Welcome to the NPSS Student Newspaper. Click on the categories to view different content from our contributors. Everything from art work to people sounding off on important topics in our learning community.


Student Sound Off @ 30 Mar 2008 06:00 pm by boneill

Time is Utterly Relative

Two weeks.  Has it really already been two weeks?  Is it possible that two weeks have passed and I have done none of the constructive things I’d planned to magically complete?  Well yes. 

Einstein said that everything, including time, is relative and well he was right.  The last two weeks before spring break took forever to come (not that I accomplished much more in those two weeks) but according to my calendar that eternity of hours should have taken the exact same amount of time as this past blink of a holiday.  It most certainly did not. 

So here I sit, procrastinating for my last day of freedom; holding off all those things that I swore I’d get finished for these last few hours before I am pitched back into the mayhem that is my school life.  I needed this holiday to be constructive but, thanks to Einstein’s theory of relativity, I am left here looking back in confusion over the wreckage of two weeks of nothing with sleep heavy eyelids and zero motivation. 

 

See you all tomorrow in classes.

B.

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Student Sound Off @ 20 Mar 2008 02:01 am by PK

Us darn kids should get off your lawn.

I hope everybody’s having a super spring break. I didn’t shower today, and my pyjamas smell like Jerry’s car in that one episode of Seinfeld. Life is good.

Good, but not perfect. I have fourteen dollars in my bank account and I don’t remember how it got that way. I can’t figure out why my cell phone bill is unusually high this month. Sorry, America; that recession of yours is probably my fault, too.

Anyways, enjoy your break. Especially if you still live with mommy and daddy like me and none of the above really matters to you yet. Phew.

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Ponderous Poet @ 28 Feb 2008 10:17 pm by boneill

Vestigial Organs

Students file into the auditorium; each watch indicating exactly ten o’clock, each wearer dedicated to punctuality and efficiency.  As they enter, each identically garbed form moves deliberately to his/her designated seat like a well trained animal; territorial instincts fully exploited.  The line passing into the classroom comes to an end, culminating with a nondescript female, hair neatly swept up into the same ponytail found on every other female head in the room, while 100 familiar thuds and the silent motion of 100 pairs of well made hinges indicate the students’ preparation. 
            The professor walks into a room of waiting Personal Databases, each manned by one of 100 eager drones.  Like his students the professor carries a PD and, beyond the red tie indicating his profession, is as unremarkable as the still, silent mass before him.  With a few deft motions the PD is set up and today’s lesson is projected on the screen.  The simultaneous thunder of pneumatic clicks heralds in the day’s learning.  The professor’s closely shorn head slowly rises, blank eyes face the screen and he begins to read. 
            “The brain,” like a loudspeaker his voice rises cool and toneless over the rhythmic clamour of data entry, “the brain is, in today’s world, a vestigial organ; a remnant from our pre-technolized ancestors”.  Like monsoon rains the heavy patter of 100 pairs of furiously typing hands permeates the room; blank rhythms of forgotten Morse code barrelling down the paths of knowledge guided by the blank affectionless tenor of today’s God.

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Student Sound Off @ 25 Feb 2008 12:12 pm by Agbaje

Waste Audit

DECEMBER 17 2007-was the day the Environmental club of North Peace Secondary School decided to carry on the waste audit. The environmental club led by Mrs. Sheri Dressler and Mr. Jarrod Bell consisted of six volunteers namely Wyatt Bahm, Lara Gibson, Alex Billey, Tega Binitie-Cassidy ,Zeinab Suleiman Takuma and Folarin Agbaje, who stayed after school to carry on the task ahead of them. They were then split into four groups of two and given coveralls to wear, garbage bags, a marker and a paper. The students were to go round the classrooms and empty everything in the garbage can and were to write if papers, bottles and cans were present. At first it didn’t seem like a difficult activity but as they went round the classrooms, they began to see a lot of interesting things in the garbage.
 As the groups continued with their chore, some began to get irritated with what they saw.
“ It’s hard for me to do a task like this when I’m hungry” said Folarin to Alex as they found themselves picking up a salami sandwich from the garbage.
 With the state of  normal classes, the students were worried about what they were going to see in the cafeteria.
“ You guys should not bother with the cafeteria, Mr. Bell and I will take care of it” said Mrs. Dressler, to the delight of the six brave volunteers.
As the students finished with the classes, then came the hardest task-sorting out the garbage into paper, bottles and cans, junk, glass, cardboard and so on. Students were also to grade the classes based on their recycling habits. Some classes did quite well while others were wow
“This class is definitely getting an F” said Mr. Bell as he saw the amount of garbage from room 107.
The students arranged everything and put them on display. Some of the weirdest things seen in the garbage were salami sandwiches and coffee beans. After two hours of participating in such a challenging activity, it was time to call it a day. As for the courageous participants, they are supposed to get money from it.
 The conclusions made were that salami sandwiches was definitely not a student favorite and of course, students and teachers definitely need to recycle more.

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Student Sound Off @ 25 Feb 2008 12:11 pm by Agbaje

Lunar Eclipse

A total lunar eclipse occurs when the moon completely passes through the earth’s shadow. Fort St. John witnessed a total lunar eclipse on Tuesday, February 20, 2008.  Students were encouraged to watch out for the lunar eclipse as the next one will occur on December 21, 2010
  “There’s going to be a lunar eclipse tonight so you guys should come out at 8” said Mr. Lovell to his Comparative Civilizations class. He also went further to say “there wouldn’t be another one till 2010”.
    A lot of people came out at night to see the moon turn from its usual silver color to an orange color.
“It was awesome and spectacular and a once in three years experience” says Moji Jaiyesimi, a resident of Canada.
 For many who had never seen an eclipse before, it was a shocking experience.
  “I was sitting working on an assignment when my friends told me about an eclipse and ran outside to see it. It was very odd seeing the moon turn orange which gave it a different feeling and am looking forward to seeing a solar eclipse” says Barry, a high school student who recently moved to Canada.
But Barry might not have to wait too long as a solar eclipse will occur this August 1st albeit in Northern Canada.

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Ponderous Poet; Student Sound Off @ 16 Feb 2008 12:24 am by boneill

Idea Burning

Creamy leaves curl

brittle golden

butterflies turn to ash.

Flickers of red caress

leather jackets and cloth

coverlets, the last defence

for spines: bent and broken –

still strong.

 

None are forgiven,

none are drawn from the flames

as ideas turn to dust

and words slither away.

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Ponderous Poet @ 12 Feb 2008 04:13 pm by boneill

I was Perfect Once

She stirs in the corner between a dumpster and a piss stained wall, rocking and shaking.  From the way she is mumbling and convulsing you might think that she is high.  She may very well be.  Her hair is thick and matted, grimy enough to make discerning a colour impossible.  She could be any girl you’ve ever met, and you wouldn’t know it.You would not be the first to walk by her; you won’t be the last — unless maybe you can save her.

As you get closer you may catch her scent: like an old book but more living smells and much dirtier.  Her eyes are clouded, dark enough to be any shade but long empty.  Matte orbs now.  Showing no light from within and reflecting nothing from without.  She might have seen you once, but not now.

This may be death.  Not from overdose – perhaps starvation, but not of the stomach so much as the heart and the mind.

In a slow shaking curve her head rises, her hands lift from her lap in what may have been an attempt at placation but which, now, resembles the charges of a drunken puppeteer as he struggles to manipulate their strings.  The warble drifting from her lips grows louder, more urgent.  She wants you to hear, to listen to what may be her last words, her last breaths.

If your curiosity acts fast enough you may hear her gasp:
“I was perfect once.”

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Teacher Talk @ 07 Feb 2008 12:38 am by jbell

Suck it up princess

-sent in an email

Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this! To anyone with kids of any age, here’s some advice.
Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1 : Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2 : The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your
Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6 : If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7 : Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8 : Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9 : Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10 : Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually
have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11 : Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

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Student Sound Off @ 02 Feb 2008 03:31 am by PK

brrrrrrrrr.

Exams are done. How did you guys do?

I finished my exams like T.S. Elliot finished “The Hollow Men”. The only thing that kept me from making little dot-pictures on my Scantron sheet was that my fingers were numb because I guess students fall asleep in the gym unless they have hypothermia. Man, am I ever bitter. And why should I be? There’s a wonderful new semester to look forward to, and even more wonderful exams for those classes to also look forward to.

Way to finish your exams, guys. Even if you felt like drawing little Scantron dot-pictures like me, this is definitely not the way the world ends.

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Student Sound Off @ 02 Jan 2008 01:15 pm by PK

Oh, eight?

With Christmas long gone, and the New Year reduced to a fading memory (whatever memory you have left after last night), it seems like I have nothing left to look forward to anymore - nothing, that is, until I remembered that Chinese New Year is just around the corner. A quick Wikipedia search should tell me what kind of year we have to look forward to according to the Chinese zodiac. With any luck, it’ll be something awesome like Year of the Dragon or Year of Pamela Anderson, which last took place in ’69. Which means nothing, and is a tasteless joke. Let’s see what the superstitions of the land of Terracotta Warriors, Yao Ming, and mass amounts of lead have to offer me in 2008…

This year is Year of the Rat. I hate my life.

Well, hold on. Wikipedia says that the rat “was welcomed in ancient times as a protector and bringer of material prosperity”. Finally, Fort St. John can experience a period of material prosperity. Unfortunately, the rat is also associated with “death, war, the occult, pestilence, and atrocities”. That does suck a little, but at least we’ll experience it all from the balconies of our million dollar homes.

I don’t know about you, but all this Chinese horoscope observation has got me stoked for the new year, even though I’m a good little Christian boy who places as much importance on the Chinese zodiac as I do on the rules of Leviticus. That means not a lot. I guess what I’m trying to say is Happy New Year to most of you, and happy day that is like every other day to those of you who don’t celebrate things. And yeah, I do realize this is a day late. Big whoop, wanna fight about it?

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