Early this year, Mrs. Brumbach, Mr. Coonan, and a rag tag group of students scrambled to get a poster up for the club fair, hoping to revive an old McCaskey magazine to its full potential. With nothing more than an idea of what they wanted, they tackled the task of creating a literary and art magazine from scratch. In a few days, Fig Industries and … Continue reading Burning Glass: A Word from the Editor
Recently it has become popular for people to gaslight their friends, assuming everyone is in on the joke. The term “gaslight, gate keep, girlboss” was coined as a way to empower and joke about one’s trauma. What began as an internet joke has spiraled into a dangerous game for those susceptible to gaslighting. Like many other trends on the internet, this term supposedly began on … Continue reading Gaslighting: More of a Punch Than a Punchline
The idea to interview Rose Carlson came from a joke. “What if I interviewed my editor in chief? Could you believe it?” But the stranger the idea the more intrigued I became; I began to think that getting to know her might be a worthy endeavor for the both of us. One ten minute interview over and I had a new found respect for Carlson, … Continue reading All Hail the Chief! (An Interview with Rose Carlson)
Educators and their students struggle with burnout now more than ever as the systemic problems with our education system have been exposed during the pandemic. The days drag with the sense of forced productivity and kids are in desperate need of compassion and understanding. Teachers face student after student whose faces reflect the pain of learning in unprecedented times of war, COVID, and nationwide school … Continue reading Standardized Teachers
Lunar New Year, or Chinese New Year. Or that one holiday you don’t know anything about but support awkwardly anyway. Lunar New Year is supposed to be a season of celebration but for me it’s just a culmination of all of the aspects of my culture that I can’t appreciate. That culture, the Vietnamese community who travelled by sky and sea to get to a … Continue reading The Isolated Immigrant: A Narrative
People these days seem to be making light of real life struggles, and I can understand that to a degree, humor can be a reliable coping mechanism for some. But when you use medical terms like bipolar, depressed, or OCD to describe your mood change, it no longer applies to just you, you’re now making light of and invalidating a group of people that suffer … Continue reading Triggered
Content Warnings: graphic descriptions of war, violence, and illness Imagine being born as a symbol of death. Blood fills your nose, your mother hates your hungry mouth, and your foreign father lays dead in a smoldering plane. Being born into war was something my parents had to shoulder for their whole lives, and yet, when discussing the Vietnam War, we Americans tend to push it … Continue reading The Vietnamese Perspective on the Vietnam War
Cassidy Reddig is a 25 year old from Ephrata with a passion for pushing herself in all fields. This past year, she joined the teaching staff of McCaskey High School as an honors and IB history teacher. In high school, Reddig took every higher level class available to her, participating in swimming and soccer, but her main focus has always been teaching. “I wanted to … Continue reading Cassidy Reddig: Ephrata Athlete to McCaskey Teacher
T.W. : Mental health crisis, gender identity, mentions of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse As a person who does not identify with the binary and typically despises any type of label, gender identity is a difficult concept for me. My first gender crisis was in January of this year when a kid at the psych ward asked for my pronouns. My mind drew a blank. … Continue reading The Problem with Pronouns
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