BY SCENE AND HERD AND IMAN UMAIR-QAISER

Hey there! Ever wanted to ask something you didn’t want to do so out loud, or wanted to share with the community instead? Advice columns are great for that. At MDHS News, we can answer your questions that others in the community can also have! Submit some questions to the Student Voice Box in the library. Here are this sessionś questions and comments!

Hi MD!

Hello, friendly person! Hope you like our school!

NO ACEMBLIES (sic)

No stupid assemblies

Please, can we have fewer assemblies!!!

No more assemblies please =), or not as many!

No more assemblies!

Please have less assemblies and give us the time they take for our studies!

This just in: MD hates assemblies.

Listen, we get it: you’d much rather be dying of boredom in math class than dying of boredom in the gym. The whole reason we have assemblies, however, is to be aware of events and achievements the school is affiliated with. Like it or not, assemblies are part of the educational experience.

Along with this, remember the first ask article we had? Where someone asked the students to have more school spirit? Well, guess what assemblies promote? You literally come together as a school to learn together and have a deeper understanding for your school.

My advice? If you don’t like assemblies, try volunteering to help out with them. You get to be behind the scenes and organize the entire shebang. Much more fun than sit around for an hour. Otherwise, there’s not much that can be done about them. Rip off the band-aid and sit through it; assemblies are often less than an hour long.

I love chocolate, what type should I try next?

Alright, assuming you’ve already tried the Big Three (white, milk, and dark), you absolutely need to try salted caramel chocolate. The addition of the bitter salt softens the overbearingly-sweet flavour of caramel, allowing for the perfect balance of taste favoured by gourmands internationally, and even rumoured to eventually replace pumpkin spice as the official fall flavour. You know it’s gotta be good.

If all else fails and you either have already tried or hate them all, stick with nougat. Jack Kline and Dustin Henderson approve.

Check out the article we wrote specifically on chocolate for more ideas!

Gay flag should not be allowed to be hung on the same pole. It is unfair.

Yes, I see your point on this and we had this issue last year too but the things is; we probably can’t get another flag pole, which will only be used for a little while. Flag poles cost money, and the fact that the rainbow and trans flags are only up for a week or so at a time, like during National Coming Out Day and Trans Week of Awareness, there is little to no point of investing in another pole.

Since we only have one pole, we try to be as honourable as possible by flying the Canadian flag on top and making sure that any flag flying below it is the same or a smaller size. This concern with the flags is only a flag etiquette thing and not in any way a law. We are being as respectful as possible with what we have, and we hope this is understood.

Who did 9/11?

See, here’s the thing. If you didn’t already know, this type of question is a certain term we like to use called disrespectful. For the unfortunate few who do not understand what ‘disrespectful’ means, let’s define it for them:

dis·re·spect·ful

disrəˈspek(t)fəl/

adjective

showing a lack of respect or courtesy; impolite.

Unless you genuinely do not understand the concept of the terrorist attack of September 11th, 2001, I suggest you avoid asking about it, as there are many people whose lives have been negatively affected because of this event. People died in horrible ways on that day. People have suffered horribly because of that day. People have encountered horrible prejudice due to that day. So unless you consider death, suffering, and prejudice to be hilarious topics and wish to joke about them to people who may be sensitive about it and you purposely enjoy making them feel uncomfortable or unsafe, I suggest you keep your thoughts to yourself. There are many things in the world that people consider comedic but are extremely rude and degrading. If you haven’t guessed already, this is one of them.

Can we have a school pet? (Sponsoring, maybe? Class pets?)

The MDHS News Team collectively agrees this is a great idea. It’d be amazing to sponsor an animal in need. Heck, we could even sponsor a horse! We’ll have to direct this to Ms. Baksys, but great idea!

Hooks on bathroom doors?

In my opinion, this is a pretty great idea. Unless you have the literal waist diameter of a twig and have an extremely small and vacuum sealed empty backpack, you probably take your bag off when you go to the bathroom. It’s bad enough putting it on the bathroom floor, where countless kids have probably peed themselves trying to get to a stall quickly, but what if the floors are already wet? What if you walk into English class to hand in the biggest report of the course, just to discover it’s sopping wet? We must derail these disasters and take precautions by issuing a proclamation to install hooks on bathroom doors to avoid educational and hygienic catastrophe.

More entertainment at lunch please!

As students ourselves, we get where you’re coming from. Unless you’re in Grade 9 and take music, lunch is an hour and fifteen minutes long, and eating only takes up about twenty minutes. So let’s become murderers and find ways to kill time.

1. Go out for lunch and visit a nearby plaza
   Take precautions with this one, as not only will you have to keep yourself safe out on the streets of wild, mysterious, and exciting Milton, but you’ll also have to shield yourself from the weather, not be broke, and get back to school in time. Unlike our Catholic counterparts, who have extremely easy access to forms of amusement (B.R. IS LITERALLY FIVE MINUTES AWAY FROM THE MAIN LIBRARY, ARE YOU SERIOUS?), MD is a bit of a walk to the Shoppers Plaza or the Sports Centre, especially when it’s cold.
2. Go outside. Breathe fresh air. Communicate with your natural surroundings.
   Get in touch with your inner hippie and take a step outdoors. Dance in the dead grass. Make chains of ugly flowers. Play in the rock-hard snow. Live a little.
3. Go to the library.
   Many high schoolers are familiar with the concept of reading, however, many are unaware that reading can be done for fun. Go, venture forth to the commons of literature. Anoint yourself with the knowledge that lies within the wooden shelves. Bask in the glory of the bound blocks of paper and ink. Say hi to Ms. Burton and Ms. Carson.
4. Review your notes for classes
   Okay, this one’s a bit boring, but necessary. Revision is always vital to properly learning and remembering what you learned in class. If you review your notes the same day you make them, you’re likely to be able to remember them 60% better.
5. Get some friends, and play a good old-fashioned game with them. Invite some strangers too.
   You may have noticed a trend in all the posts on Instagram that you see when you’re spending too much time with your phone: people’s apparent hate of socializing. Personally speaking, I frequently quote that I, too, dislike interacting with people, but I’ll be the first to admit, it’s because I’m usually too scared to put in the effort and talk to people, even ones I know well. Technology disconnects people, sorry to say. Social media has taken the social out of us, and we rely on applications to do what we’ve been doing for the last 100,000 years: talking. So what do you do? Be the random friend in the group.
   Picture this scene: you and your friends are sitting somewhere in the school, scrolling or watching or liking or whatever, and suddenly you whip out a pack of Cards Against Humanity and start dealing. Everyone will love it. A Tumblr story is being composed in your honour.
   It doesn’t have to necessarily be a card game or a board game. You could play truth or dare, would you rather, or even this Tumblr game that’s going around called Paranoia.
6. Netflix makes everything better. Even inevitable boredom.
   Best educational decision of my life. This is to all you introverts, loners, and general friendless people. Making friends is hard, yes. So while trying your hardest to creating lasting relationships with the people around you, soothe thy sorrows with a good old heaping spoonful of Stranger Things. Will is a loner, but he has Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Eleven. You’ll find your gang of losers too.