Spirit Week Spring 2018 – Tuesday
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Spirit Week Spring 2018 – Tuesday
March 23, 2018
Filed under GBTV Video Bulletin
Sarah Withrow, voices editor
Personal space is an important defense mechanism used subconsciously to steer us away from danger – but is also a flexible and not always dependable tool. Your brain programs a zone around your body, like a second skin. When this space is invaded, you will never fail to notice. That feeling in the pit of your stomach or the instinctual pulse of fear you get in tense situations isn’t meant to be ignored. It keeps away the creeps, while also letting you subtly know who you can trust. We learn what socially acceptable behavior looks like from a young age, but the personal space of your friend naturally is not the same as yours. Nevertheless, we must respect everyone’s preferences and realize that there is such a broad spectrum of what people are comfortable with. Growing up with a closer-knit family increases the chance of your personal space bubble being smaller than those of a family who are distant with each other. Having two sisters, for example, has made me become fond of touch and someone who, depending on the situation, likes contact rather than seclusion a majority of the time. I have always believed that physical connection with even just one person has major health benefits. It makes you feel happier, understood, more trusting, loved. Interestingly, there are people who have never cared for human contact, and they are simply born that way. Others are all for it, but then some take a while to warm up to it. Knowing boundaries is an underrated way to understand more about yourself and others around you. It helps us know what to say and how to act toward another person. This is why communication in relationships is so important. Using your words to tell your significant other what is and what isn’t OK is not lame – it is smart and necessary. And they, in turn, should tell you how they feel about certain actions and discuss your preferences. The flexibility of your space bubble is actually astonishing. It can be completely expanded when talking to a stranger, but then comfortably retracted with a close friend or family member. It is not equal in all directions, either. In some parts the force field is toxic, whereas in other areas it is barely there, so close to the skin. Now yes, this self-defense tool is used to keep us safe. But, in non-life threatening situations, it is holding so many of us back. There are innumerable times when it is just too compelling to keep a gap between you and someone you could be close to. We don’t like letting others in. We want to be private – because it means we are safe. A majority of the time, when we shy away from others it is because there is a feeling of doubt toward them with no explanation as to why it surfaced. We want to make it easy for ourselves by saying we should trust our gut, but that is not always the best thinking. Being scared is not necessarily a bad thing, being uncomfortable is not the worst, being unsure is not the end of the world. It’s all part of the process. While it can backfire, pushing yourself to have less personal space will have so many positive impacts on your life. You will feel full, present, more complete, experienced. And while your personal bubble should never pop, it also shouldn’t be large enough to float you up up and away from your friends and family. Put yourself out there. Keep it small by going big.
Sydney Sewell, photo editor
This holiday season, some may wonder what the best gift for their loved one is. Some may even wonder if it is worth spending a months savings or more on a ring, new computer, or bike. Here's the deal… it's probably not. Material items can't last forever. This depends on the person, but if someone were to, say, give me a bracelet, I would likely lose it soon after receiving it. On the other hand, others may cherish the bracelet so much that they wouldn't even dare putting it on in fear of breaking, scratching or losing it. Material items also are not always dependable. Shopping for presents can take all day, and not finding the perfect gift can be discouraging. What about all the hours one can spend shopping trying to find the perfect shirt for a friend, only to realize it is too big on the day of? This, in most cases, can be a huge waste of time and an abundance of added stress. There is a solution to this common holiday stress of gift giving – this year forget the material items. Instead, give the gift of time. Time is something we all want more of. More time to sleep, study, practice, etc. But what about more time together? Sometimes, especially during the holiday season, we forget to spend time with the ones we care about the most. Instead of spending late nights getting last minute deals at the mall, stay home and watch a Christmas movie with friends. Spend the money you would have used at the mall on an ice skating date or a family game night at Golfland under the lights. Make memories with the money you chose to spend, don't buy items. Find something your loved one has always wanted to do or a goal they have. Then spend your Christmas money towards an experience you can create to help them achieve that goal. For example, if they have always wanted to skydive, buy a ticket to I Fly and watch them live out their dream. Or pay for a class that can contribute to the practice needed for their goal. Take your sibling out to lunch or a movie. Spend the day with them instead of friends to make them feel special and appreciated. Plan a day of relaxation for your mom or friend. Pay for a yoga class or trip to the spa. Or you can even plan a day of adventure and buy a disposable camera to capture the moments together. The possibilities are endless. If you can't think of an experience to give, think of a past experience that brought a lot of joy and focus your gift on recreating or remembering that. This is easy to do by creating simple photo books. You can fill these books with pictures and descriptions of the experience to help your loved one remember all the fun they had. Don't limit the options to material items this holiday season. The memories and experiences you create can last a lifetime and, unlike items, they can't be broken, stolen nor lost.
Sidney Zabell, Co-editor-in-chief
Ninety-six percent of those who commit homicides are men. More often than not, perpetrators of sexual violence are men. And of the 2,000,000 people currently incarcerated in the U.S., 93 percent are men. Lately, it seems that a great deal of tweets and posts generated by young people on social media aim directly at men, too. These posts portray the majority of men as beings who take advantage of all others, willing to gain power by any means necessary – even if it hurts someone else in the process. But if our world is striving for equality among all genders, races, and backgrounds, how can we condemn someone for something out of their control? While men have historically been in a position of power above women, this is finally changing. Women are owners of businesses, leaders of groups, and have a major influence as trailblazers in today’s world. It’s immature for people to put down an entire gender and to make blanket statements is flat-out wrong and unfair. People are jumping to conclusions without knowing anything about the individual. They’re assuming the worst with no consideration. We can’t forget about our brothers, our fathers, our friends, or our teachers. We can’t forget about our grandfathers, our neighbors, our spouses, or our sons. The men I know are kind. They are gentle, they are loving. They are, simply put, good. These men are the ones we look up to, the ones who stand out. And although the gender may have some bad seeds, they are greatly outnumbered by the pure and honest ones. Don’t get me wrong. The acts of these outliers are cruel and sick, and the reactions of those affected by them are completely justified. The outliers need to be held accountable. Still, we must remember the good men who shaped us into who we are today. It’s not fair to generalize most men as toxic and conniving for the acts of a minority. It’s painful to watch those I care about be criticized solely for their gender. I believe the vast majority of people are innately honest, kind, and moral, regardless of gender. The good men bring balance into our world. They bring care and warmth, love and protection. The good men care. We must not spend our time seeking vengeance for inequality, but rather to strive for a world of fairness, equal rights and equal opportunity. To aim for equality, we must all do our part to treat each other in an unbiased way. Anything else is driving us further and further from the objective of true equality.
Commentary: Music comes in ALL languages
Wow, this is so sad. Alexa, play “Despacito.” I've seen this meme and heard it a countless number of times across a variety of social media platforms. It’s yet another song in a language other than English that rose in popularity to become so overplayed that every time I heard it on the radio, I wanted to physically slap “Despacito” tself to make it stop. Unfortunately, I couldn't slap the actual song, as music is truly nothing more than wiggly sounds waves in the atmosphere. But as “Despacito” faded from the spotlight, I realized that even though I didn’t know what “Despacito” was about, I had still listened to it and, for the most part, liked it. (That is, until I heard it too many times in a short period of time.) This wasn’t new for me. I've been listening to music in other languages for a quite a while. Way before “Despacito” or even the obnoxiously catchy “Gangnam Style” by Psy, I had enjoyed listening to anime soundtracks in Japanese, jammed out to k-pop artists, and discovered the musical prowess of Shakira among other Latin artists. I couldn't understand anything without the help of dubiously translated lyrics videos off of Youtube, but that didn't stop me from dancing in front of my computer to the theme song for “Sword Art Online,” “Married to the Music” by SHINee or “Loca” by Shakira. The fact that I couldn't understand these artists only made me appreciate them more. Their musical style of pop was different from what was playing on the radio here, and I could still feel the emotion in their music. Obviously I’m not alone in appreciating music in different languages. The most prominent example of people who listen to foreign music is the k-pop fandom. Around sixth grade, I was sucked into this fandom, which is basically a gigantic, international collection of people who enjoy listening to k-pop. While many of them are fluent in Korean, there are also many who are not. I’ve been a casual fan of k-pop groups such as EXO, SHINee, and many more for years. When the Winter Olympics were hosted in South Korea, the international exposure that k-pop received was insane. The fandom for popular artists, CL and EXO, is very big internationally and within South Korea. I remember watching their performance and consequently fangirling so much that my dog moved into the other room. When the popular k-pop idol group BTS won a music award in America I was subsequently extremely shook. I had reached levels of shock that I had never truly encountered before. For any k-pop fan, this was a HUGE deal, and with so many k-pop fans in the U.S., I can assure you that we all were incredibly happy for the industry's success in becoming an undeniable part of American media. I’ll also mention that, because of the diverse and inclusive generation that we live in today, many mainstream artists have started incorporating languages other than English into their music. Recently, Dua Lipa released a song where she collaborated with BLACKPINK, a k-pop girl group whose songs have reached all time highs on music charts such as Billboard Hot 100, BTS’s “IDOL” (featuring Nicki Minaj) and “Wendy” from Red Velvet’s collaboration with John Legend in “Written In The Stars” – all of which happened in 2018. K-pop is what I’ve noticed most recently, but Justin Bieber’s “Despacito” collaboration, and Camila Cabello’s “Havana” collaboration remix with Daddy Yankee both include English as well as Spanish. I’m excited for the choices that our current music industry is making. The music that these artists make will be historic collaborations, and as the American, Latin and Korean music industries and fandoms have their own memes, I look forward to see what memes will be brought from this specific crossover.
Commentary: Is Thanksgiving now quality time for politics?
Sitting around the Thanksgiving dinner table provides a unique opportunity to reflect on what we are thankful for from the last year. “Family.” “Friends.” “Kavanaugh.” Thanksgiving is a unifying holiday that brings families together for one special weekend. Unfortunately, politics usually makes up a bigger part of the menu than turkey. Student Winston Daniels has experienced the dangers of family politics at Thanksgiving firsthand. “Yeah, I didn’t realize how messed up my family was,” said a downtrodden Daniels. “It honestly seems like they’re just making up terrible opinions as a joke … but they’re completely serious.” For three days straight, Daniels was exposed to the unadulterated comments of drunk uncles, cousins and aunts. Uncle Ryan Daniels spoke out in defense of the “attack on Thanksgiving.” Daniels exposed the liberal movement led by “socialists and commies” to take away the holiday from “good Christian men” and give it to “the minorities.” When asked about his thoughts about the genocide committed against Native Americans by American colonists that make the holiday hypocritical, Daniels responded: “I don’t believe in that fake news.” In contrast, Cal graduate and Burning Man regular Sadie “Flower Princess” Daniels said :Thanksgiving is a fascist holiday.” Flower Princess, who is Winston’s second cousin, is an avid protester of any cause that gains support on Twitter. “America is run by the capitalists and big corporations,” Princess said. “Thanksgiving is another corporate holiday created only to help the big farms profit from large-scale turkey torture.” Among her other dislikes are Columbus Day, Christmas, Paul Ryan, conservative speakers and Texas. The dispute between the two estranged relatives only continued to increase in intensity throughout the course of the day as more and more wine was consumed. The gracious thanks given earlier that same evening melted away into a full-blown family civil war over politics and religion. Cries of “Trump is your President” and “Atheism is a sin” were heard emanating from the right side of the house while “Trump lost the popular vote” and “science comes before religion” were yelled from the left. Luckily the next day, fueled by hangovers on both sides, peace was made and cooler heads prevailed. Winston is pessimistic about Thanksgiving for this coming year. He said he would rather “just stay home and sleep” than be subjected to his family’s yearly dispute. Although surely next year will prove to not be as divisive. Topics such as Kavanaugh and the 2018 mid-term elections will certainly be put aside for the sake of family togetherness and thanks for the gifts we have. Right?
Commentary: Teachers have a strong influence on students
It is not wrong to say that it was not me, but my fifth grade teacher – Mrs. Sellitti – who determined my career. I went to Cold Spring Elementary School in Maryland, a gifted and talented school, and unfortunately I was neither the former nor the latter. As a result, ever since I first stepped foot onto that campus in the fourth grade – when I got accepted into the school – I always felt as though my peers were smarter and more successful in every way. While I was competitively swimming for my local swim team, I had several classmates who were Junior Olympian swimmers. It also didn’t help that I couldn’t really feel accomplished about anything. For instance, me taking math that was four grade levels higher paled in comparison when I looked around at a handful of my classmates who were already taking Pre-Calculus. All of this added up to a very strenuous first year. As I tried to adapt to the new school and the increased intellect and competition from my classmates, I felt very discouraged. Everyday I was working as hard as I could while everyone else seemed like they were coasting through school, yet they still were getting the better grades. And so, I started doubting myself. I started doubting my abilities and pretending I was okay with being sub-par. But I wasn’t. I felt like I was in a never-ending cycle of failure, and so I grew to dislike school in general – which I had loved since the first day of kindergarten. The only thing that I had going for me was that I was able to make friendships with a lot of new people. However, the situation got worse early on in fifth grade. As I continued to not feel at home at my new school, it got worse when my best friend moved away during the middle of the year. Even though I had made many friends, she was really the only one I was close to, so when she left I felt like I couldn’t confide in anyone anymore. I became passive and stopped talking in class, even though I used to be that kid who raised my hand all the time. And though I did not know it at the time, I believe my English teacher, Mrs. Sellitti, started taking notice. After a couple weeks of being more reserved, Mrs. Sellitti began personally calling me over to her desk and complimenting how I was doing in the class, telling me I was a good writer, and that I should keep pursuing it as I got older. Initially, I figured she was only being nice, but when spring rolled around and our class put on the school play, the kindness continued. Up until that point, I had never acted or even performed much at all. But when auditions came up, Mrs. Sellitti encouraged me to try out. Eventually, I succumbed to teacher pressure and got a small speaking role. But then she pushed me further, encouraging me to help set up props, videotape, sing, and other helping tasks. I ended up with seven different jobs, which was the most out of anyone in the class. And though it was my first theatrical experience, being so involved and getting to see all the work pay off by the end of the year made me realize that I enjoyed theater, enjoyed performing, and, well, enjoyed presenting my more artistic side. Ultimately, it led me to continue pursuing my artistic endeavors, as I still am heavily involved in the arts and plan to do so in my profession. However, though I already possessed all of these attributes inside me, they were not fully realized until Mrs. Sellitti inspired me to find them. Because, just as my beloved fifth grade teacher did, that is truly the beauty of what teachers are able to do: they encourage, they inspire, they pull out the best in a student.
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