Holiday shopping

Holiday shopping

Photo Credit: Nishita Battula

Some of the writer's gift bags for Christmas 2011.

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December 24, 2011

Nishita Battula

During the holiday season, shopping malls are lively and festive with decorations. The malls are open for a longer period of time during December. There is almost a sale everyday and you can see the competition among the stores. I enjoy seeing the bright red garlands and feel it adds to the celebration. The atmosphere is full of happiness and smiles. In addition, shoppers’ attire, such as coats and scarves, add to the holiday feeling.

           Aside from the malls environment, purchasing presents can be a difficult task. Most girls love to shop but too much shopping can be annoying. Sometimes I wish instead of price tags, “name tags” were attached to items. With “name tags” buying a present for someone will be easy because their name will be written on it. But what attracts me to shop during the holidays are the sales that go on. Almost everything is on sale and is half the regular price. But the downside to this are the long lines that take hours. There is always a negative side to every postive.

Tests before break

Tests before break

Photo Credit: Nishita Battula

A scantron waiting to be filled with circles.

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December 5, 2011

Nishita Battula

Usually, teachers assign many last minute assignments before a vacation. In addition, big tests are often scheduled for the last day before break. This gets them over with, but there is a downside: having multiple tests on the same day can heavily impact your grade. It’s an issue many students have to deal with. I have often wondered, do teachers have a secret meeting and plan this atrocious event?

Juggling numerous tests on the same day can make studying challenging and stressful. However, through this struggling experience one learns how to balance between different things and to cope with a busy schedule. We all whine and ask for our teachers to delay the tests until after break, but nothing ever works. It’s a great feeling to come out of a classroom after completing a test and to be able to look forward to break. Of course, there is always the bad feeling of coming back to school after break and receiving the grades on the tests.

In my experience, students sometimes get excited for vacation and prioritize other things over schoolwork. Some students fly over to different states to spend the holidays with their extended families, making the work become a hassle. They are rushed to complete it before the beginning of break, which puts them under time pressure. Basically, if teachers didn’t assign so much work and put tests before break, we wouldn’t have so many problems.

The purpose of Thanksgiving Break is explained

The purpose of Thanksgiving Break is explained

Photo Credit: Doug Griswold

Color illustration of a calendar highlighting November, Thanksgiving and the Friday after Thanksgiving, nicknamed "Black Friday" includes shopping carts and shopping bags being moved all around the calendar as if a war map. San Jose Mercury News 2010

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November 17, 2011

Coleana Mount

Next week Thanksgiving Break starts on November 19, 2011 and ends on November 27, 2011. Students are given a whole week off of school, but some may wonder, why we are given a whole week for a holiday that only lasts one day? After uncovering this perplexing idea, I decided to interview Ms. Paris, the school advisor, and ask her why are we given a whole week off for a one day holiday.

            “The Fremont Unified School District (F.U.S.D) voted to give us a full week off, because of the parent teacher contract.” said Ms. Paris. Apparently the district must make two days available for teachers to have meetings with student’s parents, also known as parent teacher conferences. The district planned that the teachers could host the parent teacher conferences on the Monday and Tuesday during the break, but this year the teachers decided against that idea. With this contract the instructors have the right to decide when they want to hold their parent teacher conferences. Their final verdict was to have it the following Tuesday and Wednesday before break. The reasoning behind this decision was that the teachers simply wanted to have a week off like their students, even though now they must work twice as hard and twice as long during the week to make up for the new date change. “These are the last minimum days that we will have till finals.” said Ms. Paris. Hope you made the most of them!