Online@ www.nw-tigers.org/the-octagon
Volume 69, Issue 18 February 9, 2018
The WIAA Divi-sion 2 regional wrestling tourna-ment will be held at Northwestern High School this Satur-day at 10 a.m. “It’s going to be very exciting this Saturday. There are a lot of teams from conference that are going to be there at this meet and the top two wrestlers in each weight class move onto section-als. It has been very in-tense in the wrestling room for the last two weeks to prepare for this meet,” said manager Ra-chel Kirkpatrick.
Last Saturday, the wrestling team won the Heart O’ The North
Conference Tournament championship for the first time in 38 years. Ten of the twelve wres-tlers placed in the top four. Three Tigers, Don-nie Pooler (170 lbs), Morgan Berggren (285 lbs), and Calen Kirkpat-rick (138 lbs) won indi-vidual championships. Braden Trautt (113
lbs), Tjay Zebarth (120 lbs), Zach Pooler (145 lbs) and Andrew Hanson (182 lbs) all had third place finishes.
Congratulations to all the wrestlers who com-peted last Saturday and good luck to all the wrestlers competing this Saturday.
By Ryleigh Hill Friday:
Musical Perfor-mance for Ele-mentary
5:45 & 7:15 PM: Boys Bas-ketball vs Bloomer @ Bloomer
Saturday:
10:00 AM: Boys Wrestling Varsity Region-als @ NHS
11:00 AM: Girls Hockey Varsity Game vs Som-erset @ NHS
1:00 & 2:30 PM: Girls Bas-ketball Game vs
Grantsburg@ Grantsburg
7:30 PM: Musi-cal
Sunday:
2:00 PM: Musi-cal
Tuesday:
Boys Wrestling Sectionals vs Hayward @ Hayward
Wednesday:
NMWA Mens
Clinic
Thursday:
5:45 & 7:15 PM: Boys Bas-ketball vs Cumberland @ NHS
Pg. 2 ACT Tips
Pg. 3 Influenza
Pg. 6 Blast From Past
As we all know Talia Martens has been busy racing her dogs and sled this last year and the start of this year. Talia has been in Alaska for a few weeks now, and I got the chance to mes-sage her to get an update on how she is doing. Here is what recently shared with me.
Talia ran her first race this past week, so she is now considered an Alas-kan musher. She com-pleted the Tustumena 100 through the Kenai Mountains from Fred-die's Roadhouse to Homer and back again.
The race was 87 miles out. She ran 43.5 miles, then had a four hour layover to eat and pre-pare herself and her dogs for the next 43.5 miles. She finished in nine hours
and 25
minutes. She was racing against eight
adults and she ended in fifth place!
She told me that the trail was amazing: “I got
on top of a small moun-tain and I could see eve-By Crystal Taylor
It’s the beginning of February and we all know what that means: ACT testing is coming up! For the benefit of this year’s juniors taking the test at the end of this month, I’ve re-searched a few ways to help organ-ize and study using strategies in order to prepare you to suc-ceed.
Remember, the ACT is important if you plan on applying to college in the future, but don’t
stress excessively about it. There will always be another opportunity to take the test if you aren’t happy with your original scores. When I took the ACT for my first time, I was actually trying out a new migraine medication that morning and about 45 minutes into the first test, I fell asleep.
Needless to say that I was not impressed with my scores, but after tak-ing the exam for the sec-ond time, I felt much more comfortable. What I’m trying to get across here is that taking this exam is not a
once-in-a-lifetime deal, so don’t treat it that way.
A little advice from someone who took the ACT multiple times: watch the time and bring a watch (even if it seems dorky). Time manage-ment is key because there is no way you can thoroughly read each question and answer each precisely.
As much as you’d like to think you can take your time and go over each answer two or three times, you can’t. Go online and go through a few timed practice cours-es to help you get a feel for how long you
actual-ly have. Trust me, it will make a difference on testing day.
Managing your time realistically can increase your atten-tion span drastically. What I mean is, in-stead of setting two 90 -minute studying ses-sions in one week, set a realistic goal of 25 or 30 minutes to go over material a few times throughout the week, or make a plan to do it that day if you
Editor: Ashley Olson
Staff Members: Sydney Larsen
Crystal Taylor Journey Amundson
Maddy Gross Ryan Ross Janaia Fudally Jocelyn Luostari
Ryleigh Hill
Advisor: Mrs. Thompson
02/10
Jacob Amacher Patricia Hanson Isaiah Larson
02/12
Alayna Moss Gavin Nielsen
02/13
Claire Jarman
02/14
Anika McWilliams
Happy
Birthday!
By Janaia Fudallyrything. I saw the sunset behind the mountains and it was so beautiful. At the checkpoint the teams were parked like cars and I fed, laid straw down, checked for in-jured, and went inside a elementary school where there tarps with food and water. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be it was just such an amaz-ing experience.”
Talia said that this ex-perience has helped her know what to expect for
the next two races and prepare herself and her dogs for the next month. The hardest part of doing the Alaskan races so far has been going up and down the hills. She said, “The hills aren’t small Wisconsin hills, they are steep and long hills.” She says the easi-est part is “getting to the checkpoint and knowing that you get to sit down, eat, and take a break.” I asked Talia if she was homesick or missed school and she said, “I’m a little homesick, but I
honestly love it up here. I do miss my friends and school a little bit. I could see myself living here in Alaska and doing what I love.”
Now that Talia is done with this first race, she is going to be preparing herself for the next two races by doing some more training and doing runs with professionals who can help her fine-tune her techniques to be better prepared for her two upcoming races. She will be racing in the Willow Jr. 100 mile
race on February 9-10, and then the 150 mile Iditarod race on February 24.
Keep Talia in your thoughts as these races are not easy -- especially at her young age. Talia has been doing an amaz-ing job! If you would like to keep up with Talia there are many articles on the internet and her family also has been posting on Facebook on how things are going.
‘
Talia’ from pg. 1This flu season is bru-tal, already taking the lives of 37 children in the United States, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. There were over 11,000 flu-related hospitaliza-tion reports from October 1 to January 20.
The number of people infected with influenza, like me, is thought to be much higher but not eve-ryone goes to the doctor when they are sick. To add to those scary statistics, the World Health Organization esti-mates that annual flu epi-demics will result be-tween three and five mil-lion severe cases global-ly, and 290,000 to 650,000 deaths.
Now aches and fevers may feel awful, but most of us do not die from it, so what is causing people
to die due to the flu? A flu death tends to be caused by inflammation in the chest when some-one has influenza, which can lead to pneumonia. Pneumonia is an infec-tion that causes small air sacs in the lungs to fill up with fluid or pus. In order to determine
if you have the flu, here are some symptoms to look out for.
The flu is just like a normal cold, so runny/ stuffy nose, and a cough or sore throat, but the flu could entail nausea and vomiting, along with headache and muscle aches. Usually the flu
only lasts around five days in you have a con-sistent medication sched-ule to help your body fight off the virus, along with lots of rest and flu-ids such as water, broth, and sports drinks.
You may have noticed
See “Flu” on pg. 4
Even if you're not in band or any of Mr. Hintz-man’s classes, you proba-bly saw his student teacher playing basketball for the teachers’ team in the stu-dents vs. faculty basketball game during Snow Week. Mr. Cory Netland is the band student teacher, here from UMD. He chose to go to UMD because he had gone to music camp there while he was in mid-dle and high school. Mr. Netland went to Falls High School, which is located in International Falls, Minnesota. When asked if there were any dif-ferences that he has noticed between his high school and Northwestern he said
that the class sizes are around the same but the facilities are nic-er.
Mr. Netland was a very in-volved student in high school, in-cluding activities band, choir, stu-dent council, and as student repre-sentative for the school board, he also said that he was the class clown. In band,
he played the trumpet and has continued doing so for 12 years.
He said that he wanted to become a band director because “music is very
im-portant in my life. It’s a place to be comfortable and have fun and to meet new people.”
When asked if he had a Super Bowl prediction, he
said that he was not making a comment about what team he was going for, but he said he was excited for the commercials and the food.
As the musical perfor-mance of Oklahoma!
draws closer every day, it becomes evident that the more crunched for time the crew and actors are, the more panicky and rushed we get and the wilder things be-come.
Being in musical is an adventure, even when it’s not official musical practice. Take Wednes-day for example: I was walking back from my art class when suddenly I hear my name being called. I look around, wondering who called my name: it was Mrs. Luostari.
As I walk over to her, Mrs. L goes into detail about a prop that we need to retrieve from the loading dock, and then explains all the painting
that needs to be done. Because of all the things that need to be done, I got roped into complet-ing a few tasks for musi-cal and ended up not go-ing to my 3A class. Making us panic a bit is the to-do list of what remains to be done. Big projects still needing completion: Skidmore’s house still needs painting and detailed, and Aunt Eller’s house as well. Set crew is responsible for painting the set, cleaning up props, creat-ing and findcreat-ing props, assign people to be in charge of making sure a prop is where it needs to be at all times.
Actors still need to finish fine-tuning their lines, cues, and blocking on stage.
Somehow, we always manage to pull it all
to-gether by the day of the production. Maybe all the worrying and panick-ing enables us to accom-plish it.
Come see the musical
next Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon. For tickets, see Mrs. Kyle or Mrs. Peterson in the high school office.
Each year the students chosen for Snow Court have the esteemed posi-tion of judging the talent show. The eight mem-bers of the court watch each act with eyes that scan for entertainment and showmanship.
Judging begins when the Court is given a line-up of performers and
their acts. No other direc-tion/support is provided the judges. They are left to reflect on each coura-geous individual per-forming on their own. When the talent show finishes, each judge has his/her own view as to who should be awarded first, second and third. However, prior to making winners official, the eight deliberate one
last time with their fel-low judges. They share ideas, thoughts, and opinions without the pressure of agreeing on a single act.
Each judge writes his/ her final preference for the champion of the tal-ent competition on a slip of paper in descending order through third, and the office staff tallies the votes. Each vote for first
place is awarded three points, second, two; and third, one. After being counted, the performer with the most points wins!
Congratulations again to Brody Burke, Ella Brill, and Zach Grohn on your spectacular perfor-mances, and thank you to all participants for a suc-cessful and entertaining show!
Ariel Rutten, Jaydon Goette, James Kovaleski By Maddy Gross
the past two weeks near-ly everyone has been catching some sort of bug, and in order to not get everyone else, sick
please cover your cough/ sneeze because the virus-filled droplets float around in the air, and eventually someone breathes them in, con-suming the virus.
Or you could rock the
fashionable hospital face mask like I did for nearly a week, which worked as a great barrier to block the germs from spreading to my family members. If you begin to feel sick, don’t be afraid to
take action and run to your local drug store and stock up on cough drops and the liquid medicines, because the flu is nothing to be sneezed at.
As it turns out people have been wanting to nibble on Tide Pods laundry de-tergent for years, mainly because they look like Gushers. It was only a matter of time before the internet caught on and created the “Tide Pod Chal-lenge.”
This challenge first took off in December of 2017, when a Twitter user by the name of @nightfilm who has over four thousand followers tweeted the snack company Gushers as a joke suggesting they make a snack that looks like Tide Pods. The tweet went viral, and countless “meme-makers” began creating memes about the attraction toward Tide Pods, referring to them as the “forbidden fruit.” Tide Pods are com-posed of synthetic chem-icals and surfactants, which is the nitty gritty substance in the
deter-gent that latches on to grease and stains for a better clean. Surfactants
are also the component in detergent that helps break down and dissolve the detergent into the wa-ter, and since our mouths and digestive system are full of water and fat, when Tide Pods are con-sumed it is said that these Gusher like detergents will burn your body from the inside out because of the chemical reaction if ingested.
Some found the pull towards this trend so tempting that they
vide-otaped themselves eating this suddenly desirable snack. There was nearly
39 cases reported to poi-son control of exposure to Tide Pods since this trend took off in Decem-ber, all who had con-sumed the detergent were between the ages of 13-19.
Throughout the last couple months Tide would repeatedly remind customers that the pods are not to be ingested and that the pods are strictly for laundry only. Retail-ers like Walmart and Walgreens began taking
action nearly three weeks ago when they began locking the Tide Pods in glass cases. Re-tailers say they do not want their names apart of this dangerous trend, and it is a way to stop teens who have began shoplifting Tide Pods.
Tide has reached out to almost all the families whose children were harmed by Tide Pods via Twitter apologizing for the non inten-tional hazardous trend. But on Friday Jan-uary 12th, Tide tweeted, “we regret to inform you, we will be removing Tide Pods from shelves as of February 1st. It’s been a good run, but we can’t risk lives over hav-ing clean clothes.”
If you or anyone you know consumes Tide Pods please call Poison Control (800) 222-1222. have some extra free
time.
It’s easy to postpone a study agenda if you know it’ll utilize a large amount of time and you have other assignments to work on instead. By limiting the amount of time you study each day, you are more likely to stay focused and have a wider attention span.
It can be difficult to find an hour and a half to study anyways, especial-ly if you are busy, let alone sit still for that long.
Setting up an incentive for yourself is also a ma-jor key to success. After-all, you are putting in the efforts to study, you might as well get some type of reward out of it. When I was younger my parents enforced the classic “If you study for
30 minutes, you can watch t.v. for 30 minutes,” and that seemed to work (most of the time). Set up a simi-lar system for yourself or offer yourself a dessert or treat for after you fin-ish your work.
Getting inadequate sleep can and will affect your testing performance. Be sure to get enough sleep the night before the ACT and eat a hearty breakfast so that your energy and
focus don’t dwindle in the middle of a testing session.
Relax, concentrate, and be aware of your time and you should have no problem receiv-ing the score you de-serve!
‘ACT’ from pg. 2
Recently I´ve had the opportunity to chat with my older brother, Jed Fudally, about what going to school here was like back in 2010, which would have been his sen-ior year. I asked him a few questions regarding what it was like to be apart of certain school activities and produc-tions, including the mu-sical Oklahoma!, and asked him for any advice for the graduating class of 2018.
What was writing and being editor of The
Oc-tagon like when you
were in school and what other clubs/ activities were you in-volved in?
Writing and editing for The Octagon was a lot of fun. I have always enjoyed writing, and in high school, I enjoyed the independence I felt I had to write and research what I was interested in rather than writing a pa-per for an assignment. In addition to The Oc-tagon, I was also in band, pit band, musical, drama, blood drive, and I'm pretty sure I did track my freshman and sopho-more year, though I was-n't very good at it.
Do you have any signif-icant memories to share from your in-volvement in musical productions? If so, any specifically from
Okla-homa?
I was in the pit band and helped work on the set for a couple of musi-cals, and I can't remem-ber which of those I did for Oklahoma! I do
re-member having a lot of fun working backstage doing whatever it was I was doing at the time though!
I think my most vivid memory during a musi-cal was during my fresh-man year during Beauty and the Beast. It was my first year in pit band and I was playing the drum set and not very good at it.
During "Be My Guest," I vividly remem-ber Mr. Hintzman con-ducting and trying to get me to play louder during one of the shows so I kept hitting the splash cymbal louder and loud-er. He seemed happy that I caught up, but I had no idea where we were in the song. I was having fun though.
Do you have any mem-orable stories to share from your high school years?
Some of my most memorable stories are probably not suitable for The Octagon. But on the flip side, I do have a lot of memorable stories because of The Octagon. When I was in high school, we were in the middle of renovating the old high school, and building a new one on top of some of the really, really old parts. So at the time, there was a lot of construction to explore. I often got away with wandering in the unfin-ished parts of the school as long as I had a camera and said "Oh I'm just taking pictures for The Octagon."
That excuse also
worked when Hannah
Knoll and I decided to explore all of the random staircases and hallways that lead to dead ends in the school.
Taking pictures for
The Octagon sometimes landed me in a little bit of hot water. There was one instance where I took a picture of a staff member's poor parking job (she was taking up four spots!) and decided to start a new feature in the school newspaper called "Mystery Parker of the Week." That was a pretty short-lived fea-ture.
Were there any trends back in 2010 that we would laugh at today?
Flip phones? Do you guys even know what those are?
Where has your path led you since you grad-uated?
Since graduation, I moved to Milwaukee for college. I lived in Mil-waukee for about five years and graduated from UW-Milwaukee in 2015 with a degree in Journalism/Advertising/ Media Studies with a concentration in Adver-tising and Public Rela-tions. Most colleges just call that a mass commu-nications degree.
Milwaukee is a great city, especially in the summer, and I couldn't
recommend visiting
enough.
After I graduated from UWM, I moved to Chi-cago and I've lived here since. I'm currently man-aging a marketing team for a tech startup called G2 Crowd.
Chicago is a lot of fun, and I can't say I miss those northern Wis-consin winters!
Do you have any advice for the graduating class of 2018?
Get out and explore! One of the biggest rea-sons I moved to Milwau-kee for college was be-cause it was a complete-ly different setting than I was used to. I learned a lot living in a place brand new to me and I enjoyed every minute of it. Chicago has been the same way.
You don't necessarily need to pack up and move though to explore new places. Last year, I spent a week in Cuba with a few friends and learned so much about a completely different cul-ture.
We rented a car and an Airbnb and just drove around the country ex-ploring random cities. The people were so nice, almost annoyingly nice. We stopped in a town called Matanzas and ran into a couple of locals who insisted on showing us around town.
These locals had ap-parently visited the US and ran into some nice people here who showed them around, and now they wanted to pay the favor forward to us. They walked us to a cou-ple of museums, a cigar factory, and to their friend’s art gallery. It was great!
