The Eye Of Tomorrow

The

Of Tomorrow

Table of contents 03

Profile Friend Crush

04-05

Feature One Day

06-09 10-11 12-13

Profile She Not He

News Converse VS. Adidas

Opinion 13 Reasons Why Review

Staff: Jasmine Beemon Haley Wojciechowski Fatima Kammona

Compiled By: Jasmine Beemon

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PROFILE MAY 2017

FRIEND CRUSH BY: JASMINE BEEMON

Friends. People who you spend your lonely days with, people who are there for you when you’re down and can always cheer you up. They come and go, but usually at least one sticks around. This person is what you call the Best friend. When it comes to best friends, there are some unusual friendships.

“Why is she throwing snowballs at me,”McKenna Haag’19 said were her first thoughts of her best friend Jazlyn Colon’19. The pair first met in 2009 at Van Allen Elementary School. Their first encounter was not as you would expect. “Jazlyn and her friend (I didn’t know her at the time) were throwing snowballs at me and then the teacher made us become friends,” Hagg says.

They’ve been friends since, which is a long time.

Having been friends for a long time, the two have plenty of memories together. When asked to only pick 1, Colon could hardly decide. “There’s a lot because I’ve spent my whole life with her. But probably when I pushed her off the bed on purpose,” says Colon. Haag did not agree with that response. “Jazlyn and her family took me to Chicago, and this was my first time going there. We went to a zoo,” Hagg says.

Besides throwing snowballs and kicking each other off beds, Hagg and Colon enjoy sitting at home and making pizzas together.

Not every friendship is perfect so when it comes to dislikes, Hagg had lots to say. “Everything. She gets on my nerves a lot. She is always telling me what to do with my life when she doesn’t need to,” says Hagg jokingly. Colon didn’t have as much to say, “She’s too loud and when we’re at the store she’ll dance around for no reason, which bothers me.”

Whether Hagg likes it or not, Colon says they're stuck with each other forever. Although lots of high school friendships don’t last after high school, Colon and Hagg both agree that they’ll stay friends.

FRIEND FACT! One time Hagg was driving Colon around and she almost killed her.

“She’s driving normally and when she came to a traffic light there was a yeild sign but she didn’t see it. So when she went, a car was coming and it almost hit us.” Colon says.

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PROFILE MAY 2017

She Not He

05

PROFILE

MAY 2017

BY: FATIMA KAMMONA

He. She. Him. Her. These pronouns are used to define us as if who we are can just simply be defined in one syllable. How we act, look and even love is supposed to correlate with the pronoun you were given at birth. But what if you were given the wrong pronoun and told to act like a different person than who you are. What would you do then?

“I’m a male to a female transgender woman. Meaning I’m transitioning from male to female. Meaning I changed my name and doing all this stuff to be who I am supposed to be.” Dove, a student at West High School has been and is dealing with this first hand. From the age of seven Dove knew something was different about her and her body. “I tried tricking myself and trying to make myself feel more masculine. I used to think that I was gay, I didn’t ever think that I could be anything but a boy. I couldn’t be a boy anymore I needed to try and be the person that I felt like I was meant to be.”

19%

. The percentage of transgender people who experi-

enced violence or abuse from a family member. However, Dove was fortunate enough to not be part of the percentage. “My mom was very supportive because my mom has always supported me through everything. I never really had a problem with my family expect trying to get my dad to call me Dove and use she, her pronouns.

But my dad realized that this was something I needed to do and he tried his hardest and he still is.”

Though Dove has a family that is standing behind her and her life choices, there are still some who feel the need to voice their opinion on the subject of Dove’s own body.

“Ok, that your opinion.” replies Dove to the opinion, “But I know me, I know my body and I know that I don’t feel right in this body.

How is it your right to tell me it’s a phase when I should know.”

Other times Dove has had to respond to some rude and disturbing questions like, “Why do you still look like a boy?” or “Do you still have your male genitalia?” When it comes do to it does it really even matter if someone is a he, she, him, her when at the end of the day were just humans. So why do people

asks these meaningless and even degrading questions?

Dove says that “West has one of the biggest communities” that she has ever had the pleasure of working with. But that’s really rare to find.

32.

The number of states where transgender individuals can still be fired or denied employment for their identity.

However, Iowa is one of the 18 states that have clear laws protecting transgender people.

He. She. Him. Her. These pronouns may not define us at times but sometimes they can tell our story. Other times they may even restrict us. But are these words really doing the restrictions or is it the people who follow and believe them doing it. Dove and millions of others are fighting these restrictions, not just the ones on their bodies but the ones in the minds of others.

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F E AT U R E MAY 2017

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F E AT U R E

MAY 2017

One Day

By Fatima Kammona

What

do you see when you look in the mirror? The imperfection on your body? Or is it the beauty in who you are as a human? What would you say to someone who called out all your flaws, called out all the insecurities that hide inside you? What would you say to that?

Johan Childs ‘18 has experienced this first hand. Born a girl and in transition to becoming a man, he has been told that he is, “Just a straight girl fantasizing gay man because I’m also gay.” Childs said.

“Somebody once asked me,” Childs recalls, “That what if you get in a relationship with somebody and they don’t want to be with you because you’re transitioning? Wouldn’t you stop transitioning to be with them?”

Childs replied with a simple no, that he would not stop becoming the person that he always knew

“One day I’m going to pass as male, One day no one is going to misgender me. One day I’m going to be comfortable with my appearance.”

-Johan Childs ‘18

that he was for someone else.

These situations give fuel to the insecurities that have already been routed inside people. “I’m transgender,” Childs said, “and I don’t pass very well or I feel that I don’t pass very well even though I’m on testosterone the changes happen very slowly. I try not to let myself get bothered when people misidentify my gender but it’s always a small set back for me in my day.”

Insecurities are constantly limiting people,“This is my first year at west.” Childs said, “And I think me not being secure in myself and who I am correlating with how I look has made me miss out on a lot of opportunities. I don’t have many friends and I don’t talk to many people.It’s just really hard for me to go out of my way to try and talk to people because I don’t feel like my appearance are up to par.”

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F E AT U R E MAY 2017

d e u n i t n u Co Though Childs is

dealing with his insecurities every day, he doesn’t let them bring him down. “I try to tell myself, ‘One day I’m going to pass as male, One day no one is going to misgender me. One day I’m going to be comfortable with my appearance and I kinda try to focus on what it’s going to be like after.”

When Child looks into the mirror this is what he says is going through his mine, “That this shouldn’t be my body and I shouldn’t look like this and this isn’t me. Like the you that’s in your head and is a completely different you than what everybody else sees.

For me, I try to envision myself as the man that I want to become and

not the girl that everybody else sees me as.”

So what do you see when you look in the mirror?

The imperfection on your body. Or the beauty in who you are as a human. Do you feel disguised in who is looking bad at you? Or do you feel proud of the person in the mirror?

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10

N EWS

MAY2017

Converse VS. Adidas Best Friend Style

By: HALEY WOJCIECHOWSKI

Have you ever stopped to think about how many kids wear Converse or Adidas? Did you ever think that there could possibly be a competition between these two brands? If you haven’t take a second think about it.

Converse came out about 40 years before Adidas did, no doubt they are still neck in neck with each other.

Converse started becoming really popular with their shoes (High Tops or Low tops) just recently. Around this year is when Adidas’ shoes started to become really popular with their shoes. Converse was at the brink of bankruptcy, but they went up with there business to 1.4 million dollars. How did they do it? Well one answer is they bumped up their prices. Converse All Stars are 11% more expensive today than they were two years ago. Converse isn’t the only brand to almost go bankrupt, Adidas almost went bankrupt in the 90’s due to poor strategic decisions. In the end, both Adidas and Converse built there way back up becoming huge million dollar companies.

Taylor Gardner ’20 of West High School likes Converse more than Adidas. She has no personal reason against liking Converse more than Adidas, she just has never owned Adidas. Which means she doesn’t really dislike anything about this other brand. She would definitely consider wearing the other brand if she had the money to buy these shoes. Since Gardner doesn’t dislike the other brand she has a few things she likes about them and has heard. She thinks they look cool and she’s heard from other people that they are very comfortable. Her favorite thing about converse is their style. “I definitely prefer high tops instead of low tops. I like how they have that option to chose between them though, because high tops support your ankles and low tops are very comfortable and easy to put on, and getting to choose is definitely as advantage,” Gardner said, “One disadvantage of having High tops for converse, is having a terrible tan line.”

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Paytience Robertson ’20 of West High owns both Adidas shoes and Converse shoes. Robertson chooses Adidas over converse because, “They are comfortable, they match almost anything, and I love the style.” Robertson is a huge fan of converse, as she does own a pair of the shoes, but she usually only wears them with her leggings. She thinks that her Adidas shoes are way more comfortable than the Converse shoes she owns. “My favorite thing about my Adidas shoes are the black strips on the side. I like the style and the symbol on the back of the shoe.” Robertson said. An advantage to having Adidas is they make her fit in better because lots of people own these Adidas Shoes. A disadvantage, in Robertson’s opinion, would be that they are white and since white is easily stained, she has to worry about them getting dirty. Some things she likes about Converse is the style and the way they look with shorts. She doesn’t like how Converse doesn’t match with a lot of things she wants to wear, and how they aren’t the most comfortable with walking for a long time.

CONVERSE FACTS:

1. They were originally designed as athletic shoes 2. Converse previously made rainboots 3. Rocky ran in Converse in his movies 4. Converse is an American Brand 5. They were originally intended for soccer and Netball

N EWS

ADIDAS FACTS: 1. The Brand was born out of sibling Rivalry 2. It was almost called Addas 3. The three stripes came from another brand

4. Adidas invented shower shoes 5. The brand is headed to space in 2017

12

OPINION MAY 2017

TH1RTEEN R3ASONS WHY REVIEW

By HALEY WOJCIEHOWSKI ’20 AND JASMINE BEEMON ’20

13 Reasons Why, not only a book but a show that has completely blown out.

Everywhere you look, everything that is being said is revolving around this show..

Kids, adults, teens, everyone is talking about it, it’s an overnight sensation.. The book and the show are both centered around a girl named Hannah, who leaves tapes in her absence after she commits suicide. These tapes hold recordings of her telling who had a part in her death and why.

These tapes are now to get passed to everyone on the tapes. So when a boy named Clay Jensen gets these tapes one day after school, he is shocked to hear that he was part of the reason that Hannah took her life. This story brings revives the idea of how far bullying can push someone to their limits and then break them and how an absence of someone's life can change you.

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OPINION

MAY 2017

Just like every good movie, or show, there's a book that came out first. So for 13 reasons why, there's a book and a movie. The book came out in 2007, written

by Jay Asher. The show just recently came out on Netflix in March. As soon as this show hit Netflix everyone was talking about it. I heard about it from one of my friends a couple of weeks ago and decided to start watching it. Later on I found out there was a book. Everyone always says that the book is better than the movie. But this time it's a show, and this time is the movie really better than the book?

The answer is no. In my opinion, the show was better than the book because of the emotion it showed and the personality behind all the characters. Now the book and the show were definitely the same, I mean there wasn't any huge changes, but if you read between the lines for each you could definitely tell that there was some small changes. For example, what I gather from the book is he listened to all the tapes in one night. In the show, it took him day after day to listen to each and every tape and throughout him listening to the tapes in the show, he came across many problems, such as Tony following him everywhere, the other kids on the tapes trying to keep him quiet, and his parents trying to figure what's going on with him. In the book he faced nothing close to that amount of problems. Also the book was more nicer than the show. It didn’t have as much bad language or horrible actions or all of this tension between everyone on the tapes, not like the show did. The show expressed more emotion and feeling in my opinion and that's one of the big reasons why it's better in my opinion. For a show about suicide, emotion is very important and the show had lots of it. So in the end, the show was better because, even though you know the show and book would be different, it had emotion, personality, truly brought it to be a phenomenal and inspiring show.

10 THINGS TO DO AND NOT TO DO THIS SUMMER 1. Have fun 2. Sleep 3. Work 4. Go to as many social events as you can 5. Tan 6. Wear lots of sunscreen 7. Go to beach or pool 8. Have summer fling 9. Go to concerts/ Music festivals 10. Sit out at the fire

1. Fall asleep tanning 2. Worry about school 3. Sleep all day 4. Worry about anyone but yourself 5. Binge watch netflix, Hulu, or any tv show/movie all day 6. Wear tons of makeup (It’s summer, go natural) 7. Pay attention to technology 8. Keep around negative people 9. Forget to turn on the AC in your house 10. Have ANY regrets at the end of summer