The Absolute WORST Places to Spend Collaborative Time!

Everyone loves the new two-hour collaborative time block, there’s no question about it. But it’s a well known fact that to spend the time well, whether you’re chatting with friends or getting ahead on your school work, you need a calm and peaceful environment. So we at The Southern View took the time to put together a list of places you shouldn’t even THINK about spending collab time.

1. Inside the walls: Sure, these small bits of space might seem like a good place to study at first. Quiet, dark, with friendly rats coming to your for companionship every so often. But try studying in there for more than ten minutes and you’ll see a totally different story. It’s impossible to get any light to see your textbook, it’s too cramped for a normal humanoid person to fit, and the “friendly mice” often resort to biting if they feel threatened.
2. In Mr. Squeg’s classroom: It’s a common misconception that a teacher will welcome any student searching for a place to work or chat with open arms. Mr. Squeg will NEVER provide a peaceful workplace, mostly because he doesn’t exist. Squeg isn’t a real name. I made it up when I was tired and tried telling my brother he needed to pick up a squid and an egg at the supermarket.
3. In the ruins of The EHS Monorail: When the Edina school board of 1981 approved plans to spend $60,000 to create an inter-school monorail to bus students from class to class, most people thought they had gone insane. And they had. The train crashed almost immediately. The remains are stashed mostly in the rarely-used sub-basement level of the school. Sure, the janitors will give you a key to go down there if you ask, but the moans of the ghosts make it far from an ideal study zone.
4. The Secondary House of Pancakes
5. New Orleans: The vibrant culture and friendly citizenry might make it seem worth it to take a trip down there for collab time. We’ve tried it, though, and we’ve got only bad things to say. It’s hot, it’s noisy, it’s approximately 1,200 miles away, and Mardi Gras isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
6. Fick Auditorium: Quiet study time? Nope. Sorry, but administration really should have planned it out better, since the moans from the ruins of the EHS Monorail make focusing on anything LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE!

Administration Plans on Buying Better Students With Black Friday Deals

Just before Thanksgiving break, the Edina Public School system revealed their plan to take advantage of special black friday deals at stores such as Target and Walmart to purchase new, more intelligent students. While these figures are preliminary, teachers and administrators are hoping to replace up to 35% of each grade with superior pupils purchased for as low as $7.91 each.

“Sure, it’s a bit of an investment,” said Valley View math teacher John Hub, “But if we can replace our older, slower models with maybe a handful of Lalit Braxtons or Reed Patels or maybe even a Heather Adamson, we could potentially give our standardized tests a huge boost and overall improve the quality of our student body.”

Not everyone is thrilled about the potential student-buying spree. Vice-Principal of Concord Elementary School Moe Johnson told reporters, “Doesn’t everyone remember the terrible debacle this exact same plan turned out to be last year? We disposed of more than half of our students and replaced them with Tim Hightower's who turned out to be defective! “

The other hot-button issue with this proposal was the old students who would become obsolete with the introduction of new students. “It’s just another example of the wastefulness in keeping-up-with-the-Jones’s type education,” said community member Hamdy Elliot. “If we keep up this rate we’ll be buying new students every year and throwing out the old ones, wasting thousands of taxpayer dollars in the process.”

The school board responded to this criticism by proposing a system in which old students would be shipped to poorer school districts who couldn’t normally afford them.

Edina Model U.N. Hopes Someday to Take Over Real U.N.

After doing well at a Model United Nations conference, members of the Edina Model U.N. team agreed unanimously to one day take over the actual U.N.

Russian mock-representative Hilary Blaszak told reporters, “Really, it’s just common sense. While we effectively solved the international energy crisis at our conference, the actual U.N. can hardly agree on something as simple as how to dispose a dictator or what to do with nuclear waste!”

Despite this, Blaszak did admit that it might be “Sort of hard,” to do away with the previous conference and that they’d need “A really good plan to get rid of them.”

The Ed-ventures of Eddie the Ex-patriot Elephant, Jr.!

The Setup

Eddie the Ex-patriot Elephant Jr. was sitting by himself in preschool, coloring with crayons, when a bloodcurdling scream was heard. Eddie Jr. rushed over.

He found the scream had come from Alex the Anti-establishment Anteater Jr.! “What’s wrong?” Eddie Jr. asked him.

“Someone stole my favorite pencil,” screeched Alex Jr., “And I will continue screaming until I find out who took it!”

“Well, you’re my best friend and I can’t stand to hear you scream,” said the brave, 5-year-old Mammal, “I will to take down whoever stole your pencil in bloody vengeance!”

Alex Jr. screamed in joy.

Eddie Jr. rounded up three suspects. One was a classmate, Winston the War-hawk Walrus Jr., who hated Alex Jr. due to a decades-old blood feud between their families. Terrance the Transcendentalist Teacher was their teacher and he had been angry at the world ever since Ralph Waldo Emerson died, and took it out his students. Lastly, Sarah the Sadist Symbionese Liberation Army Veteran Jr. just liked stealing things from her wealthier classmates.

The Solution

After a number of half-baked theories and violent accusals, Eddie Jr. found out that the pencil had just been lost the whole time! That was poor compensation, however, for the number of injuries that had been inflicted upon his classmates while in search of his fiery revenge. It also did little to rebuild the wing of the school Eddie burnt down or free him from juvenile hall from his numerous crimes.

EHS Bathroom Mirrors Given Life Expectancy of Two Weeks

A pair of mirrors, which have been recently installed in the second-floor boy’s lavatory, were given a life expectancy of roughly two weeks by a team of highly knowledgeable experts. Head-of-Research Mark Burns told reporters, “Using in-depth psychological analysis of teenage boys and statistics on the mirrors’ ability to be vandalized, we found that in all likelihood these mirrors will be stolen, broken, covered in pizza sauce, bent, or obscured with inappropriate symbols in roughly a fortnight.”

The research included interviews with various male members of the student body, including sophomore Andrew Johanson. “Yeah, a bunch of guys in white coats came up to me and asked me what I thought about the new mirrors in the bathroom. I told them the truth, that every time I walk past them I am filled with a primal urge to take out a permanent marker and write my name in huge letters,” said Johanson.

History backs up this research, too. All past attempts to put a reflective surface in that bathroom has ended in its inevitable destruction.

Principal Doctor Locklear, however, claimed to trust the student body to keep the mirror in good repair. “I don’t care what these researchers say, I believe in these kids to go as long as possible before defiling those mirrors. Why, they might actually be able to hold their destructive nature back a full month!”

UPDATE: Twenty minutes before press time, the mirror was found covered in green paint, corroded by some sort of acid, and vandalized with the words “Bite me.”

Slominski Pre-calc lecture Oct. 7,2014

 

Last week, critically acclaimed math teacher Mrs. Slominski produced one of her finest masterpieces, a lecture enthralling as well as captivating, utilizing motifs and metaphors to engage her audience like never before.

The lecture started off small, describing the graphic shape of the algebraic expression (X-5)^2=Y. While the average layman may simply take this at face value, experienced cultural critics such as myself immediately identified it as a metaphor the religious idea of the afterlife. The X axis represents happiness, of course, and the Y time. As a parabola, the graph illustrates how before and after our lives we are truly in a state of bliss while our short, miserable lives are our lowest point. This began the recurring motif of pre-natal and post-death experiences that would continue throughout the lecture. The number 5 was also deeply symbolic.

The lecture continued, only becoming more interesting as it went on. Jumping from mathematical example to mathematical example, there were long pauses in which Slominski asked the audience (referred to as students as a metaphor for how we are all students in this life) to try to find the “solutions” to the problems. While some poorly educated lugards around me attempted to actually solve the problems, I sat back, the only one in the room who truly got the meaning. Because there are no real solutions to the problems of life, toiling in search for superficial answers is a fool’s errand.

Perhaps my only criticism of the otherwise excellent lecture is the continual references to “your test next week.” Try as I might, I can’t conceive what this could be a metaphor for. Perhaps the impending test is symbolic of death, but that doesn’t work because, while we have no idea when death will strike, the test is already pre-scheduled. Is it maybe a commentary on how we are all implicitly judged (or “tested, if you will”) by society? But that isn’t a good comparison either.

But the strongest part of the lecture by far was the twist ending. Slominski was saying, “Homework problems for tomorrow will be problems 5 through--” when the bell suddenly cut her off. As the lecture ended and the audience filed out, so many questions flooded my mind. What are the lost homework questions? What do they represent? Was this a planned metaphor or was it the sort of spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment philosophization that comes from such a sophisticated mind? How does the symbolism of 5 work in here?

All in all, while some may criticize Slominski for her convoluted story-telling methods and elitist structuring, I believe her overly-veiled way of revealing the eternal truths of humanity actually increase the profoundness of it all.

Score out of 8 stars: 5

A special message from the director of the Edina Blood Drive

Thank you all so very much for allowing me to extract your precious blood. 
As I sit here in my castle in Transylvania, dictating this letter to my mindless servant, I think of those less fortunate than I. That is who we’re pretending to donate this to, right, servant? Yes, of course.

What was I saying? Oh yes, I think of those less fortunate than I. That’s not to say that I haven’t encountered any hardship in my life. There was that time I almost ate garlic, the time I was banished from my home town, the time my reputation was tarnished by that godawful Twilight series. But I digress.

The point is that you made the right decision to enter into my blood donation van. You also made the right decision to allow us to blindfolds on you so you couldn’t see the equipment we were using. Don’t worry, my fangs, I mean, the needles were very clean.

Also, do not worry if you begin having some side-effects such as light-headedness, drowsiness, insomnia, low body temperature, suddenly gaining the ability to fly, a sudden hatred of werewolves, not appearing in reflections. My alchemist tells me these are all perfectly normal and harmless.

And now a word about safety. After giving blood, you are recommended to refrain from strenuous activity, operating heavy machinery, or entering holy spaces for at least one eternity. Please take this under advisement.

I apologize for the long wait which may have made you late to class. The draining of blood and darkening of the soul takes longer than you’d expect.

I would like to take this space to clarify that your blood can not be given back.

If you are more devoted to, er, charity than most, please show up at my Transylvanian castle at midnight before the rainy season. The rest of your blood can be very delicious. I mean, delicious to the needy people we’re giving it to. That’s what they do with it, drink it, right?

Never mind.

Good luck on the PSAT and happy Halloween!

DICTATED NOT SIGNED

Chancellor Ludvig von Hellscream