Gossip: The Poison Ivy of High School

There you are, enjoying your lunch when the whispers of "Did you hear about Sarah and Jonathon," reach your table. As hard as you try to ignore the whispers, you just can't. You jump right into the conversation and attempt to straighten these gossipers out because you are, of course, best friends with Sarah and know the entire truth. But wait- isn't this gossip? Aren't you just going to fuel the fire? Certainly.

We typically think of gossip as a rumor or report of an intimate nature. However, this textbook definition only begins to define gossip. Gossip is a destroyer, a heart-breaker, a way to completely diminish a friendship. Gossip is the poison ivy of high school. It's something that everyone knows to avoid, something you don't want to go around but sometimes it's impossible to escape from. At some point in your high school career, you will catch the poison of gossip. Sadly, the instant you involve yourself in gossip it consumes you, much like the instant you scratch poison ivy, it spreads to more areas of the body. The more and more you get involved, the faster and faster the gossip spreads, leading to the downfall of you, your trustworthiness, and your friendships. And then you are left with a scar, much like that of someone who irritates their poison ivy far beyond the extremes. This is something that no one wants, so find that calamine lotion and try your best to ignore the annoying desire to scratch before it's too late and your scars become apparent.

Scrub Shenanigans

The basic idea of the dress code is simple. Bottoms that hang too low or stop too short, tops that show far too much skin, and slogans that pertain to risque actions are all considered taboo. This year, Dunbar has decided to enforce the preexisting dress code, despite the fact that in previous years it has seldom been followed. Along with this decision to enforce the dress code, a new policy has been adopted.

The new policy states that if a student arrives at the school in inappropriate clothing, they will be asked to wear scrubs for the remainder of the day. Little did they know, the authority figures of Dunbar have inspired the student body to start a monthly tradition, Scrub Thursday. Last week, a few seniors gathered together in an attempt to find a way to retaliate and rebel against this request placed upon us by the principals. After many ideas were tossed out the window, one brilliant mind came up with the idea of wearing scrubs every first Thursday of the month; this idea was quickly accepted.

After coming up with this idea, there was only one remaining issue at hand- how to get the rest of the student body involved. However, the solution was simple. A Facebook group was created and nearly every Dunbar student with a Facebook account was invited to join the group and partake in this rebellion. Unfortunately, only about 30 students actually played a role in the first Scrub Thursday, despite the fact that more than 200 people joined the group. Luckily, there are many more Thursdays to come and it seems that Scrub Thursday will be an eventual success.

A Little Background Information

Remember the girl from high school- the seemingly quiet one, the one who was friendly with everyone, the one whose face you can still see yet you can't quite remember her name? In the Paul Laurence Dunbar class of 2010, that girl is me. A lot of people would be bothered by the fact that their name is easily lost in the crowd but that's never bothered me. I would much rather be remembered as "the girl who helped me pick up my books" than Brittany. This is just me. I've always been a "nice girl," social classification, race, and history has never been important to me. So, the main idea of this post is to let you know that if you're looking for some crazy girl with insane adventures, you're in the wrong place. I'm just the average girl preparing for her senior year.