Read the May 2013 Issue of Horizons!

Read the May 2013 issue of Horizons online (prior to print) below!

Smoking and Driving

By Rachel Kulikowski

Senior Staff Writer

It was a warm summer night in August. That summer, I had just received my first car. It was an older green Volkswagen Jetta that smelled like aged leather inside. I remember being extremely happy about the freedom that comes with having a car. That night I been hanging out at a friends house and it was getting late. At this point I felt everyone was becoming tired including me, so I decided to head home. Sometimes relaxing summer nights have a way of making you feel like nothing could go wrong, but I had been mistaken.

I yawned as I put my key into the ignition and started to drive off. Even though I only lived across town I definitely was exhausted so I decided the best thing to do was turn up the music and light up a cigarette. This probably was not a good idea however, I was not worried about it because I thought for some odd reason multitasking would wake me up. At this point I was only a few blocks away from my house when I dropped the cigarette I was smoking as I was still driving. I recall the cigarette falling to the ground but the burning ember on the end fell onto my bare leg and was burning my skin. This resulted in me taking my eyes off the road for a split second and slamming my car into a tree. I looked up and all I could see was an airbag and broken glass.

For anyone who's been in a serious automobile accident when it is your fault, you probably can relate to the anxiety I felt at that moment. It’s almost hard to describe. And for a split second it almost did not feel real. Reality did rush into my brain quickly as I tasted blood in my mouth and the strong scent of gasoline leaked into my nose. I was not hurt to bad just broke my nose so I was able to step out of the vehicle. The car was not okay though it was wrapped around the tree and smoke was pouring out of it. I did realize that my cell phone was somewhere in the car but I was too panicked to go back in and search through the car.

Something that I thought was pretty strange was that there were houses everywhere, yet everyones houses remained dark. No one turned their lights on or looked outside everything around me was still so calm. I wondered how no one heard that happen. I definitely needed help and felt relief when a neighboring house’s kitchen light came on and a door opened. I saw an older woman looking at me so I approached her door to ask her if she could call the police but she slammed the door. I knocked on the door and her kitchen light went off. At that point I felt extremely helpless.

I never thought of myself as a threatening looking person, maybe it was because I had blood all over my shirt but clearly there was a crashed car right behind me. I thought maybe the woman was going to call the police so I sat on the curb when a Cutlass Supreme pulls up. An older man with long hair got out of the car and told me he’d call the police. He let me use his phone to call my mom and gave me a bottle of water. I was happy someone did help me and it was not a weirdo he was actually a nice guy. When the police arrived the woman who originally slammed the door in my face emerged from her house commenting that she heard glass breaking, so I guess she was not going to call the police at all which is why I was lucky that the guy in the Cutlass pulled up. This was a very bad situation, I only had the car for a short time and had already destroyed it. I couldn't help  that I had to drive home tired but I could have just concentrated on the road rather than smoking and playing with the radio. I did not expect that to happen at all.

According to E.how.com "Smoking-related tasks are considered in the category of driver inattentiveness as noted in a 2006 report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration titled "The Impact of Driver Inattention on Near-Crash/Crash Risk. Drivers who are engaged in tasks not related to driving, such as reaching for a cigarette, lighting or extinguishing the cigarette and smoking while driving, increase the risk of having an accident by two-to-three times that of normal driving.”

Totaling my first car was a dangerous but important lesson for me. I actually really have been a lot more careful since that night. The car I currently own I received about 6 years ago and have no had a major accidents. That night could have been a lot worse I could have had someone else in the car, hit a person rather than a tree, and I think about these things to this day which is why it’s important for everyone to be careful, cars are expensive, and multitasking and driving is definitely not worth it. This is something I am sure everyone knows but takes for granted.

Car Frenzy

By Dannyy Alamo

Senior Staff Writer

I was with my friend at the time and we decided to go for a drive it was really late and my grandmother always told me once I got home I shouldn’t step back out when it was past midnight because that’s usually when bad things happened. Whenever my grandmother said things like that I got annoyed and believed that it was all superstition. It was the fall of 2009 September to be exact, I was living in Killeen, TX and I had just left my  the movie theater.

I didn’t listen to my grandmother and still went for the ride with my friend. I was driving down a road that was 50 mph and wasn’t paying attention to the road; I was listening to music and laughing. While I was driving I got way too distracted and didn’t see that there was a cinder block in the middle of the road. When I got close enough to see it I tried to go around it but do to the speed of the road my car swerved and lost control. I spun around three times, went through a nearby gate and crashed into a building that was behind the gate. My motor came into the front seat and pinned me in my car.

At first I didn’t realize what happened I was sort of in a daze and didn’t realize that we were in an actual accident. I remember sitting straight and feeling the throbbing of my head  because when the airbag deployed my head hit the door frame. I look over to my friend to see if she’s ok and realized that she’s also pinned in her seat. I realized that I had to control my emotions and behaviors so not to frighten her.

I asked her was she okay?  She looked herself over and replied, “yeah I’m ok.” I decided to try and get out of the car but noticed that my door was jammed due the impact. I decided that I needed to throw my body against the door in an attempt to try and pry it open.

I was able to open my door but I couldn’t get out. I remember smelling the gas, the fire and the burnt rubber. I remember seeing the smoke and the flames. I heard the crackling of the fire and the engine still going. My engine pinned me in the drivers seat on my right thigh. I tried hard to pull my leg out of the space but my leg was really stuck. I quickly searched for my phone and when I found it I dialed 911 to get in contact with the police. When they answered I tried to remain calm and explain the accident, the location and how badly we were hurt. I started feeling this excruciating pain go up my right leg from the tip of my toes to my hip bone. It felt like a strong surge of fire with a pop at the end shooting up my leg. After about 15 minutes the police, ambulance and transporting helicopter came and got us out of the car and into ambulances.

I arrived at the hospital and was rushed into surgery. I don’t remember much about the moments before that besides the doctor telling me to recite a color, a number and a letter he was going to say to me. I remember being told to count back from 100 and this cooling feeling going through me, then I felt as if I was asleep. I remember that during this sleep like phase I was really cold and felt like I was being ripped apart. Then I felt warmth and I was being woken up by the doctor.

I awoke to see figures in front of me and my vision was very unclear. I blinked a few times to process what was in front of me and saw six faces 1 that I recognized  and five that I didn’t. I recognized my grandmothers face and stared at her while in confusion. I tried to speak but my mouth felt so dry. A man in all white gave me a cup of water to moisten my throat. I asked what happened because I couldn’t move my foot.

The doctor explained that I had gotten into an accident, broken my right femur bone and had to go through immediate surgery to have a metal rod inserted into my thigh to replace the broken bone. I started to cry because of the fear that maybe I wouldn’t be able to walk again. The doctor told me that there was something else that he needed to tell me. I said,” OK”, and he replied,”During the surgery, your heart stopped having a pulse.” I looked at him a little confused and he said,” Mr. Alamo during surgery you died and we had to bring you back to life, I don’t know why but we have ran some test to figure out if it was something from our part.”

Again I began to cry, to hear the words you died was just crazy. After processing everything that happened, I started to have flashbacks of my grandmother telling how I need to pay attention when I’m driving and that I shouldn’t go back out for a ride after I already got  myself home and was preparing to go to sleep. I realized that even though I didn’t permanently die I could’ve and that that was God’s way of telling me listen to my elders.

Feeling A Little Shy?

By Sherly Montes

Editor

The nerves began as soon as my ride pulled up to the side entrance of Beacon Hall by the bookstore. I walked up the stairs, constantly reminding myself not to trip and make a fool of myself. As soon as I entered the building I felt awkward, maybe it was because every pair of eyes in that hallway shifted over to me. That definitely made me feel uncomfortable. I mean I know I’ve done that before to other people but because I was already nervous, that made me feel even more self-conscious. I quickly glanced down at my schedule and found that I was early and had some time to kill. I began to walk around the first floor of Beacon Hall, casually observing those around me.

I saw a lot of the same thing, people sitting alone and putting their bags next to them as to show that they didn’t want anyone to sit next to them, some students looking down at their cell phones or laptops to keep busy, others wandering around aimlessly with old friends or alone, and of course the ones standing right outside their classrooms by themselves hoping to see a friendly face to chat with.

As I continued to walk around the first floor of Beacon Hall, I saw a few familiar faces and smiled casually at them. It felt nice to see people I already knew and chat with them, I didn’t feel like such an outcast and I didn’t feel so alone then -- even if it was for a few short seconds.

With about ten minutes left for my first class to start, I headed down the hall to find my classroom. There were already several students waiting outside of our classroom. I didn’t know any of them. That’s got to be the worst, it being the first day of school and you don’t know anyone in your class.

Surely I’m not the only person who is shy like this.

According to a study done by LiveScience that was featured on NBC news in 2010, “About 20 percent of people are born with a personality trait called sensory perception sensitivity (SPS)”. This trait is what causes a person to be shy and act in certain ways. Shy people also think differently, compared to those who aren’t born with the SPS trait.

Standing in that busy hallway, I began to look at those that were standing outside of the classroom around me. It’s our human nature to study new people around us and so I looked at certain individuals, trying to sense what they were like.

Personally, I found talking to new people was a challenge because while I do get along with most people, I’m really quiet, shy, and I don’t normally like meeting new people. I don’t approach people that I don’t already know that often, and I prefer to just sit quietly on my own. I had just gotten to know and like those people in my classes last semester, and now I felt like I was being thrown into that same nerve wracking situation where I didn’t know a single person. I knew I was going to have to warm up to the new people in my classes and start conversations with them at some point. For someone like me, that’s not always easy because I’m naturally so shy and I often just observe the things that are going on around me without speaking.

“When in the company of other people, our minds automatically construct a map of the minds that surround us.” says Alex Lickerman, M.D. “We're constantly imagining and theorizing what other people are thinking—and making judgments about and having reactions to those imaginings.”

Lickerman is right, because that’s exactly what I was doing while I was standing outside of that classroom. The minutes were ticking by and I was just observing the people around me, being shy, not wanting to talk to anyone.

Shyness is one of those things that can have a lot of control over you, if you don’t control it. I’ve come to realize that many times, my shyness has held me back from doing the things that I want to do, it has also kept me from talking to people, and it has stopped me from voicing my opinions on several occasions.

Dealing with my shyness can be a challenge, but I know that eventually I’ll reach that level of comfort and my shyness won’t be a problem anymore.

In fact, you might find that it’s hard to shut me up after a while.

How To Explain Death: A Child's Perspective

By Jessica Brooks

Editor

As I am laying in bed on October 20, 2001 in the early hours of the morning, my home phone rings.  Every time the phone rings it sounds the same, but this particular morning there was an eerie sound to it.

My feet hit the floor, I felt the cold wood floor hit the bottom of my toes and as I watched my mother pick up the phone, I witnessed her face transform from someone who was barely awake, to someone who was at full attention with a tear falling from her left eye then her right. Being a child who is extremely close to her mother, I felt that pain coursing through my body before I knew what was actually wrong and then I was told that my grandfather had died in his sleep.

My mom and I got dressed and drove to the nursing home that was only about a ten minute drive from our house, but this ride seemed like it took forever for us to get there. Its almost like time stopped and we took every opportunity with permission from the universe to prolong the ride before our final goodbye.  As my mom parks the car, she looks at me a says, “Are you ready?” I remembered looking at her as if I couldn't comprehend what she was saying and then we were walking to my Pop Pop’s room. What was I going to see? Was he going to look different?  Then one of the nurses that escorted us to the room turned the knob.

It was as if when the door opened, there was a strong wind that hit me in my face.  My hand took comfort inside my mother’s as we walked to the bed that I’ve walked to a thousand times, but this time was different.  I knew that I wouldn't see that warm smile across my grandfather’s face. I wouldn’t be able to squeeze him and crack a joke or two.  There would be no laughter.  Nothing.  The nurse gave this sympathizing look to my mom before she slowly pulled the curtain back and there he was. My Pop Pop. Laying there as if he were asleep and at peace.  

Even though I was sad and watched the tears stream down my mother’s face, I couldn’t help but think if my parents were going to be next. What is death? How does death work? These questions replayed in my head every night before I went to sleep and the first thing I thought about when I woke up in the morning. I was frightened. The concept of death was new to me because it never happened to someone I was close with.

Unfortunately, as a young adult death has become more frequent in my life whether it be an older family member, friend, or someone around my neighborhood and no matter how old I get, I always relate death with my first experience with it as a child. Healthychildren.org, which is powered by pediatricians from the American Academy of Pediatrics, goes into full detail about how some children might deal with death.  The website even goes into depth about how a child might cope with specific family member’s death.

From grandparents, parents and even siblings, the different relationships that the child has with the individual greatly alters how children cope with the loss. The death of a grandparent may not be as traumatic according to the website. “When a grandparent dies, children may not find it as devastating as the loss of a parent or a sibling. To them, their grandparent is an older person, and when people get old, they often die.” As the explanation goes on, it also says that if the grandparent-grandchild relationship had a strong foundation before death occurred then the child is prone to taking the news harder and have a difficult time to adjusting to the change. The child may also not grasp the concept of death, making them feel that their parents might be next.  However, if the parents sit down and explain death in a way that their children can comprehend then this can serve as a life lesson that would ultimately prepare them for other loses they will experience in life.

Death is something that is inevitable and unfortunately never gets easier to deal with as we transform from children into adults. The one thing we can control is the way we help young children cope and try to find different approaches in order to make children at ease with such a difficult process. I was fortunate enough to have parents that took the time to explain and whether your explanation is linked to your religious beliefs or scientific knowledge, any way that helps a child get through a life shaking experience such as death can really alter the way life is lived rather than an innocent child worrying about how life will end.