BY Kaylah Kislan
LifeAtStart.com Reporter

Technology has changed the way people interact without a doubt.

“He texts me first.” “She liked my picture on Instagram.” “He favorites all of my tweets.”

Decades ago, these sentences that you may have heard or even said yourself would not have made any sense.

Of course, years ago, technology wasn’t as advanced as it is today. “Social media” meant the newspaper most likely, and the only thing tweeting was the birds.

Back then, if you wanted to catch the attention of a significant other, or potential lover, you couldn’t just log on to some online social platform and send a quick direct message.

Nowadays, you could meet your soul mate through the world wide web. With apps, cell phones, and the internet, our horizons have expanded drastically.

Modern courting rituals, as the name suggests, are anything but traditional. Instead of just walking up to someone, being vulnerable and open, some people often “make a move” over text. This could spare people from embarrassment or even give them more time to think about what to say next. While it doesn’t exactly sound problematic, it has its downsides. For example, what one says over text messages can often times be misconstrued. You can’t hear the tone or inclination in someone’s voice over text. “What do I say?” “Can you read this text and tell me if it sounds good?” Those are just two of the questions I have been asked by friends. People seem to be spending more time reading into text messages than they spend enjoying the conversation.

I’m not mocking the way people go about their romantic endeavors. Like I said before, times have changed. Maybe it’s a generational thing. Or maybe, we don’t know what to say. Have we lost all touch as far as expression goes? Leaving us void of romantic letters and ballads. Leaving us with scraps of paper that read “Hit me up beautiful” and a number scrawled on the bottom.

BY Abelino Ruiz
LifeAtStart.com Reporter

I have never been one to crack under peer pressure. I am a very independent person and am completely capable of making my own decisions in life. I had no intention of putting myself in the spotlight for a week. It wasn’t me who signed up, it was the people. It was not my idea to run for Homecoming King, but it was the idea of teachers, students, and Start staff that encouraged me to enter the race.

Mrs. K. Is the advisor for Start High School’s student council. When she informed me that we only had four boys running for King, I told her to just let the four boys battle it out. But we needed 5 to pair up with the five girls. So I asked her what she wanted me to do. She looked at me with a smile on her face that I vividly remember to this day and she said, “Run.” I laughed, but she was serious. There were a vast majority of people who followed suit with Mrs. K. and encouraged me to run. This sparked a chain of events that I would have otherwise not been involved in.

I thrive on competition. For me, it’s a game, and I play it well. The first round of voting was going to take place tomorrow and I had no form of advertising anywhere. Nobody knew I was running for Homecoming King, so I had to do something fast. I began brainstorming, amd developed a three-step strategy to win. Step 1: Fifteen 11×17 posters with my face and name on them placed at strategic locations throughout the school. People assumed I spent hundreds of dollars on printing, but the truth is: my grandfather owns a print shop. Then I ran into another problem. What exactly was I going to put on those posters? Instagram selfies would not suffice. I didn’t want to get to extravagant with my pictures. I wanted to keep things black and white. And that’s exactly what I did. I drove up Sylvania Avenue and looked for a brick wall to give my picture a retro vibe. After various failed attempts at capturing that perfect picture with crappy walls, I found a perfect backdrop. It was a brick wall with a battered wooden bench and a little wooden boardwalk running along the base. All the retro I was looking for in one place. I grabbed a few poses in my perfect setting and was on my way to the print shop to begin the design. Every little detail had a reason. I wanted my name in a fierce red so it would pop on the black and white picture. We printed 5 copies of three different poses and the next day, they were hung. Phase one: complete. Now all I had to was wait for top five.

The results were in after Friday, September 18th. We had to wait until Tuesday at the Royal Assembly for the results. They say patience is a virtue, but it isn’t my mine. I decided to take a gamble and bank on the fact that I made top five. That weekend, without knowing for sure if I made it, I put step two into action: covering the second floor with my flyers. Every other locker was hit with my name and face. By Tuesday morning, everybody knew who I was. I privately asked Ms. Ros, the CPO if she would escort me. She said yes of course. I told her that I planned to wear red and black to stick with my theme. Every detail had a reason. I asked if she had some red heels. Her response: “AJ I got every color heel you name!” So it was. Ros and I walked out on Tuesday with smiles from ear to ear, as I waved and made myself known once more. Top five was read and I was in.

Step three was small, but I believe it may have secured a handful of votes that I may have otherwise not had. Everyone knows there’s one thing people love more than sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It’s Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. Over the weekend I bought 100 single-serve bags of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and passed them out along with stickers on Wednesday. The stickers also turned out to be a huge hit seeing as people were putting them on their shirts, folders, and even their phone cases. Even with all this publicity and advertising, anxiety was getting the best of me. I enjoy being in the spotlight, but in the back of my mind I kept thinking to myself, “What if all this time, money, and effort is for nothing and I lose it all?” But I kept that thought where it belonged, in the back of my mind. They said I ran an aggressive campaign, but competition is a game. I just happen to play it well.

Friday night was here. I picked an outfit that reflected my previous win from my Sophomore year: green shirt, yellow tie. Foreshadowing much? During the entire first half of the game, I was so anxious. At this point, I wasn’t even nervous anymore. I just wanted to get halftime over with. At the end of second quarter, I saw the band prepping. The football players were exiting the field. The candidates were arranged in our appropriate order and we were told to walk. We began our stroll on to the track with hundreds of eyes watching our every move. Dante and his partner linked, the band began playing A Whole New World, and bios were read. Kali Urbina and I were the last couple to walk. They announced my name and the stands screamed, giving me a slight boost in confidence. We made our way to our designated spot and waited. Seconds seemed like minutes. Kali’s bio was finished and the words came out of the speakers. “Your 2015 Homecoming King is (drum roll) Abelino Ruiz!” It felt like I was dreaming. I remember letting out a sigh of relief after holding my breath during the drum roll. I hugged Kali and went to the center, where I was crowned and given my sash by Tavon. Megan Losh’s name followed. She came to the center and we hugged for the cameras. Now, instead of being overwhelmed in a negative manner, I was positively exhausted. So many pictures followed my crowning. I was surrounded by lights and cameras, getting a glimpse of what it feels like to be a celebrity.

The aftermath of royalty is still occurring. Oftentimes, when I walk the halls of Roy C., random people will say, “Hi Abelino.” I just wave and give my salutations, content with the fact that I will probably never know their names. I owe the biggest thank you to all the students and teachers who pushed me to run. If their support was not present, I would not have that green and gold crown. To this day, after seeing my aggressive campaign efforts and my want to win, people keep asking me what I would’ve done if I lost. I tell them, “I guess we’ll never know.”

Contact Abelino at [email protected]

BY Meghan Vogt
LifeAtStart.com reporter

We are not created equal. We are not mentally, emotionally or physically equal to our peers. We can all be classified by talents, personality traits, abilities, and so on. Within each category of human classification there are inferiors and superiors. Intelligence is no exception. How exactly does one define intelligence? By the way one speaks? By the way one thinks? By the way one expresses opinions, acts in public, spends one’s leisure time? There are many ways to determine how bright someone is, but no matter how it is done, the classification occurs.

Start, like most every high school, contains students of varying intelligence. Classes labeled Honors usually do an okay job at separating students higher on the smart scale from those on the lower end. The hallways, lunch room, and required general classes, though, offer little to no protection. When these students interact, the results are most always the same: the ignorance of the dull brains cannot be beaten.

There’s a popular analogy regarding the frustration of attempting to hold an intelligent conversation with someone not likely to be described similarly that compares the experience to playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how great you are at chess, the pigeon will still knock over all of the pieces and strut around as if he has won. Now, this may seem like a rude thing to say, but really situations like this are win-win. One goes away feeling victorious and the other goes away a little wiser. If not win-win, then win-lose in the pigeon’s favor. The bird is feeling happy and victorious while the human is left in outrage at the ridiculousness of his opponent. The phrase ignorance is bliss could not be more correct.

Society tends to praise the intelligent members and see them as better off in life, but in the end the pigeon is much happier than the chess master, isn’t he?

Contact Meghan at [email protected]