(In “The Night Before Christmas” fashion): “‘Twas a day in October, I was browsing through stores, walking quickly and furiously,

gliding on floors. Then along came a terrible sight, there stood a Christmas tree, too proud and too bright. ‘Why? Oh, why?’ I cried and there I stood, dead inside.”

To my dismay while standing in front of the tree that day, I realized how materialistic Christmas has become and how less important holidays like Halloween and Thanksgiving have become in comparison. Don’t get me wrong, Christmas is important to me, but so are Halloween and Thanksgiving. It brings to mind an important

Think about some of the most important habits your parents or respected elders have taught you in your life: how to make friends,

how to tie your shoes, how to make your bed, etc. These are things we do every day, so what happened to the valuable lessons your parents taught you about manners and courtesy to others? I am stunned to see people “forgetting” all of this important advice as soon as they step foot in the lunchroom.

I do not even understand how high school students can eat their lunch and then leave everything sitting there on the table. Would your parents let that happen at home? Janet Noonan would probably never let me eat at the table again! Is it really that difficult to just pick up your tray and throw the left-over

November 15, 2012 Opinion 5

Show some more respect in the lunchroom

Stop blaming teachers for lack of learning

food in the garbage 10 feet away? I bet you could even do it one-handed! If you are going to eat at the tables the school provides for you, pick up after yourself. You probably know what it’s like to arrive at your usual lunch table and see a disgusting

mess left by the lazy people in the lunch before you. It’s unacceptable and something that should not have to be asked of high school students!

Another part of courtesy in the lunch room is all-around respect for those around you, especially all

of the nice lunch helpers. These people make you a meal every day, a.k.a. they are your provider for the afternoon! It is their job to give you a healthy and delicious meal. They spend all morning preparing it for over 750 students-that sounds like a pretty difficult job to me. Saying “please” and “thank you” is a lesson taught to preschoolers and it disgusts me how easily people seem to disregard manners for the people that serve them daily.

Next time you are thinking about leaving your tray, don’t! Remember to use kind words with the workers in the lunchroom. I think we can all imagine how difficult it must be to have to deal with all of the hungry students in a high school every day, so try to make their day better by smiling and just cleaning up after yourself! They are the sweetest people in the school, so give them some love!

T h ro u gh o u t my years of going to school and life in general, I have heard many people blaming others for their m i s f o r t u n e s

and failures. I have heard people complain about teachers, mostly, and their arguments don’t seem to have much weight behind them. I hear things like: “he doesn’t teach,” “she is boring,” “they don’t know what they are talking about.” These are all complaints that people might say if they aren’t doing well in a class or are frustrated with the amount of homework they are getting.

The teachers at our school are

excellent because they care. They want you to do well and they do their best to get the information to you. Many of them give us opportunities to come in and get help before or after school. If you take advantage of all the things that our teachers do for us, you shouldn’t have any issues with grades or understanding the lessons. Teachers are rarely the issue when it comes to your grades; it is normally the student’s effort level.

This problem is reflected in our world in many other ways. People blame others for the bad things going on in their lives so they don’t have to take responsibility for their mistakes: “I have bad health because my family has a history of obesity.” “My career hasn’t gone well because

my manager doesn’t like me.” “My parents didn’t take me to Mass, so I don’t go anymore.” People blame others because they are not mature or responsible enough to own up to their mistakes. In order to be able to stray away from blaming others, we need to be more mature. I blame circumstances and other people too; and I’m working on it. It’s part of maturing and growing to become a better person.

So what can we do to own up to our decisions and not blame people and circumstances for what goes wrong in our lives? First, tell yourself, “I screwed up and I’m responsible,” whenever you make a mistake. Second, say you’re sorry if you wrong somebody. Lastly, change

what you are doing and try not to make the same mistakes so you can improve as a person. Like John Burroughs said, “A man can get discouraged many times but he is not a failure until he begins to blame somebody else and stops trying.”

There are other holidays, tooquestion: Why are we so eager to rush into a holiday that some only use as an excuse to ask for expensive things and skip other important holidays?

Halloween, commercial as it is, is a time for us to let out our creative side and to let our inner child run rampant on a sugar rush of candy and adrenaline. It’s not every day that we get to dress up in something ridiculous, especially at Xavier, and have a party or get candy for free. And in all honesty, it’s for the kids. What is cuter than seeing a 3 year-old dressed as a ladybug asking you for some candy? Nothing.

True, the History Channel tells us the day of Thanksgiving was filled with fighting and bloodshed. But the modern idea of Thanksgiving is to give thanks for everything you have and spend a day with your family, and that should be celebrated. We can

use this day to give thanks to God for all we have. Gluttony, at least in this case, is something to embrace. The turkey, or Tofurkey, is the obvious choice to indulge yourself with. And it’s called stuffing for a reason, STUFF YOUR FACE WITH IT!

Yes, Christmas is an important holiday, especially to our faith, but if all we use it for is materialism and selfishness, we lose the real meaning of it. Christmas is a time of both giving gifts and to spend with our families. Stores are not going to take down the decorations, but in our minds we can embrace the childishness of Halloween and the sentimentalism of Thanksgiving and hold off from setting up for Christmas too early. Happy November to all, and to all a good-night!

“My host family has over 70 pets...not including fish.”

“They like yelling,

‘Merica.’”

“We don’t eat dogs in China.”

“I got asked if we have sky in Macedonia.”

Hall Talk

The lunch staff prepares for the rush of students arriving for A lunch. Chloe Streif photo

Morgan NoonanOpinion Writer

International Edition

Ben ValentineOpinion Writer

Brennan GraeveOpinion Writer

“Chocolate and waffles.”

(Quotes from International Round Table)