The Centennial Crier The ENTENNIAL CRIER - CBEprojects.cbe.ab.ca/Centennial/Centennial...

The Centennial Crier, November/December 2016, Issue 22 Chief Editor: Ms. Kim; Associate Editors: Mr. Freeborn, Ms. Fukami

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Why Hillary Clinton Was Not Much Better By Matthew Gordon-Evans

The CENTENNIAL CRIER

The Resounding Howl: By the Students, For the Students

8 November 2016 will go down in

history as one of the tensest Unit-ed States presidential elections in history. This was the day that the United States would find out who would become president, Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.

Now I think I can speak for most when I say that the results were a bit of a shock. National polls and early voting surveys suggested that Secre-tary Clinton would win, and so her loss and the immediate reactions to it were less than comforting. Riots broke out in the United States, and even in Toronto and Vancouver.

Some people may sup-port this reaction to Trump’s victory, but let’s take a step back and look at a very important ques-tion: Was Hillary Clinton really that much better of a choice? I’ll admit that some of Mr. Trump’s plans are ridiculous; however, I’m here to tell you why Hillary Clinton was just as bad as Donald Trump.

The easiest issue to talk about in regards to Clinton’s shortcomings is the email scandal that came to light during the elec-tion. During her term as Secretary of State, Clinton used a private server to send a number of emails containing classified information, emails that could have easily been

hacked, allowing the information to be used for malicious intent. Another potential problem was her plan to establish a no-fly zone over Syria which would most likely have caused disputes with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

During her campaign, Clin-ton made several promises, in-cluding improving and expanding Obamacare, eliminating tuition for community college, and creating jobs. These all sound like good things on paper until you ask where the money will come from to pay for these ventures at an estimated cost of $350 billion. The answer: closing tax loopholes. To do this, new tax changes would have had to be approved by Con-gress, thus making these goals un-realistic, not because they were bad plans, but because the plans would require a large Democrat victory which, even before Mr.

Trump’s victory, was not the esti-mated outcome.

Now you might be thinking that I hate Secretary Clinton and that I supported Mr. Trump, but in all actuality, I wanted Clinton to win. I wanted her because I be-

lieved that Donald Trump was this evil guy who was not fit to be President. However, my mind was changed as of No-vember 9th, the day after the election.

On this day, Donald Trump went up on the podium and did the most shocking thing ever. He was humble. He

didn’t belittle Hillary, nor did he make any racist or sexist re-marks. Instead, he accepted the

nomination and even gave Hillary a round of applause.

Since then, Trump has start-ed acting more like someone who could be president and less like someone who ran as a joke. Now, do I think Donald Trump’s policies are good? No. Some of his promis-es, like ending the free trade agreement or not taking steps to-ward cleaner energy, will just hurt the US. However, I really think that instead of protesting and complaining, people should just wait and give Donald Trump a chance and see if he thinks about and changes some of his policies.


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It hit me like a colossal wave

that could consume a city. I was washed into an ocean of over-whelming debris of what was once my composure. To make matters worse, I was not alone; I was drowning alone, of course, but I was surrounded by totally okay people who couldn't under-stand why I was gasping for air.

I was going to die—physically, mentally, socially! Well, I felt like I was totally, sure-ly, positively going to die; but of course, I was not.

I was hyperventilating perfectly good oxygenated air—or as good as the fresh air of the C-train during Stampede could possibly be. There was no water, I was not drowning, I was not in danger, I was not dying. I was panicking, freaking out, flipping crap on the C-train surrounded by strangers. I could have at least fixed my ratted-up hair before putting on a show of hyperventi-lating, shaking and tears, (so there was some water after all) but the thing was, it was a sud-den, overwhelming burst of anxi-ety-and-emotion explosion hap-pening inside of me and I could no longer keep up the “I’m fine, I’m okay, everything is super-wonderful, full of candy, rain-bows, unicorns, and happiness” façade.

I was full of crap. It all

was. I was neither fine nor okay.

A few years earlier, I was diagnosed with an anxiety disor-der.

I didn't think I had one. I didn't feel anxious. But you can-not know joy without misery and you cannot know misery without joy. My baseline was anxious. I was always so anxious I couldn't even recognize it. I didn't recog-nize it until I got to the point where I was unable to function.

I got to the point where I was so terrified of anxiety, that I was panicking at the thought of panicking, and the anxiety was causing me anxiety.

So I made a plan on what to do:

Step one:

Admit there is a problem.

Step two:

Make a list of Dos and Don'ts.

Things to do to live an anxiety-free life:

- Don't do anything that could make you the slightest bit anx-ious.

- Don't tell anyone how you real-ly feel.

- Don't ask for help.

- Don't leave the house.

- Drop out of school.

- Quit your job or just text your boss that you're never working again.

- Don't leave your room.

- Download Tumblr and Pinter-est.

- Cut off all ties with people.

- Don't talk to anyone in general.

- Don’t touch anything.

- Wash everything.

- Don’t see a doctor or any pro-fessional.

- Don't take meds.

- Put the TV and gaming system in your room.

- Don't sleep.

- Avoid all problems and all trig-gers possible.

- So essentially, avoid everything.

End result:

I am really good at Mario Kart. Seriously, really good.

(Continued on next page)

Going To The Surface For Air: Living Life With Anxiety By Keeley Davidsen


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See, I got a lot of practice because I became housebound for all of the summer and spent months after that in the hospital because I could not bear the thought of facing life. The anxiety was so big—it was humorous, gi-gantic, colossal and I am only 5 feet and 7 inches; it was too much. The unfortunate thing about anxiety is that in order to overcome it, you have to face it, repeatedly, over and over again.

Still, though, 5 feet and 7 inches of something is better than zero feet of nothing.

My updated plan:

Step one:

Admit there is a problem.

Step two:

Do something about it.

Step three:

Make a list of Dos and Don’ts.

Things to do to live life with anxie-ty:

- Ask for help.

- Believe in yourself—you are strong.

- Recognize that you are not alone.

- Find out your triggers.

- See a doctor or professional.

- Let people help.

- Try new things.

- Take meds as prescribed.

- Go to therapy.

- Stay away from drugs and alco-hol.

- Know that you are not weak.

- Slowly expose yourself to fears.

- Go a bit longer each time—baby steps.

- Communicate with others.

- Breathe.

- Find what works for you.

- Stock up on fidgets.

- Try mindfulness.

- Accept that the process isn't per-fect.

-Take it one moment at a time.

End result:

I'm still good at Mario Kart.

However, I also leave the house, go to school and now I'm productive, alive, and living. I go out and do things I never could have imagined before. I’ve tried and found out new things about myself. I am so much stronger than the person I was last year.

I still feel like I'm drowning a lot of the time but I've learned skills to help me stay afloat. I am not alone. You are not alone.

Everyone is different and different things work for different people, but in the end, life is pos-sible. Anxiety is a massive, ugly monster to face but trying is something and it's better than nothing. Just take that first step, and it will be alright.

Living A Better Life With Anxiety (continued)

Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.

Photography by Alayna Smith

When it rains, look

for rainbows. When it’s

dark, look for stars.

Photography by Alayna

Smith


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A Totally Unpopular Metal Band Review By Selina BV

There are lots of bands out

there that many metalheads find interesting and extremely likea-ble, some mainstream, some un-derground. Metal music is some-what of a journey for one to go through, as not all bands and

roads retain as much fame as others. As a fan of underground music in general, discovering specifically lesser-known metal bands (either the new or the old) is what I would describe as

something of a religious experi-ence for me. And here is where I begin my article on a smaller heavy metal band that was pushed out of the metal womb back in 1990, a band called Chan-nel Zero.

Also known as “Belgium’s Metallica,” Channel Zero isn't necessarily a band that you will hear slip out of just any metal-head’s mouth, due to the fact that they aren’t very talked about in the metal world.

The band started in 1990, in Brussels, Belgium. As young men, the original lineup played for around two years trying to find their sound. As they began to become more and more rec-ognised throughout the years, they were classified as some-where between heavy metal, thrash metal, and groove metal.

In 1992, the band re-leased their first studio album,

which was self-titled. This album helped them establish their fan base, which largely consisted of metalheads from places such as their home country Belgium, and in neighbouring Germany.

After the self-titled album came out, the band released an-other record the following year called Stigmatized for Life. This album was mixed by Vinnie Paul, the drummer of the amazingly great southern American band, Pantera, a fitting choice due to the enormous influence Pantera had on their music. They were one of Channel Zero’s biggest musical idols.

1993 was the year that Channel Zero broke through into the spotlight. They put together what some would call their abso-lute best work: the album Un-safe. The band had previously attracted the interest of fellow metal mates and musicians, two being Billy Milano from the band Stormtroopers Of Death and Richard 23 of Front 242. Both



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A Totally Unpopular Metal Band Review (continued)

featured on this album as guest vocalists. Channel Zero followed Un-safe with 1996’s Black Fuel, an album that seemed to be much darker than their previous work. It was unsurprising, then, that the band officially split in 1997, right after they released the en-tire recording of their live perfor-mance at the Marktrock music festival in Belgium, an album simply titled Live.

In 2010, Channel Zero’s frontman, Franky De Smet-Van Damme, organised a reunion of the original lineup of the band, minus guitarist Xavier Carion. They played six reunion shows in Brussels, their hometown. The first three of these shows sold out in only 49 minutes. In the same year, their most well-known song was released: “Black Flowers.” This single was a com-mercial success and it even be-gan getting radio play in the United States. With rumours of a

new album in the works, Channel Zero was back on track once again. They resumed playing alongside major metal bands at music festivals around the globe, even opening for Black Sabbath a few times.

In 2011, the rumours of a new album came true, with the release of one of my favorite al-bums of all time, Feed ‘Em With A Brick. This album includes some killer riffs and breakdowns, not to mention very strong, star-tling intros. Highlights from the album are “Hot Summer,”

“Freedom,” and “Angel’s Blood.” Unfortunately, the band expe-rienced a very grief-filled time in 2013, when founding mem-ber and drum-mer, Phil Baheux, passed away. His

death was taken very hard by his friends and bandmates, fans and family. He was only 45. Following Phil’s death, around three months later, Channel Zero an-nounced to the world that they would continue to work on their new album, with the newly ap-pointed drummer Roy Mayorga. Thus, the sixth album, Kill All Kings, was birthed through Metal Blades Records on 24 June 2014.

As for now, I believe that the band is working on some new tracks for possibly a new upcoming album or EP. Their most recent work, the Un-plugged album, was released in 2015. The album consists of acoustic renditions of a selection of their previously released songs, many that sound better than their original studio ver-sions.

So I suggest you check out Channel Zero if this type of music is your cup of tea, or if you are just looking to explore some musical streets that you aren't too familiar with.


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The Toronto Blue Jays had a

pretty darn impressive season, which came to a close last month after a 4-1 loss in a best-of-seven series with the World Series run-ner-up Cleveland Indians.

What carried the Jays this last season was their impressive starting pitching, iron-clad de-fense, and a positive attitude (the last part I am kidding about; baseball players don’t strike me as the positive type.) People last season expected Toronto to make a repeat of league-leading offense, after scoring 891 runs in 162 games in the 2015 season. Compare that to their 2016 re-sults, an American League fifth-place ranking of 759 runs. What happened with last season, you might ask? Well, let me inform you of one or two things.

In the late 2015 season, the Blue Jays hired a new presi-

dent and CEO of the organiza-tion, Mark Shapiro, who previ-ously worked for Cleveland.

After hiring Shapiro, fan-loved Blue Jays General Manager Alex Anthopoulos left the team because he stated that he could not see a future working under Shapiro.

After this, Shapiro made the unfortunate decision to hire his previous Cleveland colleague Ross Atkins. Let me get this off my chest now: I HATE ROSS AT-

KINS. Mr. Atkins started the off-season by trading away my fa-vourite player on the Jays, left-fielder Ben Revere, to Washing-ton for a closing/relief pitcher named Drew Storen, whom they didn’t even need.

He then signed a useless relief pitcher, Gavin Floyd (who obviously was from Cleveland), and then another relief pitcher from Oakland by the name of Jesse Chavez. Might I mention that by the 2016 trade deadline, both Storen and Chavez were traded to different teams? Be-lieve it or not, that was only last season.

This off-season holds the chance for true terribleness. Two of the biggest offensive produc-ers of all time for the Blue Jays are at the end of their contracts and are now free agents.


A Baseball Rant About Ross Atkins, GM Of The Blue Jays By Matthew K.

Everything you’ve ever

wanted is on the other side

of fear.

Photography by Alayna

Smith

If you are interested

in writing for The

Centennial Crier,

then join the

Journalism Club!

Drop by T-116 at

lunch on Thursdays.


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That’s right, I am bringing up the terrifying possibility of Jose Bau-tista and Edwin Encarnacion most likely not hitting any more home runs for Toronto. Scary, right? Well, with Ross Atkins at the desk, it makes the loss of Jo-ey Bats or the Ed-wing even more probable. Another key member of the Jays that is going to become a free agent this off-season is Michael Saunders.

Saunders is key for main-ly one reason: he is a true Cana-dian. He made an impact last season becoming the only Cana-dian player to be on the roster for the all-star game. He made a significant impact in the first half of the season by posting a .298 batting average and 16 homers before the all-star game. While Saunders was more of a hit pro-ducer, Encarnacion led the AL with 127 RBIs and Bautista hit 22 HRs in a 116-game-injury-prone season. Atkins is doubtful that either would sign back with the organization.

On November 21st, the Blue Jays offered Encarnacion $80,000,000 for 4 years. This offer came just days before the acquisition of the former world series champion D.H. Kendrys Morales from the Kansas City Royals. The signing of a new DH/1B completely fills the hole that would be caused by Encar-nacion never coming back, which

is why it is such an outrageous move to do this early in the off-season. There are obviously rea-sons why it is unlikely that Bau-tista is coming back, and I can summarise it in nine words: He is asking for an outrageous amount of money. Before spring training this year, Bautista gave the Jays a take-it-or-leave-it deal of $150 million for 5 years. Considering that Bautista’s defense has been rapidly deteriorating over the last few years, and that if Toron-to gave him the contract it would employ Bautista until he was 41 years old, it makes the chanc-es of a signing extremely unlike-ly. Not signing back at least one of these players is detrimental to the organization, by a large margin. With the signing of neither, you lose offensive val-ue that, frankly, based on Mo-rales’ past season stats, can’t be filled by new ac-quisitions. Also, you lose two of the most recog-nisable Blue Jays players along with very valuable

clubhouse leaders and personali-ties.

This is all the fault of Ross Atkins. His unwillingness to meet either of the player’s conditions will reduce the Jays’ offense in the 2017 season. Other players will also need to become the face of the Blue Jays (most likely Josh Donaldson, Troy Tulowitzki, Russel Martin, or perhaps even Marcus Stroman.) Only time will tell if Atkins made the correct decisions in this situation, which I strongly believe he did not.

A Baseball Rant About The GM Of The Jays (continued)


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Centennial High School has over

1800 students. I would estimate at least 60% of the student body takes the bus to and from school. Anyone who takes the bus understands the daily struggle. From experience, I have come to the realisation that there are five main struggles that every student has or will come across while taking public transit to and from school every day.

Struggle 1: The Bus Pass

Anyone with a bus pass would un-derstand that having a small rectan-gular piece of stiff paper is harder to keep track of than you may think. I have noticed how different people take care of and keep track of their bus passes. For example, most girls keep their bus passes in the back of their phone case (which is typically transparent) or in an easily accessi-ble pocket in their purses, bags or jackets. As for boys, they typically keep their bus pass in a flip-open wallet or a back pocket. Now, de-spite these diverse ways of keeping track of one's bus pass, on occasion one may lose or misplace their bus pass. From personal experience, whenever I misplace my bus pass it is at the most inconvenient time, for example, right before I need to leave my house for the bus or when I am getting on the bus.

Struggle 2: Waiting for the Bus

Someone who takes the bus every-day would know that waiting for the bus, depending on the weather, can be the worst part of the whole trip. In spring and summer the weather

while waiting for the bus, is mostly tolerable, and occasionally enjoya-ble? As for fall and winter, the wait can be quite uncomfortable. In early fall standing outside for up to half an hour is tolerable; it is most defi-nitely annoying, but tolerable. In late fall, the weather starts to get chilly and waiting outside for half an hour is quite challenging and annoy-ing. Winter is far worse. Waiting outside for half an hour to an hour in the winter is easily the worst part of taking the bus; it is even worse than being squished between two strangers who keep falling onto you.

Struggle 3: Being on the Bus

An individual's experience of being on the bus may differ depending on where you get on the bus. For ex-ample, someone who gets on the bus early in the route is able to find a seat, compared to someone who gets on the bus near the end of the route, who will typically have to stand. I get on the bus in the earlier part of my bus route, so normally I am able to get a seat but, on occa-sion, I am forced to stand, and when I am forced to stand I can’t help but feel uncomfortable. Standing means that the bus is fairly crowded, which results in standing shoulder-to-shoulder or face-to-face with some-one, sometimes too close for com-fort. As for when I am sitting down, I am often in a comfortable position with a reasonable amount of space. The only instance where I think any-one would be uncomfortable is when you are sitting in an outward-faced seat and someone is standing directly in front of you facing you,

resulting in an awkward lower stom-ach-to-face situation where one needs to look down to avoid an awkward situation.

Struggle 4: Getting off and Trans-ferring Buses

Getting off a bus to me is the best part of the whole trip. No more con-fined space, no more awkward situ-ations, and no more falling into peo-ple. After getting off a bus, depend-ing on where you live and where you are trying to get to, you may have to transfer to a second bus. This usually isn’t that bad but on occasion you will get off a bus to just miss the bus you needed to get on. This isn’t really the worst thing, but it can be quite frustrating.

Struggle 5: Final Departure and Buses Arriving at Centennial

There are two buses that arrive right outside the doors of Centenni-al, both of which have only two rea-sonable times for students to arrive at school. The two buses arrive around either 8:30 am or 8:45 am. The next bus arrives at 9:05 am, which is after school officially starts. Therefore, if you miss the first two buses you will be late for school, which results in a whole new set of struggles.

All in all, taking the bus every day is taxing on teens and is overall uncomfortable and undesirable. I am envious of anyone who gets driven to school or drives them-selves. I know as soon as I don’t have to take the bus everyday, I will not.

The Best Part Of The Bus Is… Getting Off By Mia Porter

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