The Alchemist Tuesday arrived in no time. The days leading up to it were a blur of work, relaxation outside The Suppression, cooking, and sleeping. The excitement of meeting the alchemist was all Rienna could think about. They rode into town again on the horses, following the road towards the nobles' district. Instead of continuing into the neighborhoods, they turned and began towards a large building in the distance that was the university. As they got closer, they entered a

You do not need to be excellent. The earth does not ask you to be. The trees do not ask  how many dollars you will make of them, and the worms do not ask how fast you travel in your car. The earth just spins, and the worms just crawl. The only thing you need to be is alive. The only thing you need to do  is love how you live. The dogs do not wag their tails at how well you do on a test, and they do not bark  because they do not have time for you. You mustn’t walk through hell

Introduction: Greetings and welcome. The first part of this is called How to Draw Humans part 1 and not a lot of this will make sense without that prelude. I am going to preface this tutorial by assuring you that we will be considering a myriad of phenotypical discrepancies within the human species. Please remember that nature is diverse, and your art should be too. In part 1, we looked at how the body is 1o units long (I’m using centimeters) like this. You might have noticed

People may have a bigger part in the story of biosonar than you may realize. Noise pollution caused by our technologies is putting strain on animals that rely on echolocation. But on a different note, we’re also learning that with practice, humans can also echolocate. So what do these two different revelations mean for the future? Perhaps it would be best to get a better understanding of how echolocation works first. When I think of echolocation, my mind immediately goes to b

Greetings, Earthlings.  The homo sapien is an organism that I’m sure we’re all familiar with. Most famous for being bad at running, swimming, jumping, climbing, burrowing, camouflage and even just making positive contributions to their respective ecosystems; the human animal is usually only redeemed by their remarkable intellectual capability. Now that you can place them, remember all of those times I said, “I will teach you anatomy, but not today”? Well, today actually is th

Secret Society It had taken time, patience, some pleading, a little bit of magic, an excessive amount of frowning, and three long days, but finally, finally, Rienna broke off a piece of clear crystal the size of a beetle. Without Xia being able to hurl the crystal into other objects with impossible force, it had been a fair amount more difficult than splitting the purple one. With malicious happiness, Rienna placed the crystalline shard in the locket around her neck and cha

I felt so much,  that I started to feel nothing I wanted to say so much,  That I said nothing   Yet that was everything. Too much of everything.  Stop me before my heart begins to race I'm reliving every second I promised wouldn’t leave a trace  You can look back sometimes, But don't ever fully turn around. Those feelings are an anchor, Proof you are alive. Because at least you can feel. Reach into me with your hands And your fingertips will kiss  the nothingness, That inhabi

The earth hums, beneath the roots. A language of shadow.  Dust,  each grain a word. Too small to grasp.  Each breath of hesitation. Between the old,  and the  forgotten.  The sky fractures  into a thousand pieces. Not one, fit together. Whilst clouds curl like smoke. They do not rise, only do they fold back into themselves. Carrying stories they refuse to tell. A stone sits heavy.  Its skin worn smooth by times of quiet insistence. No meaning in the smoothness,  only absence

There will come a day when i’ll be six feet under. The bugs will begin to consume me, slowly watching visions of you unfold, they’ll hear your name—over and over again. They will consume my skin and flesh and engraved in every crevice, they’ll find reminders of you. Reminders imbedded in the scars you kissed, the touch you left on my body, my eyes which had you memorized, head to toe, inside and out. And when they start to eat my heart, they will realize that the only thing c

The other morning, I watched a songbird hang in the wind like a drone. It was stitching the sky together with its bright thread of sound. Perhaps it thought I was a threat, warbling out a warning to nearby creatures. Maybe it was frightened or worried. It was a beautiful bird nonetheless.  Sometimes I watch the shore, and the ocean is restless, white at the mouth and gnawing at the rocks. Sometimes it is wide and unbothered, a taut canvas of deep blue. No one calls it the ang

Every year, Parker’s Honor Choir spends the first month of the spring semester preparing for the most exciting event of the year: Na Leo Hou State Choral Festival. Held at Central Union Church in Honolulu, around 400 students come from schools across the state to sing together in a concert held in the beautiful church. As a small choir compared to the rest of the schools, we almost never take the opportunity to sing our own song at the concert, but this year we felt that our

I could not tell you how many times I’ve heard fellow students talk about how little sleep they’re getting and how they’re spending hours each day working on their homework. School is in session from 8:30am-3:00 pm. That’s a total of six and a half hours each day, five and a half if you exclude our hour-long lunch period. This isn’t very long in comparison to the average workday. Except, students aren’t done working once school is over. Extracurriculars are a huge part of stu

How to Draw Versatility in Art Howdy! You can grab a writing utensil, or not! Today, there are only a few exercises. What I do recommend is that you sit back, look at the pretty pictures, and let me learn you a thing or two about art. Now that we know how to draw tactilely (because you’ve definitely read and exercised parts 1 and 2), it’s time to consider how to make drawing and art a part of your everyday life. I talk about versatility in art when referring to gratification.

The first off-island qualifying debate tournament is always scary. We’re caught at this pivotal point where NITs, the first (and hardest) opportunity to qualify to States, have already passed; after this tournament, our only other option is Districts, which tends to have a very small entry pool because it’s just us and Hilo, meaning very few people qualify. Regardless, we came into the tournament with spirits high and excited. We met at the airport around 8:45 on Friday morni

Introduction Hey again, you know the drill: Find any flat surface and a utensil that you can manipulate pigment with; I’m using a pencil and paper, but you can use practically anything.  This article covers texture detail and is a related sequel to what we learned in How to Draw Part 1, which is also posted here on Parker Press. I would recommend that tutorial first, but that is also the beauty of free will. I want you to look around at your environment right now. Zero in on

Mint chocolate chip has always been one of those ice cream flavors that is either loved or hated. People strangely seem to feel confident about hating such a delicacy. It is more than just a dessert, though. It is an idea about what we should think and value. It is undeniable proof that some of us have taste buds evolved a little above the average human. That group is also strong enough to survive the slander from people who simply can’t admit the truth. Mint chocolate chip i

How did people in the 1500s build complex, giant, seaworthy ships without machinery, using only their hands and a few simple tools? During the 16th and 17th centuries, there was a flurry of people rushing across seas looking for treasure to bring back to their kingdoms. Any boats used on these journeys had to be able to withstand months on open ocean, hold enough supplies for the crew, and store whatever treasures or slaves they took on their voyage. The people who built thes

Solar flares can contain as much energy as a billion hydrogen bombs. They are intense explosions of light and matter from the Sun and occur almost daily. Solar flares are measured by their intensity, in a similar manner to earthquakes, each level being ten times stronger than the last.  The weakest flares, the ones that don’t really affect Earth, are labeled A, B, and C, with A being the weakest. Ten times stronger than C is M. M-class solar flares can cause radio blackouts i

Mark your calendars! The Parker School Winter Showcase is happening Thursday, December 11, at 6:00 PM, and it’s shaping up to be such a fun night! Students from choir, theatre, and dance have been working on these performances for months, and they’re finally ready to share them. If you’re looking for a great reason to come out and support your friends, this is it! We’ll kick off the night with Choir Class, a group of students who meet on E days and have been rehearsing since

Last spring, I sat down with the acting class to table-read This Murder Was Staged . As Ms. Duggan wrote in her Directors’ Notes in the playbill last week, the moment we read it, we knew this was going to be our fall play. A lot of the time it can be hard to find a show that everybody likes and that fits our cast, but TMWS had everything: a large cast, a challenging number of lines, and a hilarious plot. There were lots of opportunities for a creative set, and I vividly remem