I had the pleasure of sitting down and getting to know Sonny Montoya, our other foreign exchange student from Italy who moved here permanently to study. This high school junior seems really pleased and happy with his decision to come here to study. While he does state that he misses home, he has little to no regret making the decision stating, “I came here for opportunity.”

Q: So I understand that your family moved here permanently from Italy this year. What influenced you and your family to make the change?
I actually moved here alone. My Mom is back in Italy while my Dad and brother are in Australia for their schooling. One big reason why I decided to come and learn here is because of the schooling and the language.

Q: What was something you found unusual when you first arrived to the U.S.?
Well for one thing I find the school system here interesting. The teachers here actually teach and get involved with the students and they make the class fun by trying to get everyone involved.

Q: Was it a big culture shock?
Kind of, yes, just because I was new to it.

Q: What’s the best part about living in America?
I really like the people. People in America are friendlier than back in Italy. You’re more open. I find that there are more opportunities here for schools and careers than in Italy.

Q: What’s the number one thing you miss most about Italy?
Family and friends for sure.

Q: What’s the biggest difference between the U.S. and Italy?
Well, for one thing, Italy is smaller than America. But the educational system for sure is different.

Q: Are you involved in any clubs or sports at the school?
I played soccer in the fall, and I swam this winter. I enjoyed playing both sports, but I’m enjoying the swimming thing. It’s becoming one of my favorites.

Q: Do you have any hobbies outside of school?
I enjoy playing music. I play drums, guitar, bass, and piano. Though I like playing all of those, I would have to say guitar and piano are my favorite.

Q: Do you have a favorite kind of music?
It varies, but I like rock/pop the best.

Q: Ok, I have to ask, Coke or Pepsi?
Coke, only because it’s more popular in Italy than Pepsi.

Q: Do you regret making the decision to leave home and permanently live in the U.S.?
No, not at all. I did start to miss home after a while, but I learned to adapt.

Going to the midnight premiere of The Great Gatsby felt sort of like a right of passage as a high school senior. It was as if the entire time literary devices jumped out and every paper comparing East and West Egg was relived on the big screen. The movie was brilliant and the risky quirks worked in director Baz Luhrmann’s favor. But there was a sense of sentimentality that lingered in the minds, surely, of everyone who has read the book.

The eccentric mixture of modern music and an extravagant 1920s lifestyle could have gone terribly. The vivid portrayal of a generation so lost to nearly everyone alive today could have been a disaster. In fact, I was entirely skeptical for the first 20 minutes and was about to regret essentially purchasing a night in which I was forced to sit through a masterpiece gone wrong.

But the movie got better. So much better, in fact, that I caught myself grinning at every quote I annotated tirelessly my junior year. Nick Carraway’s observant nature and Daisy Buchanan’s general awfulness were so present in the film that I knew, with absolute certainty, it was possible to relive a feeling. Everything I thought when I read the book I thought when I saw the movie. Even the procrastination-inspired exhaustion I experienced when I wrote my analytic paper about the novel last year was present because it was a midnight premiere.

I cannot say that everyone will fall in love with this movie the way I did. The strenuous analysis of Fitzgerald’s work of art might still be too fresh in the mind of a junior and the flaws of Luhrmann’s portrayal may be too glaring. English teachers might be especially critical of the film, as they have read hundreds of essays and know a good depiction when they see one. High school seniors, however, remember all of the hard work associated with the essays they have written just enough to smile when Gatsby’s immortal “old sport” comes out of Leonardo DeCaprio’s mouth. I know that I could not help but smile every time I heard a significant quote I memorized for all of the in-class timed writes the senior class was assigned last year.

And, as graduation creeps up on that very same senior class, we can only hope that the experiences gained from our high school years can contribute to the future. As Fitzgerald says, “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Thomas Sloan. I am a senior here at Pueblo West High School, and I have been writing (somewhat sporadically) with the CyChron over the past year.

After having been through high school and the college/scholarship application process that follows it, I would like to offer incoming and current students some advice about participation in extracurricular activities.

Let me start with what you will find—or may have already found—about the situation regarding extracurricular involvement in high school. There is a multitude of extracurricular variety at Pueblo West. This multitude includes several competitive varsity sports and their junior varsity or freshman-oriented fledglings. There are dozens of clubs that range from mountain biking to community service, chess-playing to science education, and literary journaling to cultural engagement. There are also activities with their own classes, like Speech and Debate and Student Council, which also require a great deal of commitment outside of school time. Each of these categories alone generates an extensive list of opportunities.

The atmosphere that seems to surround these options, especially as you enter high school, is one that urges as much involvement and participation in extracurricular groups as possible. Every year, we host a club fair, and students are encouraged to (and often do) sign up for everything on the table. “Get involved” is the motto, repeated countlessly.

I have found that this mindset even exists upon exiting high school. On college and scholarship applications, many of the form fields presented under the “Extracurricular Involvement” section seem to imply that it’s reasonable for high school applicants to have participated, meaningfully, in 15-20 separate activities throughout high school. This attitude of widespread involvement runs through the subconscious of parents, students, and staff alike.

Now, if you can humanly handle this expectation to the depth with which I now understand it, then lead the way—and here’s your Guinness prize. I, on the other hand, think that an emphasis on quantity of activities diminishes the expectation of serious commitment—quality—found within each activity.

A friend and I have settled on an accurate way to visualize the conflict I am talking about. Lo, Graph #1:

What you see here is the visualization of “Involvement” (AEUI=Arbitrarily Established Units of Involvement) for a hypothetical Pueblo West High School student’s (we’ll call him Johnny) concurrent participation in three activities, all of which are available here at the school. As you can see, this student is managing to put in between nine and twelve units of involvement for each activity at a given time.

What’s important about this chart is the red line I have superimposed at about the “6” level of involvement. (Microsoft Word wouldn’t let me put the red line right on the graph line, if you were wondering.) This red line represents the level of commitment, or “involvement,” that teachers and student leaders within each of these activities expect from our friend Johnny.

For Debate, this involvement level originates in attending weekly tournaments, preparing research, and writing cases. For Journalism, it may come from writing articles or producing live-streamed broadcasts, and in Mock Trial it would likely be preparing examination questions and statements and memorizing witness statements. These things all take time and effort—and that’s not even counting additional effort that is required to develop relationships with the people involved in each of these activities or to hold leadership positions.

If this graph were a bit more realistic, that red bar would actually be three bars set at different levels, depending on the varying expectations of different organizations. For simplicity’s sake, though, I’m just going to make it one line—it shouldn’t take away from the main idea too much.

One more important thing to note is that the number of AEUI—depicted here as bluish graph matter—is very finite; there is only so much time and effort in the world. For Johnny, total available Involvement adds up to about 31 AEUI. At this point, Johnny’s involvement is pretty well balanced, and he’s distributing the AEUI well. One more activity could push him over the edge, however.

With this in mind, brace yourself now for Graph #2:

Johnny’s situation has changed somewhat. As you can see, he followed up on many of his interests and is trying to be very involved.

But what does that get him? Two important variables have not changed: time-effort, aka AEUI, and the red-line commitment expectations for high school activities. What did change is the fact that by joining so many activities, Johnny has spread himself thin, and is forsaking quality for quantity.

I put this question to you: Which graph would you rather be your life?

Chew on that while I bring you my perspective. My high school experience rapidly developed into something like Graph #2. I don’t know how many other people go down this track, or if I’m a special kind of crazy, but I did it, and I can tell you that I wish I hadn’t.

There are multiple reasons for my regret. First of all, as I touched on a little bit in describing the graphs, one person has only so much time and effort to dedicate at a given point. By spreading thin on the activities, no activity sees as much time and attention as it needs. This means that not only are you not contributing adequately to the group, but that you are also not getting out of the activity what you should. I’ll be touching on that more in a bit.

Secondly, being involved in so many activities at once is intellectually overwhelming—or at least is has been for me. The mass of activities, meetings, and service dates generated by all of these commitments work mutually to generate a kind of exhausting fog. This constant presence can lead to frustrating lapses in memory and organization. It’s challenging. For some it may be a personal problem of organization, but it is worth noting, because nobody is superhuman.

On the whole, being so scattered all the time can lead to a desire for a greater focus, and smaller scope. For me it has, and I’ve learned a lesson that I will be taking with me when I move on to college. The same friend I mentioned regarding the graphs was talking with me a while back about scaling back the number of our commitments in college to two or three at a time, one of those commitments being school work itself.

The vision was and remains inviting: preoccupied with only one or two activities, we could completely submerge ourselves in the subject. We could develop a strong understanding of our interests, become skilled in the abilities required to participate, and essentially become as active and in-tune with that one area as possible. This is the vision I would encourage you to pursue now.

There are two major ways to achieve this vision. The first of these is discovering and respecting your limits—finding out exactly how much AEUI you really have. This may require an exploratory period in high school, where you are momentarily involved in many activities to get a taste of each before honing in on the ones you really want to develop. Or, you may just find something you like right off the bat—and that’s awesome.

You will also need to “learn how,” as one of my teachers put it recently, “to say no” when pressed or urged to join some activity. I have found that people within any activity, regardless of what kind of activity it is, tend to be very active in expanding membership and involvement—which makes sense. But that means that there can be a lot of pressure on some students to branch out, despite previous commitments. Be wary of overcommitting just to make a friend or mentor happy, and be able to decline offers when necessary.

The ultimate message you should take from this is that no matter what extracurricular activity you join, you will find common lessons and values: the importance of community, the strength of commitment and teamwork, and the benefits of working hard at something you truly enjoy. This is what your high school career should be all about. Make the right decisions to ensure that it is all that it can, and should, be.

People have all had the health craze in life, but what if it was forced upon a person or a sports team? What about a whole school? Well, next year at Pueblo West High School and many other schools in the district, new food regulations will be coming into effect. The new regulations will be affecting the lunch department and the DECA organization. The rules have to do with foods that will soon be made available to students. Calorie and salt intake are what is mainly focused upon, it seems, when looking at the big changes in food products sold to students.

To further understand the new changes in the lunch system, the Head Cook at Pueblo West High School, Lennea Blase, explained her take on the new changes. “According to the regulations, students are allowed a certain number of calories per lunch. They also set limits for how many ounces of grains and proteins are allowed… the amount of calories that come from fat or sugar… and the amount of sodium. There is a minimum amount of fruits and vegetables, but no maximum.” This means that there will be less salt in every meal to meet the new regulation.

Blase also commented that,” The regulations caused a change in recipes and the lowering of the use of processed foods.” In effect, some foods may taste a little different because of the newer, “healthier” ways they will be made to meet regulations.

The menu is said to change a little as well. So what will students be seeing on the menu next year? Blasé said, “ Students will see a reduction in the protein portion and the use of salt. On the plus side, they will see an increase in the variety and availability of fresh fruits and vegetables.” 

More changes may be to come for the lunch department in District 70. Every Pueblo West Cyclone knows where and what the DECA store is. It will also affected by the new regulations. When spoken to, Collin Miller, a DECA officer at Pueblo West, explained that they will no longer be able to sell most of the products that kids love to buy and snack on. Currently, top sellers include chips and other salty products. With the decrease in the amount of sodium allowed, most of the chips will have to go. However, Miller then went on to state that although they will have to get rid of the chips, new items will take their place. DECA is not exactly sure what will take the place of the items that have to go yet, though.

Most students in the District are not fully aware of these changes that will be implemented next year. Will they help make schools healthier? Will the new regulations help students learn to eat healthier? What do you think?

If you were on Facebook or Twitter any time on the night of April 1st, 2013, you probably experienced, firsthand, the devastatingly demoralizing prank that The CyChron is labeling the “Great Pipe Prank of ’13.”

Spreading across the social media site—like the addicting wafts of an all-too-believable wildfire that is a hot Internet topic—was the rumor that students who “just got a call from the school,” as one status read, were notified that there would be “no school tomorrow” because of a “busted pipe.”

What began as mass confusion and scattered projections of relief and joy almost immediately transformed into skepticism and demoralized cynicism, though, as many students became aware that the air was ripe for pranks—after all, April 1st is April Fools’ Day. Students’ wild celebrations deflated, motivation crumpled, and some humorously vindictive statuses began sprouting up, one of which called for the original prankster to actually break a pipe at the school so that the myth could live on in reality.

Brady Hewes, the rascal.

Where all of this emotional rollercoaster began, as this reporter soon discovered after some probing of the timeline of events and a little asking around, was with one Brady Hewes, who openly admitted to his dastardly doings when questioned.

Citing April Fools Day as the reason for his prank, Hewes revealed that after thinking up the idea, he messaged “some friends,” namely Colin Casias and Mitch Hermes, instructing them to post status updates “saying that they got a call from the school saying that school was closed due to a busted pipe.”

Hewes explained for The CyChron, “I also told them to tell a couple of their friends because the more people we have saying the same thing, the more people are going to believe it. Next thing I know, everyone is concerned about it. It didn’t last long though. Parents got involved, saying on Facebook that they received no such calls saying that school was canceled tomorrow.”

Though quite short-lived, it has possibly been the largest successful prank in school history since last year’s memorable rumor that administrators had set up fake Facebook accounts to monitor students. (That article can be read here.)

A Senior at Pueblo West, Brady is known for his good sense of humor, explains Twitter-borne accomplice Colin Casias: “He’s always looking to have a good time I think, and to make things enjoyable whenever possible. …Some people laughed about [this prank,] and others were tricked… it brought joy to him.”

Well, that’s the scoop. What are some other infamous pranks in school history that we didn’t mention? Comment below!