2010-2011 Senior College Map

See where our Seniors are heading with our interactive, online college map.

Fantasy Quidditch takes home gold in fantasy basketball

100%. That’s my fantasy league winning percentage. It’s only a minor detail that I’ve only been in one league.

This year, my team Fantasy Quidditch took home the gold, taking first place out of ten teams. I didn’t have the best winning percentage, or the top seed, however when push came to shove, my team outperformed everyone else. I struggled with a few key injuries during the season, which contributed to a few of my losses, but with everyone healthy in the playoffs, Fantasy Quidditch proved hard to beat.

 After leading the East division despite a late comeback from Jason Flam and Hrvoje Zolo’s team “Rajon Rondo,” I surged into the playoffs defeating Charlie Morrisey’s team “Westbrook? O no its weestbrook” five to four, and Nate Hanley’s team “CP3.” six to three for the championship.

Hanley, despite not being on Clarion 2^nd semester, took earn second place despite a few key injuries throughout the season. Jon Stevanovich’s team “Burger n Large Frye Please” took home third, despite having the best total stats on the season.

My lack of fantasy and basketball knowledge prevailed this year, and my first five picks, Stephen Curry, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Al Jefferson and John Wall powered my team to eleven wins, six losses, one draw, and one championship.

I wish all the Clarion staff best of luck next year in the competition, and hopefully someone uses my strategy of taking John Wall as early as possible.

Girls’ water polo focused on improvement with young team

The Lady Bulldog water polo team is back with a lot of new faces for the 2011 season. After losing almost all starting players, the Bulldogs look to rebuild their team and fill spots with young talent.

Returning sophomore Ariel Moon said, “Considering that most of our team is new this year and has never played, we are playing pretty well. The new girls are learning quickly.”

Senior Captains Tori Burris, Joanna Keen, and Liz Kartje return as the anchors of the team, and look to provide expertise to a majority freshmen and sophomore team.

Burris said, “We have had a rough start considering our we have an extremely young team. Hopefully as the season progresses everything will start to click.”

The team has struggled this year competitively, although they recently won a game, and are showing improvement.

Moon said, “Our goal this year is to win as many games as possible, as well as progressing to the point where we make smart decisions in the water. Despite our tough start, however we are getting better with passing and decision making, which is leading us to more goals.”

Burris added, “Everyone has been putting in more effort and trying harder. Hopefully we can start winning more games as we start to play better as a team.”

Several hundred pillars coming to Character Counts!

APRIL FOOL’S DISCLAIMER:
The story below is intended as humor only and is not intended to be accurate.  All RB community participants in the story provided written permission for their names to appear.

This year has been an important year for change in the building. Along with our new principal, Pamela Bylsma, has come the shifting of the “community of caring” into the national Character Counts! program.

The overarching feature of Character Counts is the six pillars of character: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship. These pillars are supposed to be the foundation of everything that goes on in the school, and were created to foster the strongest learning environment possible, all while turning students into respectable members of society. Posters and flyers have been floating around the building and in teachers’ rooms all year in an attempt to start to spread these ideals in the building.

As awareness for the program has spread, so has the apparent need for changes to the program. A major update to the RB chapter has been proposed for the 2011-2012 school year, which will include the expanding the number of pillars by 100 times, rounding off the complete total at 600.

“Our current pillars failed to encompass the changing character of our student body,” said Bylsma, “With the addition of the new pillars, we’ll be able to reach the new generation of students that didn’t connect with the classic pillars.”

Some of the highlights of the proposed pillars include “procrastination”, “selfishness”, “insincerity”, and “chivalry is dead”. The administration feels this change will help current high school students will feel a stronger connection with the pillars.

“While a student may not understand what responsibility is, he or she probably has firsthand experience with procrastination,” said Bylsma.

Freshman Drew Boxell talked about his new favorite pillar, pride, saying, “I’ve pretty much known my whole life that I’m the greatest thing to walk this earth since the dinosaurs. I feel as if the school is finally recognizing my sheer awesomeness with these new pillars. Now I can walk around the halls knowing for sure that I really am the world’s greatest,” Boxell then ended the interview abruptly and walked away while singing R. Kelly at the top of his lungs.

Senior Chris Buh appreciates the change, although wishes that his proposed new favorite new pillar laziness was in effect this year. “Let’s face it, I’m a second semester senior, am I really going to do any work? Finally the school is appreciating the innate laziness of their seniors. I only wish I could have been rewarded for my incredible lack of work,” he said.

In addition to the new pillars, new “pillar clauses” are being added to the old ones in order to capture the essence of 21st century teenagers. Some of the pillar clauses include: trustworthiness (as long as I like the person), fairness (unless the person was mean to me first), and responsibility (until I figure out how to not do my work and still get the same grades).

General reception from the students has been incredibly positive on the new pillars. Many have been feeling a stronger emotional connection to the updated system.

“Finally our school has begun to catch up with the change in society. The new pillars really speak to my soul in a deep way. I wouldn’t hesitate to call this the best decision administration has ever made,” said Boxell.

These changes are set to go into effect at the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year.

“The Josephson Institute has been backing this change for a while now, so we’re really excited to see our students embrace the new system,” said Bylsma.

B-PaRC holds referendum forum for seniors

On Tuesday March 8^th, a referendum forum much like the one held at Komarek on March 2nd, was held for seniors. A new student group, B-PaRC (Bipartisan Referendum Coalition), started and organized by Elliot Louthen, ran the event. The event was held during both 6^th and 7^th hours and was well attended.

The purpose of the event was to inform seniors about the upcoming referendum, since Louthen realized many of his fellow seniors weren’t informed. He did not want to exclusively promote his view on the referendum, but rather inform students from all sides, and let them make the decision for themselves.

He said, “In speaking to other RB students, I realized that many were uninformed on the issue and other students felt it did not matter. I wanted to change that, so I came up with the idea to recreate the forum at Komarek and inform students on the issue.”

Both sides of the issue were presented, with three students representing each side. Louthen, Kate Walsh, and Paul Landahl represented the pro side, and Fitz Robling, Thomas Linehan, and Andrew Brondos presented the negative side.

Several of the students have parents involved one way or another in the referendum discussion. Walsh’s father Tim Walsh is running for one of the vacant board seats, who hasn’t publicly stated a position on the referendum. Landahl’s father Jim Landahl is actively involved with CURB, a pro-referendum group. Robling’s father Chris Robling presented the negative side of the issue at the Komarek forum, and has been a former board candidate in the past.

Louthen opened his presentation saying, “ We want to leave a legacy for future students and future classes, we want them to have the same opportunities that we had here at RB.”

Brondos, representing the other viewpoint, said, “We are here to show the other side of things. Since we’re at RB, we pretty much only hear one side, so hopefully this will inform you.”

Both sides gave PowerPoint guided speeches giving both facts and opinions, and then the floor was opened up to students for questions. Questions were mostly directed at one side or the other, but both sides were allowed to answer all or any questions.

Another big push of the event was to encourage voting for those who are eligible. Both sides stressed the issue, regardless of viewpoint. Voter registration was available at the event for those who weren’t registered, but were going to be turning eighteen before April 5^th.

Linehan said, “I want everyone to vote whether or not they support the referendum. Everyone that is a part of this event wants kids to utilize their right to vote, and express their opinion. Everyone should have a chance to be a part of our democratic system.”

The Mechanic needs a mechanic

While an uncanny amount of action automatically can cover up minor shortcomings in some movies, it can’t salvage the Mechanic remake from being a complete failure. 
 
The Mechanic is a remake of a 1972 Charles Bronson movie about the complicated relationship between an assassin and his “mechanic wannabe” partner. Jason Statham, known for his slew of plotless action movies (Crank, Transporter, etc.), plays Arthur Bishop, the main hit man, who specializes in murders that look like accidents or frame other individuals.
 
The main tension in the movie comes in the training of his partner Steve (Ben Foster) who’s tied to Bishop’s work through a twisted series of events. The action unfolds as their relationship continues to develop as they complete assassinations as a team.
 
The Mechanic was obviously trying to appeal to the young male audience, and it obviously worked, seeing as the trailer had me interested. However, no amount of action could blind the average viewer from the slew of other problems in the Mechanic. The acting is poor, the plot is old and predictable, and the writing is horrendous. 
 
That being said, there are a lot of explosions, a lot of blood, and an extreme amount of violence. I haven’t seen a movie this violent in a long time. Some points were so brutal I found myself wincing in my seat. Whether that is a bad or good thing is up to the viewer, but it actually got a little excessive for me personally.
 
There were some great “guy” moments, and some great lines, but as a whole, the Mechanic falls short in about every manner. I was expecting a plot less, explosion heavy movie, and the Mechanic still failed to leave me feeling satisfied. As far as shoot-em-up movies go, the Mechanic remake is definitely a pass.

Noble Map Pack adds depth to the Reach experience

On Tuesday November 30^th, the Noble Map Pack dawned, and Halo players all over the world were given three new multiplayer maps to fight over.  Available for ten dollars via in game download, the Noble map pack features three completely new maps, all designed entirely from scratch (you won’t have seen these maps in the campaign) and tailored to different game types. For those who are on the edge of buying, I’m going to give my two cents on each of the new maps.

Anchor 9:

Set in a space station in outer space, Anchor 9 is the smallest of the three new maps in the Noble pack. Designed for small team close quarters combat, Anchor 9 features games for 4-8 people in a variety of variants, from Slayer to Capture the Flag. A unique feature of Anchor 9 is a zone outside the space station that is set in low gravity, so players will be able to “float” around while shooting each other. This allows for some funny and unique moments, which are unavailable in other maps. Fans of the map The Pit, from Halo 3, will feel at home at Anchor 9, as it was designed with the same things in mind. Anchor 9 has been a blast from my experience so far, and has allowed for some competitive team game play. I’m hesitant to call it my favorite, just because my personal play style lends itself to longer range combat, but for those who like close quarters combat, Anchor 9 does not disappoint.

Tempest:

Tempest showcases Bungie’s ability to create maps that are not only fun to play, but visually breathtaking. Set at a weather station on a portion of an island, Tempest is in my opinion the best looking map. Looks aside, Tempest also is my favorite map to play. The mid-sized map of the group, Tempest is best suited for games of eight to twelve players. Like Anchor 9, multiple game types are available to play. At first glance, Tempest will remind Halo 3 players of Valhalla, although it is slightly smaller, and has more terrain to hide behind, sneak through, and play around. Tempest earns my favorite spot because it blends both long and short range combat, and creates games that are fast paced if you are a run and gun type player, or slower paced if you enjoy long range combat and sniping. 

Breakpoint:

Invasion players are probably not reading this and already playing Breakpoint. Designed with the Invasion game mode specifically in mind, Breakpoint is the largest map of the bunch. While it was designed for Invasion, it isn’t exclusively an Invasion map, and you can expect it to be showing up in the big team playlist as well. It has a similar structure to Avalanche from Halo 3, but in my opinion has been refined and is better constructed. I wasn’t a big fan of Avalanche, but have had a lot of fun in Breakpoint so far. Vehicles are numerous, so those who enjoy flying and driving, Breakpoint is your map. Personally it is my least favorite map, however I don’t think it is a bad map. I just would rather be playing different playlists, and smaller maps.

Consensus:

If you own Reach, buy the maps. It’s that simple. They complement the existing maps, and add more depth to the multiplayer experience. None of the maps are poorly created, unfair, or not fun. Bungie takes a lot of time developing these maps, and it truly shows. Right now, there is a DLC only playlist, for those eager to spend a lot of time fighting on new terrain, but expect the maps to be integrated into the old playlists in the near future.

My Life Through a Glass Eye, a new photo-blog

For those of you who don’t know me, I have an avid love for photography.  I believe a good photograph is much more than just a snapshot in time, but rather something that tells a story. Photography is something that’s always changing, and always different. In some sense photographs are like snowflakes, with no two ever coming out alike.

For a while now, I’ve had a desire to publish some of my photographs, and tell the stories that go along with them. I’ve created a photo-blog as an outlet to publish some of these photographs for those interested to take a look at. I’m going to be updating it as often as possible, and would love feedback, comments, or advice.

You can follow the pictures at my new photo blog entitled: My Life Through a Glass Eye. I’m going try to somehow relate all of the pictures back to my experiences in this building. This is a first attempt at trying to tell the stories of some of the photographs I take. If you like photography, I’d encourage you to take a look, and tell me what you think!

Bungie finishes strong with Halo Reach

After nine years of work from Bungie Studios, the Halo franchise has officially come to an end. Halo Reach, the final installment in the Halo series, hit stores on September 14^th, in one of the biggest video game releases of all time.

Reach is Bungie’s fourth full game in the Halo series, and is set before the previous three games. In the campaign mode, Players take control of a Spartan soldier known only as Noble Six and join a team of other Spartans fighting on the planet Reach, which was the former training location of the Spartan army.

Noble Six, along with the other members of his team, are fighting to take back planet Reach, which has been attacked by large numbers of Covenant forces. While the campaign starts off relatively slow, don’t be turned away from the shallow first mission. The action picks up quickly and leads to the most exciting Halo campaign to date. Battles are large and epic, and are backed up by a powerful soundtrack. The campaign features 10 missions, new vehicles, weapons, and the inclusion of the new armor abilities.

While Halo games are known for exciting campaign modes, Bungie prides itself on the extensive online multiplayer options available to players. Building on experience from Halo 2 and 3, Bungie outdid expectations and created a multiplayer experience that tops not only its predecessors, but any online game I’ve played to date.

The matchmaking lobby has been redesigned, and allows for players to vote on a choice of two or three maps compared to Halo 3 were a map and game mode were assigned to players. If none of the choices are liked, there’s an option to bring up a new choice of maps as well. The online playlists have also been changed from Halo 3. Ranked and social playlists have turned into Competitive, Cooperative, and Arena. The competitive playlist is essentially the social playlist from Halo 3, and players will see familiar game types like Team Slayer, Rumble Pit, and Big Team Battle, as well as the new Invasion game mode. Cooperative hosts online Firefight, a wave survival based game play brought in from ODST, which has been tuned and perfected in Reach.

The Arena is the new version of ranked game play, but has become much more competitive, and precise. Players can compete in either the doubles arena, or team arena (four players per team) and be ranked based on their play during one month “seasons.” Players get assigned a rating each day if they complete three or more arena matches. If you are ranked seven days out of a season, you are assigned to one of five divisions, which range from Iron to Onyx. Only five percent of online players are assigned to the Onyx division, so the arena stays incredibly competitive. If your ranking doesn’t define how good you think you are, seasons rotate pretty quickly, so you can always have another shot at the Gold or Onyx divisions.  Another thing that is cool about the arena is that your ranking isn’t based off of wins and losses, but rather how well you play. Everything you do is worth points, and your points are what assign you your rating for the day.

My favorite aspect of the redesigned online play is the new armor abilities. In most game modes, players are given a choice of five armor abilities to play the game with. The abilities include sprint, active camo, jetpack, evade, armor lock, drop shield, and hologram. Not all abilities are available in every game mode, and sometimes abilities are paired with certain weapon combinations. All of the armor abilities, or “loadouts” as most people call them, have different abilities and are tailored to different styles of play. Run and gun type players enjoy the versatility provided by the sprint and jetpack features, where as more subtle, sneaky players have the active camo and hologram options to deceive their opponents. All of the armor abilities are balanced relatively fairly, although I find myself only using sprint and active camo most of the time. The inclusion of armor abilities in Reach gives more versatility to the game, and allows players to tweak game play to their liking, much like the perk system introduced in the Call of Duty series.

As of Tuesday, October 5^th, Bungie released the first major online update for Reach. After analyzing player voting data and hearing users main complaints, the playlists have been tailored according to the user feedback Bungie recieved. In addition, the first season of the arena has officially ended and the second season has commenced.

Many weapons have been redesigned as well. The Battle rifle from Halo 3 has been replaced with the DMR, a 15 shot, semi-automatic  weapon which peaks in power when fired in a rhythm to maximize headshots. The Halo 3 carbine has been replaced with the needle rifle, which is essentially the same gun, but fires accurate needle rounds that explode the opponent. Also introduced are the Plasma repeater, Plasma Launcher, Grenade Launcher, and Focus Rifle. Some guns, like the pistol and the assault rifle, have been redesigned as well, and while they are the same gun, they pack different stats and a different punch. The new guns are a big update from Halo 3, and from my experience so far are way more fun to play with than any previous weapons.

For those who like to build and create, the Forge mode is back in Reach, and has been perfected. The frustrating free rotate from Halo 3 is still available, but now players can spin things on fixed axis, which makes for much easier building. A “Forge World” map is also available, which is the biggest map on a Halo game to date. It features numerous different areas that are unique, which allows players to customize to their hearts content. Be on the lookout for some great Forge content online in the coming months.

In three weeks of playing, I’ve been nothing but impressed with Reach. It builds on a decade worth of experience, and combines all the best parts of the previous Halo games along with new content to create a game that not only pleases old fans, but welcomes new ones. All game modes have been competitive, and the new guns, vehicles, and weapons have been a blast. The campaign mode is backed by the strongest multiplayer to date, as well as firefight and forge to keep players interested. Halo Reach is one of the most complete video game packages ever made, and any fan of first person shooters should go pick this up immediately, if they aren’t online playing right now.

Alexie’s Flight glides rather than soars

Meet Zits, the main character in Flight, by Sherman Alexie, an orphaned half Indian, half Irish teenage boy, struggling to find his way in a violence, drug, and crime filled life. Zits has been in and out of numerous foster homes and housing situations, and been stuck jail almost as many times.

Soon after the novel opens, Zits is found in jail again, where he meets another teenager who goes by the name of “Justice.” Justice takes Zits to his home in an abandoned warehouse, where the two spend their hours pretending to shoot newspaper and real life targets with unloaded guns. As they spend more and more time together, Justice convinces Zits to take their practice into real life situation, with loaded guns.

After gunning down a bank, and consequently taking a bullet to his head, Zits wakes up in a body that is not his own. Throughout the rest of the book, Zits keeps waking up in different bodies and taking “flights” to different historical events and being put in the bodies of numerous characters. The novel progresses as Zits learns and changes his perspective on things during these “flights.”

Flight is unlike any other book I’ve read in the fact that it blends so many genres into one novel. Historical facts, humor, and even a little time travel are combined to create Flight. As a whole, Alexie hits the spot in blending these elements together and weaving a cohesive story all at the same time, however Flight is missing a few key ingredients for it to be fully satisfying.

Flight succeeds at most levels, especially as an attention keeper. I read through the novel twice, and could hardly put it down both times. The story telling is good, although not brilliant, and Zits comes alive as a main character. The novel also is interesting from a historical perspective, as Alexie gives his representation of some famous historical events. Despite serious themes, a raw and often dark sense of humor runs throughout the entire novel.

Despite all of the positive aspects, Flight left me itching for more depth. Many of the side characters felt underdeveloped and the plot, especially the ending, lacked the punch that I was hoping for. Alexie set the framework for an incredibly deep novel, but failed to deliver.

While I enjoyed Flight and would probably recommend it, much of Alexie’s other work is stronger, and would be recommended far before Flight.  It was an interesting read, but the lack of depth kept Flight from being as good as Alexie’s other novels.

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