Part Two: Unshackling the Mind

In part one of the true story of one student’s brave battle through agoraphobia, we discovered how the author’s subtle sense of unease gradually morphed into a monstrous presence, imprisoning them within the four walls of their own room. Despite the well-intentioned advice and encouragement from friends and family, agoraphobia had become their constant companion and relentless tormentor. 

Here at Highline there are Running Start students everywhere you look. Around every corner, you can find high schoolers participating in the program and often aiming to get their AA, but are there downsides to the stress and rigor put on these motivated junior scholars?

Highline has completed or is still enrolled in highschool and has decided to further their education, though some Running Start students have admitted to using it as an escape. Being told in 12th grade that “if you think this is bad, wait for college” may feel disingenuous, as many students have noticed that college can tend to provide more freedom and respect for your time than what they may be used to.

One of the most powerful tools for building a successful career is networking. This comes to the chagrin of many college students, as the concept may come across as intimidating, mainly reserved for established professionals. The truth is that networking is more accessible than most may think.

In reality, college is the perfect time to start building those invaluable professional relationships by forming those connections with peers and leaders in your field and areas of interest.

These connections can open doors to opportunities, provide guidance and mentorship, and offer support during your academic and professional journey. While the benefits of networking are clear, how does one go about cultivating these relationships, especially during the college years?

As Highline College celebrates March as International Women’s HERstory Month, we find ourselves reflecting on the contributions of the remarkable female-identified employees who have dedicated decades of their lives to shaping our institution.

Their commitment, tireless efforts and leadership have left a mark on students, staff, and throughout the campus. We extend our deepest gratitude and love for these ladies!

Please join us in celebrating our Highline Women in Action.

Journaling stands as one of the best and most actionable mental health activities. The prospect is simple – get a pen and paper, then write anything that comes to mind. Though instead of events, wellness journaling focuses more on writing thoughts and emotions.

The practice is heavily favored amongst mental health practitioners and members of Highline’s counseling center. Studies on the subject see the benefits of journaling as “…both a more coherent and illuminating approach to investigate mindfulness.”

Highline College has been a bastion for passionate educators and leaders since 1961, and for the last 25 years, it has been fortunate enough to be home to Susan Rich. The Thunderword spoke with Rich this past week and discussed her tenure at Highline, her favorite moments at the Arcturus publication, and some highlights from her upcoming book, “Blue Atlas”.

Taking in the views on campus as her last quarter as Faculty Editor for “Arcturus” and creative writing teacher, Rich is now looking onward to her oncoming book tour with as much creative zeal as she did at the start of her career.

The Queer & Allies club is not new to Highline, but its name and president are.

Last quarter, it was known as the GSA, or the Genders and Sexualities Alliance, but it’s since changed in both name and leadership. Now known as Q & A, or Queer & Allies, the new club president is Highline student Duncan Dao.

Have you ever wondered how your favorite instructor gets tenured by the college? The Tenure Review Committee (TRC) is responsible for reviewing any faculty member up for tenure. This means they are granted many benefits including stronger job security until retirement.

The committee currently has eight members including two college administration officials, five faculty members from their respective divisions, and the Vice President of the Associated Students of Highline College. It is led this year by co-chairs Tracy Brigham and Razmehr Fardad from the Health Department and Pure and Applied Sciences Divisions, respectively.

In the age of connectivity, the influence of social media permeates every aspect of our lives, and for college-aged students, this impact is particularly profound. From shaping social interactions to influencing academic experiences, the role of social media is undeniable.

It is worth looking into the multi-faceted impact of social media on college students and exploring the nuances that it brings along with it. Social media platforms serve as virtual town squares, connecting college students in ways unimaginable a few decades ago. 

The women’s tennis team maintains a good posture and is running as a candidate for the title this season after having beaten Treasure College as a visitor in the last game.

To recap last Saturday’s regular season game, Highline College emerged victorious with a final score of 6 to 1, demonstrating and consolidating their style of play.

Henleigh Elder was the outstanding player of the match, with a 6-0 victory in singles and in doubles sharing the field with Sophia Crosby; they destroyed the local team with a crushing 8-1.

The Highline College tennis team is unstoppable, dominating the regular season with a perfect record and securing the top spot in the standings. In their final home game on Saturday, the women’s team trounced Treasure Valley College with an impressive 8-1 victory.

Highline’s singles players were on fire, with Sophia Crosby, Caley Buchan, Denali Terry, and Riley Cordova all winning their matches convincingly, with scores of 6-0, 6-0, 6-1, and 6-2, respectively. Treasure Valley’s Maggie Sharp put up a valiant effort but was the only player from her team to emerge victorious.

The quote “standing on the shoulders of giants” is a quote that was popularized by Isaac Newton as a metaphor for using the understanding and knowledge of those that have gone before us to make progress. It is a quote that can certainly be applied metaphorically to the 2024 Men’s March Madness Tournament.

Without the progress of Jim Calhoon bringing UConn into the national spotlight through his several title runs from 1999 – 2011 UConn would never have attracted head coaching candidate Dan Hurley, and they would certainly never be in the conversation as a NCAA men’s basketball Blue Blood.

Over spring break, the Highline tennis squad kept their rackets hot, notching three consecutive victories in conference matchups, solidifying their dominance on the court.

Adding to their impressive run, the team embarked on a crossover event in Sacramento, California, where they showcased their skills against junior colleges from across the region on March 21st, 22nd, and 24th.

The Highline softball team has had to end their season premature of their season’s commitments this spring. The team has been forced to withdraw from participating in the NWAC softball season.

The most notable reason was the concern that there were players who decided to withdraw from the team as the season had already begun.

The withdrawal from participating was due to reasons that have not been disclosed on the part of the players. The difficulty in reaching a mutual agreement between players and the management to find a solution that could have saved the season led to the season being canceled altogether.

In a resounding victory, the Highline College women’s tennis team dominated their home opener against Bellevue College, securing a 7-0 win.

Amidst the jubilant atmosphere, Sophia Crosby, a freshman hailing from Grantsville, Utah, shared her insights on the thrilling match and her experiences as a newcomer to the Thunderbirds. In an exclusive interview with the Thunderword, Crosby expressed her exhilaration at donning the Thunderbirds jersey for the first time on home turf.

Softball season is finally back for Highline supporters who have waited patiently. There are new faces on the team who are ready and excited to tackle the new challenges that come with this season’s schedule. 

The team seems to have a good mix of fresh new faces and the more experienced players of the team. The roster currently hosts 11 players, with eight of them being freshmen and the other three sophomores.

In the realm of women’s tennis at Highline College, the past season went well enough, despite a challenging schedule. The team carved out moments of success, finishing with a 4-10 overall record and an admirable 4-2 record in conference play. Their journey culminated in a memorable run to the championship finals, a testament to their unwavering spirit on the court.

As the new season dawns, the Highline women’s tennis team stands at the precipice of opportunity, ready to embrace the challenges and triumphs that lie ahead.

In their final game of the season, the Thunderbird’s basketball team displayed tenacity and commitment on the court, despite facing a formidable opponent. Highline College went head-to-head against Grays Harbor Community College in a closely contested, but ultimately unvictorious, matchup.

The game unfolded in two intense periods, with both teams trading baskets and demonstrating their competitive spirit. In the first period, Grays Harbor College took a narrow lead, finishing with a score of 37 to 34 against Highline College. Highline fought back in the second period, but were still edged out with a score of 49 to 44.

Based on the polarizing New Yorker short story of the same name, “Cat Person” is a 2023 thriller starring Emilia Jones and Nicholas Braun, currently streaming on Hulu. Both the original short story, written by Harvard graduate Kristen Roupenian, and the feature film have generated a fair share of conflict online.

The short story, and the movie by association, have been the center of a slew of online conversations. Ranging from criticisms of the unspoken representation of privilege, the supposed demonization of a vulnerable man and the nuances of a bad experience in the bedroom.

“Lighting and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars—and yet they have done it themselves.”

This is a quote from the philosopher Friedrich Nietzshe that is included in the director’s notes for the show “Rope” which is currently playing at Renton Civic Theatre. The show is a thriller by Alfred Hitchcock and Patrick Hamilton, which follows two young men over the course of an evening as they attempt to get away with the “perfect murder”.

Music has always been a strong platform for people to express their emotions and their beliefs about a particular situation or simply about whatever’s on their mind. A lot of thought is put into how a song is made, and as a result, everyone has a different interpretation of its message.

For example, Creep by Radiohead, to some listeners, is about a young man who has low self-esteem and has fallen in love with someone whom he considers way out of his league. For others however, the song is about said young man struggling against his own self-loathing and depression as he feels outshined by a peer.

“First Date, The Musical” opened at Centerstage Theatre recently, and it’s a rollercoaster of a romantic comedy.

Somewhat reminiscent of the 1995 film “Before Sunrise,” the entire show takes place over the course of a single evening, following the two lead characters, Casey and Aaron, as their relationship evolves over the course of a single blind date.

Casey is played by Jessie Sellek, who has been in a variety of other productions at Centerstage, most recently, Fairy Sweetheart in “Sleeping Beauty”. 

The 2024 release, “Immaculate” centers around devout nun Cecilia, portrayed by Sydney Sweeney and her immaculate conception during her time at an Italian convent. Sweeney served as a main producer, script editor, and lead actress in one of the best performances of her career.

Sweeney’s career took off during her time on HBO’s mega-hit “Euphoria” as Cassie Howard, a role that allowed her to consistently show off her skills as a on-cue crier. She continued her partnership with HBO with a role on season one of the streaming exclusive “The White Lotus”.

After finding a mysterious red envelope and being compelled by a group of old women into marrying their dead grandson, police detective Wu Ming-Han has to solve a drug case while simultaneously coming to terms with the ghost husband to whom he is now wedded. Maybe the hardest thing to believe about this movie is that it gradually gets weirder from there.

Wu (played by Greg Han Hsu) starts off the film as an arrogant and homophobic cop, chiefly concerned with his own career’s trajectory, and as he is faced with the unbelievable task of marrying a dead man, lest he continue to receive bad luck.

The comedy trio of Please Don’t Destroy are responsible for most of the viral content coming out of Saturday Night Live’s current seasons. Composed of Ben Marshall, John Higgins and Martin Herlihy all of whom met as students at New York University.

Gaining traction on social media platform TikTok, the group consistently went viral with their surrealist comedy sketches. Particularly during the COVID-19 quarantine period of 2020, the group frequently collaborated on each of their three individual accounts.

The latest iteration of “Mean Girls”, released in January of this year, is a movie adaptation of the 2018 musical, which is an adaptation of the 2004 movie, which is based on the book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman. It’s a simple story, but sometimes, the best ones are.

It follows Cady Heron, who moves from Africa and starts attending public high school for the first time in her life at age 16, throwing her headfirst into a world of cliques and romance and friendships and drama that she’s never dealt with before. Just like any teenager, she doesn’t deal with all of it well, and really, none of the young characters in the story are perfect to each other, either.

“X-Men ‘97” is more than another superhero property; it is a revitalization of the famous 1992 X-Men cartoon that – despite its low production value – enraptured 90’s kids back before the Marvel Comic Universe (MCU) took over the comic landscape. “X-Men ‘97” is everything that a nostalgia property should be.

Though only four episodes have been released so far, the new iteration has created waves online, widely consisting of praise for the series’s animation, faithfulness to the comics, and impressively crafted dialogue.

Popularized in the late 1990s with the release of “The Blair Witch Project”, the found footage technique in horror movies has flourished in the 21st century. With social media and live-streaming media rapidly developing, found footage movies continue to stay relevant and evolve alongside the technology of the time.

While not the first use of the found footage technique, “The Blair Witch Project” is often heralded as the creator of the genre. Premiering in 1999 and claiming to be the discovered footage of three missing college students, “The Blair Witch Project” thrived on the use of a fledgling internet.

The seas and the stars have been sources of human curiosity for millenia, driving humans to develop technology and explore the world. Rocket engineering brought Sputnik 1 to space in the 1950s and sailing revolutionized exploration as far back as 4000 BC.

But the technological development of all technological developments was the combination of fire and tools 3.3 million years ago that gave us the gift of modern day cooking. I underestimated the universality of food and cooking last week but that’s okay because it will be the theme of this week’s One-Shot Manga Roulette!

Video games have existed for decades and have quickly become a source of entertainment for people of all ages across the globe. Unfortunately with popularity, comes an increased rise in commercialization. In the case of video games, this commercialization comes in the form of many things, but microtransactions are the most prevalent.

Microtransactions are small in-game purchases that give the player either cosmetics and/or other content like level up packages or, on rare occasions, loot. They cost actual money, and oftentimes use an in-game currency as a go between. Note that I said small in-game purchases.

A rare total solar eclipse captivated millions across North America on Monday, April 8. The celestial spectacle, which lasted just over two minutes in the path of totality, offered a breathtaking display of nature’s grandeur.

Solar eclipses occur when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun, casting its shadow onto our planet. There are three main types of solar eclipses: total, partial, and annular. Monday’s event was a total solar eclipse, the most dramatic of the three, occurring when the moon completely blocks the sun’s light.

In the modern era, our dependence on technology has transformed the very notion of privacy into a quaint relic of the past. With smartphones as constant companions, our lives are an open book, ready to be dissected and monetized by algorithms and corporations. 

Take for instance, a daily bus commute where you’re surrounded by a sea of screens, each one a window into someone’s digital soul. It’s truly a sight, watching as people surrender their privacy with every tap and swipe, all in the name of connectivity and convenience. Who needs personal space when you have Wi-Fi, right?

Artificial intelligence has been taking over seemingly every corner of the internet and free market. Airlines, search engines, and marketing firms are adopting it, and it seems like every service has a new AI feature to advertise. For the average consumer, is any of this even useful?

AI itself has been mainly behind the scenes for decades, whether it be a computer player in a video game or an algorithm of any kind. Its recent boom in popularity, however, was due to OpenAI’s Chat-GPT releasing in November 2022. Recent advances like these began the AI boom as we know it.

Decades ago, the topic of global warming lacked attention regarding basic research, funding, and societal interest. Today, the issue is increasingly gaining more awareness, as its impacts on our environment are becoming more prominent through sea-level rise, disastrous storms, increased drought, and even loss of species worldwide.

This world renowned debate first took place in the late 1980’s, where the issue was perceived as something that wouldn’t impact us for generations. Well, that day has come, and its effects on us as humans are evident in these strangely warmer temperatures, rapid weather changes, and especially poverty and displacement.

Ah, Rome. The Eternal City, where every cobblestone tells a tale and every ruin whispers of ancient glory. Join me as we embark on a journey through the storied streets and timeless treasures of this legendary metropolis.

Our adventure begins in the mists of antiquity, where myth and history intertwine to tell the tale of Rome’s fabled origins. According to legend, the city was founded by Romulus and Remus, twin brothers who went on to establish a settlement on the banks of the Tiber River in 753 B.C.

Is your home cluttered with old paperwork or outdated electronics? BECU Tukwila Financial Center is holding their bi-annual shred-it event this Saturday, April 20, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and this could be the week that you clear out all of your clutter!

The event (held at 12770 Gateway Drive in Tukwila) has been a hit the past few years with those who want to get rid of old tax paperwork, and their partnership with the Tukwila Food Bank and Northwest Center makes this effort a win-win.

Ah, dentistry, the art of making sure your pearly whites stay white… or at least not terrifyingly yellow. Believe it or not, folks, we’ve been obsessed with our chompers since the dawn of time. Picture it: 7000 B.C. You’ve got cavemen roaming around, grunting at each other, and what’s on their mind? Fixing that nagging toothache, of course!

So, our journey through the annals of dentistry begins in the ancient Indus Valley Civilization, where even back then, they were saying, “Hey, my tooth hurts! Let’s jam a rock in there and see if that helps.” Spoiler alert: it didn’t. But hey, you gotta give them props for trying, right?

In 1970, the Iranian government wasn’t planning just any old party. No, they were gearing up for an epic bash to celebrate the remarkable 2,500-year history of the Persian Empire. They weren’t settling for mediocrity; they wanted a celebration that would make history itself raise an eyebrow.

It took them a whole year to plan a three-day extravaganza, spanning from Oct. 12 to 14, 1971. For this epic event, they did something that even Hercules would have second thoughts about – crafting a 70-meter-long (that’s a whopping 230 feet) table and a matching tablecloth big enough that it could double as a landing strip for small planes. But here’s the kicker: it took 150 women over half a year to sew that gigantic tablecloth. That’s dedication!

We are living in this crazy world where unfortunately everything’s digital, right? Well it turns out, like, 90% of all the data floating around out there was just born in the past couple of years. Yeah, you heard that right – two years! It’s like we’re all suddenly drowning in a tsunami of data, and nobody handed out life jackets.

So, you know how you’re scrolling through Instagram, liking pics of puppies and drooling over food porn? Well, congrats, my friend, you’re adding to that ginormous pile of data. And it’s not just us regular folks.

Many anime fans can find it awkward talking about the genre due to some of its more toxic fans. Places like the main anime subreddit, r/Anime, often shows droves of users ranting about censorship of sexual content at every turn, even if it’s merely reducing the visibility of a female character’s undergarments.

Often it’s difficult for a more relaxed or “casual” fan to speak about it with others because of the large amount of overtly inappropriate content that somehow permeates almost every anime out there.

Disclaimer: Please consider where you are mentally and emotionally right now. The following article addresses and elaborates on the subject of abortion, sexual assault, and death.

Our campus received a visit from a group of men this past week. They brought with them enlarged photos of fetuses in an attempt to spread their belief that abortion is wrong, and nobody should have access to safe reproductive healthcare.  

It is clear to me that they did not come to fight for a woman’s right to choose to see her pregnancy to term. Women already have that right, and nobody has tried to take it away. Instead, they came here to prevent women from ever having that choice.

Dakota Johnson stars as the subtly-named Cassandra Webb in Sony’s newest attempt at money laundering: “Madame Web”. Boasting a 3.8 out of 10 stars on IMDb, a 13% critic rating, and 55% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, “Madame Web” is, in my opinion, actually not a bad movie – but perhaps the greatest Pepsi commercial ever made.

While product placement is a common aspect in film, especially modern film, “Madame Web” seems to hint at Spiderman characters as side plots to a larger, expanded “Pepsi Cinematic Universe” (PCU), which I personally find inspiring.

Even the climax of “Madame Web” is atop a giant Pepsi sign, wherein one of the letters falls off and crushes the villain, almost suggesting that the hero all along was Pepsi Cola, with some assistance from strong independent women. 

Taylor Swift is the talk of the town these days. Which town? Well, all of them really. The music icon continues to dazzle and delight while on the top of the world. Although she’s seen almost two decades of success and a plethora of awards, she may have just concluded one of the best weeks imaginable. 

Between the previous Sunday (the Grammys) and last Sunday (the Superbowl), the “Fearless” singer won a record-breaking fourth Album of the Year Grammy, announced the release of her 11th album, completed an international leg of her iconic Eras Tour to a sold-out crowd in Japan, oh, and she made it back to Las Vegas in time to watch her famous, arguably the best-there’s-ever-been tight-end boyfriend win the Super Bowl. It doesn’t get much better than that.

The long-fought war between dog and cat lovers is still ongoing. Dog people claim dogs as “man’s best friend”, while cat lovers claim loving cats requires a certain appreciation for individual autonomy. While these paradigms are a couple ways to look at the issue, there is also the extroverted dog versus introverted cat debate. Regardless, all animal lovers can agree that animals improve our lives.

According to Forbes, 66% of households own pets, and of those 66%, 46.5 million households have cats. While dogs beat them out for the majority, 46.5 million is no small number.