On Tuesday, Feb. 7, I went to the Patriots Super Bowl Parade along with hundreds of other Hanover High School students and thousands of area fans. I woke up at 6:30 am just like any other school day, but instead of getting ready for school, I bundled up and put on my Gronk jersey. It definitely was not the greatest weather -freezing icy rain and howling wind – but it was certainly a day I will never forget. There was no better feeling than arriving at the Braintree T station to see hundreds of devoted Patriots fans in their gear, ready to watch the greatest football team of all time cruise by on the Duck Boats.

When my friends and I got to Boston, we decided to head to City Hall Plaza, which is where Tom Brady and the rest of the Pats would finish the parade and say a few words to the fans. As thousands of people packed Tremont Street, we saw some pretty interesting stuff. I had to have seen around a hundred signs making fun of NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, hundreds of  “Roger That” and “Drive for 5” posters, fans who may have had a little too much fun, and even two moms getting into a fistfight. I’m going to have to say seeing Gronkowski hanging off the side of a duck boat, shirtless, with the Lombardi trophy in one hand, was one of the top 5 coolest things I’ve ever seen in my life.  

The weather made it a little tough to enjoy the parade but we made the best of it. New England fans are tough and that wasn’t going to stop us from spending the day celebrating the greatest Super Bowl comeback of all time. Being 5’2” made seeing over the crowd a little difficult, but I found a way.

Once the parade was over, we headed home. Trying to get on the train was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do. Cold and soaking wet, we waited on the Downtown Crossing platform and had to let four trains pass because they were too crowded. Finally, we found a way to squeeze on. The train smelled awful and I think everyone at that point just wanted to get home.

Spending my day in Boston watching the parade was a great experience. Being a Boston sports fan is something I definitely do not hate. Tom Brady is a savage and I wish Robert Kraft was my grandpa.

As technology has rapidly evolved in recent years, some districts have begun to provide their students with laptops to facilitate the learning process. This program is called a 1–to-1 laptop program, and it grants each student a laptop to be used in the classroom and for homework for the entire school year.

Based on my experience over the past few years at Hanover High, computers are crucial tools to many teachers’ class plans. Whether needed for a project, webquest, research assignment, or study period, computers are often in demand. The school currently uses Chromebook carts or the computer labs when typing or using the Internet is required. Though I find this system is useful and effective, I do think that if each student had their own laptop there would be less energy spent on tracking down and organizing the Chromebook carts and relocating to the computer labs. This might be one helpful benefit of developing such a laptop program here in Hanover.

Using this program might also help teachers assign work to students. Currently, teachers cannot completely assume that each student has access to a home computer, and they therefore might be hesitant to give out assignments predominantly online through a program like Google Classroom. If each student had their own school-distributed laptop, however, the teacher could feel confident that the student would have the resources at home to complete their work without having to go to extra efforts like using a computer at the town library.

If I were in charge of deciding whether or not this school should take up the program, I would probably be ambivalent about just how much more smooth the laptops would make learning. Though they would surely provide quick access to an infinite amount of learning materials right in the classroom, a weak Wi-Fi connection can make the learning process take double or triple the amount of time it normally would. I have experienced poor network connections in school with the Chromebooks, making my projects take longer than they would using a physical textbook, so I would be worried about technological mishaps like this if the school were to develop the program.

One high school teacher in La Junta, Colorado, tried out this laptop program and had interesting things to say about it to the George Lucas Educational Foundation (Edutopia). The teacher, Chris Ludwig, said that the program was helpful to teacher-student communication because it allowed for his students to get in touch with and submit work to him whenever they needed. Ludwig also stated that the laptops allowed the students to participate in the collective classroom learning experience by introducing information or resources they found online to others in the class. Moreover, he found that students getting distracted with other websites and programs on the computer while they were supposed to be working was not a major issue: Ludwig could use Apple Remote Desktop to regulate what the students were doing, and he could lock each student computer when he needed to.

Though using a 1-to-1 laptop program would be a big shift from the paper-based learning style that largely still exists at Hanover High School, I think that it could solve many problems at the school involving efficiency of attaining online resources and ease of assigning Internet work. Technology can be less reliable at times due to issues like poor wireless connections or computer malfunctions, but the world at large is increasingly relying on materials online for information. It might, in fact, prepare students well for future jobs or daily life if schools adopted a computer-based curriculum.

So, it’s February, we are halfway through the year, third term has started and we have not had one snow day. Not one! I don’t know about you, but I’m bummed. Not only am I annoyed because in years past we’ve had massive amounts of snow, but this is the one year I wouldn’t have to make up any snow days. It’s my senior year and whether we have no snow days or 20, my last day of school will be May 19 either way. 

I don’t care how much you hate shoveling your driveway; EVERYONE loves a day off from school to play in the snow. There is nothing more satisfying than sleeping in, then getting wrapped up in a nice fuzzy blanket with a cup of hot chocolate and a going on a nice Netflix binge. If you’re lucky, maybe you can even get together with your buds and get snowed in before the roads are too rough to drive on.

Some may think the opposite though. I know lots of kids that hop right in their cars when they find out snow’s coming and head out to do donuts in as many parking lots as they can. Of course, if you do choose to spend your snow day in a car, ALWAYS make sure you buckle up because roads do tend to get really icy. This has been my first winter with my license and I will say it is not easy driving when the roads get icy.

Another fun way to spend a snow day is to hit the slopes. I never got the chance to learn how to ski or snowboard, but I wish I had when I was younger so that I could go now. I like going tubing and sledding though!

So if and when we FINALLY get a snow day this winter, make the best of it and be sure to enjoy it. Come the end of June, when seniors are long gone but the rest of HHS is facing makeup days, you’re going to be wishing you had.

 I believe that technology has altered the way our generation works. Today, you see almost everyone on their phones, no matter what age they are. With kids in our generation, it’s  hard to find someone sitting down and enjoying a good book. Nowadays, you rarely see kids playing outside and enjoying their surroundings. Technology has changed the way our generation views life.

Personally, I am always on my phone and I know it’s bad, but it’s an addiction. Sometimes I look at my phone for the time and I end up looking to see if I have any notifications and have to look again because I paid no attention to the actual time. If I am not doing anything, I am absolutely glued to my phone. The only time I am off my phone is when I am driving. Besides that, sadly, I am almost always on my phone and I hate myself for it.

I even have a niece that is almost five years old who quickly learned how to use an iPhone when she was two or three. Today, she has her very own iPad and knows exactly how to use it. She is able to FaceTime with her mom when they are apart. I can see how that could be good for her mental development, but back in the day, you didn’t see five year olds with a phone in their hand. Now, I’m not saying she doesn’t go outside at all, because I would be lying — she goes outside a lot and runs around in the yard when it’s nice out –but it’s strange to see how the generations have changed over the years.

I still like to go on walks and sit outside and take photographs, but for the most part, I’d rather be inside watching Grey’s Anatomy on Netflix. Photography is my ticket to being outside and enjoying nature. It’s a way for me to communicate with other people. While looking at pictures, everyone has a different way of viewing. Say you’re looking at a picture of a sunset, some people take a long look at it and start to think about what nature means to them, and others might just admire the beauty of it. For me, photography brings out the side of me that loves the nature and seeing the true beauty behind this world. When I’m not enjoying my photography, I am again, glued to my phone and I miss out on what is right there in front of me.

It truly makes me sad that technology has taken over our creative minds. Even in school, we rely too much on technology. For projects, instead of making eye-catching posters and having fun being creative, we spend time making PowerPoints that no one wants to look at. Creativity is a part of our lives that should be prominent, but it’s not. We should use our creativity to express ourselves instead of hiding behind a computer screen. I believe that our creativity is suppressed by the dominance of phones and computers.

The internet has ruined our society. It has destroyed our self images. Many people, females and males, feel low self-esteem because of the way the internet perceives the “perfect” human. There is no such thing as a “perfect” human, but because of the internet, everyone looks at these images of what we are  supposed to be and we compare ourselves to them. The internet has made it difficult to love ourselves for who we are.

Today, when you go out to dinner, a lot of the times you see people on their phones instead of talking with the people around them. Personally when I go out to dinner, I try to leave my phone in my bag and have conversations with whoever I’m with. For our generation, I find that it’s harder for people to communicate in person because we have gotten so used to hiding behind a screen. We’ve gotten so used to relying on technology that  we have forgotten how to live life in the real world. I believe that technology has changed us, and not entirely for the better.