RARITANRARITAN HIGHREVIEW SCHOOL’S OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER Valentine’s Day Edition STUPID CUPID nus cannot find her. Here, Psyche finds herself approaching a beautiful mansion where she BY: KIERA MALLEY decides to make herself at home. In her time With Valentine’s day approaching, cou- spent at this mansion, she is waited on by invis- ples everywhere are beginning to plan romantic ible servants and eventually falls in love with evenings for one another. It has been said that a man in the dark. Having never seen her new Cupid, the Roman God of desire, flies around love, she is eventually encouraged by her sisters the world on this night shooting his arrows of to go look upon him in the night. While doing love at deserving couples, locking their fate so, she accidentally wakes up her love, who she together. While Cupid works his magic, the discovered to be Cupid himself, angering him amount of love in the atmosphere leaves people and causing him to flee. On a quest to find her swooning over one another. The myth of cupid love, Psyche goes to Venus herself for help. Still has been around for thousands of years, resur- angry, Venus sends Psyche on several daunting facing each February with the takeover of this FEB. 2016 tasks before offering her help. In the mean- Hallmark holiday. But how did Cupid come to time, Cupid found out about his mother’s de- claim the throne of Valentine’s Day? mands, then asking the God Jupiter to order her The son of Venus and Mars, Cupid is typi- to stop. After she did so, Cupid and Psyche were cally portrayed as a small, chubby baby with left to live happily ever after with one another. wings, carrying a bow and arrow. His wings are This Valentine’s Day, before you ex- representative of the flightiness of lovers and change gifts with your significant other, re- how quick they may be to change their minds. member to thank Cupid for working his magic His symbols are the arrow and torch, because yet again! Spread this newfound knowledge to “love wounds and inflames the heart.” Cupid is everyone else who is blindly giving their love sometimes portrayed with two arrows; one with away, and Happy Valentine’s Day! a sharp golden point and one with a blunt tip of lead. The golden arrow will fill its target with VALENTINE’S DAY STATS immense desire and affection, while the lead BY: KIERA MALLEY tip fills them with aversion and provokes them to flee. As we delve deeper into 2016 and head While many Roman Gods and Goddesses star in towards February, Valentine’s Day decorations several tall tales, Cupid is found as a side char- are beginning to take over. Stores are putting acter more often than not. Only in the myth of up their displays of candy hearts and choco- Cupid and Psyche is he the main character. In lates, commercials for “that special someone” this story, Psyche, a woman renowned for her are being flashed across tv, and Hallmark is beauty, becomes disobedient to Venus. Feeling releasing cards and teddy bears for everyone. offended and betrayed, Venus sends Cupid to Americans go above and beyond for their loved punish Psyche by forcing her to fall in love with ones on Valentine’s Day. To give a better per- a horrible monster. However, he finds himself spective, I’ll give you some statistics! distracted by her beauty, and uses one of his As of February 2015; golden arrows on himself to fall in love. Fear- • $13.19 billion: Average annual Valentine’s ful for her well-being, Psyche’s family suggest Day spending that she go hide in the mountains where Ve- • 180 million: Number of Valentine’s Day cards RARITANRARITAN HIGHREVIEW SCHOOL’S OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER Valentine’s Day Edition exchanged annually among them? • 196 million: Number of roses produced for Valentine’s Day LEAP YEAR • 85%: Percent of cards bought by women BY: KIERA MALLEY • 73%: Percent of flowers bought by men • 14%: Percent of women who send themselves Welcome to the New Year! 365 days to flowers (LOL) go. Right? Wrong! 2016 is special for the fact • $116.21: Amount average consumer spends that it’s a leap year! This means you have an per Valentine’s Day extra 24 hours this year to get something done. • 61.8%: Percent of consumers who celebrate But why do we just tack on an extra day every Valentine’s Day once in awhile? There’s science to it! • 53%: Percent of women who would end their Leap years come around every four relationship if they didn’t get something for years, adding an extra day to the end of Febru- Valentine’s Day (OMG) ary. This is caused by extra time built up in our FEB. 2016 I’m sure that most people can agree that rotation around the sun every year. What hap- Valentine’s Day is easy to put in the back of pens is what we consider to be a day (time it your mind when you have more important tasks takes for the Earth to rotate around its axis) is to attend to. So when you realize you forgot to actually just short of 24 hours. An actual day buy your significant other something the night length would be 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 before, you’ll more than likely run to your local seconds. This leaves about 5-6 hours extra after Hallmark for cards and candy. Here are some it’s built up. If we were to re-adjust our calen- stats on the most common V-Day gifts! dars to fit the proper length of the years, the • 52.1%: Cards seasons would be off by about a month about • 47.5%: Candy every 125 years. Rather than have that, we • 34.6%: Dinner compile our extra time into an extra day every • 34.3%: Flowers four years; February 29th. • 17.3%: Jewelry Now that you know the science of where • 14.4%: Clothing the Leap Year came from, here are some facts • 12.6%: Gift Cards you may not have known about it! • 11.2%: Other If the year cannot be evenly divided by 4 and Did you know there is a way to math- divided equally by 100 (but not 400), it is ematically calculate the most romantic city in skipped. So, 2100 will not be a Leap Year, but the U.S.? It’s ranked by how much they increase 2400 will be. spending on a typical Valentine’s Day gift in the When you go from a standard year to the next first half of February. Another fun fact; Ameri- year, the same day of the year advances by one cans spend on average $700 million dollars on day. Valentine’s Day gifts on their pets, which is Julius Caesar introduced Leap Year in the Ro- double the cost of Halloween costumes! Valen- man Empire over 2000 years ago, but the Julian tine’s Day is also celebrated in Canada, Mexico, Calendar only had one rule: any year evenly the UK, France, Australia, Denmark, Italy, and divided by 4 would be a leap year. This lead to Japan. These are the numbers of Valentine’s way too many leap years, but didn’t get cor- Day ladies and gentleman, are your purchases rected until the introduction of the Gregorian RARITANRARITAN HIGHREVIEW SCHOOL’S OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER Valentine’s Day Edition Calendar 1500 years later. It is common misbelief in Greece to believe that VALENTINE’S DAY WEDDINGS getting married in a Leap Year is bad luck. BY: MARK CAPICHANA People born on February 29 are often called Since February is National Weddings “leaplings” or “leapers”. Month and celebrates Valentine’s Day, I think There is a festival held for Leap Year in it’s safe to say that February is the “Month of Texas. It is believed that if you are born on Feb- Love”. Although February may be filled with ruary 29th, you will develop a rare talent. love, it is not the most popular when it comes After reading, I hope you’re all more apprecia- to choosing dates for weddings. Actually, the tive of your extra day this year. Use your time most popular month for weddings is June! Feb- wisely! Here’s to the Leap Year! ruary is not even in the top 5! With the month of love, comes a month of pretty interesting FEBRUARY HOLIDAYS facts and statistics. Enjoy these facts about FEB. 2016 BY:MARK CAPICHANA weddings and enjoy your Valentine’s Day! FEB. 2016 February is a big month for holidays or • The hottest destination for weddings is Las special days in general. For example, Febru- Vegas, with 100,000 weddings a year. Hawaii ary 4th is “Thank a Mailman” Day. We also is the second with only 25,000! have some great holidays like Ash Wednesday, • The average engagement ring costs $4,411. President’s Day, and Groundhog Day! There is at • Most recently, the average wedding costs least one for every day throughout the whole roughly $26,000. That’s about $6,500 per month, so I took a few from the calendar just word in the “I do’s” spoken by both the for you to get an idea of the different celebra- bride and groom. tions that go on throughout February. Some may • About 60% of brides change their surnames. seem a bit strange, but they’re all for good fun. • The average age for a first marriage is 27-29 Enjoy these holidays! years-old.