Friendship

Have you ever had a friend? Ok real question time: Have you ever had a friend that you wanted to spend literally every waking moment with? From first waking up to finally going to bed, minimal bathroom breaks are allowed. Now this might be describing a partner, in love or life whatever you want, but what about a friend? Many people say that your friends and your love life should be fairly separate, but I believe that your partner should be your best friend, and so do many other people. By the way, I do not claim credit for this belief or ideas, all rights reserved. And so, recontextualizing all that with that little piece of information, has your answer changed? Moving onto slightly a more down-to-earth relationship, what's something that you can do to be a better friend? Not just “Oh I think my friend doesn't like this thing about me so I'm going to hide it from everyone all the time,” says the straw man character I just made up. No, what I’m asking is to talk to them. It is that simple and will have almost zero negative consequences. That is how to be a better friend, SIMPLE COMMUNICATION. Thank you for your time, feel free to tell me how I’m an awful friend by emailing me using my email below. 

Controversy and Cancel Culture

“Cancel culture am I right?” The phrase is ruining modern comedy. Or just modern drama. Cancel culture has become so pervasive it has invaded our socially obscure group of people. That's not to say that we constantly say “Never heard of ‘em,” about the Minecraft YouTuber Dream, someone who has been canceled so many times that you can make a drinking game out of it. To me at least, it's interesting how the cultural phenomenon of “canceling” has invaded basically anyone with little to no internet restriction, and possibly being able to understand the English language moderately, I do not have any knowledge of cancel culture outside of my first and only language. Sliding back to my point, why does everything need to be made so controversial these days? And why has everything become so controversial? Why have so many of the famous people who have made a video about Minecraft, been canceled for speaking to a minor? Not to say that in cases like these, exposing this scum is a positive, but why has it become a meme? Why has it grown to be something so laughed at? The internet draws out the worst parts of ourselves, and maybe we should rethink its role in all of this, and by this, I mean the world as we know it. 

-Austin

Friends are a valuable thing to have throughout life, as a middle school student, friendships are so complex yet also needed. One of the most important things of friendships though, is conversations. It’s important to respect one another and keep conversations open, which can also be defined as controversy and friendship. If you don’t possess this skill, it can cause a downfall in a relationship- which happens a lot in middle school.

 The current thing in my grade is with this group of girls- all connected through this one person. I’ll call her Natalie (I’m using a different name to keep her identity safe). This starts to get exaggerated and complex in my view quickly, but in simple words of what's been going around- Natalie seems to be something some people would call ‘two-faced’. She’s quite nice and sweet when you first meet her and is like that for the majority of the time- but it seems like from the rumors that the second she’s ‘done’ with you, she turns into this insolent person who can say some rude things. All of this could be avoided though, with simple communication like normal people or even adults- but it seems like people in my grade are just uninterested in that, which is rather disappointing.

-Charlotte

KNN’s male columnist brings to you the newest addition to our humble paper, Book Recap Corner. This addition will focus on bringing you written accounts of my thoughts and summaries of certain book series. Each week will focus on one book at a time and delve into its specifics. We will provide you with all the relevant details such as name, author, latest cover edition, date of release, and the summary provided on the back of the book. Each week's article will begin with those details and then after a quick spoiler warning for anyone having second thoughts on reading, will follow with a summary as thorough as possible of the book, while being concise and fun. While some of these reviews may be a little hazy on the subject at hand, memory has its limits after all, this makes it all the more reason to read the books yourselves to truly get the bigger picture I might be lacking. Because this week is simply an introduction to the concept, I will provide you with the title of the series for next week's paper. It is the “Graceling” series by Kristin Cashore. This may be well known to some of you with a good recollection of my past speeches on this book series, but for the sake of all the new readers in the audience, try not to reveal too much before I cover it in full. All summaries will end with a short review of my thoughts on the book and will be given a ranking out of 10. Make sure to tune in for our first summary, and with that, I bid you adieu. 

-Austin