Alice Minium

Fire burns you.  Germs make you sick.  Explosions decimate cities.  A sunset inspires you.  Hugs satisfy you.  Ice paralyzes your nerve endings.  Love can make you vomit with its impact.  Bright colors stimulate you.  Monsters can devour you to raw shreds with their bare teeth.  Lack of oxygen makes you dizzy.  Roller coasters accelerate your heartbeat.  Head injuries impair your cognitive function.  Herbal tea calms you.  An alien invasion would probably blow your mind and your perception of reality to smithereens.

Can music do the same?

On September 26, 2010, for the first time I experienced the music of the future.  I had experienced no change in oxygen level.  I had not transcended time and space.  There were no monsters or hugs or anesthesia.  I didn’t have a head injury, and I was not dropping in a downstairs elevator at overwhelming speed.  But I might as well have been, because I was the music.  The bass line attacked a keyboard of cerebral activity.  I rode the drop like a spaceship expedition.  It rattled me like a seizure.  It made violent, disgusting love to my brain.  They call the genre dubstep, and I was addicted overnight.  (Specimen mentioned: Bassnectar, West Coast Lo Fi Remix.)

In that moment (is it still called a moment if it’s outside of time?) my understanding of music changed forever.  Music became an experience for me, not the accompaniment to an experience.  It became a destination, not a stop along the way.

When our parents were in college, they would hang out and listen to records the way we hang out and watch movies.  Instead of compilations of various songs, many artists produced concept albums.  If you don’t know what a concept album is, first of all, I’m sorry to hear that.  (Editor’s Note: if you don’t know what a concept album is, why didn’t you read the articles about Genesis in the previous or current issue?)  Concept albums are albums unified by a theme, journey, or message.  The album was an experience.  Why are The Wall and Abbey Road still household names over thirty years later?  They embodied the cultural perspective of their generation.  Music changed.  People identified and loved this new music because it had become a simulation of what they were thinking and feeling — the overwhelming passion of being in an angry riot, the serenity of a divine intervention, the magic of a psychedelic trip.  You did not have to actually experience these things to feel them.  The music re-created the life experience, and this is the underlying concept of music like dubstep.

One might argue that such music must be the result of our generation’s collective post-postmodern crisis, or one might say that we are taking the art of music to a new level.  Music is constantly evolving as culture evolves, and the tremendous psychological generation gap of Generation Next is greater than it has ever been.  Unlike our parents and grandparents, we were born into the Information Age.  The television might have been on when you were born.  You have been bombarded with media — advertisements telling you what you want, meaningless shows paralyzing your imagination, political blogs, corporate brainwashing, search engines, and social networking sites.  Technology is progressing so rapidly that, thanks to the ease of transmitting information, our psyches are a melting pot of conflicting worldviews.  We are turning into machines that have forgotten how to create.  We don’t know why we want what we want, and we don’t know why we think what we think.  We are overwhelmed.  We are a hodge-podge of fragments of useless information.  Cheap, processed imitations of aspects of thousands of original cultures make up our environment, but your dinner or your sofa is just a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of something that once, long ago, was something real.  We are the Generation Next, and they call us the Echo Boomers.  We are the presidents, lawyers, teachers, parents, and business executives of the future.  We can instantaneously travel the globe, but we don’t know what we are, and we are living as the echoes of our parents.

We don’t have to be.  We can re-program the world with the one thing that is ours — technology.  The genre of dubstep is a brand-new phenomenon, just being born and rapidly developing.  People hear the synthesizers and computer-like sounds and write it off as electronic or techno music, but those genres were just its predecessors.  An excellent dubstep song is everything, and, with technology, it makes everything a part of the music.  Type into YouTube™ the name of any song and add the words “dubstep remix.”  Unless the song is underground or unpopular, there was somebody who got bored and turned it into dubstep.  Somebody has taken pre-existing information and warped it to express a different idea with the original media.

Dubstep songs imitate a distortion of reality.  The popularity of its catharsis is spreading worldwide.  With time, the genre will evolve, but it is the music of the future, whether you like it or not.  Aesthetic standards are changing, technology is growing, and our minds are more of an angry mosaic than they ever have been.  As products of the Information Age, we are using the one thing that is our own (technology) to actually do something with the leftover philosophies of those before us.  We warp them into a raw adventure that is a twisted mosaic of everything our ancestors have known.  We are creating the future and encoding the worldviews of our children.  Now prepare to free your mind; it’s time to let the bass drop.

Alice Minium

Her skin was sickly gray like that of a corpse, but I knew that once upon a time it had been porcelain white.  Her eyes were a dim, muddied steel color, with cataracts of pessimism from the world she had seen.  I knew that, once upon a time, those eyes had been vividly blue.  Her hair was a metallic orange, but I knew that it had once been a vibrant and flaming red.  She wore a floral print jumper and an oversized cowboy vest that did not match.  Her fingernails were caked with dirt and her knuckles were deathly pale and chapped.  She was frail and slight in form, but she was shoveling food like a WWE Superstar.  Every few bites she would pause with awkward anxiety before the fork met her lips, as if she were embarrassed to accept the nourishment, but her animal hunger was more pressing than her human pride.

Her name was Amy, and I remember her photograph vividly.  She might as well just be a photograph, for all I know of her.  In the documentary that I sometimes imagine my life to be, Amy was a still frame.  During the summer I spent in Philadelphia working with the homeless, she was distinctive in the sea of faces.  Her image was the one ingrained permanently into my mind.

It was free spaghetti night when I met her.  The evening itself was unusual.  As I looked around the room, I saw everyone shoveling their food like Amy.  People reeked of garbage.  People glared at one another with hostility, because trust had always been synonymous with betrayal.  People did not make casual conversation with their neighbors.  People had tired eyes and prematurely wrinkled skin.  People did not smile.  Seeing these people, I realized that, being raised in middle-class suburbia, I did not know the true meaning of poverty.  As I looked around the room, the face of poverty stared back at me, mangled, gruesome, and bold in its ugliness.  I saw the face of poverty, and it was shame.

I was drawn to Amy because in some way I saw myself.  Minus the rough wear of the streets, I knew she could have been about my age.  All I could think was, this could have been me without a home, car, money, family, and love.  This could have been me.  This could have been me.  I decided to undress my fear.

“Hi, what’s your name?” I smiled generously and without pretense.

“I’m Amy,” she croaked.  She met my eyes cautiously.

“Hi Amy, I’m Alice.  I think you have really pretty hair.”

The still-frame moment struck when Amy smiled.  I literally felt a rush of warmth wash over me that awoke my inner humanity like the awakening rays of the mid-summer sun.  People smile all the time, but rarely do they glow with the elation of a small child and the inner peace of an angel when they do.  Rarely does a smile express joy.  I knew from the newborn light behind her eyes that I had just made Amy’s day worthwhile.  I knew that nobody had told Amy she was pretty in a long, long time.  I knew she did not feel pretty on most days.  I knew that she had needed that compliment as badly as she had needed that free spaghetti, and maybe a little bit more.  I swear her eyes glistened a more vibrant blue as serenity filled them like tears.

“Thank you.”

I will always remember that fleeting yet infinite moment.  Through an encounter that would have been meaningless in any other time or place, Amy and I tapped into a connection.  She was my equal, and we shared the cosmic, unbreakable bond that all humans share but scarcely acknowledge.  We were one and the same.  I gave her kindness, because kindness was all I had to give, and I had seen by her smile that that was enough.  One kind word that cost me nothing had borne enough fruit to feed someone’s hungry soul.  “All you need is love” has become a cliché, but I was struck dumb by the truth that simple acts of love are enough to make a difference.  I could not give Amy the life she deserved, but I could give her a moment of happiness by treating her like a person again.

After that night, I started smiling at strangers all the time.  Everywhere I went in Philadelphia, I made eye contact with as many harried, frantic people that I could, and I smiled with warmth behind my eyes.  I told the cashier to have a wonderful day.  I waited to hold the door for the rugged-looking man.  I loved to walk around the city simply to smile at lonely-looking people as they walked by.  I knew there was grief, exhaustion, despair, and unimaginable pain in the hearts of the people I passed on the sidewalk.  I had always been too wrapped up in myself to consider what the man who works the hot dog stand might be feeling that day.  When I stopped to meet that man’s eyes, I felt what he was feeling.  When I shared light with my smile, I felt myself make his day a little bit brighter.  The more I smiled, the more I wanted to, and joy, compassion, and goodwill blossomed within my heart.  That joy, compassion, and goodwill enriched my understanding of what it is to be human and what it is every human needs — that which I so often take for granted: kindness and love.  I gave food, clothes, handwritten letters, and hours of service work to the homeless that summer, but I feel like I gave them the most with my smile.

What Amy taught me was remarkable.  Without her calm yet childlike joy in that moment we shared, I would not have the wisdom and perspective I do today.  I still always smile at strangers.  It is almost laughable how years are wasted and billions are spent collaborating to discover the magical equation that will finally bring us world peace.  Imagine what the world would be if we were to smile at everyone we meet.  Imagine what the world would be if we saw every stranger as equally human, our brothers and sisters who feel as alone as we do on this crowded planet.  Imagine if we said, “Thank you.”  Imagine if we told somebody that they were beautiful every day.  It is embarrassing to the human race that our timeless problem of pain has such an obvious solution — smile at every stranger, and love a little more.

Alice Minium

We were all in such a hurry to grow up — so much so that now we have completely forgotten how to be children.  The world is not an adventure anymore.  The death of your imagination is the death of your lifeblood.  It is a living fact that you cannot learn without an active imagination.  However, while growing up is a necessary evil, monotony is not.  Don’t let adulthood wear you down.  Don’t sentence yourself to a lifelong stretch of ordinary.  Don’t ever be boring.  And don’t ever, ever completely grow up.

1. Agree upon a genre/category (Disney classics, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, people you know & like to laugh at, teachers, etc.) and each of you choose a character.  Don’t tell anyone who your character is.  Go to school the next day and ACT LIKE THIS PERSON in every situation; you must maintain character at all times.  After a few hours, you all try to guess each other’s characters.  This can be done outside of school as well.

2. Play dubstep music without words and invent a rap to it as it comes to you.  Must be improv.  Insert beatboxing as needed.  Do not interrupt the beat — you and the beat are one.  Nobody is watching you.  Just kidding: you’re taking a video, ’cause this is going to be really funny in the morning.

3. Create a cardboard sign that says FREE HUGS and go stand on the sidewalk in the city.  Give free hugs.  Make somebody’s day.  (Leave your wallet in the car while you are distributing hugs.)

4. Videotape your fish tank and create different personas for each of the fish.  Each one of you creates a fish’s character and does the voice for it.  Create a sitcom about their lives with spontaneous dialogue and narration.  On YouTube™, there is a man who created a seventeen-episode soap opera about his sea monkeys.  It’s literally him just sitting there doing voices and videotaping his sea monkey tank.

5. Buy a bouquet of flowers and go to the cemetery.  Choose a gravestone and guess the entire person’s life story, ending in the cause of their death.  Then say a short prayer for them and leave a flower at their grave.

6. Crack five glow necklaces.  Leave them as sticks and do not apply connectors.  Toss them onto the ground.  Have each person say what the pile of glowsticks resembles (example: three different people looking at the same pile could all see a bowl of noodles, a campfire, and a pond of fish).  Pick them up again and repeat.  Forty-five times.  You have to do this one forty-five times.  It’s like the game that never ends.

7. Next time you and your friends hang out, invite someone completely random that you would never really talk to.  Hang out with them like everything’s normal and you’re perfectly good friends.  It’s like that movie Dinner for Schmucks, except not really.

8. Create a complex mega-city out of Legos® or a house/neighborhood out of Play-Doh.

9. Make a list of twenty things and send your friend on an Internet scavenger hunt.  Google or other search engines not allowed.  (Example: something “cursed” that is for sale on eBay®; a picture of somebody that looks like someone famous; an article about a REAL conspiracy involving the government that you’d never heard of; an unintentionally funny blog or website preaching on the evils of something totally ridiculous; etc. etc.).

10. Play Beatles™: Rock Band™ until your neighbors file a noise complaint.

11. Have a Candy Land/Uno/Apples to Apples/Hungry Hungry Hippos championship.

12. Play Guess Who? and answer all the questions in the voice you think your character would have.  Play Charades or Pictionary but come up with your own ideas — don’t use cards.

13. Host a dance competition and rate each other as a panel of judges.

14. Consume caffeine and hold a contest to see who can jump on the trampoline the longest.

15. Buy a cactus.

16. Go out and about your regular plans wearing a cape and/or top hat.  Bonus points if you carry around a copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde at all times.

17. Create an improv duet on the piano/keyboard.

18. Go on an expedition in the woods and pretend to be explorers or characters in an adventure/horror movie, keeping in character the entire night.

19. Invite someone you don’t know very well to hang out with you and your friends.  All of you go out to dinner and pretend you’re in a horror movie, keeping a dismal tone and pointing out omens you see everywhere, always acting with a sense of frantic urgency or impending doom.  Seriously freak that person out.

20. Put lollipops in all your neighbors’ mailboxes.

21. Reread your favorite books from your childhood, or watch the tv shows you loved as a kid.  (This will be a much weirder experience than you think.)

22. Watch each other’s home movies from when you were kids.

23. Create a secret society and make t-shirts for each other (Tie-dye/fabric paint/fabric paint pens/stencils/glitter/iron-ons/whatever).

24. Plan your own funeral in the event that you might die — make it awesome, write it down, and entrust the plans unto the care of your friends.

25. Make cookies and deliver them to all your friends’ houses for no apparent reason; extra credit if you include a teacher, enemy, or anyone that would make the delivery extremely awkward.

Most of you wouldn’t actually try most of these ideas.  They do sound really silly.  You may be sitting there thinking to yourself that you are honestly too cool for such silly things.

I would like you to know that you are not.

Alice Minium

If you’re a kid in America and you’ve been to any kind of school, you definitely know what DARE stands for.  You participated in red ribbon week in elementary school, and your mom bought you the t-shirt emblazoned with the bold reminder to Just Say No.  You saw that Above the Influence commercial when the grungy kids smoking cigarettes pressured the anxious-looking girl to take one of their mysterious pills.  While most people you’ve encountered probably aren’t really like those kids, we’ve all known somebody.  Everybody’s told us different things.

Don’t ever believe what somebody says just because you heard somebody say it.  You’ll end up dead, or worse, ignorant.

Many of us have friends who’ve done drugs, and we know what the effects look like firsthand.  Some of us have already experimented with drugs ourselves.  We know what it looks like to be high, and some of us know how it feels.  But how many of us know why drugs make us feel the way they do?  Why do they impair some of our abilities but improve other ones?  Why do we feel different without them?  Why do some drugs excite you with energy and others get you mellow and low?  What is it that makes them dangerous?  What is this really doing to my brain?

Throughout our entire young adulthoods, we have been assaulted left and right with violently clashing messages on what we should do about drugs.  Nobody can make that decision for you, although there will be many people who will try.  Whatever your decision may be, be aware of the changes you’re making and the effects you will experience.  Be the master of your own mind.  Understand what you’re doing to your brain.

Since most of us don’t spend too much time experimenting with LSD, here is a very brief overview of how some basic drugs are working in your brain.  Some of these drugs are considered socially acceptable, but they are drugs nonetheless. It’s funny how rarely we think about the fact that we’re constantly drugging our brains, and it’s funnier still how little we seem to care.  Maybe the time has come for that to change.

Marijuana (THC)

Fact: According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, as of 2008, 43% of American high school seniors had smoked marijuana in their lifetime.

Fact: According to Paul Hager, Chair of the ICLU Drug Task Force, the ratio of the amount of cannabinoids necessary to get a person intoxicated (or high) relative to the amount necessary to kill them is 1 to 40,000.

Fact: According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in 1995, 165,000 people entering drug treatment programs reported themselves to be addicted to marijuana.

What it feels like: Once in your bloodstream, thc typically reaches the brain within seconds and begins to go to work.  Marijuana users often describe the experience of smoking marijuana as initially relaxing and mellowing, creating a feeling of haziness and light-headedness.  The user’s eyes may dilate, causing colors to appear more intense, and other senses may be enhanced.  Sometimes, feelings of paranoia and panic may follow.

How it works: To understand how marijuana affects the brain, you need to know about the parts of the brain that are affected by thc.  Here are the basics: neurons are the cells that process information in the brain.  Chemicals called neurotransmitters allow neurons to communicate with each other.  Neurotransmitters fill the gap, or synapse, between two neurons and bind to protein receptors, which enable various functions and allow the brain and body to be turned on and off.  Some neurons have thousands of receptors that are specific to particular neurotransmitters.  Foreign chemicals, like thc, can mimic or block actions of neurotransmitters and interfere with normal functions.  In your brain, there are groups of cannabinoid receptors concentrated in several different places.  These cannabinoid receptors have an effect on several mental and physical activities, including: short-term memory, coordination, learning, and problem solving.  Cannabinoid receptors are activated by a neurotransmitter called anandamide.  Anandamide belongs to a group of chemicals called cannabinoids.  thc is also a cannabinoid chemical.  thc mimics the actions of anandamide, meaning that thc binds with cannabinoid receptors and activates neurons, which causes adverse effects on the mind and body.  High concentrations of cannabinoid receptors exist in the hippocampus, cerebellum, and basal ganglia.  The hippocampus is located within the temporal lobe and is important for short-term memory.  When the thc binds with the cannabinoid receptors inside the hippocampus, it interferes with the recollection of recent events.  thc also affects coordination, which is controlled by the cerebellum.  The basal ganglia controls unconscious muscle movements, which is another reason why motor coordination is impaired when under the influence of marijuana.

Nicotine

Fact: According to a 2002 report by the World Health Organization, about one in five young teenagers (ages 13 to 15) worldwide are smokers, and evidence shows that about 50% of adolescent smokers will go on to smoke for 15 or 20 more years.

Fact: According to a 2002 report by the World Health Organization, every eight seconds someone dies from a smoking-related death, and for every person who dies from smoking, twenty more will suffer a smoking-related illness.

Fact: According to a 2001 report by the Centers for Disease Control, seventy percent of addicted smokers want to quit.  Less than seven percent ever actually do.

What it feels like: Nicotine has a calming effect by changing the activeness of brain areas, which slow down the manifestation of negative emotions.  Smokers often experience an increase in energy, concentration, and satisfaction because of the endorphins being released.

How it works: Nicotine affects the brain by mimicking neurotransmitters.  Each neurotransmitter is specifically designed to fit with a receptor on another nerve cell.  Once the neurotransmitter locks into the receptor site, it activates the nerve cell and continues the message to the next cell.  Nicotine mainly mimics two neurotransmitters called acetylcholine and dopamine.  Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter responsible for a variety of bodily operations including breathing, heart rate, muscle movement, and cognition.  Nicotine increases the activity of these receptor sites, which is why many smokers feel an increase of energy or an increase in ability to concentrate directly after smoking a cigarette.  Nicotine can also lock into dopamine receptor sites.  Dopamine is the neurotransmitter most known for feeling pleasure.  It is commonly referred to as the “reward pathway” of the brain.  Dopamine is designed to release a good feeling every time you do something that benefits the body such as eating or exercising.  This reinforces the mind to want to repeat the action at a later time.  The nicotine in tobacco products creates this same pleasurable feeling, reinforcing the need to continue smoking or using other tobacco products.  Nicotine can also trigger the brain to release endorphins, proteins that act as natural pain medicine for the body.  The more nicotine that enters the blood stream, the greater potential for endorphins to be released.

Alcohol

Fact: According to MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), by the time students are in high school, 80% have used alcohol and 62% have been drunk.

Fact: According to the Marin Institute, 95% of alcoholics die from their disease and die approximately 26 years earlier than their normal life expectancy.

Fact: According to the Shaffer Library of Drug Policy, 10% of casual drinkers become alcoholics.

What it feels like: Depending on one’s BAC (Blood Alcohol Content), intoxication can cause feelings of euphoria, increased self-confidence, inhibited judgment, increased sociability, sedation, delayed reactions, impaired memory, blurred vision, and impaired fine muscle coordination.

How it works: Alcohol affects the brain’s neurons in several ways.  It alters their membranes, as well as their ion channels, enzymes, and receptors.  Alcohol also binds directly to the receptors for acetylcholine, serotonin, GABA (an amino acid in the brain that suppresses the action of nerve cells, relaxing the muscles in the body and calming emotions), and the NMDA receptors for glutamate (a receptor usually involved in learning and memory).  GABA’s effect is to reduce neural activity by allowing chloride ions to enter the post-synaptic neuron.  These ions have a negative electrical charge, which helps to make the neuron less excitable.  This physiological effect is amplified when alcohol binds to the GABA receptor, thus explaining the sedative effect.  Alcohol also helps to increase the release of dopamine by a process that is still poorly understood but seems to involve curtailing the activity of the enzyme that breaks dopamine down.

Caffeine (1,3,7-trimethylxanthine)

Fact: According to the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, 90% of Americans consume caffeine every day.  It is the world’s most used psychoactive drug.

Fact: The American Association of Poison Control Centers’ National Poison Data System reported more than 4,000 instances of caffeine toxicity in 2007.

Fact: The World Health Organization considers caffeine addiction a substance dependency and psychologically-impairing condition.  It is very weak in its addictive properties.

What it feels like: Initially you become more alert, and your brain may work better and faster.  But by the time you start that second cup, you may be anxious and irritable, which is not conducive to clear thinking.

How it works: Caffeine is a stimulant, meaning it accelerates physiological activity — in this case, speeding up the action of your brain and making you more alert.  It does this by binding to adenosine receptors in the brain.  Normally the chemical adenosine (a neurotransmitter involved in sleep initiation) binds to these, causing drowsiness by slowing down nerve cell activity.  The caffeine doesn’t have this effect but does get in the way of the adenosine.  Because the caffeine is blocking the adenosine receptors, your neurons become more active than they otherwise would be.  That is why it seems to be good for the brain.  Then your pituitary gland responds to all the activity as though it were an emergency by releasing hormones that tell the adrenal glands to produce adrenaline.  This is what is sometimes known as the “fight or flight” hormone (and is also called epinephrine), giving you the energy that you associate with caffeine.

Alice Minium

The 2010 Summit Christian Academy Retreat Variety Show was quite the jewel this year.  We were treated to an exotic buffet of talents performed, obsessions on display, and stereotypical egofests.  The Variety Show is Summit at its finest.  Upon careful examination, one may have realized that each act this year was highly representative of a vital truth that makes up the core of who Summit is, what Summit is good at, what Summit’s strengths are, and what Summit genuinely loves.

The first act was a skit by Mrs. Cochrane’s French classes.  French is inarguably one of the most beautiful, romantic-sounding languages in the world, and the ability to speak French just emanates the impression of enviable amounts of class.  Not only were they speaking French, but they were speaking it well, and the beautiful language brought a classy finish to even trashy things like Jessica Alba.  In the words of J. D. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield, “It’s funny, all you have to do is say something nobody understands and they’ll do practically anything you want them to.”  Summit is a big fan of this.  Even if these students cannot remember most of the French they learned in high school, five or ten years down the road they will most definitely always remember at least one sentence.  All they have to do is say that one sentence, followed by, “Yeah, I took French, no big deal,” and their companions will be deeply impressed, thinking, wow, I wish I was that cool.  This is the first pillar of Summit Christian Academy: Sounding smart and saying things nobody understands.

Our next performance was a real gem.  Eighth-graders Jessica Gromley and Erika Tamayo put their whole hearts into their performance of the song “Paper Heart,” but nature had to interfere as the sound equipment shrieked and faded out within the first 60 seconds of the song.  The poor girls kept smiles on their faces despite the fact that this happened at least four more times throughout the performance.  This act was a beautiful example of the second pillar of Summit Christian Academy: Messing up simple sound equipment.

The Variety Show took a much more laidback direction with a comedic performance by Kenny Moates.  His imitations of various characters from popular culture were punctuated by cleverly calculated silences for him to smile wryly and the audience to applaud for the young buck.  As his act went on, he progressively retreated farther and farther into the right corner of the stage, where he stayed fixed for the rest of his act.  This is something many sects of Summit kids characteristically love, and it is most definitely one of the prized pillars of Summit: Retreating to corners.

The fourth act was an impressive song and dance routine by eighth graders Chalise, Skylar, Schuyler, Amber, and Ellie.  Unlike some acts that evening, it was obvious the girls had practiced.  This is always refreshing.  Their young enthusiasm and unbreakable confidence is something all older students can miss, so these girls were an animated example of another pillar that young Summit loves: Girl Power.

Next was Daniel Blanton.  He refined each joke with his Blantonesque charm, but he was yet another example of a classic pastime Summit students adore, and our fifth pillar: Recycling jokes.

The act of most significance was the Funny Walk.  A tradition originating last year with Seraphim Hamilton, Sarah Haywood, and Alice Minium, it was resurrected at the Variety Show of 2010 and hopefully will return again even in their absence next year.  This year Renard Grice was the central focus of the Walk, as the three experienced seniors Funnywalked around him until the performance crescendoed to a sudden halt.

The Funny Walk is not just one thing.  The Funny Walk is breaking free from social, religious, and political boundaries.  The Funny Walk is forty-nine seconds of your life that you spend without an ounce of shame.  The Funny Walk is immortality.  The Funny Walk is bliss.  The Funny Walk is who you really are, not who you feel like you should be.  The Funny Walk is candy to a hungry soul that has only eaten vegetables for fifteen years.  The Funny Walk is the sixth and most fundamental pillar of Summit Christian Academy: Revolution.

The seventh act involved David Lane, Matthew Mouring, and Samuel Arthur performing some indescribable contortion act….  The seventh pillar of Summit is a key one as well: Socially alienating ourselves by weird behavior.

Sophomores Manny and Connor performed some skit with brooms up their shirts and toothbrushes being thrown across the stage….  Bottom line is, their skit on wily thievery is a glorious example of Summit’s eighth pillar: Kleptomania.

Seniors Devan, Seraphim, and Graham serenaded the crowd with an a cappella rendition of the Star Wars theme.  This act was highly praised by critics abroad and is available on video upon request.  Summit’s ninth pillar is Extensive knowledge of nerdy cinema and literature.

Perhaps the most moving act of the night was the Class of 2011’s performance of Matisyahu’s “One Day.”  Everyone linked arms and the crowd swayed to the music, caught up in the aura of love and unity.  The tenth pillar of Summit Christian Academy is Being Jewish.

Penultimately, the junior boys tripped everybody out with black lights, glow sticks, techno music, and outrageous dancing.  We saw something like this last year with the Class of 2010’s young men’s performance.  Although it will always be hard to measure up to last year’s black light show, the music and flashing lights still almost gave everybody a seizure.  Summit’s eleventh pillar is Idolizing and imitating the alumni.

Brand new ninth-grader Emily Bradfield’s melodic and strikingly strong voice gave chills to the audience.  Her beautiful final act was one of genuine talent.  The twelfth and final pillar of Summit Christian Academy is Child prodigies that materialize out of nowhere.

The talents we pursue say so much about who we are and what we value.  As a school, Summit is many things, but ultimately it is uniform in so many ways.  No matter the differences of our talents, these twelve core truths apply to us all.  Remember these pillars, remember this Variety Show, and remember that there could always be some deeper life truth hidden in the disguise of a squeaky microphone or a child with a toothbrush in his pants.

Special thanks to Mr. Fahringer for not only organizing the Variety Show but also providing this list of acts to the author.  Your extra work is much appreciated.

Alice Minium

In twenty-first-century America, most children don’t see education as a privilege, an honor, and a freedom.  They do not see education as the trapdoor of escape from a life of ignorance, the chisel to articulate one’s decisions, desires, perspective, and dreams, or the pathway to behold a colorful, complex, mysterious world of adventure.

 Children don’t see the bland pages of their mass-produced history textbook as a passageway into anything.  The term “education” no longer describes a journey of stimulating discovery and enrichment of one’s perception.  Instead, what comes to mind is a seven-hour school day in a desk chair, thick textbooks nobody wants to read, and at last the shrill bell of sweet relief.  Ask a student to define learning, and listen carefully to the response.

An anonymous junior high student, when asked, defined learning as “when you know stuff, and get good grades, and know all the answers on a test.”  A high school student, who also wished to remain anonymous, insisted that “Learning is what we’re supposed to do at school.  When you remember something even after you turned in your homework, then you’ve learned it.  People always think about grades, but learning is supposed to be more than that.”

Ask a few of the greats from several thousand years ago.  According to Plato^{427-327 BC}, “The object of education is to teach us love of beauty.”  Ask Aristotle^{384-322 BC}, “Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.”  Or, in the words of Socrates^{469-399 BC}, “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”  Needless to say, these men saw education as a beautiful, precious privilege, not a dull chore.

Back in the days of Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates, education was primarily available only to upper-class males, sometimes in a schoolhouse and sometimes through a private tutor.  Up until the age of seven, children were taught basic morals in the home, and then they would begin instruction in letters and syllables, followed by words and sentences, finally leading up to reading and writing.  Women, slaves, and the very poor usually did not receive a formal education.  The Greeks saw education an invaluable pursuit, and it was the key foundation to the intellectual progressions that distinguish ancient Greek society.

The early American fathers shared a similar attitude with the Greeks.  They saw education as the soil that nurtured America’s growth, and Thomas Jefferson drafted a bill in 1791 for the institution of a public education system.  In his own words, “The object [of my education bill was] to bring into action that mass of talents which lies buried in poverty in every country for want of the means of development, and thus give activity to a mass of mind which in proportion to our population shall be the double or treble of what it is in most countries.”  However, until the mid-nineteenth century, education in America was still highly localized and not available to the very poor.  The first law to require school attendance was passed by Massachusetts in 1852, and by 1918 underage education was required in every state and available to all children without charge (excluding the inevitable tax).  In the words of early American education activist Horace Mann, “The common-school reformers argue for the case of a public education system on the belief that common schooling will create good citizens, unite society, and prevent crime and poverty.”

This is, without a doubt, one of the greatest beauties of America.  Every child born in America today grows up with the privilege and the right to attend school, which for millennia beforehand has been largely unheard of.  However, as any individual with a basic knowledge of economics would know, the easier the access to a product, the lower the value and appreciation for it.  This is applicable to the current education situation.  The byproduct of children raised with schooling as a granted, disposable institution, is generations of children that do not appreciate it whatsoever.  School has become a chore, a necessary evil of adolescent life, and an object for widespread apathy.  The fact that the education system has become lax, haphazard in its ways, and overlooked by government funds does not help improve this attitude.  Our founding fathers would be appalled at the current state of our education, and children from centuries gone by would be awestruck by our nonchalant, obligatory-like attitude.

Junior high and high school students are especially guilty of a lack of interest and passion for their education.  To truly learn, one must possess a personal thirst for knowledge that drives you to work on your schoolwork, read your reading assignments, and excel on your exams.  Too often it is about grades, and too often it is about revulsion and torpidity to the general idea.  It is too easy for the methodical “busy work” to seem non-beneficial and generally less important than one’s personal life.  I cannot deny that I shared this attitude and slipped into the apathy of the majority.  Years in hindsight, I have no greater regret.  My lack of appreciation for the privilege of a fine education resulted in low grades, which are now on my transcript forever.  I was told by people that my early years of high school were not that important, but the bottom line is that those years were when I formed my study habits and when I dug the foundation for the rest of my intellectual life.  I’ve reached the end of the road and the days of being prodded toward and guided through my education have come to an end.  It is up to me and only me to ensure that I have a plan for my future and means of consummating that plan.  At the finish line, you may have the support of parents and teachers, but there is no one to guide you anymore.  The responsibility belongs to you and you alone.  Now, I’m having to work twice as hard to pull loose ends together and ensure that I will be prepared.

Do not make the mistake of trivializing your schooling.  Let your schooling truly be your education.  Develop a craving for education, and success in your schooling will inevitably follow.  Seize advantage of your rare blessing and enumerated right.  Don’t sigh the next time you get assigned a five-page paper; instead, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and thank God for the privilege you have that so many other people would have died for.