Opinion

In early December, junior Kellie Chiou rifled through her mail, placing junk mail in one pile and important mail in another. In her growing pile of junk mail were several letters from colleges, all claiming how great each was. Among others, Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern University and MIT seemed to guarantee her acceptance into their ranks.

No one would have guessed that so many students would attend a football game, let alone participate in chants and celebrations.

During the early hours of New Year’s day 2009, Johannes Mehserle, a white police officer, mistook his gun for a Taser and fatally shot Oscar J. Grant III, a black man, at a BART station in Oakland.

With visions of dancing sugarplums currently tainted by the thought of finals, many students can hardly relax during winter break. The holidays are no longer time to enjoy with family but rather an opportunity to spend more time worrying about the upcoming exams taking place just three weeks into the new year. Luckily, with the passing of a new schedule by the school board on Nov. 16, next year’s finals will be held before winter break, and vacation can finally serve its intended purpose.

What could one buy with $1 billion? Maybe a few dozen cars, a mansion, a beach house, a professional sports team like the Warriors (which recently sold for $450 million) and the luxury of early retirement. Or how about a 27-story house complete with 600 servants?

Everyone runs risks when looking up information on the Internet. Wikipedia may give inaccurate math equations or biographies of historical figures. On sites like Yelp or Yahoo, people may type business names or addresses incorrectly.

During her English class, junior Ailene Nguyen found herself participating in a heated discussion about Proposition 19, the ballot measure that would have made marijuana legal in California. The dispute grew as the students’ opinions clashed, and the situation may have seemed like a sort of intellectual battlefield, rather than an everyday classroom.

In an age where social interaction has shifted increasingly to the digital sphere, the issue of privacy has become especially controversial. How much privacy is guaranteed online? What information can or cannot be shared?

In elementary and middle school, when all students were young and license-less, their parents would drop them off in the morning in the school parking lot, hand them their lunch, and kiss them goodbye. This intimate and time-consuming parting fit perfectly in the environment of these schools, but not now. This is high school.

“Toot it and boot it.” “Take it and break it.” “Love it then shove it.” Clearly, everlasting love is mundane; Sinatra has been replaced with Soulja Boy, movies like “Borat” are rented over “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and engagement rings are now rare commodities.