 By: Zane Tinker We’ve all been thrust into an interesting situation with this quarantine, everybody is stuck at home all of a sudden with a lot more time on their hands. This leads to the question, what is one to do with all this extra time? Yes, most of us love lounging around, but it’s times like this where we have a chance to do something new and check something off of our bucket list. So many people have newfound time and everybody is going to something different with it. My entire life I have been surrounded by music of all sorts, I’ve sang in various choirs and I have played percussion instruments for well over half a decade. I am using this quarantine as an excuse to finally teach myself the Ukulele. The Ukulele is a Hawaiian string instrument that I can play as I sing. Singing while playing a percussion instrument can be a lot more challenging. Teaching myself this instrument hasn’t been nearly as easy as I anticipated, I never expected learning how to use a fret board would be as confusing as it actually turned out to be. For someone with large hands like myself, the instrument and its strings are quite small. My finger tips weren’t used to pushing down the strings and they felt sore after an hour of practicing. Even so I am making progress, however slow it may be. Although I’m not too proficient at the Ukulele yet, this experience has been very beneficial, by giving me time to reflect on myself as well as the position I’m in.
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by: Connor Stahl
Let's first start off on why I am doing this article, I am here talking to you today because Mr. Martin wanted us to do something to better ourselves during this time. With this, I decided to do the Evil Russian Pushup Challenge. Intimidating, I know, but I wanted to do this because want to get stronger and I have always made excuses for not working out and now I can do it all. This challenge makes you stronger by making you do pushups every day based on a percentage of your max pushup, (I will link the challenge so you can see the percentages for yourself). When I first started , it was pitiful, I was only able to do 10 pushups. After the first week, I could do 15 and now, at the end of the two week challenge, I can do 20 in a row, that's a 100% increase in strength! From there, because I liked it so much I decided to do it for another two weeks. During this time, it wasn't just all rainbows and ponies there were some good days and bad days, that's what makes it a challenge. For the first week, my arms were burning every day; from not doing push ups that often to doing it every hour put a strain on me. The strain wasn’t just physical, it was mental as well. Imagine dropping whatever you are doing to do push ups and even after all this time, it is still hard to do. In the beginning, I kind of hated my alarm, it was a reminder that it was a time to work. Now, it has become part of the daily routine and it doesn't bother me that much anymore, I see it as a chance to improve myself. I am definitely glad to have this program because without it I dought I would be pushing myself as hard to work out. On that note check out the video below for my first weekly check in. https://mygymproducts.com/evil-russian-push-up/ 
By: Matt Silver
After being tasked with the creation of a routine in which I did something every day for upwards of a month, I took it upon myself to try to fully immerse myself into the Star Wars saga. I would watch one movie a day, in chronological order (starting at episode I, then going to II, III, IV, and so on). While this began as a movie-watching project, at this point, it is much more than just that. Why Star Wars? And why now? Both questions are valid, and I wondered about them myself at some points during my journey. I chose the Star Wars movie series for a couple reasons, a main one being that there were enough movies so that it would fall into the minimum time guidelines of the project. The second reason was because of my community. Star Wars is, and has been, a huge deal in our society. That being said, up until this point I had never seen the originals, leaving me left out. It feels as if everyone around me has some sort of secret going when they reference different scenes in a movie, or even understand different parts of a video game. I wanted to get in on these secrets. 
One of the many inside Star Wars jokes I've missed over the years.
They became apparent when I started watching the series, that’s for sure. Because of the over-dramatised scenes in the old movies, catch phrases were easy to point out. I found myself subconsciously repeating them at times during my day, especially the quote above.
At this point, I have finished all except for the newly produced movies in the series (VII, VIII, IX) and I must admit, I am enjoying these films more than I originally thought that I would. The production quality of the older movies, while quite old, gave them some charm that directors can only hope to recreate. Throughout my viewing process I had some lows, but mostly ups. The movies are truly enthralling and except for episode IV and V, they have good enough quality to make up for their age. Episode IV (1977) and episode V (1980) were lackluster compared to their other counterparts, but that is coming from someone who is used to perfect CGI and modern editing. For their time, it is understandable why they were so popular. By the end of this coming week, I will have completed the series. I am planning on creating a video breaking down how I felt after watching each film, and my takeaways after watching the entire set.  By: Audrey Mainville It is week one into my learning of how to play the piano. Not really piano, seeing that the only accessible piano-like device I have is a Casio keyboard from... I think 2000 something? I’m not complaining though, it’s all the same to me. I took on this task primarily because I have spent the last few months deep in a void of music. I listen to around fifty-sixty songs a day, and no matter the genre, the year, or the song, I hear piano in everything. There are so many instruments I could focus on, however, there’s just something about piano that seems universal, and relatively easy, though I may be judging too soon. I have begun to learn the song, “Hey Jude” by The Beatles. I picked it through a simple Google search, “easy songs to learn on piano,” yes I realize how lame that sounds, but so far it’s been a comfortable song to learn. The biggest issue I currently face is learning to coordinate two hands. One hand is playing the lyrics, if you will, and the other hand is keeping a steady beat underneath. The timing of these two hands aren’t always in sync, and I have a difficult time grasping that. By next week, I hope to link the two hands, and hopefully be further into the song. I also am hoping to learn how to read actual music, instead of mimicking a video (since that’s what I’ve been doing for now). For now I’m quite pleased with how things are turning out. Beginner’s luck maybe? Who knows - all I can say is that I find the musically inclined to be the best type of people. I guess you could say I just want a piece of that. By: Haley Krawczyk I was given the task of developing a 30 day challenge for journalism; something that is intended to make me a better person. After consideration, a worldwide pandemic seems like an ideal time to get into shape, so I decided to see what 30 days of exercise could do for my body. I have always loved to workout, but I normally had a swim practice to go to every day to force me to exercise. With the outbreak of COVID-19, sports are cancelled, leaving athletes to fend for themselves while still maintaining their physique for next season. Luckily, I have access to a home gym. This is helpful for use of equipment, but of course, there are countless workouts that require none at all. For example, I have been going on walks, runs, and hikes everyday to get outside and be in a different environment.  To the right is a picture of my elliptical workout from about halfway through the first week. This has actually been my first week owning this piece of equipment and I absolutely love it.
After the first week of this project, the largest take-away is that I need more of a structure with my workouts. I can hop on an elliptical or go for a run when I feel like it, but what if I’m not in the mood? What is going to force me to exercise? I believe that goal-setting is something I should make a priority by giving myself weekly goals that I want to accomplish. Maybe completing an online workout video everyday or doing a certain number of sit-ups. Ultimately, I realized that the second week of this experiment needs to include a written plan; a checklist that I can mark off as completed. This paper will be openly displayed so that I am forced to be reminded of my workout plan, and encouraged to do it as well. Having this type of written structure will hopefully give me a starting point to work off of, as there were several days when I found myself lost on what to do for exercise. Numerous companies such as Nike have apps designed for at-home workouts. Also, influences make videos on YouTube for the same purpose. Those are both things that I will look into in order to help me discover new exercises and routines for the weeks to come.  by: Emily Fazzina
Over this “coronacation,” it can get very easy to become bored of the same things that exist in our daily lives. But for me, this boredom didn't start during the shutdown. In fact, this boredom started after December break. I started to become a lot lazier and less on top of homework, and other activities throughout my life. Due to the decreased energy, it becomes a lot easier for me to get disinterested with things and tasks I give myself. So I decided to orient my project around trying to keep myself busy with different tasks every day. Because of the way I’m doing the project, I don’t necessarily make a ton of progress each week, because I try to stretch out my projects so I have more to do. For example, I’m painting a mural of old “Cartoon Network” shows I used to watch as a kid. I started this mural last May, but I procrastinate so much that I haven't finished it yet. One of my overall goals is to try to finish this mural over the Corona break. Another thing that I’ve always wanted to do was learn American Sign Language (ASL). I’ve always thought it was a super cool thing to learn that not many people know how to use. I also gave myself other small tasks like staying on top of homework, planning for college, painting my closet door, going outside at least four times a week, and lastly I want make a podcast with my brother. So far I’ve gone outside a lot and I’ve done about 20% more of my wall in the past couple of weeks than I have in a long while. Staying on top of homework has been a weekly thing for me as well. Through first two week of the shutdown, I was studying ASL but I haven’t gotten a chance recently to continue. I’ve also been playing a lot of [the videogame phenomenon] Minecraft when I feel myself getting bored and somehow it gives me energy to organize and clean. Next week, I plan on setting up a place for the podcast, continuing to paint, and catch up on my ASL learning. My overall goal is to be productive and manage my time better before I head off to college.  By:Andrew Desrochers
During this terrible Covid-19 pandemic there are many things that are being taken away from us, but one thing that everyone can do during this time is to better themselves by pushing to be a better person. You can better yourself either physically or mentally. I decided to not eat red meat, and do 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups every day for the next 30 days. I chose to do this because I am usually going to the gym most days and playing sports, but I can’t do that now with all that is going on. I figured this would be a good way to stay in shape while being at home. Corona has taken a lot away from me with baseball and graduation up in the air, but I am going to try my hardest to stay in shape and keep working hard. At first, I thought this challenge would be easy but it has turned out to be very difficult. The first day the pushups and sit-ups were very easy. But for the next days, it began to get harder as my body got sore. For the next coming weeks I hope to keep accomplishing my goal for the workout because I want to make it all 30 days without giving up.  by: Lauren Cholewa
As my project for journalism class, I decided to perform yoga at some point every day for many reasons. I live with depression and anxiety due to past events in my life and because it simply runs in my family. Yoga is a very challenging activity depending on the level you participate in. According to WebMd [webmd.com] there are various benefits of doing yoga daily, including strength, flexibility and mind-body awareness. It can also help with relaxation and energization. As someone who has struggled with anxiety, I have started doing yoga daily, sometimes even during the times I had been having anxiety. My anxiety usually comes when I start to let my mind wander, over-think things, and start to feel eyes on me. According to yogajournal.com, yoga is a very beneficial activity for not only your body but also your mind, some of these benefits are better posture, builds muscle, prevents cartilage and joint breakage, drops your blood pressure and makes you happier. During this process it has been hard to get up and get active during this time in the world because I have nothing else to do other than stay and bed and watch Netflix, which is what most high schoolers dream they could do. When I would start to feel antsy and start to get the familiar ache in my chest, I get up and go to the middle of my room, or if it were nice outside I bring my yoga mat outside to my back patio and do yoga. The beginning of doing yoga every day was kind of difficult and hard to figure out what positions I wanted to do and why but as time went on, I figured out my rhythm. It has extremely affected my emotional and physical health by doing yoga when coming through with anxiety or when my body feels tense and very sore from sleeping the wrong way and tossing and turning in bed. To ease my anxiety, I start with sun salutation and control my breathing then bring my body down to warrior 1 and warrior 2 and continue into downward dog and upward dog. The reason I use these positions is because I have learned that these were the constant positions where I could subconsciously control my breathing. If you suffer from anxiety, depression etc. or just want to move in some way and get active, yoga is definitely an activity that you can do individually or with a group of friends to destress from a test or school. It’s been an amazing way to get blood flowing. From tennis to workouts at home: How athletics have changed with the cancellation of spring sports4/21/2020 By: Clarence Jubac Students taking the journalism class for Mr. Martin were tasked with a project during our time in quarantine. This project allowed students to set a personal goal of whatever they wanted for themselves. For my project, I decided that I wanted to stay in shape by working out at home. I had to make the best of what I had at home with the small variety of different weights and equipment I have. But even though I didn’t have a whole ton of things to make staying in shape easier for me, I was still able to manage, but didn’t have any clue on what exercises I could do to put them to use. As I said before, I chose this topic for my project as a way to keep in shape, and just to get stronger while at home. My normal day to day life of exercise and working out before this project was just playing tennis at least four days a week, or going out as much as I could. This project gave me the opportunity to mix things up a bit, and start adding a variety of other ways for me to get some exercise. I started off by looking into some videos and websites online on what are good workouts I could do at home with minimal use of equipment.  I decided to base my workouts and exercise off this fitness channel called OFFICIALTHENX. The channel happened to have their own app too, so I used that to help follow along and see how to do these exercises. The app is free and has a bunch of content and videos to see, but only to the naked eye. Once you click one of the workout programs, and start doing the workouts that are set for each week, you see that some workouts are locked since you don’t have that special membership. So I hope that by writing about them, they could hook me up on a deal to fix just that🙏🙏🙏.
During the days I worked out, I’d sometimes start by either going for a run or playing street tennis, most of the time I’d go to the high school for that. After about an hour of street tennis, I’d start doing the no equipment needed exercises on the THENX app that provided exercises for each week, and lift weights for a few minutes afterwards. I have to say that completing the first week of going off the workouts of the app wasn’t too bad for me. When it really started to get tough was the week afterwards. My body felt numb and sore from doing the workouts of the second week, and it seemed that my body still hasn’t adapted to this new change of pace. This continued on a bit for the next week after that, but I felt like I was starting to get used to it, and the soreness started going away in the following days. I’ll admit that although the weekly workouts had rest days set up, I did take an extra day or two because I just didn’t feel like doing anything. Overall, I’d say that I have achieved my goal to stay and shape, and maybe have even gotten a bit stronger along the way. This project and the time I had in quarantine has given me the opportunity to find something I truly think has become a good habit of mine, and is something that’ll lead me to a healthier life down the road. by: Bryce Arnold For my long-term project, I chose to document my progress in my weightlifting. This is a log of what lifts I’m doing, how much I lift at the start, and again at the end. The lifts I have been doing are bench press, lat pulls, calf raises, curls, and squats. The sets for all lifts except for calf raises and curls are 10-8-6 reps, and they increase by 10l bs every set. For calf raises, I do 12-14-16 reps of the same weight, and for curls I do 3x10 reps of the same weight. I chose to do this because I want to start to get ready for the college wrestling season. I know that at the next level, everyone is going to be much stronger than they were in high school, and that’s something I need to be prepared for. This is a big deal for me because I am moving up in weight (from 113 lbs to 125). This puts me way behind all the other people who are cutting huge amounts of weight to make it to 125 lbs, so I have my work cut out for me. So far, I have been making steady progress in all my lifts. In the bench press, I increased 20lbs (I started at 115lbs for my 1st set of 10 and I’m at 135lbs right now) as well as in my squat (165lbs for my 1st set of 10 to 185lbs). I also went up 10lbs in lat pulls (90lbs for my 1st set of 10 to 100lbs). I have learned that this won’t be easy. Doing these lifts 3 times a week really takes a toll on your body, and sometimes it’s hard to get myself to do it. I still do it, though, and hopefully this will pay off once the next season rolls around. I have no specific goals for next week, but I want to make no excuses and shortcuts. I want to be able to say that I put 100% effort into every lift, and then I will be proud of myself. By: Marcus Nieves This project for me was to stay in shape while in isolation during this pandemic. The goal is to work out 3 times a week so I can get stronger and faster after this whole thing whines down. I chose this because I mainly didn't want 2 months of lifting and 4 months of cardio to go to waste from me doing nothing at home. My experience so far has been rough. I started off good with working out twice in the first week, but then I started to procrastinate and push back the third workout. The start of this week I did the same exact thing by not working out on Monday instead doing it a day later. I have learned that I need to work on my mind set because I have not had a drive to workout. I have been very unmotivated and haven’t been able to get that motivation back. Also, that feeling after a workout feels the best for me because I feel accomplished and after a workout my stress just goes away for the rest of the day. For example, after being stressed out about school work from distance learning, I did agility drills on a agility ladder and ran sprints. After, I did this I felt relaxed and accomplished. My goal for next week is to get that motivation back and be more consistent on my workouts. Another big goal is to stop procrastinating because if I don’t then my other goals will be harder to accomplish. I need to be on the same page as my mind and be positive so I slowly stop procrastinating and slowly build my motivation and confidence.  by: Serf Piedrasanta
For my Journalism long term project, I decided to learn a coding language. I decided this because of how important computers are to the world, and learning a coding language could prove helpful in real life. The coding language I decided on is HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) which is what websites are made from. I have been using a few different websites to learn, as well as various different youtube videos to learn more intricate applications. So far, I only know how to create a basic test webpage, with headings, paragraphs and links. This took a lot to learn, because of the advanced grammar based mistakes you can make. A lot of my problems came in how some things would not show up due to a punctuation problem or how applying something to a paragraph would overrule another. I am currently learning how to style my page, which includes such things as colors, fonts, sizes and emphasis. I already know how to write these, but the problem comes in what is known as applying these to the meta of the page. I hope that by the end of the project, I can fully create a webpage on my own, and use different types of elements besides just text. By Hailey Hodsen
Last week, I got the task of doing something over the next month that would better myself in some way. At first I had no idea what to do, and was honestly not so excited about having to incorporate something new into my daily routine. Would I try to learn a new language? Take an online class? Start running everyday? I'm generally a pretty indecisive person, and I wanted to make sure I picked something that I would actually do and not be miserable doing. I eventually chose to do a 20-30 minute workout everyday. I don’t play sports, and have never really gotten into exercising regularly because of a lack of motivation, but I’ve always wanted to. This project is turning out to be a good motivator. Three days ago, I started doing my 20 minute workout. I’m choosing to do them in the morning after I do a little homework but before I go to work at around the same time everyday to make sure I don’t skip a day. On the first day, I went into YouTube and searched for a 20 minute full body workout. I clicked on the first one I saw that looked decent and started. At first It was easy, but as I continued it got harder and harder to keep up. I quickly became out of breath and started sweating, and when the 20 minutes were finally up I felt relieved but also accomplished. I had started my journey towards becoming a healthier and more fit person. The second and third days were similar to the first. I’m picking a different youtube video to follow along with each day so it’s different every time and I don’t get bored. I plan to continue this everyday until the project ends. |
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