The HCOS WeeklySecond Edition

THE PAPER IS BACK!Are We Grateful?

An ArticleBy Megan Ferguson

I would like you to imagine with me please, your average day. Your alarm clock goes off. You stumble down the hall to breakfast and pour yourself some cereal. A"er breakfast, school starts. As you continue on with your day, you find yourself looking up a word in an online dictionary, researching for an essay, or just surfing the web. Later in the evening a"er the dinner, dishes are done you plop down in front of the TV to watch one of your favourite shows. A"er Jeopardy is over, it’s time for bed. A"er groaning that it’s too early to go to bed, you finally shuffle to your bedroom. How many adver-tisements have you seen today? Well let’s think about it…

Did your alarm wake you up to the Radio? If so, was a song playing or was it an advertisement? What about your cereal? I would guess that somewhere on the box it would say something similar to “Try our new Crispy Oat cereal!” What about the milk you poured on your cereal? What did the car-ton advertise? “Buy our milk and you could win a trip to Italy!” Later you were looking up a word in on-line dictionary - ads bombard sites

like that, advertising the coolest newest technology. Researching and surfing the web probably ex-posed you to advertisements you didn’t realize were there! Watching TV has ads. Magazines and News-papers have ads. The Radio has ads. Everywhere you go, there is some form of an advertisement flashing and subconsciously creep-ing into your mind. Nowadays there are ads for everything, from what laundry detergent to use to buying a condo in the Philippines.

The producers of advertisement companies want you to feel dissat-isfied with your current posses-sions so that you feel like you “need” their product. We have to be careful not to be sucked into be-coming discontent with what we have. That is the biggest weapon advertisers use. Resist the tempta-tion of having the newest, coolest stuff just because it seems like ev-eryone else does. So instead of go-ing out to buy the new iPhone 5S, be grateful for your iPhone 5, a blessing you already have. “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is

seen is temporary, but what is un-seen is eternal.” -2 Corinthians 4:18

Cool Facts

For Your Warehouse ofUseless Knowledge

By Jubilee Chiu

Rats and horses can't vomit.

Most lipstick contains fish scales.

Cat's urine glows under a black light.

Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.

If you keep your eyes open by force, they will pop out.

Astronauts have a patch inside their helmets so they can scratch their nose.

Since 1945, all british tanks have come equipped with tea making facilities.

It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. (DON’T try this)

Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of cotton.

A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.

2 The HCOS Weekly

SUPER COMICS: Thor's Fans - By Joshua Wlodarczyk

Weekly LOL

Note From e EditorNo word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.

Slugs have 4 noses.

The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump.

The "save" icon on Microso" Word shows a floppy disk, with the shut-ter on backwards.

Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.

A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off.

A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue.

A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

Babies are born without knee caps... They don't appear until the child reaches 2-6 years of age.

Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.

Honeybees have hair on their eyes.

Verse of the Week

By Megan Ferguson

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives gener-ously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. – James 1:5

As the new school year has just started, most of us are fresh and ready to jump into our courses and get them done efficiently, and well. However, as we all know when January and February roll around, we tend to slow down, fall behind, and get just downright discour-aged. So we should remember throughout the whole school year to ask God for wisdom in our stud-ies, and lives, not just in the hard months, but throughout the whole year.

By Jubilee ChiuSo we're two weeks into school, and the HCOS Weekly is back! Be-cause everyone's busier this year, our team has lost some members. However, we are excited to wel-come Jennica and Joshua Wlodar-czyck, and Davin Van Urk to the HCOS Weekly team! We have some amazing ideas in mind for the pa-per, so stay tuned!

3The HCOS Weekly

A Place To ShowcaseYOUR Writing!

Literature Corner

The Turning Point

A Short StoryBy Jennica Wlodarczyk

The room was dark. My face was scarred with dried tears, and my heart was cracking, crumbling; be-coming completely lifeless. I could feel that my life was coming to a close. I had lost everything, and now I was losing my will to live.

I looked down at my arms. Instead of seeing light blue lines under-neath my skin, I saw veins of the utmost black. Instead of being powered by my own blood, I was being powered by darkness. And darkness didn’t have the power to keep me alive anymore.

A slight moan escaped my lips, and I fell to the ground, my fall stopped only by my weak hands and knees. My life force was flickering away before my eyes. I literally saw the scale flat-lining. My body shook as I attempted to stand again. But ev-ery time I pushed up with my arms, an unseen force would pin me back down to the ground. My ener-gy was being drained. My eyes were flickering.

And then, I fell.

The cold ground swallowed me up in a single bite as my body hit the floor. There was nothing le" to lose. I knew that there was one thing that could save me, but I hadn’t called on that source of en-ergy in years … would the other

side still accept me?

There wasn’t much of a choice. There was nothing le" to lose.

The ground broke. It was an inde-scribable happening. It was as if the ground just dissolved into a black abyss, and threw me into the inner depths of its destruction. With the last ounce of energy I had, I reached my hands skyward. And then I screamed.

Everything went black for a mo-ment. For a moment, I was gone. Everything had ended. I had ended.

But then, just as quickly as every-thing had turned to darkness, an explosion of light surrounded me.

I had stopped falling. Was I … floating? I opened my eyes, feeling a surge of energy pulse through my body. I looked down at my arms, almost afraid of what I was un-doubtedly going to see. The black matter in my veins was gone. In-stead, pure light energy was puls-ing through my veins.

The explosion of light had come from inside me.

My heart was beating.

I was alive.

A Love So Strong

A PoemBy Emily Pearson

Across the meadow their eyes meet and the moment they held their gaze

Their hearts ablaze.

The moon cast up their dole ex-pressions

And with that they poured out their confessions.

The love they had; was it fading or was it growing?

With a twinkle in her eye, she gleams.

“Father God is watching over us tonight, he knows our pain he knows what we will gain”

He whispers “my love my love, fear not for he is here with us, not just up in the clouds, he is all around”

They smile and gleam

With the trickling stream between them

She tip toed toward him with the hem of her dress soaked, she smiles

Even if we’re miles apart we shall be together again

With little time remaining they pray and cast their worries up to the sky and into the hands of the father.

Knowing this won’t be a bother again.

She murmured, “I want to sere-nade you”

He looked up with a flickering pas-sion in his eyes

“That is such a noble prize”

She opened her mouth and let the melodies come out.