Do ideas change very quickly? by Shuxuan Chang

 Do ideas change very quickly?

by Shuxuan Chang

        The moment I unlocked my phone, the messages popped up on my screen. I realized these weren’t from friends or family—but rather promotional messages sent by businesses. They seemed to be everywhere. 

        It feels like product recommendations are everywhere—constantly catching my eye and prompting me to shop. For instance, while scrolling through videos, the very next clip might suddenly feature a product that someone in the previous video had raved about. This creates an impulse to buy; after all, if so many people are saying it’s great—and I’ve seen plenty of positive reviews—it surely can’t be bad, right? Thinking along these lines, I go ahead and make the purchase. However, when the package finally arrives and I open it up, I often find that the actual item isn't nearly as impressive as it seemed online.  A similar phenomenon occurs when I’m browsing in physical stores: seeing signs advertising discounts of 50% or more creates a sort of illusion. 

        When I spot a heavily discounted item—realizing that the product itself is identical to the full-priced version, yet costs significantly less—I get the distinct feeling that if I don't buy it right then and there, I’ll be missing out on a golden opportunity.       

       This sort of thing happens to me all the time: initially, I have absolutely no intention of buying anything, but the more I look, the more I convince myself that I actually need it. It feels as though, with all this constant buying, my pocket money is slowly but surely slipping away. Maybe our ideas don’t change quickly—we just slowly start believing what we see most often.

Is this really a "need"? by Shuxuan Chang

 Is this really a "need"?

       Whenever I open a shopping app, my eyes seem to wander on their own. The moment I see a bunch of interesting items, I start scrolling through them, trying to decide which ones I actually want.

        I am not the only one who thinks this way. I’ve heard friends and classmates say the same thing: “I really need this.” While listening to them, I sometimes wonder: If they feel they need it, do I need it too?

        Over time, I started to question this feeling more. It seems like a mix of social comparison and habit. I’ve never clearly been able to tell the difference between need and want. Sometimes, when I clean my room, I realize I already own multiple similar items—yet I still bought new ones without finishing the old ones. At times, I can stop myself, and that helps me avoid unnecessary purchases. But other times, especially when I see people around me buying or using something, I feel pressure to fit in. Even if I already have something similar, I still feel tempted to get it.

         I guess I’m still figuring out the difference between need and want. Maybe that difference is not always obvious, especially at my age. Sometimes I listen to myself; sometimes I don’t. And I’m still learning when to stop—and when I actually don’t need anything at all.

The Power of a 10-Second Video by Shuxuan Chang

 The Power of a 10-Second Video by Shuxuan Chang

        Whenever I feel bored, TikTok is the very first thing that comes to mind. The moment I open the app, I find myself unable to stop scrolling; and as I scroll, I inevitably stumble upon products I’ve never seen before—with influencers making them look like the best thing ever. In that instant, I suddenly feel as though I absolutely need them.

       When teenagers are scrolling through videos, it is remarkably easy for them to get "sold" on a product. Once we show interest in something, the algorithm keeps showing it to us again and again. It’s actually quite strange: the more we watch, the more convinced we become that the product is absolutely fantastic—to the point where we start feeling that all our friends must surely own it, simply because it seems so popular. A simple want slowly starts to feel like a need.—a psychological shift I didn't even realize was taking place.

     TikTok often shows products that promise to make our lives easier or better. Once we see just how effective they actually are, we simply can't resist buying them. I know, deep down, that I don't actually need those things; yet, I still find myself viewing those products through rose-colored glasses—thinking that perhaps they really are as miraculous as they appear in the videos. After all, I’ve seen so many well-known influencers recommending them.

     Maybe what social media shows us is not what we want—it turns our wants into needs.

I Didn’t Need It, But I Bought It Anyway by Shuxuan Chang

 I Didn’t Need It, But I Bought It Anyway by Shuxuan Chang

          Whenever I walk into a shopping mall, before even stepping into a specific store, I walk in telling myself, ”I'm just browsing. I already have everything I need and don't need to buy anything." Yet, all those thoughts vanish the moment I enter the shop; suddenly, I spot a host of products I don't own, and—acting on a mere impulse—I end up buying them.

          I have noticed that friends, classmates—and even other students at my school—all share this habit. For teenagers roughly my age, this has already become very common.  

          Sometimes, many factors influence our spending habits—the most common being social media. I frequently scroll through videos on social platforms, and whenever I come across something novel or trendy, I find myself unable to resist the urge to buy it. While part of me tells me not to do so, I still end up doing exactly what I told myself not to do. Sometimes, it’s not even about external influences. I’ve noticed that for the people around me—and even myself—whenever we’re in a bad mood, we tend to feel that our own happiness takes absolute priority. We might think, "Maybe buying something will help lift my spirits," and so we go ahead and buy it without a second thought. Of course, there are also times when I buy things just to keep up with trends, or simply because everyone else around me has them—after all, I can't let myself fall behind, right?

        Well, how should I put it? Spending isn't necessarily a bad thing. I feel that moderate consumption can bring me joy, allow me to experience new things, and provide a sense of fulfillment. Yet, sometimes I buy too much; looking back later, I wonder why I even made the purchase—after all, I already owned items just like them. Sometimes, I don't even truly understand my own emotions. Maybe the real question isn’t why we buy things, it's why it feels so easy to do that.

Vera Soukhanovskii: Benefits of Swimming

 Have you ever walked as a form of exercise? What about going to the gym and lifted some weights? Jogged around your neighborhood? Played basketball with your friends? What about swimming laps in a pool? This is surprising to many people, but swimming actually has a lot of benefits for almost every aspect of your life. My brother, sister, and I have all done swimming for the majority of our lives, so I have seen the effects of this sport on both my life and theirs. Today, I will be telling you all about the mental and physical benefits of swimming, along with the difference between competitive and recreational swimming. 

One of the biggest benefits of swimming is how it positively affects your mental health. Swimming is often described as a relaxing and peaceful form of exercise, and a lot of that has to do with the repetitive arm strokes and breathing patterns. These movements create a steady rhythm, which helps your body and your mind slow down. The control breathing involved in swimming can calm your nervous system while the resistance of the water encourages smoother, more controlled movements. When you're submerged in water, outside noises are reduced, creating a quiet and personal space. Even the color blue, which surrounds most pools, is known for its calming effects. 

Swimming is also a great way to reduce stress. It has been proven to release endorphins, which help improve your overall mood and lower your stress levels. Beyond physical movement, swimming also creates strong social connections, especially if you swim on a team. Competitive swimming involves early morning and late night practices, intense training sets, and long meets, which naturally brings swimmers closer together. Personally, I have formed extremely strong bonds with my swim friends and teammates. We've seen each other at both the best and worst stages of our lives, supported one another through challenges and bonded over tough practices or difficult meets. All of the closest relationships I have formed outside of my family are with the people on my swim team. Even in recreational swimming, there's a sense of community through going to the pool with friends, setting goals, and encouraging each other makes the experience more enjoyable and motivating. 

In addition to mental benefits, swimming also offers many physical benefits. It helps build endurance, muscle strength, and cardiovascular fitness while providing a full body workout. Almost all of your muscles are used while swimming, and because water is about 12 to 15 times more dense than air, your muscles work harder than they would during land exercises. This resistance helps build muscle efficiently while also balancing muscle development rather than focusing on just one area. Different Strokes Target different muscle groups making swimming a well-rounded form of exercise.

Swimming also improves lung strength and capacity. It trains your lungs to use oxygen more efficiently through breath control and extended breath holding, which strengthen respiratory muscles over time. Additionally, swimming burns a significant number of calories. According to a public health analysis by the department of health services in the state of Wisconsin, swimming freestyle can burn anywhere from 450 to 865 calories per hour depending on factors like weight, speed and effort. For strokes like butterfly, backstroke, and breaststroke, swimmers can burn between 450 and 950 calories per hour, with butterfly being the quickest to burn calories as it is considered to be the hardest stroke. 

There are also important differences between recreational and competitive swimming. recreational swimming is a low impact workout due to the buoyancy and resistance of water, making it easier on the body. It is especially helpful for people with reduced mobility, stiff joints, or difficulty with fast movements. Recreational swimming tends to be more relaxed, with slower pacing and less focus on starts and turns, and is often done individually. 

Competitive swimming, on the other hand, involves four main strokes and a variety of distances, ranging from short 50 meter races to longer distance events. Competitive swimmers often trained for several hours a day, both in and out of the pool. There is a strong emphasis on technique, starts, turns, endurance, and speed, all of which are used in races against other teams and swimmers. Competitive swimming is usually done as a part of a team.

So, after reading all of this, I hope swimming doesn’t just seem like another option on the long list of exercises to try. Whether you choose the calm pace of recreational swimming or the racing and excitement of competitive swimming, the benefits go beyond the pool. So next time you see a pool or hear someone be shocked that our school does in fact have a swim team, just imagine yourself under water, swimming from wall to wall while breathing in the intense smell of chlorine, and recall the physical and mental benefits of this sport. 

Works Cited

Austin, Daryl. “Swimming Just Might Be the Best Exercise out There. Here’s Why.” National Geographic, National Geographic, 19 Apr. 2024, enews.wvu.edu/files/d/7bc14855-1acc-489e-ab70-b3fda8bda2f1/swimming-just-might-be-the-best-exercise-out-there-here-s-why.pdf. Accessed 6 Dec. 2025.

Better Health Channel. “Swimming - Health Benefits.” Vic.gov.au, 2021, www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/swimming-health-benefits.

Cleveland Clinic. “Just Keep Swimming: 9 Health Benefits of Water Workouts.” Cleveland Clinic, 15 Aug. 2023, health.clevelandclinic.org/swimming-joint-friendly-and-good-for-the-heart.

Gibson, Rebecca. “Six Mental Health Benefits of Swimming.” Northern Healthcare, 20 Feb. 2024, www.northernhealthcare.org.uk/news-resources/six-mental-health-benefits-of-swimming/.

“SetMaker - Competitive Swimming vs Recreational Swimming.” Setmaker.net, 2023, setmaker.net/Blog/View/3.

Tech Suits in Swimming by Vera Soukhanovskii

Tech Suits in Swimming by Vera Soukhanovskii

 

When watching swim competitions like the Olympics, you may have noticed that competing athletes are wearing suits that are different from your average swim suit. Competitive swimmers often have suits that they wear for practice, and a different suit for meets and races. Specially designed suits made for competitions are called tech suits. In this article, I will be telling you all about tech suits, and briefly telling you the story of my first tech suit experience. 

Tech suits are known to be extremely tight, and are specially designed to reduce drag, repel water, and help swimmers propel through the water with a much more efficient stroke. They help swimmers shave seconds off of their personal bests, and feel more confident in the water. Because of this, they are very difficult to put on, especially since swimmers have to be careful to not tear them in the process as well. A new suit can take up to thirty minutes to put on, and that is when it is dry! One major difference between racing suits and practice suits for women is that racing suits are kneeskins, meaning they extend to the knees to create even more compression. This adds to the difficulty in putting them on. 

 One of the major downsides to tech suits is that due to all of their benefits and carefully throughout designs, they can get expensive. A ‘beginner’ suit or a twelve and under suit ranges from $90 - $200, and suits designed for older swimmers can reach $650. What suit you get is also very important as some are specifically modeled to benefit certain events or distances. When picking a suit, it is important to do thorough research to understand what kind of tech suit will benefit you the most as a swimmer. With my first suit, I did not know this and ended up learning some valuable lessons after the experience. 

When I started swimming competitively, my mother and I were introduced to tech suits. Unsurprisingly, my mom was concerned about the extreme cost of the suit. She was sceptical about if the advertised benefits are worth the money. Younger me, influenced by professional swimmers, was convinced that a tech suit will pave my way to the Olympics. After much thought and discussion, my parents and I had a deal. If I improved enough to drop the time needed for a certain competition, they would get me my very own tech suit. I was ecstatic. I wanted to be like the older swimmers, so I trained harder than ever. Eventually, my hard work paid off. After qualifying for the meet, my parents told me that I could choose a suit, within a given price limit. Unfortunately, I let excitement get the best of me, and I did not put much thought into the purchase. After scrolling through an online store that sells swim gear, I announced that I made my choice. The suit was a vibrant blue, and looked stunning in the pictures. My parents asked me if I was sure that this is the suit I wanted, and I told them that I had made up my mind. I wore that suit to many of my future competitions, and soon, it began to stretch out. I also realized that while the suit was not bad, it did not provide all of the benefits. My explanation to that was simple: I should have done more research to choose the suit that was perfect for me. I had made the mistake of choosing a tech suit for its looks, not its functionality. 

As my next birthday approached, I explained my foolish mistake to my parents. They were disappointed, but agreed to get me a new suit under new circumstances. I had to do thorough research before I chose my suit, and this new suit would have to last me until the end of my high school swimming career. They also agreed to raise the previous cost limit to allow me to get a good, trustworthy brand and model of the tech suit. With these new restrictions, I began researching. I read dozens of articles online, hundreds of product reviews, and an endless number of Reddit posts answering questions about brands, models, benefits, pros and cons, and sizing. I learned that the type of suit you need to get depends on what events you prefer swimming, how much compression you want, and the perforations for the overall fit of the suit. I visited many different websites that listed each model and its advantages. Throughout my research, I found myself getting convinced by one brand, and then minutes later seeing people’s negative review on the same suit. Finally, I narrowed my choices down to two different suits. They were different brands, but both promised high compression, long lasting benefits, and were just below the price limit set by my parents. My only problem was that I did not know which one to choose. I was scared that I would make the wrong decision, and receive a product that would not reach my expectations. I decided to ask some of my teammates for their advice. After talking to people with different suit preferences, I made my decision. I chose the Arena Carbon Core Fx Tech Suit. 

Before agreeing to buy the suit, my parents made sure that I was positive of my choice. I told them about why I chose this suit, showed them the most promising articles I read online, and finally, opened up the link to the chosen suit. Finally, they were convinced. The suit I chose has specifically designed tweaks that benefit swimmers who swim similar events as I do, and after wearing it to multiple competitions, I am happy to announce that all of my research paid off. Through this journey, I learned about the importance of putting thought in important decisions, and I hope you all learned something new about swimming and tech suits. 

Should School Start Later By: Sujal Mirchandani

 Should School Start Later

By: Sujal Mirchandani

I think school should definitely start later in the morning. Every day, I have to wake up really early, and it honestly makes it hard for me to focus in my first few classes. Most high school students don’t get enough sleep because of homework, sports, or just staying up late, so starting school so early doesn’t really make sense.

When I’m tired, I can’t pay attention as well, and I feel like I don’t learn as much. There have been so many times where I’ve been sitting in class barely able to keep my eyes open. If school started later, I feel like I would be more awake, more focused, and actually understand the material better. It would also probably improve students’ moods because no one likes being forced out of bed before they’re ready.

Some people might say that starting later would mess up after-school activities, but I think schools could adjust schedules if they really wanted to. In my opinion, getting enough sleep is more important than keeping the same routine. Overall, I believe starting school later would help students do better academically and feel better mentally.