fall 2011 final
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Pfeiffer Phoenix 1
Pfeiffer University
MIsenheimer, North Carolina
The PhoenixFall 2011
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Pfeiffer Phoenix 2 Pfeiffer Phoenix 49
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Pfeiffer Phoenix 48 Pfeiffer Phoenix 3
The PhoenixFall 2011
Pfeiffer University
Misenheimer, North Carolina
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Cover Photograph by Kirsten Bragg
The Phoenix 2011
Reproduction of any material within this publication is prohibited
without consent of the artist or author of that particular work.
Pfeiffer Phoenix 47
The catfish, however, remained in place. Dodge took
his penknife and pried up several kernels of corn. He
dropped them one at a time into the water, but the
fish ignored the corn, which slowly fell to the bottom
of the stream. After five minutes the fish swam away,apparently realizing that there would be no more fal-
ling mice, at least that day.
The three decided it was time to leave, but Dodge
decided he wanted a souvenir. After looking around
for ten minutes, he discovered an old large porcelain
sign that read Baker Bros. Roller Mills just inside the
front door. This he took home and hid in the crawl
space adjacent to the half-basement in his house.
Years later after his mother died, Dodge went back to
her house to clean out her possessions, and he found
the old mill sign he had hidden many years before.
The old mill is gone now, destroyed after it caught
fire in what was thought, but never proven, to be ar-
son. Dodge was home at the time, and against his
mothers wishes he went to watch the fire. He be-
came almost mesmerized by it, and he seemed to
hear squeaking above the crackle of the flames.Shortly after that, the stream was diverted and town-
houses built over the entire area.
As Dodge contemplated the sign he had hidden,
his mind went back to the fire and the squeaking he
had heard.
It must have been the souls of those poor mice he
fed to the fish!
- Dr. John Grovesnor
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one of the mice only to see it suddenly disappear in
front of him. He investigated and found that the
mouse had fallen through a hole made when a knot
in the floorboard had come loose. He looked down
just in time to see a catfish grab the swimming mouse
and submerge with it.
Dodge looked back to see an incredible sight:
some 25 mice seemed to be staring at him as if they
dared him to chase after them. He looked back
through the knothole to see something just as odd: a
slew of catfish swimming below the hole, perhaps at-
tracted by the first fishs prize, as if they were all wait-
ing to be fed. Dodge and his two buddies decided to
see how many of the mice they could chase throughthe knothole and into the drink. The two friends kept
the mice away from the doors, but Dodge was un-
able to direct any of them toward the knothole. The
mice seemed to sense that one of their kind perished
there, so they avoided that part of the room. After
keeping up this game for some 30 minutes, one of
Dodges friends became impatient and whacked
one of the mice with a board he found outside.
Dodge picked up the dazed mouse by the tail and
dropped it through the hole for another waiting cat-
fish. The three boys spent another half hour chasing
and hitting mice with boards until they had fed 18
more of the mice to the fish.
By this time, the remaining mice had retreated out
the doors and into the fields adjacent the mill, with
the exception of one hapless mouse that ran into the
road in front of the mill and got run over by a car.
Pfeiffer Phoenix 5
Photography Staff
John Borza
Josh Mullis
Reggie Hollinger
Letter from the Advisor
Another step in the ongoing evolution of the Pfeiffer University liter-
ary magazine, The Phoenix, has transpired. In keeping with current
trends in publication, the staff is transforming from print format to
an e-zine with plans for an annual print publication that celebrates
the best of the best. The 11-12 staff, listed below, is creating an
online presence linked to Pfeiffers Web Site that includes the cur-rent publication, archives of previous publications, a blog, and an
opportunity for readers to respond. As their advisor, I congratulate
them on taking ownership of the process and completing the
transformation within the confines of one semester.
-Sylvia Hoffmire-
there were creative writing teachers long before there were
creative writing courses, and they were called and continue to be
called editors. Kurt Vonnegut
Editor Kayla Lookabill
Production Editor Stacy Deese
Asst. Editor for Poetry Cynthia Dick
Asst.. Editor for Fiction/Non-Fiction Joleen Hill
Asst. Editor for Art/Photography Brittany Loder
Poetry Staff
Arsena Schroeder
Tabatha Shue
Kane Hathcock
Fiction/Non-Fiction Staff
Brynne Lippard
Stephanie Nants
Kaitlin Welch
Faculty/Staff Readers
Dr. Kristy Embry
Paula Morris
Dr. Gerald Neal
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Table of Contents
The Qualities of Silence
Sunrise in January
If Life Was A Staircase
Managua
Trouble Ride
Kaleidoscope
The Seen Untold Story
The O Train
Everywhere
New Focus
Something Beautiful
Dr. David Palmer
Brittany Loder
Lindsay Sisco
Kirsten Bragg
Cynthia Dick
Tabitha Shue
Jarvis Wardsworth
Jordy Carson
Kaitlyn Mullis
Matthew Effinger
Morgan Barnes
Pfeiffer Phoenix 45
after Dodges 12th birthday his father died.
Dodge and his mother visited the mill sporadically
after that, but since nobody else in the household was
a great fan of cornbread, she eventually quit going.
Within two years, the mill had closed. During the next
three years, Dodge would often dream about going
down to the old mill to snoop around. Sometimes in
the dream there would still be customers inside, and at
other times there would be a watchman who would
chase after him and threaten to have him sent to re-
form school for trespassing.
Then one day at age 17, Dodge and two of his
friends were in the woods picking blueberries whenthey got lost. After walking for an hour in the woods,
they came to a stream. They followed the stream for
about 15 minutes when they came to a clearing. Not
500 feet ahead was the old grist mill. As the three ap-
proached the building, Dodge sensed a flurry of activ-
ity inside. His mind went back half a decade as he
imagined entering to see customers buying cornmeal
and petting the tomcats. The door to the old mill was
open, so the trio went inside to find that the activitywas not the result of the ghosts of customers past. In-
stead, the old mill was overrun with mice! There were
mice in the sales and storage rooms and even more
mice in the milling room. That was why the owners kept
the two cats in the mill while it was in operation. There
were still unopened bags of corn in the milling room
and kernels of corn stuck between floorboards. Some
of the bags had already been gnawed open, and all
of that corn attracted rodents. Dodge chased after
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There was nearly always at least an element of truth
in the stories. Moose have been known to charge
trains, but in the few known cases they were merely
knocked to the side. Muskellunge, or muskies, are car-
nivorous fish that have been known to eat young wa-terfowl, but a fully grown goose is something else. Peo-
ple have been known to drive out on the Great Lakes
when the lakes were frozen, and Lake Er ie does be-
come entirely frozen over about once each decade;
however, its probably not enough to hold up the
weight of an automobile. Although Dodge said that he
had a newspaper clipping of his apprehension, he was
never able to produce the clipping.
Dodges most believable tale concerned his own
father Ellis Elder. Ellis loved cornbread but insisted it be
made from freshly-picked corn. Store-bought corn-
meal, he claimed, was made from what he called
dead corn. Dodge went each week with his mother
to a local mill that jutted out into a stream so clear that
he could see catfish swimming around. There were usu-
ally fisherfolk on the other side angling the fish. The mill
was always busy, and Dodge marveled at the 19thcentury mill and its beautiful finely-grained floorboards.
People waiting in line could pet two handsome mar-
malade tomcats that flanked the checkout desk, one
on each side. Dodge said that he didnt understand
the significance of the cats at the time. Sometimes,
Dodge would go into the milling room, where patrons
and their children could watch the millstones at work
grinding the corn. At any rate, Dodge and his mother
would make the trip faithfully each week until shortly
Pfeiffer Phoenix 7
Peony
Monster
Feed
The Hour
Occupy
Pink Ribbons
TS3
Education, For
Granted
City Hall
A Catfish-and-Mouse
Game
Jingzhuo Li
Brittany Loder
Brittany Loder
Stephen Schroeder
Kirsten Bragg
Hailey Starnes
Tabitha Shue
Kaitlyn Mullis
Kirsten Bragg
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The Qualities of
Silence
The qualities of silences are many and yet,
Each one has a surprisingly different effect.
The qualities of silences are such that I find
Every silence has a different impact on my mind.
There was a silence, and I filled it with noise.
The conversation stalled, so I piped up my voice.
But there are moments in which silence is my friend.
Every earthly rest prepares us for that silence at the end.
Some silence is welcome; some silence is sad.
Like the end of a noise or losing a friend that we had.
Like losing ones voice after having too much talk.
Just having a rest after having a long squawk.
After the power goes out when theres been too much
TV.
--After the gunfire stops, and enemies agree.
After the vitriol gets caught in their throats.
After the music stops when thereve been too many
notes.
Pfeiffer Phoenix 43
A Catfish and
Mouse Game
Dodge Elder was quite a teller of tales. People lis-
tened attentively but among themselves wonderedhow he thought they could believe such ridiculous
stories. Dodge was a bright enough guyhe earned
an MS degree in Physics from an institution in Cleve-
land, Ohio and taught physics at a small college
but he always insisted these stories were true. One
claim he made was that he saw an eagle swoop
down and carry off a newborn fawn. Another was
about a flying moose: he claimed that once in
Maine he saw a bull moose charge a train, and thecollision propelled the moose into the air in a para-
bolic arc to a height of 80 feet and a horizontal dis-
tance of some 300 feet. One of his most dubious ani-
mal stories was his claim of a muskellunge grabbing
an adult Canada goose by a foot and dragging it
the length of a large pond until it was pulled under
water and drowned. He even claimed that during
one bitter winter while he was working on his Mas-
ters degree, Lake Erie froze over completely. After
he finished his final first-semester exams, he and a
friend got drunk and decided to drive across the
lake in his 1951 Mercury sedan. When they got to the
Canadian side about 4 AM they were greeted by
Ontario police, who detained them until 3PM that
afternoon and had them escorted all the way to
Windsor, Ontario so they would not be tempted to
go back across the lake. They didnt get back to
Cleveland until 3 PM the following day.
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City Hall
- Kirsten Bragg
Pfeiffer Phoenix 9
When you love the one youre with, and silence is
enough.
When the talk show host goes off the air, and they finallyshut up.
When you go to the country, and you cant hear cars
any more.
When the lump of lard turns over, and you cannot hear
them snore.
Yahwehs in her holy temple; let all the earth be silent.
Be still before the Lord; let go of sonic violence.
Un moment de silence aprs le tempte.
At the end of the song, the fade out to rest.
The qualities of silences are many and yet,
Each one has a surprisingly different effect.
The qualities of silences are such that we find
Every silence has a different impact on our mind.
-David Palmer
Department of Music
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Sunrise in January
- Brittany Loder
Phoenix Staff Member
Pfeiffer Phoenix 41
Works Cited
1. Burrell, Jackie. "Sobering Statistics on College Students
and Alcohol Use: The Impact on
Your Freshman." About.com. 2008. 23 Oct 2008
.
2. Ellis, Deborah. Women of the Afghan War. Westport,
Connecticut: Praeger Books, 2000.
3. Mortenson, Greg, and David Oliver Relin. Three Cups of
Tea. 1st ed. New York: Penguin
Books, 2006.
4. "Transition to College." IES: National Center for Educa-
tion Services. 2006. Census Bureau.
23 Oct 2008 .
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comes back, it will still be there. After all, if education
were a stopwatch, wouldnt it be tempting to stop
time, go enjoy yourself for a weekend, and come
back whenever youre ready to press the start button
again? It seems that this would be an opportunityevery student would take, and many students do. The
students growing up under the oppression of the gov-
ernment cannot, and while it is not the American stu-
dents fault, it remains his responsibility to appreciate
every minute of education he receives, and to never
push the button on the stopwatch to make it slide to a
halt, even if it is temporary and harmless.
This is the last story, and it is short. Feyba is a seven-
teen-year-old young lady from Kabul, living with her
mother and two brothers in Pakistan for the past six
years. Her family dislocated from Afghanistan for the
same reason that the schools in Kabul were closed
because of the war. (Ellis 136)
Education means everything to me, Feyba says.
She says if she could say one thing to other people her
age, it would be this: If they have the chance for an
education, they should work as hard as they can, be-
cause not everyone has the chance they have. (Ellis
137)
- Kaitlyn Mullis
Pfeiffer Phoenix 11
If life was a staircase
which way would you look?
Would you look to the
bottom or the top?
Would you look
to see how far the top
is from the bottom, or
how far the bottom
is from the top?
Would you rather take
one step at a time to the top,
or just use the escalator,
which can bring you down just as quick?
If Life was a Staircase
- Lindsay Sisco
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Managua
- Kirsten Bragg
Pfeiffer Phoenix 39
After the Taliban, women hardly venture outdoors.
Amongst other laws against the women of Afghanistan,
the rule that forces females to wear a burqa is the most
hated, and the most widely enforced. If even a hand
should show, a woman is beaten down in the middle ofthe street. The Taliban target educated people in par-
ticular, forcing them to quit their jobs, which cut their
families off financially to the point where the parents
become beggars and the children are set back even
farther from their longing to go to school (Ellis, 60-65).
While it is now plain to see why American students
take their education for granted, it has been made
equally difficult to learn of the struggles of the Afghani
people, especially in contrast with the average Ameri-
can student. The fact that we Americans fail to take full
advantage of our opportunities to take a firm hold of
education while others scratch helplessly at the dirt in
an insatiable hunger to learn is quite a bitter pill to swal-
low, as it should be. If our democracy should crumble,
and the rights to an education were stripped away, we
would become terribly aware of the situation in Af-
ghanistan. Perhaps, then, American students would be-
come capable of appreciating education the way
they should, and maybe this would be the only way to
do so, since the fact that their schooling is readily avail-
able has been engrained into a young persons mind
and personality since they were four years old.
When one knows that something, or rather every-
thing, is sitting on a table and never will be taken away,
it may become understandable for him to ignore it for
a while, to take care of it later, because when he
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become more and more enticing, offering alcohol
and drugs that allow a tough week in frustrating stud-
ies to melt away almost instantly. The social scene of
the party is all too much for a young adult to resist. In
a students mind, it makes no difference whether
they party on a Saturday night instead of studying for
midterm exams. It is America, after all, and it is the
land of opportunity. No one is going to take that op-
portunity away from a young person. They can study
for midterms the following Sunday, and the exams will
still be there in the coming week. Education will still
there when they go back to school on Monday.
The idea of the omnipresent chance at education
that swims around in the head of a student may betrue, but it is not the right mindset for a young person,
and not all students are able to enjoy that kind of atti-
tude. School-age children in the war-torn countries of
Afghanistan and Pakistan have lost all hope at gain-
ing an education. Before the Talibans takeover, chil-
dren in Afghanistan went to school as usual, usually
going on to graduation and college. Now, schools
have closed down due to lack of funding or because
they have been destroyed by the effect of the war.The Taliban have made it against the law for girls or
women to attend school. Any female that attends
school is punished, usually by torture or execution.
Even before the Taliban took control, girls were usu-
ally forced to quit school by their families and en-
tered an arranged marriage with a man they have
never met before. Girls as young as thirteen were
sworn into marriage and started families, spending
their adolescent years in the repetitive duties of a
Pfeiffer Phoenix 13
Trouble Ride
On June 12th, in the year 2000, a desperate
man by the name of Nascimento got on a bus in Rio
de Janeiro and took its passengers hostage. Five
days later, on June 17th, 2000, my mother, my two
brothers, and myself got into my Daddy's car, and
were taken hostage. The passengers on the bus
couldn't have possibly known what was going to hap-
pen to them that day; undoubtedly they were just
along for the ride, from one place to another, com-
pletely unsuspecting of the man who would get on
bus #174 and change their lives. I should consider
myself lucky, then; I knew from the moment Daddy
opened his mouth that morning and said, let's get inthe car and go somewhere, that we weren't just go-
ing for a ride.
Just as it's normal for people to get on a bus, it
was normal for my family to take rides. Coming from
somewhere, going to somewhere, if there was extra
time, we would just ride. But this kind of ride was dif-
ferent. This was a trouble ride. When I was eleven
and I didn't like my Christmas presents, Daddy took
me for a trouble ride. It wasn't a ride from somewhere
or a ride to somewhere; it was a ride to trap your ass
right there so he could say whatever needed saying
without you escaping. It's really ingenius, if you give
the notion some thought. You can't run away from a
moving vehicle! Nascimento and my Daddy are wise
kinds of men, in that way.
But, on June 17th, I wasn't eleven, and it wasn't
Christmas. I was thirteen and it was Father's Day. I
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was thirteen and it was Father's Day and it wasn't just
me in the car, or just Granseur or just Jonathan, or just
Daddy and Momma for that matter. It was all of us,
and Momma wasn't talking and she didn't look happy
and this was most certainly not one of our usual rides.It was a trouble ride, I could tell, and he was taking
the whole family along on leather seats and too
much air conditioning and all of us sliding around with
the curves, not bothering to grasp for the wahoo
bars because we didn't go very far. We just went
down Badin Road to Guard Road, or maybe we went
down Badin Road to Momo Road and then he took
us up Valley Drive. Or, maybe I wanted him to take us
down all those roads and never tell us why we were inthe car, but he didn't. He just turned left out of the
driveway, and turned right onto the Kirk property and
bumped us up and down on the dir t road back to
that old house at the edge of the woods with the rot-
ting tire swing and the broken down porch and no
cornerstone to hold that house up. How far did that
bus go, before Nascimento expressed his intention? I
remember reading that the route traveled through an
upper-middle class neighborhood, and I wonder if he
rode along for a while, letting the bus make a couple
of stops and allowing the passengers to remain com-
fortable. Or, if like Daddy, he took the short route,
and laid it on them quick.
It must've been early, because we got out of
the car and it wasn't hot yet. Actually, it was beauti-
ful. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, and the
breeze was making those delicate patterns as it kissed
Pfeiffer Phoenix 37
school-aged kids to the term college fund. Once
students hit high school, everything is about the next
step to the university. They are encouraged to get in-
volved in student government, because it looks great
on a college transcript if someone has held the title ofstudent body president or class treasurer. Honor socie-
ties such as the Beta Club and the National Honor So-
ciety exist for the sole reason to push students into col-
lege. Classes become weighted, preceded with the
words such as Honors and AP, or advanced place-
ment. If one should take an AP class and receive a
high score on the official AP exam, they earn college
credit. Athletics are important, whether someone is
striving for an athletic scholarship or the sport be-comes just another bullet in a student resume. Dozens
of other extracurricular activities are scattered across
a high school campus, just waiting for the high school
student to join, using the mantra that it looks good on
a college transcript to lure them in. After three years
of this, students move into their senior year. Applica-
tions are sent off to universities, and the wait begins for
the admissions office to send acceptance or denial
letters. Worse still, the letter could place the studenton the waiting list, and more anticipation builds. Fi-
nally, after thirteen years, the students graduate and
move off to college, where in the first week, they are
usually asked about their intentions for graduate
school. Education continues, just as expected.
It is easy to see how students can place their edu-
cation on the backburner. They become weary of the
monotony that school presents, and they long for a
break in the habits of the typical school week. Parties
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education that is bypassed multiple times. There are
young adults elsewhere in the world that would love
to have a chance to write the rest of that neglected
essay, pour over chapter after chapter of the text-
book, and sit in that temperature-controlled class-room, away from the sweltering heat of the desert sun
or the sub-zero winds that rip through the harsh land-
scape of their hometown.
Education is made readily available to todays
American students. From the time they are very young
to the time they walk out of graduate school with their
doctorates degree, students in the United States are
fully aware and used to the fact that their right to an
education will never be stripped away. They live a life
where there is no doubt where they will be pressured
to spend the four years that follow their high school
graduation. As of 2006, the percent of high school
seniors who enrolled in college the autumn following
their high school graduation was sixty-six (Transition to
College 1). Students walked into their kindergarten
classroom surrounded by colorful posters that claimed
The Sky is the Limit! and teachers that assigned pa-
pers that had the title What I Want To Be When I
Grow Up. These kindergartners grew up, and moved
through elementary school with the promise of at-
tending a middle school soon after.
Middle school is where students are first bom-
barded with the idea of college. Parents encourage
their children to make excellent grades in practice for
high school, so that the university they apply to will be
impressed. They may even introduce their middle
Pfeiffer Phoenix 15
each strand of wheat and moved on to the next. I'm
sure it was hot in Rio de Janeiro, where the bus full of
people was still awkwardly trusting that each rider
was simply going about his usual way. I'm sure it was
hot there, but it was a rare, cool-ish June morninghere in North Carolina, and we were all walking
around, trusting, or hoping, that this was just a pause
in a ride to somewhere or from somewhere. Let's sit, I
want to talk to y'all for a while, Daddy said, and I
imagine Nascimento probably requested something
similar of his bus passengers. I wonder if they stayed
in their seats, or if there was a hero who would stand
when asked to sit. Momma, did she sit on a fence?
And Jonathan and Granseur and me, where did wesit? Maybe we didn't sit but we were all there, to-
gether, and Daddy told us that Momma and he had
decided that they couldn't live together anymore
and that he was going to be staying at Mawmaw's
for a little while. I read that Nascimento told his pas-
sengers how he had had no where to l ive, that he
had nothing. I read that he told his passengers that
he had nothing and he needed their money, that he
had no intention of hurting anyone.
When we got back in the car, Daddy told us
that it didn't mean that he didn't love us, but we knew
that, so he told us that it didn't mean that he didn't
love our mother. He didn't want anyone to be hurt,
he just wanted to be honest. Then, he did turn right,
on Badin Road, and then right taking Guard Road to
Burd Road. Right again he turned onto Valley Drive,
and right on Momo Road. He just kept turning right
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and there we all went in a circle when I damn well
knew that not one of us still wanted to be in that car.
We were trapped in there with poor Daddy trying to
hold on to what it was l ike to all be together and it be
okay. Those hostages were trapped on that bus with
Nascimento trying to hold on to the last option he
thought he had. Daddy took us on a trouble ride and
no matter how many right turns he made, he couldn't
make it right, and that was sad. It shouldn't have been
his fault, and he shouldn't have felt guilty, but you can't
go on a trouble ride and expect it to come out right.
Nascimento got on a bus and no matter how long he
held those hostages, it wouldn't fix his life. And that was
sad, but it didn't make it right.
- Cynthia Dick
Phoenix Staff Member
Pfeiffer Phoenix 35
the weather outside. They do not think of Benazirs
heartbreaking situation in Afghanistan as they sleep
through their morning classes. They do not think, as
they daydream in the middle of a lecture or doodle in
their notebooks during presentations, about theteacher-less children in a faraway village in Korphe,
Pakistan who scratch their multiplication tables into
the dirt that they sit on with sticks (Mortenson 35).
These children did not have a teacher because the
Pakistan government has no money left over from
their military budget, they wrote in the dirt with sticks
because their families cannot afford school supplies,
and they were outside on a cold winter day because
there was no school. The last sentence was written in
past tense because a man named Greg Mortenson
risked everything to build a school for them.
Why do American students take education for
granted?
To take for granted, in a sense, means to gradually
lose gratitude for something or someone. Education,
however, is not something or someone. It is everything.
Education is everything that holds open the door to alife lived to the fullest. What constitutes as education
being taken for granted, therefore, can be as small as
education not being taken full advantage of. A stu-
dent that walks past a neglected half-written essay on
his way to the door to meet his friends for a night-long
quest to pick up girls, or the history textbook that
never gets read, or the mark beside somebodys
name that symbolizes absenteeism due to a vicious
hangoverthese are all examples of an opportunity
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has missed her morning classes and has too much of a
headache to attend her afternoon class, for which she
has not finished her homework anyway.
This is not a true story in the traditional sense, but
based instead on the growing statistic of college stu-
dents that go out every night looking for a good time,
no matter what cost it has on their academic life. The
Core Institute, which in 2005 surveyed 33,379 under-
graduates on over fifty United States campuses, found
that 31% of college students missed a class due to al-
cohol, 22% failed an exam or essay, and roughly
159,000 of the nations current freshmen will drop out
of school because of alcohol or drug use (Burrell 1).
It is hard not to wonder, in the light of these con-
trasting stories, what Benazir would say to the young
girl in the second story. There is a terrible amount of
things she could say, but it would be enough for her to
just shake her head and look away. There are thou-
sands of women where Benazir lives that would under-
stand this reaction. Their desire for education is so im-
mense that they often compare having no education
to having no life. Without it, they are forced to liveslived monotonously indoors, where venturing outdoors
means wearing the burqas under the threat of vio-
lence from the Taliban.
American students, however, continue to suffer from
the disease of not understanding. They spend their
days sitting in spoiled splendor, lounging in desks inside
well-equipped classrooms with fluorescent lights shin-
ing overhead and temperatures that can be made
warmer or cooler by a single degree, depending on
Pfeiffer Phoenix 17
Kaleidoscope
-Tabitha Shue
Phoenix Staff Member
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Pfeiffer Phoenix 18
The Seen Untold
Story
The love for the game never changed
started off as a kid grew into a burning flame
Pull through every time I see their names
live life fear nothing reminds me to never change
Things happen which become mental note
I rise up with a personal prayer and a quote
Which lets me know I conquer any obstacle
chase after my dreams knowing anythings possible
Showing homage to a city close to my heart
I feel I can do it all through this musical art but
most people say it is absurd because they only
see it as body art and ink words.
- Jarvis Wardsworth
Pfeiffer Phoenix 33
the public eye, and taken off only when she enters
her home. Every Friday, alongside other Kabul citi-
zens, they were made to go to the stadium to watch
the mutilation or killing of arrested Afghanis. The Tali-
ban targeted educated people, throwing the oneswho did not escape the country into jail.
Benazir escaped the country. She fled to Pesha-
war, a large city in Pakistan near the border of Af-
ghanistan, along with thousands of other Afghanis
who held the title refugees. Her life was much dif-
ferent. (Ellis 5)
Now, I am jobless, Benazir explains. I have no
way to survive economically. I live in Peshawar with
lots of difficulties. Having an education and not being
able to use it is l ike having money and not being able
to buy food (Ellis 6).
This is a very true story, but it is not the only one tell-
ing of botched education.
This next story is about an American college stu-
dent who will go unnamed by choice. At about
seven on a Thursday night, she takes a shower and
lets her friends fix her hair while she works on her
makeup. They leave the dormitory and cl imb into the
car, giggling the whole way. They arrive at their desti-
nation, a house blaring dance music and loud
drunken yelling. She dances into the night, growing
more and more comfortable with each alcoholic
drink she consumes. Here is where the story goes into
intermission, not for storytellings sake, but because
our main character wakes up the next afternoon withno recollection of the previous night. She does not
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Pfeiffer Phoenix 32
Education,
for Granted
This is the story of a woman named Benazir.
She used to be a student, and eventually a
teacher, alongside her best friend at ZargonaHigh School in Kabul, Afghanistanused to be.Benazir studied English in high school, enjoying
poetry, nature, and photography. She got her
masters degree in education at QueenslandUniversity in Brisbane, Australia. During her col-
lege career, she was involved in the Business
and Professional Womens Association, the So-roptimist Club, the YWCA, and the United Na-
tions Association. After teaching for while andwinning best teacher of the year three times,
she was appointed the principal of the Afghan
Womens Society Vocational High School, awomens school which at one time had threethousand students enrolled. Soon after taking
the job, Benazir began to travel abroad to con-
ferences and seminars, going to countries such
as Mongolia, Indonesia, Moscow, Manila, and
Bangkok. (Ellis 4)
The Taliban came.
In Afghanistans attempt to fight off the re-bellion, bombings went off without warning,
randomly killing whatever citizen had the misfor-
tune of being in the wrong place at the wrong
time. Gradually, the Taliban took over the city.
The women were forced to wear burqas, which
are dark garments designed to hide the entire
body, must be worn whenever a woman enters
Pfeiffer Phoenix 19
The O Train
- Jordy Carson
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Pfeiffer Phoenix 20
Everywhere
One night I came home and my house was
burned to the ground. My father stood in the front
yard, facing the smoldering remains.
What happened? I asked.
He was wearing jeans and his plaid shirt and noth-
ing else: he was barefooted, his feet blackened by
the soot.
Your mother was everywhere, he said. I smelled
her everywhere.
They got married when I was five. I was the flower-
girl to my own parents wedding. I was born whenthey were both eighteen, and my father saw it
through until I was two, and he left, unsure of
whether he was with my mother because he loved
her or because it was for the sake of their baby. I
never understood why it couldnt have been both.
He wandered for a year, and returned one night
in the middle of a rainstorm, a broken man. My
mother opened the screen door, me on her hip, and
we both looked down at him.
I love you, he said, and my mother let him in. It
was my first memorymy father, on his knees, tears in
his eyes, his hands resting on my mothers feet, look-
ing up and saying those words. I guess a year is long
enough for someone to figure out theyve made a
mistake.
He became the strongest man. He loved my
mother with everything he possessed, and he loved
Pfeiffer Phoenix 31
TS 3
- Tabitha Shue
Phoenix Staff Member
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8/3/2019 Fall 2011 Final
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Pfeiffer Phoenix 30
I now wear them to show and silently voice my sup-
port,
and Ive built up walls around me that would resem-
ble a fort.
I wonder why I didnt see them so much before?
They are just reminders that make me want to ball
up on the floor.
- Hailey Starnes
Pfeiffer Phoenix 21
There was nothing more powerful on this earth that
was stronger than my fathers love.
I dont know what cracked inside of her, what
crumbled, what creature grabbed her by the coreand made her walk away. She left us in the same
way he had, except she was sure, and she wasnt
coming back.
My father ceased to live. As if she filled every
space within him, once she left, he was a shell. Her
things were still a part of every room in our house. It
was as if she vanished, disappeared, evaporated.
I looked up at my father, and saw that his facehad fallen apart as he had begun to weep fiercely.
Dad? I asked.
I can still smell her, he sobbed.
It wasnt until then that I noticed my mothers
car sitting in the driveway, her belongings half-filling
the gaping trunk.
- Kaitlyn Mullis
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Pfeiffer Phoenix 22
New Focus
- Matthew Effinger
Pfeiffer Phoenix 29
Pink Ribbons
I always see them now, everywhere,
at basketball games in the cheerleaders hair.
I see them on shirts, sweaters, and hats.They are so abundant, I am just realizing that.
On wine bottles at grocery stores and magnets on
cars,
on blankets, bracelets cups, and even on scarves.
I wonder why I didnt see them so much before?
They are just reminders that make me want to ball up
on the floor.
Awareness. Support. Love. Hope.
People say thats what they stand for, but I didnt get
a vote.
Slogans like save the ta-tas make their use seem
like a joke,
sometimes when I see them, I tear up and start to
choke.
For me they represent the future unknown,
while also meaning a stronger family, and never left
alone.
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Pfeiffer Phoenix 28
Occupy
- Kirsten Bragg
Pfeiffer Phoenix 23
Something Beautiful
They say your body describes who you are,
But is it your body that defines beauty?
Our bodies are simply the judged containers
While something beautiful lies inside.
Unfortunately the decisions you make
Determine whether it is dead or alive.
Looking at the superficial,
There is nothing unique.
But as you search for beauty,
You will see what there is to seek.
As Mother Nature starts off under the ground,
She produces the essentials of life.
As your body is only what the eye can see,
The most beautiful part is out of sight.
The true beauty comes from within,
You just have to want to find it
To see what has always been.
- Morgan Barnes
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Pfeiffer Phoenix 24
Peony
- Jingzhuo Li
Pfeiffer Phoenix 27
The hour cannot slow the second hand.
Always first, it passes it to pass again.
Both hands are each others to hold,
But they touch for a moment, then let go.
Again theyll touch sometime they know,
What time they tell together, I dismiss.
From missing you, it feels amiss,
I am the hour, I am old.
The Hour
- Stephen Schroeder
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Pfeiffer Phoenix 26
Feed
- Brittany Loder
Phoenix Staff Member
Pfeiffer Phoenix 25
Monster
It's creeping closer,
this monstrous fear.
It slinks and it slithers,drawing ever-near.
I don't want this;
I try and flee
but no matter how far I run
it always comes to me.
It wraps around my mind
whispering treacherous lies
and some frightening truths
(at least, I surmise).
Though try as I might,
it's always about
encircling my heart;
this monster called doubt.
- Brittany Loder
Phoenix Staff Member