Swine Flu

These past two weeks people have heard about the new infection that may soon be all over the US: Swine Flu. Swine flu is a type A influenza type bacteria. There are vaccinations for the swine flu, just like how there is for influenza. The swine flu is said to have been caused by orthomyxovirus which is said to have been the same virus that caused the 1918 influenza pandemic. Some say that is had been spread from pigs. You may think that if it was transmitted from pigs, what about meat? Meat is still safe to eat, you just need to take extra precaution around the food supplier, the pig that is.

Just in the US, there have been 93 confirmed cases of the swine flu. These are the only states so far that have the virus and how many cases they have, Arizona 1, California 14, Indiana 1, Kansas 2, Massachusetts 2, Michigan 2, Nevada 1, New York City 51, Ohio 1, South Dakota 2, Texas 16, Texas had also lost one person to this virus.

You need to wash your hands everyday and keep your health good, get checked if you don’t feel good, and try to stay clean. If you feel sick you need to stay home and especially if you catch this virus you really need to stay home to reduce the chance of passing it on. You would need to cover your mouth and nose, avoid touching your eyes and mouth, and just practice other good health tricks. You can’t really hide from the swine flu, but if you want to make sure you are not going to get it, you can buy a face mask. Although this does not guarantee anything, you do have a high chance of catching this flu, because it is passed through the air. So make sure if you don’t feel good or even if you want to make sure, get checked, and be clean.

Take Your Child to Work Day

Take Your Child to Work Day is held on Friday. Take Your Child to Work Day involves 7th graders. This program is a National Organization and this is Deuel School’s 14th year with the program. The purpose of Take Your Child to Work Day is to provide the 7th grade students with valuable career information. When growing up, you learn about your parent’s job and getting to go with a parent to work provides a close look at what their job entails. It also helps develop an appreciation and understanding of the parent, by the student to what is necessary in order to achieve at that particular job.
When Lexi Seeley was asked how many parents actually take their child to work, she said, “95% of the students will go with a parent. Some jobs because of liability, client or patient confidentiality a student may not be able to go with that parent. If that is a case we have those students be "adopted" by someone else and have an alternative place for them to visit.”
The kids should get out of this program the knowledge about their parent’s jobs, exploration into the world or work, and an experience that will create and interest and open the students mind to what they might be interested in.

The Weather Changes Again

The weather around Clear Lake has been very nice for the last couple of days. The temperatures have been pretty average for April anyways. On Monday, April 13, 2009, the high reached 60 degrees and on Tuesday the high was supposed to reach 65 degrees. On Wednesday, April 15, 2009, the high reached 53 degrees. There were a few scattered showers on Wednesday night. On Thursday, the high temperature is supposed to be 60 degrees and 30% chance of rain showers. That's the weather report from the week of April 13- 16, 2009.

Of Mice and Men

“Of Mice and Men” is a book that I am reading in American Literature class. This book is an about two guys Lennie and George that have to move from their hometown to a ranch where they work in the field all day. Their living conditions on the ranch aren’t very good. They share a bunk house with Slim, Candy, and Carlson. Their bunk is pretty full for just being on a ranch. Lennie isn’t very smart, he acts like a little kid, but he is really big guy. George is smarter than Lennie and is smaller than him. Lennie and George have a dream where they will save up enough money to buy a farm house. They also wish to raise rabbits on their farm, and Lennie wants to be responsible to take care of them and feed them. Lennie likes to pet soft thing like objects and animals. But their dreams get ruined when Lennie kills Curley’s wife. Which Curley is the boss’s son. Lennie was in the barn and she made him mad and he started shaking her and he broke her neck. After George walked into the barn and sees Curley’s wife dead he goes and looks for Lennie at the place where he tells him to go if he ever got in trouble. So when George finds Lennie at the place that he told him to go he talks to him and tells him to look at the river bank where George pulls out a gun shots Lennie in the back of the head. After that Curley, slim and Carlson get their and told him what happened. Once slim got done talking to Lennie the story ended and his dream was crushed. My opinion of this book is that it’s a good book. John Steinbeck is a very good author and thats one of the reasons why i liked this book. It has lots of ups and down that George has to go through just for a friend. George also lost a lot of opportunities that he could have had in having a better life with someone else or with finding a better job. That is what George went through for a friend. So that is my opinion.

The Guardian

The US Coast Guard version of "Top Gun" with a little "An Officer and A Gentleman" thrown in: an aging USCG rescue swimmer's team is killed in a horrific rescue mission. Immediately prior to this terrible event, his wife also announced that she cannot take anymore. His first love is always the rescue mission. This leaves him an obviously emotional wreck. His commander gives him a choice - quit or take a position as an instructor at the USCG training facility in Louisiana. Reluctantly he takes the position. Moving into the school, he immediately increases the 18 week curriculum that routinely fails half of the people that attend. Here he meets a young man with unlimited potential, but with some secret that seems to hold him back as a team player. Delving into his past, links are found that make him a psychic twin to the older man. Thrown into the midst of the story is a romance with a local girl. Rescue missions punctuate the beginning and end of the story with the training sessions the center of the film.
I like this movie because you can learn so much about what the people of the Coast guards go through and what type of things they encounter each and everyday. You get to know about their routine and what they can and cant do. I like this movie and I really do advise people to go see this movie.

Weather

As everyone should know we had a snow storm on Tuesday. We were supposed to get anywhere from 4-7 inches, in the Sioux Falls areas. Other areas got 6-12 inches of snow. From what we know, before Tuesday’s storm, we were going to school until the 28th of May. But now that we have added another snow day we don’t know how long this school year will extend.
We had asked some people that come to the Deuel School District some questions about what they think of the weather. Some questions we asked were: What kind of weather they like, What do they think about more school, and How the weather effects them. From what we know mostly everyone wants summer to come, and they all don’t like to drive or have to do chores in this kind of weather. Most just want the school year to end. But people are being effected by the fact that we have so much time to make up for our missing days of school.

Weather update around Clear Lake

On Sunday and Monday it was raining pretty hard. We had gotten up to 4 inches of rain. The ditches are full and culverts have flooded over. But are thankful that we haven’t gotten as much rain as Aberdeen. Aberdeen hasn’t had this bad of a flood in over 10 years. This is the worst by far! Moccasin Creek is supposed to be overflowing sometime on Thursday which will threaten homes and businesses. Elm River which is north of Aberdeen has reached record levels of 23 feet from Wednesday morning. Today the water is slowly going down, people are still not in their homes and there is still water sitting in the roads.

Photos by: Tasha Gniffke

Roads and Ditches of Clear Lake.

Usher vs. Vurt

I think the Usher Cologne made by the singer, and the Vurt Cologne made by skateboarders smell very good. Ushers cologne was released in September 6, 2007. The Vurt cologne was released December 20, 2007. Usher cologne costs $ 64.00 for his 3.4 oz spray. Vurt costs about $19.50 for their 1.7 oz spray. Vurt’s spray looks like a skateboard wheel. Ushers spray comes in a black spray bottle. You can also get the 3 piece gift set when you buy usher, it includes Aftershave, deodorant, and the spray. I personally like the smell of both colognes but for the price of what usher costs I would go with Vurt, because they both smell good, and Vurt isn’t to expensive. Vurt also come in three different fragrances. You can only get Vurt purchase Vurt at Pac sun or online. Usher you buy that at wall mart or online. So if your looking for something that smells good and isn’t very expansive go with Vurt.

High School Student of the Month.

One of this months Student of the Month is sophomore Caitlyn Brandt. She wasn't trying to become Student of the Month she just was chosen to be one of the lucky people. She doesn't know the process of how teachers pick the Student of the Month, but she does know that you have to be a good student, and you have to be good at what you do. This isn't Caitlyn's first time being Student of the Month, she was last year too. Some advice that Caitlyn wants the kids that will be a freshman next year is to "Always do the best you can, it gets you far in life."

Play tryouts

As everyone knows, each year Samantha Walder or as the students know her Mrs. Walder, is having tryouts for the play tonight. If you were not able to make it to the meeting on Mon. night the tryouts are for sure tonight. They are tonight after school in her class room. So if anyone wants to be in this years play, now you know when the tryouts are.

Miss Outstanding Teen

The South Dakota Miss America Outstanding Teen Pageant is coming soon. This pageant will be held June 18th through the 20th; it is going to be held in Hot springs SD. To get in contestants need to fill an application out and would have to be anywhere from the ages, 13-17. Contestants have to raise up to $400.00 so that if the contestant is selected as a finalist you will need a sponsor or sponsors of $400.00. For the Judging Criteria they are looking for five things, what your talent is and how well you are at it,(this is 35% of your score), then how well you do during your private interview this is 30% of your score. More of what you would have to do is your evening wear and on stage questions, this is now together, and its 20% of your score, lifestyle and fitness in sportswear, 10% of your score, and then the judges look at your grades from your 7th and 8th grade and that counts for 5% of your total score, they need more people to sign up so be sure to sign up soon!

Update on Spark

Spark has been working just fine. Everyone been using spark to communicate with other classmates. We used spark today in our American History class to do a discussion on some videos we watched. Spark was easy and quick to use to answer questions and give our opionons on the war videos. The instant messenger chat has been used by everybody and is working just fine. Its really nice to use spark to get a hold of someone that is possibly busy in a classroom with a student or just haveing a class period. I asked a few students and they said they like spark, because they use it to communicate with their buddies. So that s the update on spark.

Boy's Baaketball Ice Cream Serving

Tonight at the game in the Middle School concession stand, they will be selling SDSU ice cream at half time and in between games. The team is doing this to raise money for summer camps. Whoever is at the game come buy some it is $2. 50. SDSU is sponsoring it for the Boy's Basketball team.

Super Bowl

This past Sunday the Super Bowl was show cased. It was the most watched T.V. in history. Cardinals ended up losing and Steelers made it into the history books for being the only team that has won SIX Super Bowls. But during the game there were a cupple of interresting calls made by the referees. They wern't very fair and wernt very right. Some of the calls were so off that it really looked as if the Steelers paid the ref.s to call everything even if its noticable. But once the last quarter was on then the gloves came off. Both teams were trying very hard to win and at 4 minutes the Cardinals made a touch down, they were in head of the Steelers. Then when there was about 30 seconds left the Steelers made the touch down of a life time!! Everyone was either dissopointed or to excited. There was nothing that anyone could do, the Steelers had won. But both teams had a great season!

Super Bowl

This year the Super Bowl is going to be awesome, both teams have been very anxious to be in the Super Bowl. Both Cardinals and the Steelers have been practicing very hard, both teams have been to the Super Bowl before. And this year both are very excited to be in the 2009 Super Bowl. It will be held in Tampa Bay, Florida at the Raymond James Stadium. This will be this Sunday February 1st. Kick off will be starting about 6:30 pm. The stadium can hold up to 72,500 people. If you would like to see the game on T.V. then goes to NBC. If you would like to listen to the game on the radio go to the West wood One/envision. Make sure that you cheer for the Cardinals!!!

superbowl

For this years superbowl the Cardinals and the Steelers will be going head to head, against eachother. This will be a very interesting game against two teams that have done so very well for this season. Personally thinking, the Cardinals will be winning, but thats just what I would think. The Steelers are very good on defence but offence they need help in. Cardinals are really pretty good in both sections, they know how to go and get what they came for. They have done an awsom job for this season.

What to do in a Fender Bender

If you have been driving for many years or just started you will need to know how to deal with a fender bender. No matter how good of a driver you are, you well probably get into a fender bender.
If you get into a fender bender it would be a good idea to have a notepad, a few pencils (because pencils will write in any kind of weather) and a disposable camera in the glove box. It would be good if you had a flashlight, and a first-aid kit.
Here’s what you do, before you do anything call 911, and call your insurance company's claims line as soon as possible. Make note of all the car involved, roadways, direction of travel, skid marks, and anything else to help your case. Write a description of what happened. Note any factors like wet roads, or blocked signs that couldn't be seen. Write down the driver's license numbers and vehicle owner's registration. Find out the insurance company name, passenger's names, the work and home telephone number, and the address of the driver. Write down the date, time and sign your notes then photograph the scene
Here’s what not to do, do not admit it was your fault to anyone ( even if it was), and do not blame others, even if it's obvious whose fault it is. Save your comments for the police, but do not admit fault to them either. Do not raise your voice or argue with other drivers, and don't discuss what happened with bystanders.
This might be a long list of things to remember but it could help you in many ways. If you follow these tips you could save yourself and others around you. You could save yourself (or your parents) and also your insurance company a lot of time, grief and added expenses.