Ways to Face Your Fears

    Take a look around the room, as your eyes gaze across the different bodies, just know that almost every single one of them has a fear. Depending on the person, how they choose to react to their fears with vary and differ between every person. Nearly 10% of Americans have a fear in something, with most of the fears revolving around social fears. A fear could also be known as a phobia and there are hundreds of phobias in the world, there’s a phobia for almost anything that you believe could be a fear. The few most common phobias are; arachnophobia (fear of spiders), ophidiophobia (fear of snakes), acrophobia (fear of heights), agoraphobia (fear of open space), and cynophobia (fear of dogs). In life we can either face our fears by choice, unwillingly, or not face the fear at all and run from it.
       One way a person may face their fear is by choice. In my life a fear I chose to face was getting onto I-5 or the trestle. Merging onto the trestle raises my anxiety through the roof and I’m instantly scared of getting into a crash trying to switch lanes. Going fast doesn’t faze me, it’s always just changing lanes that truly makes my heart race. However, most of my doctors appointments are in Everett so I have to use the trestle to get there. I also like to go to concerts, and most concerts are held in Seattle, which means that I have to use the trestle and I-5 in order to get there. So, in order to face all of those fears, I drive to my own appointments and I have been the driver when going to a concert in Seattle. I face those fears every time I go to the doctor and if I’d like to get out of my house and go have fun out of my hometown, then I’ll need to continue to use the trestle.
       Another way to face fears is unwillingly. This one is kind of embarrassing but oh well, it was an actual fear. As a kid I had this weird fear of the vacuum that was in our pool in the backyard. I would actually start to cry out of fear over the thing. Anytime I looked at it it made my heart race and my mind was telling me to get out of the pool. My family members would laugh at me, and my dad would never take the vacuum out of the pool, since the pool needed to stay clean and it messed with the vacuum to take it out and put it back into the pool a bunch of times. Day after day, the vacuum never left the pool and my eyes always stayed on it, and I made sure not to swim near it. Because they never took it out of the pool, I had no other choice but to be okay with it and I told myself that it wasn’t going to suck me up. Now, the only thing that bothers me with it, is how loud it is over the summer time.
       The third way to face a fear is to simply run from it. I am terrified of spiders, and I will not share the same room as one. If I know there’s a spider in the room, then I’m out of it! I will scream and freeze. If there is literally any other person with me I will immediately ask them to dispose of it. They got no business to be in my home, they can stay 3,000 lightyears away from me. Although, they do help with the fly problems over the summer, they still are my top fear. I don’t understand how people can make pets out of those things, they actually make the hairs on my arms stand up. I don’t think I’ll ever not be scared of spiders.
      All of the reactions stated above are all common within people, and there are so many different ways that a person could choose to react to their fear. And depending on the fear could depend on how the person reacts to it. Like my fear of the pool vacuum, I got over that since that thing wasn’t going anywhere, while someone else could get over their fears in other ways. Someone could get over their fear by simply telling themselves over and over again not to be scared, the fear could just go away as they get older, they could go to therapy, or they could even get hypnotized to no longer have that specific fear. However, in my life, between these three fears, I faced them by choice, unwillingly, and by running from them little crawlers!
-Faith Court

Christmas Memory

Christmas has always been my preferred time of the year, I’ve always thought maybe it was because my birthday is five days before Christmas, and that’s halfway true. Growing up my favorite part was unwrapping the presents, and just the gifts in general. I wanted to count how many were mine under the tree on Christmas Eve, although my mom wouldn't let me, then I would slink by anyways. But the last few years Christmas has felt very different, maybe it’s because I’m becoming an adult, I’m not really sure. I believed in Santa for a while. I disregarded my cousins fake stories about how he isn't real until about the seventh or eighth grade when more people in middle school told me. So up until that point Christmas had always seemed like this magical time of year filled with laughter and joy and gifts from Santa Claus, after it was like all the magic in the world was a lie and now I have to lie to my future children which was heart wrenching to little Brooklynn. This last year or so I came to the conclusion of what Christmas means to me and it’s not at all what little Brooklynn thought it was about which was the presents. Christmas to me is love, it’s memories, and togetherness.


December 25, 2019 
I had woken up at around 8:30 am and I was the first one up as always. I glanced over at the tree to see if our new Christmas tradition was hidden, I know that my mom stayed up pretty late waiting for my brother to go to sleep so I wasn’t too surprised when I found the pickle in the same spot. We got a Christmas pickle ornament and the person who finds it on the tree gets to open their presents from Santa first. I walked into the living room and sat in front of the fire, it was pouring heat, which is only a thing when my Grandpa Harvey's home. I didn’t want to wake anyone up yet, so when my cat kindella started meowing for me to notice her we went outside and enjoyed some fresh air. When we went inside everyone was up, the pickle got hid and my sister found it because I was busy texting Isacc and telling him Merry Christmas. We sat down to open presents and my grandpa always videos us and it’s my favorite thing. When I’m older I can watch these videos and remember how much love my grandpa and my parents had for us. It’s not just because they gave us presents but also because they provide us with a roof over our head and a full belly at the end of the day, no matter the circumstances they have always made sure we have everything we need. I didn’t have enough money to buy people gifts this year and I always feel really bad feeling like I need to get my parents something cheap. All though this year I have realized that the gift of time and energy or just a listening ear to my mom is very helpful, and my grandpa loves quality time with me but he’s only home on the weekends and that’s usually when Isacc comes over. I really need to make an effort to spend more time with him. I hate thinking about it but this is like my last Christmas, as a child at least. I hope that things don’t change, I know sometimes change is good but it’s also scary. I don’t ever want Christmas to become a dreadful thing like how my step-dad makes it seem. Christmas to me is about spending time together and being happy and that’s never grim in my eyes. “Brookie here’s one of your presents” said my little brother Skylar. “Okay thank you bubbbs” I replied.
-Brooklyn

Where do we draw the line for right and wrong?

Where do we draw the line for right and wrong?
When is it okay to complete the mission no matter who’s affected and how?
No matter what the reason may be for going out on an operation, no matter how evil and greedy the reason may be, the most important thing to remember is are you protecting anyone?
Is anyone being protected and being kept safe with whatever action you’re about to take?
What’s the point of fighting if there’s no good moral reason to fight for?
Soldiers are trained and bred to take on anything that’s thrown at them and to complete the mission no matter the cost.
At the end of the day, are we really protecting our freedoms?
Are we protecting families being attacked by the terror the plagues where we operate?
If not, you yourself have become something of an accomplice to the actions the greedy take.
-Aiden McNeil

Zoos

Do zoos really help the animals that they have or are they just hurting them? Most of the time Zoos just say they only take in endangered species to breed them and help protect them. Most of the animals you see at the zoo may have once been endangered but most of the time they really aren’t. Another thing is they will most likely never return to the wild, because they didn’t grow up there so they will have no survival skills. They wouldn’t know how to protect themselves because they have been in cages and tanks protected from any sort of predators. They wouldn’t know how to find food or even know where to look for it also water and shelter. They are just gifted all this in the zoo but if they went to the wild they would die super fast. Zoos are saying, “Enclosed environments are safer than the wild because the animals will not be at a risk of starvation due to lack of nutrition and will not be hunted by poachers or eaten by other predators”. Which in some cases is true but keeping them in enclosed areas does not give them any freedom or skill. Being in cages they cant run free like they would be able to in the wild, they can only run as far as the cage around them is. People who don’t support zoos are stating, “Instead of zoos teaching children factual information about these animals zoos are teaching children it is okay to imprison animals for our entertainment. Which is true because children that grew up going to the zoo all the time are the kind of people you see on the News for illegally having exotic animals as pets.
-Kyleigh Case

The Littering Problem

Over the last few years, littering has become more of a problem across not only the state, but the country. In Washington alone, close to 12 million pounds of garbage, paper, etc. is littered and thrown carelessly onto our highways and roads. Of those 12 millions pounds of litter, 40 percent is from unsecured trash flying off of moving vehicles, which then causes around 400 car crashes per year. Many people don’t even notice the litter scattered on their streets because they have adapted to the fact that there’s garbage lying almost anywhere you go, and they might not see it as a problem anymore, either. Not only that, but some people may even know the effects that littering has, but decide to do it anyways because they haven’t properly been taught the consequences they may go through, such as fines.

The first problem that arises is that some people might not know what to even consider litter. They could be innocently tossing a banana peel out the window, with the intent to feed hungry animals, but also not realizing that action is only making littering a bigger problem. Litter can be considered something as small as an unlit cigarette butt, to as big as a broken down vending machine rotting away. Although, technically speaking, littering is the act of purposely throwing any sort of litter on private or public property or waters without permission. Which leads us to our next question, what is so bad about littering? Why are there so many strict rules and fines regarding trash on the streets? There are many reasons why littering is illegal, including reasons that affect not only humans, but animals and the world as well. Any trash along the side of the road that gets washed into storm drains, and eventually leads out into bigger bodies of water and can no longer be used to drink or use. Along with that, trash floating along water could be a potential risk towards animals who may get tangled up in them. Another reason is because of the germs and potential diseases that may come along with it. If an animal mistakes the trash for food, it could easily be the reason a human comes in contact with a disease. The last big reason is because when all of our trash is on the streets instead of being recycled, it wastes our natural resources, resulting in more materials needing to be created from scratch.

The biggest reason people litter is because most of them don’t feel responsible for it, especially in public spaces that are already cluttered in garbage, such as parks and places outside their own neighborhood. In a public space like a park, people typically assume that someone like a maintenance worker is in charge of cleaning up after them. Or they figure that since it’s already trashed with garbage, a little more won’t do much damage. There have been many studies since the 1960’s that show that over the years, people have in fact gotten better about littering or recycling. In just 20 years from 1960 to 1980, there was already a significant improvement, and people were beginning to understand that it was improper to throw their trash around. Although, a psychologist from California State University, Wesley Schultz, noticed that even though there was a noteworthy amount of improvement, people were still just as quick to break that for ludicrous reasons, such as there not being a garbage can within walking distance. Schultz’s conclusion throughout his research is that a majority of people actually do care about the impact littering has, but they simply don’t care. Many people are quick to fall into new trends, so when they see others just tossing their garbage with no care in the world, it only sets that negative example for those around them.

Over time we have obviously seen how, even if it may be slow coming, we’re still making progress towards being litter-free. From the studies in the 1960’s and 1980’s, we’ve already seen a huge upturn in people understanding the negative effects that litter has on everything in the world. What could be responsible for that increase in a short amount of time is a nonprofit organization called Keep America Beautiful, as well as the Crying Indian public service announcements, which aired in the early 1970’s. Keep America Beautiful is an organization, founded in 1953 in Stamford, Connecticut. Their entire goal is to help people become educated on the subject, as well as end littering, improve how people recycle, and make America more beautiful. They even have a website including 10 easy tips to help reduce littering, with suggestions such as leaving a garbage bag in your car or reporting those who litter. It has even come to legal terms, and people could be fined up to $5,000 for something like a lit cigarette butt. Though if you have an unsecured load that may injure someone, you can be fined and spend a year in jail.

Since the 1960’s, we’ve made slow but important progress towards being litter-free. The first step towards this is bringing awareness and making sure people know what not to do when it comes to littering. This could be simple things such as talking to your friends about the laws regarding littering, or as big as cleaning garbage off of beaches so they don’t harm our nature and animals. The next thing to think about is why people litter, and what they get out of it. Found from studies, people typically do care about the effects of littering, but it’s that they’re too lazy and don’t care enough to actually clean up after themselves and keep the earth clean. Thanks to Keep America Beautiful and the Crying Indian public announcements, there was a significant improvement that might have even started to movement to end littering and improve how we recycle.
-Jordan Trussell

My niece Sydnee

I remember going to the walk-in clinic because my sister had an awful sunburn and was sick only to find out that she was pregnant. We were so excited to tell everyone the big news. Watching a mother go through her pregnancy and birth is a beautiful thing. Women work so hard to bring new life into this world every day. I was lucky enough to witness that beauty myself. My sister Hannah went through nine hard months of pregnancy. From growing and being self conscious, to morning sickness and to being sore every day of her pregnancy. I was at school when my mom called to tell me she was coming to get me to go to the hospital cause my sister had gone into labor. She picked me up and we rushed to the hospital. We sat in the room for a while until they told us she wasn’t dilated enough and needed to start walking around. We walked around the hospital garden together while doing squats and taking deep breaths. I jokingly said it would be funny if she went back eight centimeters dilated instead of four. Sure enough we got back to the room and she was 7.4 centimeters. My mind was blown over how much walking helps with childbirth. Hannah went on going back and forth between the bed and the shower trying to get her water to break. Eventually they had to break it manually. She went almost her entire birthing experience with no epidural but unfortunately she had to get one or there would've been problems. After the epidural she took a break and then sure enough it was time. Sydnee was born on the night of February 25th 2019. A beautiful experience and one I will never forget.
-Laura Grissom

Bettering Our Town

      Most days I am trolling around town with my friends I just think about how this place could get any more boring. Other towns such as Lake Stevens or Marysville have fun places to go, such as a nice skate park, a bowling alley, a trampoline park or cool hangouts like Taco Bell.  Our small city requires us to have an imagination away from classic McDonald's. Although it isn't even a good quality food, buns be all soggy, meat patties looking more processed than easy cheese in a spray can. I know other youth individuals have strong feelings towards the way our city is structured.
      More recently the town has been converting into a more modern looking area. The lake had a whole reconstruction with parking spaces and rocks and trees. Which is nice and all, but the fact that fields of grass and trees gets torn down for newer and more expensive homes. More than half this town is below poverty line. Or scraping money for bills just to get by. It may seem as if they're trying to make this place a better community, which is quite possible, but they're doing it in ways it doesn't bring everyone closer.
     Putting in more restaurants, clothing stores, material shops and other things that could be more involving. I've seen the new City Hall next to the Sheriff's station, and although it is beneficial to some, it's quite a big space taken up. When they've burnt and torn down a house next to The Boys and Girls Club, supposedly putting in an undercover basketball court. That project was started in my freshman year of high school, still not completed in my senior year of high school. This isn't just a simple complaint, it can be put into retrospect of an ideal lifestyle. My window has the whole view of my neighbors cracked out trailer park with a pin full of yappy chihuahuas.  The only other thing I see is the Boys and Girls Club children running around inside and around the building, that's one of the most beautiful sights, is togetherness.
-Alysa Manuel

Stone Face

I dig

Thick clumps of dirt fly

I bury

Deep down

Far beneath the surface of a stone face

Hot warmth melts ice

But men don't cry

"Don't be a bitch,"

They say, "only girls cry"

Yet I cry inside

But, I'm no girl

I breathe in the toxins of reality

My masculinity lives in a glass house

Yet everyone itches to throw stones

They can't see the cracks

Every moment that passes my facade fades leaving a scared little boy

A shell of something meant to be big… and strong

But I'm no rock

So stone faced

I waiver

Inside my throat swells and tears begin to fall

But

Men can't cry

So I die inside

Here I sit

Digging a grave for the boy whose life crumbled away beneath the stone's weight

I'm so stone faced when I die inside

-Alex

Heathrow - Catfish and the Bottlemen(Re-Written)

Adore him from the get go

Pick him up when he’s down

Whenever he needs me

Watch him on the edge of town

Trippin’ with his best friends

Whenever he needs me

Cause he was a different league

And i was just too much

He was a different league

And I was just too much

Meet him when the bell rings

Hug him like a lover would

Whenever he needs me

Catch him always grinnin’

Laugh with him to stupid shit

Whenever he needs me

Cause he was a different league

And I was just too much

He was a different league

And I was just too much

I was just too much

Adore him from the get go

Pick him up when he’s down

Whenever he needs me

-Mal Byron

Aleah's Poem/Song

Aleah's Poem/Song

Verse1

When everythings going right

I don’t know why we choose to fight

(He starts it, but still makes everything better,

things get hard but I know we’re in it forever)

Chorus

I've been contemplating if I’m really strong as I thought, boy I might be

Quick to pull me down but as much as I’ve seen, I can’t fall, it’s unlikely

I'm getting carried away

Still gonna marry you some day

I’ve been contemplating if i’m really strong as I thought, boy I might be

Quick to pull me down but as much as I've seen, I can’t fall, it’s unlikely

I'm getting carried away

Still gonna marry you some day

Verse2

Your trust is hard to earn

we’ve both made some mistakes,

But I’ve never felt a love so strong

I knew I wasn’t wrong

(add more to verse)

I've been contemplating if I’m really strong as I thought, boy I might be

Quick to pull me down but as much as I’ve seen, I can’t fall, it’s unlikely

I'm getting carried away

Still gonna marry you some day

Bridge

        

I’ve been contemplating if i’m really strong as I thought, boy I might be

Quick to pull me down but as much as I’ve seen, I can’t fall, it’s unlikely

I'm getting carried away

Still gonna marry you some day

All I Want is You

All I want is you

Not the stars

Not the sun

Not the moon

All I want is you

Not the new you

Not the old you

Just the real and true you

All I want is you

Not just when lovey

Not just when happy

Even when you’re grumpy

All I want is you

Not just your body and mind

Not just your soul and spirit

I want all of you, all the time

All I want is you

That really truly

All I want, except…

I want you to want me too

But I know that I’ll never

Be good enough for someone

As perfect as you

-Rhiannen Conrad