. Now, she starts to realize it again, and she’s mortified. Like I said, amazing.

I would definitely recommend seeing this movie. There were even a few men in the theatre that were crying and enjoying the movie. It’s a less cheesy love story about a man that actually cares for his woman! Some people could learn from this.

The People’s Key Album Review

by Lauren Voyles

 

The People’s Key is the final album of Bright Eyes, released one year ago today. Before I review the album, I’d like to apologize to all of the hipsters that will be angry that all of the “mainstream” people will know about their music.

In rating this album, if I had to compare it to music in general, I would give it 4 stars out of 5. If I had to compare it to all of Bright Eyes’ music, I would give 3.5 stars. This album has shown me that not every band will end up sucking as time passes, like I previously thought. This album is definitely different from previous albums by Bright Eyes. As a prelude: Every Bright Eyes song has a meaning. Most Bright Eyes songs are about personal experiences and certain people Conor Oberst (The lead singer; he IS the band) knew. The People’s Key goes more for universal meanings rather than personal ones. I have noticed, though, that over time Conor’s songs have become less personal. In one of his first albums “A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded from 1995-1997” he would actually include the name of the person he was talking about. After that, he rarely included the name of the person, but he did give very personal details about the situations or people the song was about.

Getting to individual songs, I would have to say the best song is “Shell Games”. It is definitely in the style of most of the newer songs, and most of the lyrics in it are for universal meaning but it also adds a touch of personal feelings. “One for You, One for Me” is also a very good song. I did not care for “Approximate Sunlight.”

Should you buy this album? If you like almost all of the songs and you would save from purchasing the song in the album package, or if you don’t want to buy digital download you should purchase the album. I personally chose to download individual songs, but it’s up to you. I personally think that it is a good album overall. It’s not the perfect album to end the band on, but it wasn’t bad.

The Darkest Hour shows a more realistic alien attack on Earth

by Paige DeNardi

In this Sci-fi alien thriller, beings from another planet, composed of electricity absorbing matter, come to earth to collect our precious metals. In the process they end up destroying the majority of the planet. Now, a group of four young party goers, Sean, Natalie, Ben, and Anne (Emile Hirsch, Olivia Thirlby, Max Minghella, and Rachael Taylor) find themselves lost in foreign Moscow with an evil business stealing maniac, Skyler (Joel Kinnaman), with no human interaction, and having to fight for their very existence.

In the middle of the movie, the five survivors find themselves stumbling upon another human guarded up in an apartment complex. It actually turns out to be two people, Vika and Sergei (Veronika Ozerova and Dato Bakhtadze) who inform them that concentrated microwave beams will injure the alien’s protective “shell” giving them enough time to fatally wound it. On their mission to destroy the aliens, three of the survivors are absorbed, and it’s clearer than ever that these “things” need to die.

The movie was something I personally have never really seen before. Sure, there have been plenty of movies about aliens, but they’re usually green little bobble-heads or human look-alikes who act like robots. These aliens came for a reason. They needed our precious metals for food, and they were definitely different from your stereotypical alien. They were just big orbs of energy, invisible to the human eye. However, something gave them away, and that something is a resource we use every day, electricity. The fact that the surviving five could figure this out, and stayed true to each other after one by one they were picked off by the invaders, made the story that much more relatable. Especially since once you started thinking about it, the information made total sense, and if there really are alien life forms out there, seems like the more realistic option.

I would definitely recommend seeing this movie if you’re into modern day Sci-fi, or really even if you just want to see a movie that won’t make you cry or put you to sleep. The story line is incredibly realistic, the characters act like any person would in that situation, making the movie much more relatable, and it’s something new that many haven’t seen before. What’s there not to love about that?

Beauty and the Beast 3D keeps the Disney magic alive

by Heather Nale

What child didn’t grow up being completely enthralled by Disney films? Boys learning about super strength and doing whatever they can, girls developing unreal expectations about hair and men? But, unfortunately, Disney has lost its spark. The movies and shows that they’re producing are less than satisfactory. Disney is doing all that it can to get viewers back, including bringing back the classics: completely restored and in 3D.
The latest movie to make its second debut on the big screen in three-dimensions is the wonderful tale of “Beauty of and the Beast.” Everyone knows the tear jerking story. A handsome prince doesn’t know how to treat others and mistreats a witch in disguise as a beggar. The prince gets turned into a hideous beast; the only way to break the tragic spell is to get a girl to fall in love with the man behind the furry, scary, evil, nasty, ugly beast. The girl that the most attractive man in town wants, falls in love with this ferocious beast, who desperately needs some anger-management classes. And boom! It’s true love! The beast turns back into a prince at the very last second after defeating the villain. The couple lives happily ever after and all that.
I’m pretty picky about my Disney movies. I still watch them on VHS when I get bored and one does NOT mess with a classic Disney movie. Disney released “Toy Story 3” in 3D and later restored “The Lion King.” I was eager to see both of those movies. “Beauty and the Beast” is my all time second Disney movie (first being “The Lion King”) but it was definitely my favorite in 3D. It definitely had the most effects out of the three movies. I loved the way the silverware popped out as they danced to “Be Our Guest” and the beautiful ball room scene between Belle and the Beast.
Overall, I think bringing the movies back in 3D is a neat thing. Next, the fishy tale “Finding Nemo” will be hitting theaters and I can’t wait to see what that brings!

SHS Drama Club presents The Giver

by Shana Wireman

Last Saturday, January 14th through Monday, January 16th, the play “The Giver” was presented by the Salem HS drama club, directed by Mr. Trueblood. The play is a serious/drama story “reminding me of the Twilight Zone show,” Mr. Trueblood told me.
The play is based in a small community where everything is perfect. There are no pain, feelings, war, or disease. Everybody has to be perfect also and if not then you get the lethal injection.
Chief elder (Claire Shelby) gives speeches to the eleven year olds. Jonas (Kyle Medlock) just turned twelve and is the boy that plays the main actor. He has two best friends that are also twelve: Asher (Josh Worrall) who is clumsy and careless, but a good humored boy, and Fiona (Kelsey Price) who is a sensitive girl that Jonas likes. Since they are twelve they get their lifelong job assigned to them now. This causes them to lose touch with each other. Jonas got assigned to be the next receiver who controls all the past memories from before when they were not perfect. He has to be taught by the giver (Chuck Hedrick) who is in control of the memories now. Jonas has a mother (Katherine LaHue) who is responsible for upholding the rules in the community, father (Phillip Applegate) he takes care of the newly born and a little talkative sister Lily (Sidney Calhoun).
As the play goes on, Jonas learns about how they kill people by lethal injection and how everything is actually really wrong now instead of before. He learns about emotion, love, trees, snow, war, and colors. So he wants to let everybody see and feel these things. Jonas and the Giver make a plan to fake Jonas’ death so he can leave his community and when he does it will send all of his memories to everybody else. As soon as he is about make the great escape and finds out that Gabriel, the little baby his parents have been watching, is going to get the lethal injection. He takes the baby with him and tries to bike ride out of the community. Weeks later he is till bike riding away and is about to starve to death, so he tries to remember the good memories he learned. It’s snowing now and he sees a hill that he remembers from one of his memories and goes up the hill and sees the sled just like his memory. Gabriel and Jonas sit on it and sled down the hill hoping the bottom there will be civilization that accepts him with open arms.
This fabulous play wouldn’t have been done without the helping crew. Sound controls were done by Christian Bowling and Steven Morgan. Lighting was done by Austin Luckett, Steven Morgan, and Ben Strange. The paintings were by Logan Thompson.
The next play will be in Spring in the first weekend in May. They will be holding auditions in mid March if you would like to try out.

My Week With Marilyn is a smash with Smith

by Rachel Smith

As one of my idols, the portrayal of Marilyn Monroe has to be outstanding for me to even begin to enjoy a film about her. Michelle Williams, who played Marilyn in her new movie My Week with Marilyn, captured Marilyn’s beauty, sensuality, and elegance.
Alongside Williams, Eddie Redmayne played Colin Clark, an employee of Sir Laurence Olivier’s, who documents the tension between Marilyn and Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) during the production of “The Prince and the Showgirl”.
The movie is based on a missing week from Colin Clark’s journal titled “The Prince and the Showgirl and Me.”
This movie was one of the best I’ve seen in my entire life. I was afraid I would be disappointed in Williams portrayal of Marilyn, but I was completely blown away.

Student Council selling chocolate messages for Valentine’s Day

by Tossie Kinnaman

Do you want to give a certain someone something for Valentine’s Day? Now is your chance to do so. During the week before Valentine’s Day (Feb 6-10), you can buy a message paper from a student council member. The council members will be going from classroom to classroom during activity period selling papers. The papers cost $1 and during activity period on February 14, Valentine’s Day, the person you sent your letter to will get the letter and a candy bar that you will be able to choose at the time of writing your message.

“Wings” Trilogy By Apirlynne Pike is Ready For Take-Off

By Brittany Campbell

The “Wings” trilogy, by Aprilynne Pike, is an enthralling book series that is dominated by suspenseful romance, ethereal faerie magic, and intriguing twists to historical and mythological events. “Wings” is the first book in the trilogy, followed by “Spells” and then “Illusions”. The series, having been ranked # 90 in Top Teen Reads for 2011 is the first book series written by Pike and has now made her a notable author of young adult literature.

Throughout the series, readers follow a seemingly normal high school girl named Laurel Sewell during her life at Del Notre High in Crescent City, and also among other places like the mystical world of Avalon. As a group of four, Laurel and her friends must complete Laurel’s mission with her as she faces destiny. The existences of two completely opposite worlds collides into a magical adventure that will engulf the reader deeper into this imaginary world with every chapter. Never is there a dull moment, and the books are full of twists and surprises. Will Laurel decide to follow her mission, or decide that she is the maker of her own destiny?

The book series is available for both the Nook and the Kindle, and print copies can be purchased off of Amazon online. This book is definitely worth the read, and will not fail to disappoint anyone who likes fantasy or supernatural plots. By the end, readers will be in agony over the anticipation of Pike’s fourth book in the series.