The new school year brought many new faces to the middle school, including some new staff! Ms. Tisdale, Ms. Esformes, and Coach B. are all wonderful teachers who are joining us this year. In order to better introduce them to our community, I asked them a few questions. Coach B. Do you feel as though you have been thoroughly welcomed into this community? Yes, it’s a very welcoming community. I feel like especially when you have a small community like this, it’s easy to get to know everybody. Here, I feel like I know all my students and many of their parents, and I know the teachers well already even though it’s just a month in. What do you feel you add to this community? Well, I am the only openly LGBT staff member in the middle school, and I feel like that’s a need that needs to be filled,…

“About a hundred years ago, Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves, but until now, they were undetectable.” On Tuesday, the third of October, Rainer Weiss (professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Kip Thorne and Barry Barish (both professors of California Institute of Technology) were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for what the Royal Swedish Academy called “a discovery that shook the world. These three men were the architects of the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) centers. A LIGO center looks like a giant “L”; it reflects gravitational waves in a way which a computer can analyze it. When the waves are moving normally they cancel each other out but when they are affected by something else they make a rhythmic beeping. Over a billion light years away two massive black holes collided releasing the energy equivalent to a billion trillion suns in a fraction of a second….

We have entered into the month of October, bringing with it a new season, cooler weather, and, above all, the only day where it’s acceptable to dress up as a giant frog or a Pokémon and take people’s food. Halloween is a holiday that is generally highly anticipated, as children await the day that is sure to bring sugary treats. But with this holiday comes a true tragedy, in the form of the iconic black cat. As many people know, black cats have come to represent witchcraft, night and, in most cases, evil of some sort. Because of this, they are often associated with Halloween, and many people try to adopt black cats around the time of this holiday. Afterwards, they find themselves with a cat that they can’t or do not want to care for, and oftentimes abandon or return them. Not only that, but these animals are also…