Every year at CHS, there’s a Senior Skip Day, typically the last official day of school for Seniors (this year, it was today). At the end of this “Senior Reflection Day,” as it is known as in front of teachers and administrators, there’s a water fight held in the senior parking lot, where a primary goal is to drench underclassmen with as much water as possible. But not this year. The administration walked out to the parking lot before school let out and effectively shut down anyone with a water balloon - thus, the day that many seniors had been waiting for all year went unfulfilled.

Now, I’m not by an means a fan of the administrative team at CHS, but you have to put what they did in perspective. Just earlier this week, I was sitting in a circle with some friends during lunch outside in the courtyard. Out of nowhere, a full Gatorade bottle flies through the air and hits a boy sitting across from me in the head. Next thing you know, there’s a steady stream of blood dripping off his scalp. It’s incidents like those that sometimes force the administration to put stringent policies in place. So in regards to the water fight at least, it’s not the administration we should be mad at - it’s the brainless idiots who think that pelting projectiles into groups of unaware bystanders is funny that we should make us pissed off.

Either way, the Seniors got jipped, and it’s not fair to the majority of them. But then again, when has education been about treating people individually without prejudice based on the actions of others their age?

We all know the hazards involved with smoking. Lung cancer, ugly voice, death, etc. Some choose to smoke despite these risks, but at least most of them recognize that it’s hazardous to their health. Often, people find excuses for their poor health habits. They eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, then eat only celery the next day. They drive an SUV, but donate to the Sierra Club, so it’s okay! People - in America especially - will feel guilty about their actions, and seem to find ways to “justify” them. That’s great you just donated $25 to charity! But no, that doesn’t excuse you from vehicle emissions legislation. And then there’s my favorite - they smoke, but they jog. But at the same time?

I’m sorry, what? Yet this is exactly what I saw, driving down Barracks Road last week. A guy in his mid-twenties, jogging along the sidewalk, smoking. There are just so many things wrong with the thought process that must have led to that action…

Ok, now this is ridiculous: a student at Sissonville High School in West Virginia is suing her teacher and the school board for a failing grade she received on a Biology project last October. The student, Lindsay Hay, had been on a school-sponsored field trip the day the assignment was due, and thus turned it in a day late. Teacher Jane Schultz had explicitly stated that no work would be accepted late on the project, which had been assigned for several months. Hay received a zero on the project.

The catch - Hay is a straight-A student, and a failing grade on this project would apparently bring her grade in the Biology class down to a B. So of course, Hay sues in response to the emotion stress of the experience, as well as the intentional damage Schultz caused to her academic record.

Let’s take a step back. Now, I’m very outspoken about the idiocy of both the American school system and American school students. As such, I won’t take a side on this issue, mostly because I think everyone taking it seriously is an idiot.

• Schultz: There is absolutely no reason for a single assignment to affect someone’s grade more than the final exam. It is also irresponsible for a teacher not to accept any late work - this sends the message that the rules are more important than what you learn (though in Schultz’s defense, she ended up giving Hay a 50% on the assignment).
• Hay: Get over yourself. This is a private matter between you and your teacher. You need to accept that the system is not always fair, and that you cannot always control every aspect of your world. You think getting a B and losing your shot at Valedictorian is bad for your college applications? Think about how a nationally-publicized lawsuit of you whining will look.

Word of advice: don’t drink large gulps of Sprite rapidly. You will burp massive quantities of foam. End of story.

Today was the talent show at CHS. Haha. Ha. Ha. It’s been horrible every year in recent memory. A few MCs that no one can understand, a 9:1 ratio of hip-hop acts vs. anything else, all started off by a lesson in clapping from our Assistant Principle. I’m not sure which is worse - that someone would actually have us practice clapping before a show starts, or that some people in the audience probably could use a lesson or to in it. They actually picked a good winner this year, however. Resident Senior Caroline Spence won first place, and I have to say, she is a truly excellent musician. Wonderful singer, leads the female a cappella group at CHS… She deserves recognition.

The computer beat me yesterday. I was attempting to create a “highlight tape” for a senior football players (something for college), and needed to take a bunch of tracks off of DVDs and mix them down to one. It was all going reasonably well - I’d logged all the cues, found a program that lets you import DVD footage via timestamp, was ready to import them into Adobe Premiere, WHEN — the audio format isn’t supported. I try everything: changing the bit rate, frequency, method of import, importing to Audition separately… You would think that with $3,000+ of production hardware and software sitting in front of me… But no. Only other option I had would have been to import the audio in real time through a separate source - and with 8 DVDs (148 tracks each) and a deadline of the next day… wasn’t going to happen.

Damnit, I need AVID…