N1: Five Questions With Phil Bifulco

Recently, I received the privilege to sit down with our senior reporter Phil Bifulco. He describes himself as hard nosed, a good listener, and a hard worker. And for those of you who know him well enough, you’d all be able to tell that he is very outgoing. Phil plays both football and basketball. When asked who influenced him to do both of these sports, he replied by saying his father because he coached him along since he was about six or seven years old. With his final year of high school soon coming to an end, that seemed to be a hot topic during our interview. After graduation, he wants to pursue a career in sports management. He is currently planning on attending Genesee Community College, but says that it is bound to change. He would like to attend a Division 3 college, in hopes of playing basketball. His most memorable moment in high school was during the basketball season of his senior year when the varsity team that he was currently playing on beat Lackawanna in front of a home crowd. When I asked him where he sees himself two years down the road, he said he plans on being a family man, being married with children. He would like to own his own business, consulting and managing various athletes in different sports. It was a pleasure sitting down with our staff member. For those of you who aren’t familiar with him, it would be worth the time to get to know him!

N2: Spring

Many people have mixed emotions about Spring, but personally, I really like it. In the Winter, you are locked up inside with the weather being so cold. In Spring, the weather is starting to warm up. I love the Spring weather since my whole Winter is spent indoors, having the fresh air is amazing. With the warm weather comes the sweet singing from birds, blossoming flowers and beautiful colors appearing outdoors. Along with mother nature’s Spring beauty, the warmer weather allows me to put away the sweaters and boots and instead bring out the shorts and flip flops. I used to live in Florida so I hate having to be bundled up in layers of clothes, I’d much rather have the heat. When it is warmer out, I love to spend a majority of the time outdoors, enjoying the weather while we have it. Spring always makes me happy because you know that Easter is right around the corner. Even though I love Spring, there is one major flaw with the season. Even though I love the warmer weather, I see it as a bit of a tease. Like I said, I like to spend my time outside when the weather is nice, especially since it’s the break of the colder weather. Still being in school when the cold weather breaks, it kinda sucks having to be inside. I get distracted by the weather outside. I’d much rather be spending my time staring out the window rather than inside listening to a lecture. But knowing that the weather is starting to become nice outside makes me happy to know that the school year is coming to an end, and this year, it makes me happy to know that my high school years are coming to an end. Also, Spring is just before my favorite season, Summer!

N3: Present and Future Jobs

To me, it is important to have a job in high school. You learn how to have responsibilities at a young age and it starts to prepare you for the real world. I’m currently working at Tim Horton’s located in Alden. I’ve been training for the position since the end of November, then started at Alden at the end of December when it first opened. I don’t just have one position at work, I’m constantly running around doing a various array of jobs, like making food or coffee for the customers. I may be getting a second job at Jeanettie’s, the ice cream shop connected to Geoffano’s. The owners are family friends, and I’d only be working a few nights a week to earn a little extra money. I really like my job, so there isn’t a different place I’d rather work at. I enjoy the people I work with. I have tons of fun while I’m at work because everyone is so sociable. My manager works well to work with me when it comes to my schedule. As much as I love my job, it is not what I plan on doing for the rest of my life. After I graduate, I plan on pursuing a career in human services. Human services is a very broad major, so I’m not completely sure what I want to do with it. I have a couple ideas though. My first thought is to work in a rehabilitation center, like the Renaissance house. I’d like to do this because being in high school, I see many people getting involved with drugs and alcohol. In the Renaissance house, they work with teenagers who got addicted at a young age. I was also considering being an adoption agent since many of my family members have been in foster homes or have been adopted out.

N4: Jayvon Martin

Before reading the article about seventeen year old Trayvon Martin, I never even heard about him and what happened in the gated Florida community. Now, I’ve constantly been hearing about it on the news and radio stations. It’s been a month since the teen was murdered, and the police in Sanford have been keeping their mouths shut, not saying a word to the public. Martin was on the phone with his girlfriend at the time that he was walking home, and she heard all the cries and screams that were coming from her boyfriend as he was approached by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer. The shooting may be a incident of racial profiling, since Zimmerman is being described by the police as a white male, but is said to be a Spanish-speaking minority by his family. Even after Martin’s girlfriend released the tapes of the phone call to police, no charges have been made against Zimmerman. This is because they have no evidence to contradict what he has said, that he shot Martin in self-defense. It’s hard to believe that Martin was shot in self-defense since the police found him unarmed. His cries were heard by three nearby witnesses, who all said that Martin was crying for help. Martin’s father was quoted saying “It’s heart-wrenching, because those actually were my son’s last words. And to hear his last words being cries for help, it’s devastating. It tears me apart as a father.” It was Zimmerman who called 911. In the call, it was apparent that Martin was screaming for help. Zimmerman’s family denies that race played a role in the shooting, saying he has many black friends and family members. A month after the shooting and no justice has been brought to Martin’s family, not even questioning of Zimmerman. Still, Martin’s family is looking for the justice they deserve.

M2: Distracted Driving Dangers

By the Overview of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Driver Distraction program, distracted is a subset of inattention, which means the drivers focus is on something other than the initial activity. This could also include fatigue and the physical and emotional condition of the driver. Since 2005, the number of car crashes have decreased by almost 10,000. The number of deaths in these accidents have also decreased by around 10,000 people. Out of the 30,979 car crashes that occurred in 2009, 16% of those accidents were due to distracted driving. Also, 16% of the deaths were due to distracted driving. The accidents that were caused by distracted driving were broken down even further, to age group and type of vehicle. Drivers between the ages of 20 and 29 were the most likely to be involved in the car accidents caused by distracted driving. Twenty one percent of these drivers got into accidents due to their distraction being disturbed by a cellular device. Drivers between the ages of 30 and 39 were most likely to get into a car accident while being distracted by a cell phone than any other age group. In 2009, there were over five million crashes, whether they were fatal, injury, or property damage only. Out of those five million crashes, nearly one million of them were due to distractions. In order for these numbers to drop, the driver distractions need to stop. Attributes to the distractions are coming from other passengers, by moving items in the car, talking or dialing on a cell phone, texting, or adjusting other devices in the car. The distractions are not limited to these few, they are nearly unlimited. A stand against distracted driving has begun in Western New York with WGRZ’s Pledge 2 Hang Up. Other drivers in the area have signed the pledge, now it’s up to you to do the same.

all statistics were gathered from http://www.distraction.gov/research/PDF-Files/Distracted-Driving-2009.pdf

M4: Bad Girls Don't Die

Author Katie Alender takes her readers on a paranormal adventure in her first novel Bad Girls Don’t Die. Outsider Alexis feels as if it’s nothing out of the ordinary for her younger sister Kasey to be obsessed with antique dolls. Out of the blue, everything starts to change. Kasey’s naturally blue eyes start appearing to be green, and she is speaking in an old-fashioned language. After shrugging the changes off her shoulder, more strange stuff started to occur. The break lines on their dad’s car got suspiciously got cut, causing him to get into an accident and be put in the hospital. When Alexis opened Kasey’s closet, she found the all the reports of her classmates in her bag. This really made Alexis realize that something strange was going on, since it was not like Kasey to steal. Things were really acting weird, and it was Alexis’ goal to figure out what it was. One of the people that Alexis hates the most, cheerleader Megan, starts to realize what she is going through. Megan tries explaining that she’s always been interested in paranormal activity and she that she wants to help Alexis figure out what is going on in her house. With Megan being a cheerleader, Alexis refused help from her. But as the problems got worse, she gave in. Sarah, the paranormal spirit in the house, exerts her force on the girls when they are in the house. With twists and turns with every turn of the page, Katie Alender grabs the attention of her readers and holds it in the book until the very end. Does this novel leave you craving for more of Alender’s paranormal pages? Then check out the other two books of the series, titled From Bad to Cursed and As Dead As It Gets.

M1: St. Patty's Day

Even though Buffalo has a huge Irish population, I am not one of those people. In my house, we don’t really celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. The only one who really does is my oldest sister Megan. Every year on St. Patrick’s Day, she feels the need to watch both of the Boondock Saints movies. For those of you who aren’t familiar with these movies, they are about two Irish brothers who accidentally kill members of the mafia. After turning themselves in,  they were released and said to be heroes. Then then say it as a calling from God to kill of the mafia members. As a detective sets out trying to catch the unknown assassins, he starts to realize that what they are going is a good thing. In the second movie, the twins, who live with their father in Ireland, were informed by their uncle that they were framed for killing a Christian priest in Boston. The twins are forced to return to the city, not to show their identity but instead to find out who framed them for the murder. Along with watching the movies, she always goes to the St. Patrick’s Day parade that occurs downtown the Sunday prior to the holiday. Last year, she even got a little stuffed dog, who is green. His name is Patty. Also in our house around St. Patrick’s Day, my mom makes an Irish dinner, corn beef and cabbage. I’m far from a fan of it, I think it’s rather disgusting. Even though I’m not Irish, the entire month of March is a month to celebrate the holiday. It’s one of my favorite months because spring is slowly appearing and it’s the only month that it is acceptable to wear green everyday and you don’t need a reason for it!

M3: Badminton Blow Up

The most embarrassing moment of my life was when I hit myself in the back of the head with a badminton racket. I was on a team with two of my friends and we were playing Katie Herter’s team. Our team was losing pretty bad, by twenty points to be exact. For those of you who don’t know, badminton is played to twenty one points. So now that we all now my team was on the verge of losing, let’s get the the embarrassing moment. I was really preparing myself for Katie’s serve, hoping that my team could actually get some points. I was just standing there, waiting, with a perfect stance. She served the birdie in my direction, you and best believe I hit it! Waiting for her team to rally it back, I was back in my perfect stance (it kinda looked like I was waiting to hit a baseball). As the birdie came back in my direction, I swung. I missed the birdie, but not the back of my head. Of course, I started cracking up along with mine and Katie’s teams. It didn’t hurt or anything, it was just very unexpected. Instead of finishing the game, we all sat there laughing. When we finally resumed our game, I thought that Katie had the birdie. I thought that not only did I hit myself, but I though I hid the birdie too. It turns out that I never hit the birdie. After everyone laughed at my very embarrassing moment, the game continued. I’m sure you all expected our team to not even score a single point, but don’t worry, we did! But we were far from winning. That’s why in a later gym class, my team came back to beat Katie’s team. She got a little too cocky, her skills turned against her.

L3: Furry Fears

There are two things that I fear greatly, one in which everyone will laugh at and the other that I’m probably not the only one have this fear. We’ll on a not so serious note, one of my biggest fear is squirrels. Sure, they are cute and fuzzy, but in dreams and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, those little things raise hell. When I was little, I used to love seeing them. Then years ago, I had a dream that I was by my grandma’s house in Cheektowaga, which is where I always saw them running from tree to tree. As I walked down the sidewalk, one appeared right in front of me, just staring at me. I bent down to pet him, when suddenly, he jumped and choked me. I understand that it is an absolute crazy fear (and that if you read this, you’ll probably share it with the whole class) but every since that dreams that occurred years ago, they’ve terrified me. My other fear is the after high school world. In high school, we have the teachers here, holding our hands and guiding us along to help us get through everything. When we miss something, they are always nagging to us to make sure we get it done. As annoying as the nagging can be, they are only doing it to help us. Once I graduate and am in college, the professors will not be there because it seems as if they could care less about their students. If I don’t have that little nudge from the teacher, I feel like I’m just setting myself up for failure. After graduation, I’m officially an adult and have no one there to hold my hand. I’m sure I’m not the only one who fears this, but one of the only ones who will admit to it.

L4: The Death of Jayson Porter

This week’s book consists of a very touching topic that everyone has at some point voiced their opinion on, child abuse. Jamie Adoff’s story The Death of Jayson Porter is about a city boy, living in the so called “ghetto.” He tries making everything better off for himself, by working weekends cleaning RVs and going to a nice school outside the slum side of the city. He doesn’t try to be a bad kid, but his mom’s alcoholism doesn’t see that. Night after night, she comes home drunk. What better of a target than a sixteen year old to take out any of her pain and anger? His only way of venting was to his best friend, who didn’t always have the time to listen because of his stripper girlfriend and their son. But then suddenly, his friend was gone; dead. Jayson was now stuck with his alcoholic and abusive mother and his crack head father. With no one to turn to, what are the options? He chooses the balcony and the concrete underneath it as his option. The process was a lot slower than he thought, but he was in the hospital bed much quicker than he thought. After all the pain he went through prior to the accident, you’d think his mom would be there right next to her son. Finally, it’s time for him to leave the hospital and guess who shows up? None other than Jayson’s mom! Of course, drama and trouble follows close behind. You’d think that him being physically impaired would leave his mom giving some support to him, not just being back to her usual self. At this point and time, Jayson’s life ironically starts to fall right into place. The unfortunate events that are constantly occurring in Jayson’s life are all pulled together in the end for a shocking and happy ending.