Daily Archives: October 18, 2011

Bullying

During the school year students see bullying, and some of them experience bullying. Some kids try to stop the bully from bullying the victim, and others just stand by and watch it happen. No matter what, bullying is a part of school that can be hard to avoid. A survey shows that at least half of kids in their lifetime are bullied, and 10% of them are bullied on a regular basis at school.

Students who are bullied can have social, and emotional problems. And most importantly bullying has an effect on the student’s work. Sometimes the victim even tries to commit suicide instead of dealing with being bullied.

Someone does not just decided that they want to become a bully. Bullies are kids that need to have control over other people. Bullies are sometime victims of bullying themselves, and may be angry about a problem at school or at home. Bullies often bully other kids who may have a few friends, be smaller than they are, or kids who have a harder time standing up for themselves.

When kids are bullied they often don’t act like themselves.  Some of the signs of bullying are: frightened to walk to/from school, doing poorly in their school work, lack of confidence, become anxious, crying, refuse to talk about whats wrong, and have unexplained bruises or cuts. If someone you know is being bullied you should tell an adult, or help that kid ask someone for help. You should try to stop bullying right when it starts, so that way it does not get out of hand.

During the day at Dodd you may see 1 or 2 people being bullied. The time that I see bullying the most is in the hallways. Sometimes kids are getting picked on, or getting bumped into on purpose. While other times it is a more serious kind of harassment. The things that you and I could do to help would be to stand up for the victim, or talk to an adult about what you have witnessed.

~Jamie Robinson

End of an Era: Tribute to Steve Jobs

Recently Steve Job, co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc., died at the age of 56 of pancreatic cancer. Jobs along with the other founders were the first to create a successful computer company. With his death the world has lost a visionary, a creative genius and a wonderful man.  Steve is a revolutionary genius who helped start a technological revolution with all of his work. The world and Apple will deeply miss him.

Now let’s take a look at what Jobs has done to impact the modern world. First off, Jobs created many of modern computer fonts which we use every day; thanks to him we have a large selection of fonts. Also, he created some of the most innovated and widely used technology in existence, from the first Mac computer to the IPod and then IPhone, which we use every day. Finally, Steve Jobs started one of the most successful animated movie companies of all time, Pixar.  The way I see it there isn’t a single day that goes by that Americans don’t use something he didn’t create. Jobs is truly one of the most accomplished men in the last 25 years and will be missed by billions of people. So, what about you, do you think he was a revolutionist or not? Either way, I am sure that what you do daily happens because of him and that you will most likely miss him and his work.

~Owen Kennelly

Hunting: Could someone please explain it to me?

Ok I don’t mean this blog to offend anyone that hunts I’m just saying what is the purpose of hunting? Not hunting for food that actually makes sense. I’m talking about hunting for sport. Back when the first people were walking around they hunted so they could survive. Now for some reason people do it for entertainment. I don’t know where in history that whole premise changed but could someone PLEASE explain it to me.

Grown men are going out into the woods dressed in camouflage with guns shooting deer and then turning it into creepy wall hanging. Not to mention it’s not like an actual sport it isn’t hard. I understand it does take practice and isn’t the easiest thing but I’m just saying your going out dressed in camouflage so the deer cant see you and using a gun that shoots bullets that move much faster than a deer can react to it. I don’t get the logic, to spend hours sitting completely still just waiting for some animal to walk by so you can what? Turn it into some kind of demented trophy? Is there a point to it? What do you gain? Just to clarify I’m not some hippie tree hugging PITA from PETA I just want to figure out why people get some strange pleasure from killing and getting nothing out of it. Killing for no reason no matter what your killing will always be wrong in my opinion.

~Liam Thomas

What Will the Winter of 2012 Bring?

I think everyone can agree that the winter of 2011 was unforgettable. New England winters always have their fair share of messy weather, but when the total snowfall accumulated to over 5 feet (breaking a record set in 1945 for the snowiest month), the situation became downright dangerous. Not only did the countless storms result in car accidents, tree collapses, and fallen power lines, but further issues were only yet to come.This unusual predicament left people scrambling for “roof rakes” when roofs started collapsing under the unbearable weight of snow and frozen sheets of ice. It even got to the point where schools in Connecticut struggled to find enough days in the spring to make up over 10 snow days (in some situations). But, obviously, life goes on, and the winter of 2011 was followed by a beautiful spring, summer, and fall. But, when winter returns, what is in store for us?

Well, although it seems like nothing could get much worse than the harsh weather previously brought to us, with conditions that may or may not be brought by La Nina, we could be facing another brutal winter, with temperatures a bit lower than usual, and the total snowfall significantly higher than average. All in all, I highly doubt that Connecticut will see worse conditions than we’ve already experienced.

~Gabby Batista