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In this issue: OYEZ weekly Virginia Tech VOLUME I, ISSUE 10 NOVEMBER 22, 2013 What Thanksgiving Means to Me Sports Cadet Carroll Sergeant V Cadet Siegel AP Classes Commandant’s Corner Dr. Who Tao of Wrestling SCUBA XBOX vs. PS4 VT Trip

Virginia Tech Trip

(French) On Tuesday, the seniors took a college visit to Vir- ginia Tech, which is located in Blacksburg, VA, and enrolls 30,000 students. The first thing we did was learn about their ROTC program. Journalism Class The presentation about their ROTC was given by 2nd Lieutenant Bisacre. Not many people Jennings, Bernier, know that Virginia Tech was originally founded as an all-male military school; however, it Fletcher, Fleming, later accepted civilian students and females, and eventually grew into the Virginia Briggs, Carter, Polytechnic School most people know today. It is still one of the 6 senior military schools in Gamboa, Atie, the country along with Norwich, VMI, The Citadel, Texas A&M, and North Georgia. Niessner, Smith, Gehret, Monarez, After the ROTC presentation we ate in one of the many cafeterias at Virginia Tech. Elshafie, Gentry, Virginia Tech was voted to have the #1 best food out of all colleges in America, and after French & Layman. eating there I can confirm that it is true. (See page 10 for another article about Tech.) P A G E 2

What Thanksgiving Means to Me

Raven Gamboa Is Thankful for Erin Ritter. They are BFF's .

Cadet Smikle is thankful for money .

Cadet Niessner is thankful for a successful year at Massanutten Academy, and his family.

Cadet Carter is thankful for being off the streets, and being able to come to Massanutten Military Academy and make his family proud.

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Cadet Elshafie is thankful for What his mom . Thanksgiv- ing Means to Cadet French is thankful for vacation . Me

Cadet Monarez, the best writer in journalism, is thankful for his friends, family, and dog .

Save Thanksgiving!

(Monarez) This year, many famous retail stores refuse to close their doors on Thanksgiving. Enraged, millions of employees across the nation now have to cancel their plans with family and friends. Being forced to work on Thanksgiving, or any other big holiday for that matter, should not be allowed. Holidays like Thanksgiving are meant to be spent with loved ones with a nice dinner on the table and quality time together, not just another day at work. Imagine if you worked at a Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, etc. and your boss called and said, “You have to work all day on Thanksgiving.” This is not right. Unless you WANT to work on Thanksgiving (some people just don’t celebrate some holidays), it should not be allowed. I’m sure that the bosses telling their employees to come in on a holiday are sitting at home with their family celebrating, not giving a second thought to the employees’ thoughts or feelings on the matter.

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Sports

(Niessner) The rifle team is training on a rotation schedule to prepare for a meet coming up on the nineteenth of December.

The PG’s had a game at Fork Union last Friday and beat them in a staggering and intense overtime.

Raider Platoon participated in a four mile road march yesterday from which they did not return until after Mess III formation.

Swimming still needs a bit of equipment to compete but they are training hard to prepare for competition.

Carroll

(Atie) Cadet Tianna Nicole Carroll was born in Biloxi, Mississippi and was raised in the DMV ( Washington DC, Mary- land and Virginia ). She has moved over 14 times , and has lived in three different states. She moved 14 times because her dad was in the military, but her mom and dad went their separate ways after one year of marriage. She is a girl with a lot of potential. She likes to work hard and become the person she is becoming now, who wants to prove wrong the people who let her down and told her that she wasn't able to be anything in life, and make her close be proud of her. Cadet Carroll has been through a lot of struggles: parents arguing, starving, deep depression. Being alone your teen years isn't easy, or even in childhood. Bouncing around from house to house with her mother being at work all day made Carroll feel really low “Be thankful for about herself. Her dad has been in Afghanistan for most of her life, so she really doesn't have a relationship with him. what you have.” This year, on November 10, her dad has come home for good. She came here to be a leader and successful in her life; to show people that life isn't easy but you should fight for what you like and always keep your head up when there is no motivation and be thankful for what you have.

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Sergeant V (Briggs) One of the most interesting faculty members we have here is Sergeant V, he is an immigrant from Bosnia and is living the American dream. He came to the United States in Oct. 1996 with his wife and two kids. His eldest son was 2 years old and his younger son, Stephan, was only 7 months old. At the time he only knew about 2 works in English. He started working at a table factory, in asbestos and as a bus boy all at the same time: he’s a hard working man. After this he moved to Indiana to work at a mobile home factory. You may wonder how he turned up here at MMA. In Bosnia he was The T-80 tank, which drafted into the civil war, he gained the rank of sergeant and was the driver was produced by the of a T--80 tank, also he was a member of the mobile infantry. With his Soviet Union and driv- experience here and his improving English, he landed a job at MMA in 2000. en by Sergeant Vasic! For the first 10 years of working here, V was a TAC (CA) working in the bar- racks with the cadets. It wasn’t until 2010 that he switched to working in maintenance. Today SGT. V sees MMA as a second home and wants to work here, I quote, “until my legs break or I get sacked”. V’s sense of humor and hard work makes him a favorite on campus with cadets and adults.

Siegel

(Elshafie) Cadet Captain Zack Siegel is the Captain of Delta company and he is also the captain of the basketball team.

He came to Massanutten to better himself for his future and he wanted structure in his life. When asked how the school affected him, he said “The school has affected me in a positive manner.” Zack’s home life is neat, his father lives in Boca Raton, Florida and his mother lives in Chesapeake, Virginia.

“Ballin is not a hobby, it’s my occupation”

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Commandant's Corner

AP (Col. Goncalez) Corp of Cadets had two public presentation in the last seven days. Classes First was the trip to VMI last Saturday and I think all cadets enjoyed a lot the trip and all events that we had the chance to watch at (Gehret) AP classes the Institute. The military parade, the lunch at the Mess Hall and the are high school level courses football game were great opportunities to observe how a military col- with college standards and lege works, specially how the VMI cadets have their routine during credit. event days. AP classes are tak- The only negative aspect about that, was the fact that several en to demonstrate the aca- of MA cadets started of add "alien" items to the uniform (VMI scarfs, demic rigor of the student. VMI watch caps, civilian clothes underneath the uniform, and, specially, AP students must meet a ear phones!!) Despite all recommendations and announcements, exhaust- higher level of knowledge of certain criteria. Doing so will ively repeated by different persons of the school staff, some cadets make them able to earn still insist in use earphones with uniform, and more serious, in a place college credit and possibly where we were the visitors. skip an entry level college I tried to find, among the almost 1600 VMI cadets, only one us- course. How, you ask? At ing some kind of earphones and I couldn't find anyone. So, my question the end of the year, you can is: why the VMI cadets are able of follow a so simple rule, and the M.A. schedule an appointment to take an AP test. cadets are not? Maybe the answer is because, our cadets prioritize in to do what is more convenient, than what is right! AP tests are graded The second event this week was the ceremony to honor the Vet- on a 1-5 scale and are made to test the knowledge of erans Day at the Woodstock American Legion Chapter, last Monday. that specific subject. Most Our school was present with our color guard, the M.A. band, a group of colleges will accept a 3 or girls from Alpha Company to sing the national anthem and the entire higher. Corp on formation for the ceremony. Despite that was a long ceremony, that demanded an extra phys- ical stamina from our cadets, the Massanutten Academy Corp of Cadets represented our school with proud and outstanding visual appearance. Everyone is responsible to represent our school and be a positive ambassador of Massanutten Academy, no matter where you at, no mat- ter if you're wearing a cadet uniform or not, you always will be recog- nized as a member of the Academy Corp of Cadets.

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Dr. Who Anniversary

(Mrs. Regan) Across the world, many people are eagerly awaiting the arrival of Saturday, November 23, 2013. No, this isn’t a One Direction concert…it’s Dr. Who Day! This Saturday, the beloved show will be airing its long-awaited 50th anniversary epi- sode. As a testament to the show’s follow- ing, Fandango is showing the episode in 3D in select theatres nationwide only on Novem- ber 25th.

Dr. Who is a fandom which has captivated the world for fifty years, and isn’t showing signs of slowing down just yet. The premise is simple enough: an alien travels through time and space in his T.A.R.D.I.S. (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) saving the human race (among others) with the help of his various companions and trusty Sonic Screwdriver. However, this show goes much deeper. It questions what it means to be hu- man, and forces you to think about your own morals. How far is too far? is known to have a bit of a temper, and often has to choose between saving a few people and saving an entire race. The Doctor is funny, and loving…but also tragic, (he is sometimes referred to as the loneliest man in the universe) which has fans tearing up in several epi- sodes. There are plot twists buried deep into the seasons, which no one sees coming. To explain more would be to give away key parts, so you’ll just have to watch and see for yourself!

The first episode of Dr. Who first aired on November 23rd in 1963, with playing the . Other actors who have played The Doctor are:

William Hartnell (1963 – 1966, pictured right) (1966 – 1969) Jon Pertwee (1970 – 1974) (1974 – 1981) Peter Davison (1981 – 1984) Colin Baker (1984 – 1986) Sylvester McCoy (1987 – 1989) Paul McGann (1996) Richard Hurndall (1983 – He played the First Doctor for the 20th anniversary, since William Hartnell had passed away in 1975)

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(Dr. Who Anniversary Continued) Many of these older episodes have been available for viewing through video sites, but there were 106 lost episodes. The BBC had started destroying the original copies of the episodes (from the 1960’s) in 1972. This was only stopped when the fans found out. But last month, by some miracle (and perhaps some help from The Doctor him- self) all the lost episodes were found deep in Ethiopia and Nigeria. After Paul McGann, the show disappeared until 2005. It is rumored this was the result of declining viewers. Christopher Eccelston (pictured left) was the actor who played The Doctor for the show’s revival. He was followed by David Tennant (2005 – 2010) and Matt Smith (2010– 2013). Since its revival, the Whoovian fandom has taken the world by storm. This is evident in the numerous Dr. Who items sold, and in the variety of stores in which they are found. There are costumes in Hot Top- ic, trivia books in Books-A-Million, and calendars in mall kiosks, just to name a few. Another announcement which had Whoovians buzzing was the announcement of The Twelfth Doctor: Peter Capaldi! Some of you may recognize him as the father during the Pompeii episode. He is also seen in the series: Torchwood. Many people are eager to see what this Scotsman will bring to the character, keeping fingers crossed that this new series may have a bit more of the dark grit which was evident in the revival 2005 season. The Tao of Massanutten Wrestling (Dr. Skipper) A select few Massanutten Academy cadets are wrestlers. Wrestling is one of the oldest recognized sports in the world, not the glamourized and over-the-top professional wrestling seen on prime time TV, but the collegiate, Greco-Roman, and freestyle wrestling practiced in high schools, colleges, and fea- tured in the Olympics.

In its base form, wrestling is full-on combat in which two opponents use a series of holds, throws, and maneuvers to subdue, control, and ultimately pin the shoulders of their opponent to a mat. An un- choreographed ballet, wrestling is two individuals engaging and utilizing each other’s power/calm, tempo/ rhythm, and heart/mind, to reorganize positions in an attempt to dominate thus forming a metaphor for the struggle. The Struggle represents humankind’s continual battle with the forces around us and including our own internal struggles with our nature and our aspirations. Two perfectly skilled wrestlers will balance. They har- monize, mimicking nature’s processes to maintain homeostasis. They will be able to counter any move, negate any application of force, and level any obstacle so that, in the end, each is left in an exhausted and elated stalemate.

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(Tao of Wrestling Continued) Just like other aspects of life, being an unprepared wrestler leads to loss. Cadets who study and drill their academic lessons are akin to wrestlers who do the same for grappling techniques. Wrestlers sharing skills and devel- oping a strategic mind mimic cadets who take on leadership roles and lead by example. They seek a higher vision while practicing patience and compassion with subordinates. The pre- pared wrestler will out skill, out muscle, or out think their opponent and win the match. Yet, for the wrestler, losing is not always defeat. Losing, after trying one’s best or in a manner that protects dig- nity, is considered winning. Each wrestling match is a mini lesson in what is best about oneself and what still re- quires improvement. It is a reflection of how the wrestler defines his or her relationships with others. Defeat comes only from providing less than one’s full effort be it of heart, mind, or body. Losing comes from giving up. Wrestlers always seek to improve and will do so even if it requires match after match of loss. It may be surprising to know that wrestlers who win all the time are dissatisfied. They seek out new opponents and work harder in practice to find ways to improve themselves and their teammates. For a Massanutten Academy wrestler, winning or losing is simply what happens before the next match, it does not define them as people, their struggle to improve themselves, their school, and community does that. SCUBA at MA (Carter) On Sunday, the 17th of No- vember, from 0900-1400, El Bahrawy, Brown J, Buffington, Letona, Eastham, Gamboa, Jew- ell, and Chen W went to Kathy’s SCUBA in Harrisonburg to practice diving. The Scuba Divers have covered and tak- en tests on two of five chapters on the 1st unit.

We focused on learning about the equipment, what its used for, and how it used as well as vo- cabulary. We also learned about the different amounts of pressure the deeper we go. In the 2nd unit, we learned about some more equipment and some signals underwater (where sound doesn’t travel well). Cadet Letona said, “I really enjoy and I can't wait to go out in the open ocean.”

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XBOX vs. PS4

(Smith) As most people know already, the next gen- eration of gaming platforms are releasing this month. The two competitors are Sony’s Playstation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox one. The highlighted differences between the consoles can vary a gamer’s experience. The games are the first priority for any console. Xbox provides more console exclusives with a more action-based genre, whereas Playstation provides more Indie developers and a more creative genre of gaming based on the stories, building to the game atmosphere. It is very clear that Xbox provides a more complete dashboard with the Kinect camera, but it is arguable that some might believe the features are unnecessary, considering it is a “game system.” The Playstation also provides a “Kinect-like” system, but it is an optional accessory and doesn’t function as well as the actual Kinect. Considering the price, there is a hundred dollar difference between the cheaper Playstation and the Xbox. Looking at the mechanics of the systems, it appears that the Xbox has a better GPU, which provides more ability to improve the AI of potential computer oppo- nents, allowing enemies to become smarter and more adaptive. The Playstation has more ability to function with a better RAM and graphics card allowing the games to run smoothly and quickly along with having the upper hand in graphics. The next-gen holds many promising expe- riences, but only the future will tell.

Virginia Tech

(Ms. Meni) Major Maringer , Assistant Com- mandant, Recruiting, organized a visit to Virginia Polytechnical Institute and State University on Nov. 19th. Our visit included an ROTC Presentation, an In- ternational lunch, an info-session and a walking tour (we weren't able to cover all 125 buildings though!!) Our students are looking forward to applying to VA TECH ...since it offers 65 bachelor degree programs through its seven undergraduate colleges. We would like to thank faculty and staff mem- bers who scheduled the trip: Kim Elshafie, Captain Pierce, BettyJane Meni, Joe Babcock and Jennifer Racey. Prospective students are also offered a "Spend the Night Program" where interested juniors and sen- iors can attend classes and "shadow" a college student. Please contact Massanutten's new College Hub in Rm. 708 to sign up for this program and many others.

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