The Insider is an ALC student publication. The articles reflect the
opinions and views of ALC students and do not necessarily reflect
the views of either the ALC or of
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The Insider
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Volume 2, Issue 12 December 17,
2004 |
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New
Computer Lab Update By Frank White Last quarter students and teachers bashed on the new computer lab because the school didn’t have it up and running on time. I am not going to bash on the new computer lab, like people did last quarter. Why? Because I like the new lab. There are actually other students in this school that think that the new computer lab is good. Sergio Chaparro stated, “It’s awesome. The computers can store your own personal settings and you don’t have to worry about other people erasing your stuff.” Other students had this point of view as well. Rosa Hurtado said, “This is the first year I have been here, but I think it is good because, you get your own password. So you know people cannot get into your stuff.” There will always be students who have negative ideas about things that are new. Rachel Reese said “They are slow, the internet I mean.” Another student named Jasmine was so outraged about the new computers that she didn’t want to say anything about them. (Continued à) |
And can you believe this? Even teachers had a point of view on the new computer lab. Now, I wasn’t sure which teacher it was but I heard one say to a student “Get off that site. We can monitor everywhere you’ve been.” And that’s true. Every web site students go to can be monitored by Brad the computer guy. So beware! The last person I interviewed was Brad the computer guy. Actually, he’s an intern from Alexandria Vo-Tech. He said “There is not much to them. They are actually not computers themselves. They are logged onto one computer.” So I asked him where this computer is located, and he said it is at the high school. Overall I think that the new computer lab is very nice. We are really lucky to have the new computer lab and next time you see Brad the computer guy tell him not to monitor your desk top. |
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Deep
Thoughts Revisited The Problem With Christmas By Naythen Gross Christmas…I wrote a story last issue telling you how much I hated it. But at the end of my story I told you that I didn’t like it because it doesn’t have the same meanings as it did many years ago. It has been inverted. Beginning in the year AD 325, Christmas was celebrated as Christ’s birthday with a religious service known as Christ’s mass, or Christmas. But now, Christmas is known as the holiday where you get free stuff. The winter
solstice (or the shortest day of the year) had long been celebrated in pagan,
or pre-Christian, In AD 320, Pope
Julius I specified December 25 as the official date for the birth of
Jesus. Five years later, Emperor
Constantine the Great, the first Christian Emperor of The figure of
Christmas (Santa Claus) is based on a very real St. Nicholas, who at the age of seventeen was named the Bishop of Myra, a port city in
present-day (Continued à) |
Saint
Nicholas, Bishop of In the middle
ages, many churches were built in
honor of St. Nick, and in the eleventh century, his remains were enshrined in
the After the Christian reformation of the sixteenth century, Martin Luther tried ending the feast of St. Nick. He partially succeeded, and Christmas was abolished in some European Countries. However, gift-giving
continued and the gift giver was given many other names such as “Der Weinachtsmann” (Christmas man in
German), “Pere Noel” (Father Noel) in France, “Father Christmas” in For those who misinterpreted my story in last week’s issue, I am not anti-Christmas, nor am I opposed to our many time-honored Christmas traditions. What I dislike is the modern commercialization of Christmas and the misuse of Christmas traditions as commercial props to sell things. |
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Shopping
Time By Jasmine Monier If you are shopping for that wonderful woman in your life and you still haven’t gotten the right gift for her, you’re in luck because today we’re going shopping. The one gift that a women will always love is a new pair (or more) of shoes. Shoes never fails, they are the one perfect gift (besides gold, silver, diamonds, etc.). There are many ways of going about this. One way to do it is just go and pick out a pair of shoes you think she will like. It helps if you try to find out what her favorite styles of shoes are, some of her favorite brands of shoes, and where she might go to buy herself shoes. You want to find these things out so that if you do buy her shoes and she does not like them that you don’t have to take them back. You might even have the chance of running into problems such as not being able to return them. Another way is to get a gift certificate. To do this you should find out where she likes to shop. It might help that you find out what the average pair of shoes at those places cost. The last way is just to take the woman in your life shopping. This guarantees her satisfaction. Spending a lot of money is not necessary for buying gifts for the ones you love – it should be about the giving not the getting. |
Alizae’s
First Christmas By Rachel Reese This is our daughter Alizae’s first
Christmas and we are looking forward to it. Many of Korey’s family and mine have bought her several gifts already. We received a lot of early Christmas presents already because everybody wants to see either the outfit on her or see her play with the toys. Alizae is four months old and loves to look at bright things. She is starting to put everything in her mouth and sometimes she chews on her bottom lip! Korey and I gave her an early present which was Phat Pharm shoes. They don’t fit her yet but hopefully by summer she will be wearing them! We are looking forward to a great first Christmas for Alizae and to see the amazement on her face! |
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Music
Legend ‘Bob
Marley’ By: Jasmine Monier Many teens today are into the newer music that you hear on the radio. They may be into rap, pop, R & B, or even possibly country. But not me, my mom has gotten me into the music of her time, the hippie era. One of the artists I have fallen in love with, not only for his musical genius, but for all of his beliefs and ideas, is Bob Marley. Bob Marley was
a big believer in the religion called Rastafari. This religion urged
their followers not to ingest alcohol, tobacco, all meat (especially pork),
as well as shellfish, scaleless fish, snails, and many common seasonings like
salt. In short, anything that was not "ital," a Rasta
term meaning pure, natural or clean, was forbidden. They also outlawed the
combing or cutting of hair, hence the style of dredlocks. Rastafarians
have other beliefs involving the use of natural herbs. Two of Marley’s very first recordings
are Judge Not (Unless You Judge
Yourself) and One Cup of Coffee.
Some of his first encounters with the musical business at age 16 were with
his Trenchtown pals in their musical group called the Wailing
Rudeboys (later becoming The Wailin' Wailers). This group consisted of Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, and
Peter Tosh. The Wailers's first single, Simmer Down, reached Number 1 in 1964 on (Continued à) |
Music
legend Bob Marley In February of
1966, Bob married Rita Anderson and they had four children – two girls and
two boys. On Not many people know that Marely dropped out of school at age 14, or that he was a trained welder. Bob Marley may have lived a short life
to most, but he filled every minute of his life with something he would never
regret. Bob has taught me this: Live
each day as if it were your last, and never have regrets or what ifs. |
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Film
Review Christmas with the Kranks Rosa Hurtado There are a lot of movies that will come out for Christmas. You won’t be able to decide which movie you will want to go to. But I can help you out a little. One of the newsest movies is Christmas with the Kranks. The previews for that movie look really good. It makes you just want to jump out of your seat and go watch it. But do you know what that movie is about? The movie is about a family named the Kranks. One year the daughter decides to go away for Christmas. That was the first time she was away for Christmas in seventeen years, so Mr. Krank decides that for that Christmas he would do something different. He decides to skip Christmas and go on vacation cruise with his wife instead. When boys scouts come by and try to sell them a tree he says, “No thank you we won’t be needing a tree this year. We are skipping Christmas.” (Continued à)
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Unfortunately the boy scouts leader tells all the neighbors. All the neighbors want to talk to him out of skipping Christmas but he ignores all of them instead. All of a sudden, a day before the cruise and Christmas, they receive a surprise call from their daughter. She is coming home for Christmas. They have 24 hours to get everything ready; will they be able to do it? Yeah the
previews look good but that’s pretty much all the funny parts of the movie. I
think you can go out and watch a different movie – movie that you can enjoy a lot and maybe
laugh a little more. I would think twice before going to watch that Christmas with the Kranks.
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What bugs
me about school By Rosa Hurtado You know one of the things that bugs me about school is when teachers make you work in groups. Not because they make you work with someone else, but because it means that everyone has to work together. The idea is that you can get things done faster. When you work in groups there are usually people who work more than others and that’s what bugs me about working in groups. (Continued à) |
If everyone works together, then that’s something else. Then everyone cooperates and things get done. It takes less time to do your work and everyone gets to do something. But if I’m the only one working, it makes me mad. I think working together is only beneficial when everyone does something, not just when one person does all the work and everyone takes the credits for it. That’s just not right. That is why I don’t like it when teachers make us work in groups. Everyone should have to work equally in order to get equal credit for what they did or didn’t do. |
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If we were
Santa Claus…
Adrian,
John, Kelly and Ivan |
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ALC
Insider |
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Christmas
Myths Quiz By Frank white
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We found a lot of these questions on msn.com |
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