Why 10 Things I Hate About You Is Such a Good Moive By: Sachi Dixit

 Why 10 Things I Hate About You Is Such a Good Moive By: Sachi Dixit 

10 Things I Hate About You, directed by Gil Junger, is a teen romantic comedy about two sisters, Bianca and Kat. Their relationship throughout the movie isn’t the best, but it gets stronger by the end. Bianca is the super-popular sister who gets everything she wants and all the attention from the guys. Kat, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. She is known as the “school freak” and keeps to herself, with very few friends. The main conflict begins when their dad refuses to let Bianca date unless Kat does too, which leads to a plan to set up Kat with Patrick. 

One reason why I love this movie is that it’s funny, romantic, and relatable. The characters feel real, especially Kat, who is confident and doesn’t change just to fit in. The movie also has a good balance of hilarious jokes and serious moments, which makes it easy for the audience to enjoy and relate to. I also love the chemistry between Kat and Patrick, their relationships grow naturally, and they actually learn from eachother, which makes their romance feel meaningful. 

Overall, 10 Things I Hate About You is such an exciting movie that perfectly balances humor and real emotions. The plot of this movie is so thoughtful and unique, as it teaches the lesson of being true to who you are. Moreover, the characters, especially Kat and Patrick, are so memorable, and their story makes the movie enjoyable from start to finish. It’s a 10/10 movie that I would recommend to anyone who likes romance, comedy, or just an important story.

Time Doesn’t Wait, a poem By: Sachi Dixit

 Time Doesn’t Wait

By: Sachi Dixit

Time moves faster than I can think.

Days blur into one

and suddenly I’m older

without remembering when it even happened

Moments I meant to hold onto

slip through my fingers

I keep on saying “later,”

but later comes too quick

I keep on counting weeks instead of moments,

watching calendars flip too fast

Memories fade before they settle,

and I don’t notice until they’re gone

I wish time would slow down,

just for a second,

so I could breathe

and feel present in the moment

Ultimate Spider-Man: A Brand New Day Story by Samhita adapa

Ultimate Spider-Man: A Brand New Day Story By: Samhita adapa

It's no secret that Spider-Man fans have been disappointed with the current run of The Amazing Spider-Man. Distaste for it can be seen everywhere, especially regarding the treatment of one of the Spider-Man cast’s most iconic characters, Mary Jane Watson. Overall, the run gets criticized for its handling of characters, poor writing, redundant story lines, and sometimes even its art. Amazing Spider-Man hasn’t been good in a long time and for many, it feels like a toxic, codependent ex you can’t stop going back to. People were looking for relief, a way out, and that was when Ultimate Spider-Man(2024) came in, the savoir people were begging for. 

 The current Ultimate Spider-Man run started in 2024 and is currently on issue #22, written by Jonathan Hickman, known for The Nightly News, Secret Wars, and F4, and illustrated by Marco Checchetto. Offering a breath of fresh air, the story follows Peter Parker as an adult, married to MJ, and with 2 kids. It is not till he’s 36 that he gets his powers through a message left through Tony Stark.  Familiar characters are seen through new lenses and new story lines are introduced, such as The Paper. The run was quickly met with wide acclaim, selling out three times in just two months. With a stacked creative team, the comic offered a new perspective to those who were getting tired of the repetition and redundancy of the Amazing Spider-Man. Beloved characters like Harry and Norman Osborn, Ben Parker, J Jonah Jameson, Mary Jane, Gwen Stacy are all familiar faces and yet they feel fresh and engaging to read. Not only familiar faces, there are Marvel characters that make appearances with completely different circumstances to, once again, remind readers that this isn’t Earth-616 and make you say ‘aha!’.  

Almost immediately, people jumped ship. In every post made about Amazing Spider-Man, there is at least one person in the comments telling them to read Ultimate Spider-Man. It spread like wildfire. Older fans regained the excitement they once had for the character and newer fans got to see a fresh perspective after the dullness of Amazing. Many fans just liked seeing Peter happy with a wife and kids, following the extremely controversial decision to break them up in the infamous One More Day comic, but that’s a whole other story. Despite all the praise, the comic isn’t perfect. There are still many criticisms of the run. Some don’t like that Peter seems to be a passive protagonist, reacting to things happening around him rather than taking action himself. Others think the comic spends too much time on characters around Peter, specifically The Paper storyline, leading to people not knowing much about Peter and his motivations. His character is not as fleshed out as others, for example, Harry Osbon, who we seem to know much more about than the titular character. 

Overall, Spider-Man fans seem to greatly enjoy the new Ultimate run and look forward to it every month. The series is set to wrap up with its 24th volume and 22 have been released so far. For me, personally, I’m really enjoying reading this series every month and though it's not in my top 5 spidey runs, it’s definitely fun and engaging. After the series concludes, it goes back to hoping Amazing gets better until another series comes out to divert our time and money, considering that Ultimate outsold Amazing for the first 11 months after it released. If you did enjoy Ultimate Spider-Man and are looking for more Earth-6160, go check out the other Ultimate X-men and Ultimate Black Panther. 

Works Cited

MARVEL. “Ultimate Spider-Man (2024 - Present).” Marvel.com, 2024, www.marvel.com/comics/series/38809/ultimate_Spider-Man_2024_-_present. Accessed 4 Dec. 2025.

“Top 50 Comics - March 2024.” Icv2.com, icv2.com/articles/markets/view/56659/top-50-comics-march-2024.

Stress Overload, a poem by: Sachi Dixit

 Stress Overload

By: Sachi Dixit

Everyone says these are the years of enjoyment

yet no one explains

how confusing or stressful they feel

One day, my life seems picture-perfect

The next day

Stress is knocking on my door

and stays around all day

In class, Stress joins me, reminding me about tests I haven’t studied for

At home, it whispers about tomorrow's worries

It compares me to my brother, who seems to know everything

But I must remind myself to just live in the moment

blocking it out and being happy

because that’s what life is truly about

Christmas Magic, a poem By: Sachi Dixit

 Christmas Magic

By: Sachi Dixit

The time has come

Christmas has arrived

Snow shimmers under the moonlight

Painting the world in silver

Lights glimmer brightly, making houses glow

Snow crunches beneath my feet

Frost decorates the windows

The world feels quiet,

Yet so magical

As Christmas dances through the snowy streets

Inside, the fire crackles softly,

and laughter fills the room

Families gather close,

sharing stories, hugs, and joy

The Wow! Signal by Umar Malek

The Wow! Signal by Umar Malek

 When it comes to the search for life beyond Earth, what comes to mind first is the Wow! signal. Back in 1977, the Big Ear radio telescope at Ohio State picked up this quick, powerful blast of radio waves. A few days later, astronomer Jerry Ehman spotted it in the data. He was so stunned, he just scribbled “Wow!”, and that name stayed. For decades, that single word has captured all the excitement and mystery packed into that fleeting signal.

Nearly fifty years later, the Wow! signal still stands out. It was sharp, strong, and came in right on a narrow frequency, close to the hydrogen line, a spot in the spectrum astronomers love to watch. Naturally, people started asking, was this aliens trying to contact us? But the truth is, no one ever picked up the signal again. All we have is that one spot, frozen in the data.

Lately, scientists have circled back to this puzzle, only now they’ve got better tech and a pile of old observations that hadn’t seen the light of day. A team at the Planetary Habitability Laboratory in Puerto Rico, working on the “Arecibo Wow!” Project dug deep into the original SETI data. Their new analysis gives us our sharpest look yet at what the Wow! signal might have been, and, maybe more important, where it really came from.

Turns out, their work rules out the simple stuff: it wasn’t just radio static from Earth. Instead, the evidence points to a natural source out in the universe. Maybe the signal came from a sudden surge in the hydrogen line, kicked off by something dramatic. It could’ve been a flare from a magnetar, or a burst from a soft gamma repeater. These cosmic powerhouses pour out radiation, and when that hits clouds of hydrogen, you can get exactly the kind of radio burst Big Ear picked up in 1977. It doesn’t wrap up the mystery, not quite, but it does point scientists in a much clearer direction.

The story isn’t over, far from it. With sharper tools and way more data, researchers see this as a brand-new chapter. Now they can zero in on certain patches of sky and target specific cosmic events. And here’s the fun part: inspired by the Wow! signal, there’s a citizen science project called Wow@Home. Anyone with a small radio telescope and the right software can pitch in, helping search for those quick cosmic signals and maybe, just maybe, catch the next big discovery as it happens.

Even now, the Wow! signal hangs onto us. It’s a tiny, stubborn riddle from the universe, something we still can’t quite explain. Sure, maybe it’ll turn out to be something ordinary, not the alien greeting people once hoped for. But honestly, that’s part of the magic. It reminds us that the universe still has plenty of secrets waiting out there.

David, Leonard. “That Mysterious “Wow! Signal” from Space? Scientists May Finally Know Where It Came from — and It’s Probably Not Aliens.” Space, 27 Aug. 2025, www.space.com/space-exploration/search-for-life/that-mysterious-wow-signal-from-space-scientists-may-finally-know-where-it-came-from-and-its-probably-not-aliens.

Betting by Kaveeshan Gnanarajah

 Betting by Kaveeshan Gnanarajah

Maybe this is just me, but I feel like gambling is everywhere nowadays. I first realized this when one of my favorite games at the time, Rocket League, removed its loot crates in 2019. Up until that moment, I never questioned how those crates worked or why the game even added them. When the developers admitted that it was too close to gambling, I still didn’t understand at the time. It was only around a year ago that I looked back on those loot crates and realized. This change made me recognize and pay more attention to how often chance-based rewards appear in everyday apps.

Loot boxes and similar chance-based rewards aren’t just in games like Rocket League. Almost 40 % of popular games and 60 % of popular smartphone games contain loot boxes that players can purchase for real money, and the loot box market generated about $15 billion USD in 2020 alone, showing how popular they’ve become. You can bet on your favorite sports team, on the coin toss for a football team, you can bet on Roblox, stocks, political events and even world events. Even more, examples include one pitch in a baseball game; it doesn’t even have to be a real sport, you can bet on esports, you can gamble on loot crates in other games on your phone, tablet, or even your Apple Watch. You no longer even have to go to a casino to become a gambling addict.

Research shows that people who purchase loot boxes are up to twice as likely to gamble and are more likely to develop problem gambling behavior compared with people who don’t buy them. With teens aged 12–16, nearly half (45.6 %) have done some sort of loot box, and higher involvement is linked to higher problem gambling severity. Studies consistently find that loot box purchasers are several times more likely to experience gambling problems than non-purchasers.

Even with my own mother, someone who is so against gambling and has never been to a casino in her life, was technically doing it on an app. She was playing her favorite game on her phone when, after she completed a level, the app gave her loot chests that she could open for a CHANCE at a better reward. There is not much we can actually do about this issue, but we must stay away from it.

Sources

Zendle, David, et al. “Links between Loot Box Spending and Problem Gambling.” Scientific Reports, vol. 12, 2022, Nature Publishing Group, doi:10.1038/s41598-022-20549-1.

Wardle, Heather, et al. “Loot Boxes, Gambling, and Problem Gambling among Adolescents.” Journal of Gambling Studies, vol. 36, no. 2, 2020, pp. 543–556, Springer, doi:10.1007/s10899-019-09906-0.

“Loot Boxes in Video Games Linked to Problem Gambling.” ScienceDaily, 2 Dec. 2022, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/12/221202112513.htm.

“Gambling Addiction Statistics.” Recovery.com, www.recovery.com/resources/gambling-addiction-statistics/.

Davies, Rob. “Landmark Study Shows 1.4m Britons Have a Gambling Problem.” The Guardian, 2 Oct. 2025, www.theguardian.com/society/2025/oct/02/landmark-study-shows-14m-britons-have-a-gambling-problem.