Welcome to J. Krue. No, not the clothing store, but the new, pop-up, supposedly trendy café situated on 123 Hanley Road.

As you walk into the restaurant, you are greeted warmly and left to find your table on your own with your companions. The clean and modern atmosphere of J. Krue allows you to eat your food in natural light, but it needed more of an upbeat feel in order to be so called “trendy”. There was no music, and the server brought green paper menus with a selection of ten items and an indicator of a $5 credit, leaving almost no selection. The wait for water was a bit elongated and could have been cut in half. I was left parched towards the end of my meal because there were refills offered at this restaurant, leading me to believe that they are limited on water.

Upon debating which items to purchase, I was surprised by the small and overpriced items, such as a single vanilla sugar cookie for $3. I targeted the seemingly least expensive, but still pricey, items on the menu, potato crisps for $1.50 and lightly-salted tortilla chips for $1.50. I was disturbed by the small amount of food I received on my paper plate. World class renowned chef Bobby Flay seemed to be selling a shorthand to the customers with overpriced items and a small amount after purchasing.

Although I was disappointed in the quantity and quality of the overpriced items in J. Krue, I was pleasantly surprised when I was offered two complimentary cutie oranges to cleanse my palate. Overall, I would not recommend this café if you are looking to save money or have a filling meal.

Krue is open Monday through Fridays from 7:30am to 2:30pm. Opened on December 10, 2018, I would say J. Krue needs some improvement, but I would award it with three out of five stars.

 

A plane goes up in flames and tears apart, crashing into an unknown island with a mysterious and dangerous creature lurking around, will the remaining passengers survive?

After watching the pilot episode of Lost, a drama/action show, surrounding the suspenseful journeys of several characters after their plane crashes into an unknown island, I would not recommend watching if you are not a fan of jump scares and a suspenseful plot line.

The characters are a unique and interesting group of people. The characters portrayed an array of emotions to the audience throughout the pilot episode. The main characters are memorable and convey fear, bravery, and friendship. Kate played by Evangeline Lilly, is an Australian, brown-haired woman, shows her true loyalty and bravery through intimidating situations when she doesn’t leave Jack behind after they find the transceiver in the nose of the dismembered plane. Jack played by Matthew Fox, is a doctor that was aboard the plane where upon its crash, helps calm and mend injured people throughout the episode. Although the many characters showed good acting skills, the plot was confusing to follow and made me jump out of my seat.

My least favorite part about this show, making me not recommend it to people that are not fans of suspense and sci-fi, was the graphic and haunting scenes that had me jumping out of my seat. The use of blood and dead bodies in the show was overwhelming and gory, causing me to gag, cover my eyes, and want the show turned off. At the beginning, Jack wakes up in a business suit with a loud ringing in his ears and bloody face in the middle of a tropical rainforest. He painfully makes his way to the shrilling sound of screams and smoke curling into the blue sky, to find the plane set in flames and many people in need of medical attention. Not only are many people dead, one man strays too close to the still working engine and gets sucked in, causing the engine to explode and the man and others to die. Throughout the episode, the director, J.J. Abrams, makes the decision to play dramatic music in the background to build suspense and make the audience’s hearts beat faster.

The episode even ended on a gory and graphic note with the bloody pilot hanging overhead in the trees after being attacked by a mysterious, unknown creature inhabiting the island. Overall, I thought Lost was a gory, graphic, confusing, and suspenseful TV drama with good quality actors. I would, again, not recommend this show to people that are not a fan of suspense/horror TV shows. I would give the TV show, Lost, two out of five stars.

 

Around 56% of all students credited their stress to homework, according to a survey found by the Stanford Graduate School of Education. Students around the world are suffering from an incline in the amounts of stress they have. Excessive amounts of homework affect many aspects of a student’s life inside and outside of school, including their performance in the school itself. Homework is typically thought to be the key to success in school and improve performance drastically when in reality homework is unnecessary busy work and does not improve performance at all.

Excessive amounts of homework noticeably hurt students and their performance in the school environment. After a full day of sitting in class, students can become tired, causing them to not want to do their homework. As a result, the student’s performance goes downhill along with their grades, according to the Oxford Learning Centre.  Let’s live through a typical high-schoolers day. First, the student wakes up around 6:30, gets ready and attends around seven hours of school. Then, add potential after-school activities such as clubs, meetings, sports, and tutoring. When they finally arrive home, they face large sums of homework that typically take the rest of the night to complete. So, when do students have time to relax and rejuvenate for the next day of school? Going through a students’ daily busy life, we find that an excessive amount of homework leaves no time for rest and rejuvenation, bringing us to our next point.

Homework undermines students mental, physical, and social skills in and out of school. High-schoolers need around eight to nine hours of sleep per night to be healthy, according to a study conducted by the National Sleep Foundation. But, when hours of homework are assigned by teachers each night, sleep is the first thing to go. Without the recommended hours of sleep, adolescents can become plagued with a variety of mental and physical problems such as sleep deprivation, depression, stress, increased fat storage, and an increase in the risk of developing type two diabetes. Not only are the student’s mental and physical health put at risk, but their social skills are also lost. Parents notice that their children are no longer active in family life, missing out on routine activities, such as family dinners, movies, and chores. Why? Because their kids have no time in their schedule due to an insanely large amount of homework.

Many times the homework load is overlooked and piled onto students, not knowing that it causes loss of mental, physical, and social skills in everyday life. We always think of homework as the key to success and effective tools in school and in life. But, this point of view is severely wrong. Studies have shown that many students have unnecessary added stress through homework assignments, leading to a decrease in academic performance, mental and physical health, and social skills. Although many teachers and a handful of parents claim that students review and refresh what they learn in class with homework, improving their memorization skills about the topic, homework destroys needed skills and students’ enjoyment of school, therefore needs to be reduced. We need to lessen the number of homework teachers assign to students on a daily basis in order to help students succeed and thrive in and out of school. Homework is something that detriments a student’s desire to learn and diminishes a students’ mental and physical health and needs to be reduced and/or stopped in schools.

Mike Yeo has turned Saint Louis into one big, depressing losing streak.

If you walk down the street in downtown Saint Louis on a game day during the winter, you’d see a mass of blue and gold colors walking towards the Scottrade Center. When you walk into the Scottrade Center, I promise you that you will be hit with a wave of enthusiastic fans, all hungry for a win. This is the atmosphere of Saint Louis, the home of the Blues.

But lately, the fans have been let down and constantly disappointed. They have nothing to be excited about anymore, and it was all because of ex-head coach, Mike Yeo, who led the Blues to three out of four losses in a row being shut outs.

With the leadership of Yeo, the Blues had a scoreless streak of 142 minutes and 48 seconds, seven periods without scoring a goal. Many players and fans were outraged at the amount of time without scoring a goal.

With Yeo as head coach, things were looking dull and not good for the Blues. The Predators, the number one team in the central division beat the St. Louis blues with a score of 4-1, with the Blues still under the bad guidance of head coach Mike Yeo. When Yeo was fired 90 minutes after losing another game with the Blues, fans and players hoped that the Blues season would look up to a brighter and better future on the ice, and we got what we asked for. The Blues agreed to fire Yeo and hire the Saint Louis Blues assistant coach to step in as a part-time head coach for the team while they were looking for a permanent solution.

On November 23, 2018, with Berube as the interim head coach, the tables turned for the Blues at their rematch against the Nashville Predators, the number one team in the Central division. The Blues and fans celebrated on the ice and in the stands as the game ended with the Blues breaking the losing streak with a score of 6-2, and it’s all because we got rid of Mike Yeo as head coach of the St. Louis Blues.

With the high hopes set in place for the Blues since Yeo is out of office, many people hope to find a better head coach to replace Berube as interim coach.

In my personal opinion, Mike Yeo brought St. Louis and its beloved hockey team down and into a spiral of bad vibes and losing streaks, but the Blues and its fans found a solution by firing Yeo. Once again, the season is looking up and will hopefully bring the Blues position in the central division instead of being placed seventh in the rankings, behind our rivals, the Chicago Blackhawks.

The Blues will see a brighter future and an increase in wins with Berube as interim coach and an eventually a new, more permanent head coach. Shoving Mike Yeo out of the doors of the Scottrade Center was the best decision the St. Louis Blues have made so far in the season.

Freshman, Sophia Liu hears her name called during tennis tryouts and takes a deep breath. Ridden with nerves, she opens the gate to the tennis courts and steps out for her match. The sun beats down, causing sweat to brim on her forehead as she smiles at her opponent. She plays an intense match and after winning, excitedly tells the coach her score. Then she hears the news that she made it onto the varsity tennis team, and she would be the only freshman.

Sophia Liu has been playing tennis for over four years and that commitment and love for the sport has changed her life and allowed her to befriend girls that she would typically not. Many people don’t make a varsity sport team their first year in high school, but Liu’s dedication to practicing and showing her skills opened the varsity door for her. When Coach Junker told Liu that she would be on the varsity team as the only freshman, Liu experienced a feeling many freshman will not.

“It was really cool because I would be playing tennis with these girls and it felt really awesome because they seemed like really nice people,” said Liu.

Liu felt right at home on the varsity team with Coach Junker, the girls, and her parents support. The upperclassmen and other older girls on the team never made Liu feel uncomfortable or out of place, but instead made the team feel like a second home.

“I think seven out of the ten players were new, so we were all new to the scene. I was never really excluded or anything,” said Liu.

Amongst the ‘homey feeling’ of the team, Liu still had freshman duties that she had to carry out alone. Being the only freshman on varsity had many pros, but had a few cons. Liu was assigned special tasks designed for freshman before and after every practice and match, but it never discouraged Liu from feeling at home on the team.

“Coach Junker, every time we finished a match, would have me get the scorecard balls and balls that people didn’t pick up,” said Liu.

Liu looked up to every girl on the team as if they were big sisters, but out of everyone she looked up to the team captains, juniors Schuyler Wolf and Shelei Pan, the most. As captains, Wolf and Pan led the team and took Liu under their wing and saw her as adding to the team’s game.

“Sophia was a big asset this year. She’s a freshman, so it’s her first year on the team, but she played number five singles and won a fair amount of her matches,” said Wolf.

Everyone on the team created many memories together and many with Liu. Liu expressed herself on and off the courts, creating lasting bonds with the older girls. The girls talk to Liu as if they are all the same age, and most of the time, forget the gap.

“She felt comfortable pretty quickly, comfortable enough to decide to practice her flute in my car one day,” said Pan.

With these lasting memories and laughs with the Ladue varsity tennis team, Liu is grateful that she had the experiences with this set of girls. The team bonding and friendly support on the team encouraged Liu throughout the season to push through and work hard. The girls taught Liu important life skills about determination, courage, and never giving up, allowing Liu to reminisce about her best days on the court and with the varsity team.

“My favorite part of the season was probably towards the end and we played districts and it was really fun to get the plaque and all. It was really nice to see all the girls giving it their all,” said Liu.

High School receives a much-needed renovation. 

In August of 2018, teachers and students entered the newly renovated Ladue Horton Watkins High School, in shock from the now modern look and emphasize how much the building needed to be redone in the first place.

Ladue Horton Watkins High School, donated by Mrs. Horton Watkins in memory of her late husband, was built in 1951 and since has had little to no additions. Until the 2016 school year when Prop R passed, giving the thumbs up to start the million dollar renovations.

“I remember coming to the school and everything was really old and crusty, and things were falling apart,” said sophomore Addie Bitting when asked to recall the outdated building. Walking around the dusty and dim hallways, students at Ladue knew that a change was needed in order to keep up with the modern world around them.

For most students, like junior Rebecca Sachs, the school was overwhelmingly spread apart making walking to classes inefficient and confusing.

“Well, freshman year it was very spread out because a lot of things were not there so we had the trailers and the black box, and as a freshman, I was overwhelmed because there was so much stuff everywhere. It was just very dirty. Now, it’s all in one area which I like a lot better,” Sachs said.

Ladue’s million dollar renovation included new classrooms, football stadium, cafeteria, library, and student entrance. In August 2018, with renovations complete, students and staff around Ladue High School are in awe over the incredulous change.

“Everything was new and clean and not gross anymore,” Bitting said after seeing the renovations on the first day of school. Not only were the renovations beneficial to the students roaming around Ladue’s halls, but also to the staff.

Shruti Uphadyay, an English teacher at Ladue High School has been in many different rooms teaching generations of students for 12 years. Seeing it all, Uphadyay remembers each of her rooms and how she taught in them.

“I love the new room. I like the modern look and it has cabinets. I had no cabinets and we’re facing east so I like the morning sun,” said Uphadyay.

A new building means new learning and spirit capabilities in the eyes of Ladue’s students and they’re not quite done yet. The new football stadium, which will be finished soon, is leaving students even more excited to attend a 2019 football game under the lights of the new school.

“I’m really looking forward to the new football field which will be really cool,” said Bitting.