My 1 page artist Spread

We’ve all seen her in the hallways, laughing and talking to her friends but do we really know Kira? I’m sure some of you do, but there’s always more to learn. For those of you who don’t know Kira, she is an 8th grader at our school, Cab Calloway. She’s a vocal major and a piano/opera minor. Although after school, she participates in photography club, as well. Kira is a very talented girl. She sings mezzo soprano, which means she is between a soprano and an alto. “I have a relatively large range,” she says, “I was trying to convince Mr. Lassman I was a tenor for a while, but that didn’t work out so well.” Kira has recorded about ten of her own songs, but has many more that are written and left un-recorded. She says she enjoys being a vocal major most of the time except that it gets kind of boring sometimes. She says she would like to be in Communication Arts as well, but she’d prefer to stay in vocal for the time being. Communication Arts is Kira’s second choice for majors in high school. Kira can write amazing poetry, also. So with he singing, piano-playing, poetry, and photography Kira fits in perfectly at Cab Calloway School of the Arts.
Kira’s photography and poetry is what I remember her the most by. She has had a full display of ten of her photographs in the hallway that leads to the library from the lobby. My favorite picture from that display is one of two blue high-tops sitting on a black doorstep. The fall colors contrast nicely with the blue of the sneakers. “My favorite picture that I've taken is currently hanging in the window type-thing in the nurse's hallway. It's of the sky, and the school is framing the sky at the bottom,” says Kira, “ but it's a really great combination of construction and nice new windows, and it's a really good representation of Cab, I think, because it's old and new.” She takes all her pictures with two different cameras, a Nikon Coolpix and an older camera that was her dad’s, a Nikon D2. “My photography is pretty much just me saying ‘hey world, I wish you could see things the way I see them’,” Kira told me.

Her poetry has its own kind of feel to it. Most of her poems are dark or Goth-y but sometimes they involve love in a slightly twisted way. For as long as I’ve known Kira, she is always writing poetry in the middle of her classes and asking me to read them for her. In 7th grade, during science class, she wrote a poem that is untitled currently and it goes like this:


Emotions are just chemicals
Tumultuous and strange
So why is it that seeing you
Can do this to my brain?

My heart is beating faster now
It's racing in my chest
I don't want to turn from you and leave
I know it's for the best.

If feelings are all chemicals
That course throughout my head
Then why is it my mind is full
Of thoughts of you instead?


I know you'll wrap your arms around me
The next time i see you
You'll tell me that you love me and
I’ll say it isn't true

For by and by I've learned to just
Leave well enough alone
But the next time I get lonely
I might still pick up the phone

My heart still melts to butter when
I look into your eyes
But emotions are just chemicals
And chemicals are lies.


“My poems are also a lot about how I express myself, because if I just told everyone how I saw things then it wouldn't really be art,” is what Kira says. I completely agree with that statement. When I asked Kira why she writes she said that she sometimes gets into random moods that make her take photos and write for hours. She says she could write a good twenty pages of poetry in an hour if she felt like it.
Kira’s photography is well-planned but artistic as well. It’s expressive and abstract. Looking through her photo’s you might get mixed signals about what kind of photographer Kira is. Either way, though, you know that her photography is moving and can help you see things her way. Her poetry is amazing as well. It’s deep and intellectual. A lot of her poems really make me think about my views on certain topics.

Mechanical Pencils (2nd article/poem. MP2)

Led pencils or mechanical pencils,
Call them what you will.
They break and run out
Always annoying me until…

I look in my book bag
And discover something distressing
I have no other pencils
Or writing utensils.

I’m stuck with this plastic push thing
Angrily I get up,
And ask my teacher quietly,
“Do you have a different pencil for me?”

“No I don’t,” she replied
And I think to myself,
She’s such a lie.

Slowly, I slip out the classroom door,
Down the hallway to science once more.
I walk inside and ask him for a pen.
“Yes, I have a pen and sure you can…
Borrow it”

Thinking of how this pencil caused great grief
I return to English
and sit down in my seat.
Led pencils are such a pain.

Front Page Articles

Please post extra articles here for the front page. I need approxametly 4-5 articles depending on length.

Article 1. MP 2. The Stepfather Movie Review

The Stepfather is a newly released movie that hit theaters on October 16, 2009. It is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, disturbing images, mature thematic material and brief sensuality. I went to Cinema Movies 10 to watch this movie with my two younger step-sisters (9 and 11). They were scared to watch the movie and ending up hiding their eyes almost the entire time. I wouldn't recommend this movie for anyone under the age of thirteen.
A man named "David Harris" is shopping at a store and runs into a family with a mother and three kids. One of the children is away at military school. When the child at military school, Michael, returns home he finds that his mother is engaged to "David". Michael starts to suspect that there's something different about "David" and that he might not be who he said he was.
The movie falls into place keeping you guessing the entire time. If you read a synopsis of the movie before going to the theater, you would probably expect that "David" is a serial killer, or something along those lines. So throughout the movie the director's throw in suspenseful music that gets you on the edge of your seat in scenes where you think "David" is going to kill someone when in reality he doesn't.
I enjoyed this movie a lot, although I think in some ways it could've been better. At the beginning the scene is set as a family of 4 is laying on the living room floor and "David" walks out of the house with a suitcase packed. When you're watching this scene it's hard to tell whether the family is dead or merely sleeping. Because "David" only kills victims by way of strangling, careful not to leave any evidence, you don't see any blood or tell-tale signs that the family is dead or has been murdered.
*Spoiler alert*
At the end of the movie, "David" escapes from the family. They show him working at another store with a different name as a family of a mother and 2 kids approach him. He shakes the mom's hand and gives them his number. Already, you know what is going to happen. A lot of people think this means, "Oh! Sequel!", but in reality does it? If they made a sequel to this movie, it would be extremely similar to the first one. It would follow the same plot line. Guy goes undercover as a step-father, kid figures out that he isn't who he says he is, guy kills family and/or gets away. Hooray.
So really, I would rate this movie as a C for effort. It has a good plot, but it was extremely predictable.

--Sam S.

To All Editors

Please post an articles from your section of the paper from ALL WRITERS as a comment on this post. Once they are posted, I can edit them and then send them off to Reilly to be edited again.

2nd Article. 2nd Marking Period.

Novelgames.com is one of the few gaming websites that isn’t blocked at school. It offers a collection of classic and updated versions of a lot of games. Some of the games include Snake, Tritris, Crazy Taxi, Battleship, and Montris. Some of the games are multiplayer and some are single. Some play against computers and some are downloadable to your computer.
I enjoy Novel Games (NG) because it provides entertainment during those times in school when you just don’t have any work to do. Since they put in the new LightSpeed blocking system on school computers, almost every games site is blocked. NG is one of the few sites I know of that remains unblocked. So, if you ever find yourself out of work to do and bored during school, go to NG.
Now teachers, you may not be all excited to hear about this games site that is unblocked but trust me, some of the games are educational. So, the kids in your class won’t be mindlessly clicking away on some pointless videogame called “Poke the Penguin”, but rather playing a brain-enhancing game such as Word Vine.
“Word Vine?” You may be asking. Word vine is a game of connecting similar words with each other. For example, you may have the three words, apple, sauce and tree. The game asks you to put the words on the vine as “leaves”, connecting words that are similar. So you would make a chain that goes in the order like this: tree, apple, sauce. Apple and tree go together, and apple and sauce go together. The game offers about 60 levels of word entertainment that can make your brain want to explode. Trust me.
So, the next time you’re in class and want to do something because you’ve finished all your work, give Novel Games a visit. Check out some of my personal favorite games such as, Daisy Petals, Crazy Taxi, Word Vine, and Snake. Believe me; you will have a lot of fun. But remember to ask your teachers if you’re allowed to be playing games once you’ve finished your work, because you don’t want to get in trouble.

Movie Review...1st Article, 1st Marking Period.

Orphan
By: Samantha Steinhauser

The recently released film Orphan that hit theaters July 24, 2009 struck the box office, making $12,871,483 on opening weekend. The basic plot line is a family that recently lost a child adopt a 9-year-old orphan named Esther. She seems like a normal, extraordinarily smart child as they get to know her. But as the movie continues, the family notices something wrong with Esther. *SPOILER ALERT* Esther seems to be trying to hurt or kill the family through a series of events such as, taking the parking brake off the car while the blood-daughter is inside. Also, by burning the tree house down while the son is inside. Esther takes advantage of the children in the home by threatening to harm them. The mother is not as naïve as the father and realizes what Esther is trying to do but no one will believe her.

I personally think that Orphan was a fantastic movie. I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone under the age of 13 because it is slightly graphic and terrifying. Orphan is rated “R” so no one under 17 is admitted unless they have an adult over the age of 21 with them. If you’re going to watch it, I suggest seeing it during the day with a group of people to make it less nerve-racking. But I hope you eventually see the movie, Orphan because it is a truly amazing movie.

--Samantha Steinhauser