Summer’s coming, and we need to get ourselves looking very svelte and healthy. How do we do it? We sign ourselves up for a couple of tanning sessions. But do they really help us in this ongoing need to go with the flow and look beautiful?

Why do we have to always look are best? Why can’t it be enough to have a natural glow of happiness and contentment coming from inside of us? Beauty isn’t all it seems. More than a million Americans are diagnosed with skin cancer every year. This has doubled in numbers in the past 30 years by an increase of tanning. “I wish I was more tanned, but I don’t want mutated skin and a chance of having skin cancer,” states Shea McKeown. A tan is your skin’s reaction to damaging sun light. Eye problems such as cataracts are also not uncommon when over exposed to the powerful UVB and UVA rays.

You increase your risks for melanoma, the most dangerous of skin cancers, by eight times over your lifetime by using tanning beds. People believe that getting a tan artificially is better than lying out in the sun, when in fact; ultraviolet rays can be even more dangerous when it comes from a tanning parlor. Now, around 60,000 new cases of melanoma are diagnosed in the US each year. Melanoma can be cured if it is diagnosed and treated early. If it is not removed in its early stages, cancer cells may grow downward from the skin surface and invade healthy tissue. If it spreads to other parts of your body it is extremely hard to control. 5 billion dollars US is spent each year in tanning salons. Why do people spend so much when it may end up killing them?

Warm, luxurious sunlight is why people gather at public beaches and swarm tanning salons. They want to have fun in the sun as well as put on a ‘healthy’ glow. “Tanning parlors are bad because the radiation from the lights give you cancer. But I think sun tanning is ok, if you don’t abuse the rays, because you get vitamin D,” said Isfeld student Ariel. Exposure to sun light is important for the production of vitamin D which is critical to have normal blood levels of calcium and phosphorus and to maintain strong bones. Of course we need certain amounts of sun light (about 20 minutes per day), so you have to be careful of the amount your skin is absorbing.

Sun is fine in moderation, but no amount of time in a tanning bed is healthy. In the end you will never “look young” when you’re old, because your face will be a mass of wrinkles. You may be thirty looking sixty or seventy… that is if melanoma hasn’t already taken its toll on you, confining you to a lifetime indoors, permanently afraid of the sun.

These days everything is about money, and although we are supposedly in a recession, we all have it, want it or need it. However, it’s what we do with and how we handle our money that makes it either go that extra distance, or not. This is how our student body has chosen to spend their money.

As anticipated, fast food is one of the most recognized necessities of a North American teenager. From ‘Dons’ to ‘BJ’s’, we’re exchanging our coins for some very unnecessary poundage. We could follow the footsteps of our own Lisa Amos who tries not to buy any fast food whatsoever, so she has money for other things. Not only do you have money Lisa, but you also have clean arteries.

But it’s not just the price of food that is raping our pay checks on a day to day basis, it’s the fashion in which we choose to get ourselves to these desirable lunch locations that takes the stand at number two; cars!

Driving, insuring and maintaining a vehicle is everything but cheap. “I don’t have a car so I can buy everything else I want,” said Megan Giblin as proof that those gas guzzlers guzzle more than that. There are a number of students paying over $1,500 a year for insurance, and for some, the same amount for gas. Let’s not forget about tune-ups and maintenance.

With all this money being spent on materialistic, consumer items, how can we truly enjoy the happiness life has to offer? The best things in life are free, but if one still needs a steady expenditure to embrace life, try these simply money-saving ideas.
Be smart –look for deals, cut back on driving

Cut back – only go out for food once a week (if it’s a treat, you will enjoy it more, plus keep your figure), don’t super size (overindulgence is the root of many of our troubles) and pack a lunch

Find alternatives – tea ($2.10) instead of a latte ($4.20)

Reuse – hey, those jeans you hate from last year would make great shorts. Also, that t-shirt would make a great vest. Imagination is free and DIY (do it yourself) is easy.

It was a ferocious fight to the finish as the 11 candidates stepped up to the plate to say why they should be chosen as valedictorian. Though all displayed strong verbal acumen, Nigel Haynes and Jade Dallamore will host this year’s grad.

The multi purpose room buzzed with excitement as 11 candidates stood in front of their peers to present their speeches. This year was one that broke tradition, as previously, there were only three candidates representing each sex.

Kayleen VanDerRee was first up. “We all share passion for what we do.”

Melody Copeman was next. “I want this speech to be about you, for you.” Isis Johnson told us how she dedicated her time to making the school a better place.

Some joked, others reasoned, but all spoke from the heart. “I want to represent our year as the best grad class in history,” said Jade Dallamore. “I would like to recognize how great this grad class is,” said candidate Joe Price.

Different strategies were also used in the speeches. Hong Trang used a very funny slideshow to show us how qualified she was. “I roll with the homies,” she said.

Others like Chelsea Olsen had some shout outs in her speech. “Brett Richards will be playing in the big leagues, not just intimidating kids out on our field. Alan Bigelow could be breaking it down on So You Think You Can Dance.”

Nigel Haynes said “Remember these days once in a while, because truly these will be some of the best of our lives.”

“I see us as a kind caring class that takes pride in our school. I take pride in my community school and myself,” said Brett Richards

“This is the end of the beginning,” said Stephanie Govier.

“We have such a unique and personal grad class. I embrace everything this school stands for,” said Nik Riley.

The Icebreaker staff is no less disappointed than the rest of the student body about the lack of yearbooks next year.

We too, were upset to hear that for many of us, our grade 12 year will go undocumented, but we want to remind the student body that last year, student apathy made it a struggle to complete the yearbook.

Officially, the reason there will be no yearbook class next year is due to a clerical error in the timetable.

But don’t forget the student apathy last year. Students we not working hard to get the yearbook done, and perhaps that is why there is not a movement within the administration to resurrect the program.It begins and ends with the students, and when the students did nothing, they got nothing.

That isn’t to say that nothing is being done now; as we reported, Megan Giblin and Kaitlyn Ryan are taking an Independent Directedd Study next year to work on one.

But the yearbook is a big job for two people, and no one should be surprised if they are overwhelmed.

So as disappointing as it is, students are equally responsible for the loss of the yearbook program. Students now need to ban together to help Megan and Kaitlyn get it done!

After seeing poverty first-hand, Band and Choir students were deeply moved after visiting an inner city school as part of their annual band trip in April.

Students set out to ply their trade to students at Lafayette Elementary in Oakland, California, and did exactly that, all the while experiencing a whole different schooling environment.

It was an eye opener for many of the students on the band trip; the children had very little, but could light up a room with their smiles, Band teacher Wayne Kuhnert said.

“I was dismayed, but also heartened by this experience, because of the incredible hope and pride I saw in the eyes of those children,” added Nigel Haynes.

The music students were told Lafayette was poor, but they had no idea how poor the school really was. Kuhnert described the surrounding neighbourhood as ‘ghetto-like’, pointing out walls littered with graffiti as well as old, run-down houses.

The music room was so minuscule, it barely had enough room to fit the class. Kuhnert also recalled that the principal asked each child in the morning if they had had breakfast.

Many students were surprised by the state of the school; it is nothing like Mark Isfeld. “You know that [poverty] is out there, but because you see it first hand, you know that it’s real,” Natasha Stanton said.

The performance given at Lafayette showed the true spirit of music. “[It was the] first time the students felt like they were performing for someone else instead it just being about them,” Kuhnert said. Nigel Hutcheson added that “it was what music was all about.”

Many students referred to this performance as their highlight of the 2010 band trip. “It was really cute, how open they were about life at home, and the trust they had in us,” Andrea Murphy said. “[It was] a rewarding experience.”

Isfeld student Brandon Krejci shares the joy of music with inner city school kids in California.

By Isis Johnson

“Twenty-five thousand children die each day and they die quietly in some of the poorest villages on Earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death,” states a source from UNICEF.

That’s almost equal to the entire city of Courtenay dying twice. Those numbers are huge, but they’re not well known.

I found that many students at our school are oblivious to the number of children in the world living under the poverty line, even in our very own country. Not only does this have a significant effect on the world economy, but it also straps a virtual time bomb to each child’s chest.

Children all across the globe are robbed of the right to an education, even though less than 1% of what the world spends on weapons every year is enough to put every child into school. Nearly 1 billion illiterate people entered the 21st century because they never had the opportunity to go to school. Can you imagine not knowing how to read or write or add two and two?

In Canada alone, more than 1 million children live below the poverty line (1 in 6) which is equal to 4 or 5 children from one of your classes. Max Davidson was shocked when he heard these numbers. ‘How is that even possible? You don’t see that in Courtenay at all,’ Davidson stated.

Davidson is right; starving children on the street is not something you see on a day to day basis when you grow up in a prosperous city like ours. As a nation we are blind to what’s all around us. According to a number of sources, what’s happening in Africa or in Haiti doesn’t affect us at all.

From “it won’t happen in my lifetime,” to “there’s nothing we can do about it,” or simply “why bother,” I’ve heard many opinions about helping those in need. But face it: they don’t have the ability to stand up for themselves, so we have to open our minds up to stand up for each of them.

FACTS
There are 2.2 billions kids in the world
1 billion live in poverty (1 in 2)
640 million children live without proper shelter (1 in 3)
121 million don’t have an education
2.2 million die because they weren’t immunized
1.4 million die each year due to bad water supplies

25,000 children (under the age of 5) die each day
1 child dies every 3.5 seconds (every step you take)
17-18 die each minute
9 million die every year