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Yahoo
27-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
CAPS & GOWNS: Altoona grad works with local police, pursues law enforcement career
ALTOONA — To many of her peers at Altoona High School, Kyra Boettcher is sometimes referred to as 'the cop.' She said it was an endearing title despite the fact that she is not technically a cop, but pursuing that career is something she is interested in doing after high school. 'Next year I will be going to [Chippewa Valley Technical College] for criminal justice in hopes to become a police officer,' Boettcher said. 'I will be going there and doing their law enforcement academy, and at the moment I do work for the Altoona Police Department. It has been an awesome experience — I was an intern there for eight months, I got to meet everyone and do a bunch of different things that make that career.' As she now graduates this spring having been a student in the School District of Altoona since Kindergarten, Boettcher said it is a weird feeling thinking about not having to attend classes in Altoona. 'Honestly, for me it is really bittersweet. I have been taking CVTC classes pretty much the whole year so I haven't been here as much, but I am a part of the student council so I am still really involved,' she said. 'I am ready to move on, but at the same time it's like, 'Dang, it's kind of over.' 'It is going to be weird not seeing the people I have grown up with every day. My best friend I have known since kindergarten, Duke, is moving to South Dakota for college… I think that is going to be the hardest, but I am also really excited for what's to come. Obviously I'm a little nervous because it is not the same structure at college, but I feel very prepared and am excited to see what doors open and what happens.' As she looks for opportunities after high school, Boettcher reflected back and said her first interactions and interests in law enforcement began in the classroom. 'For the longest time, I would have never guessed I would have been doing it because I was a little hesitant about the police for a long time,' she said. Through a law class, students like Boettcher learned about the legal field and heard from professionals about what law enforcement careers look like. She took the opportunity to talk with teachers, guidance counselors and even the school resource officer at Altoona, as conversations eventually landed her a job interning for the police department and working through both positive moments and difficult ones. 'It is not what a lot of people get to see at 17,' Boettcher said, 'but it really helped me mature because you have to be very professional and serious in those situations… I think that is a little bit different than what a regular high school job would have.' Now able to look back on her K-12 career, Boettcher said she felt very supported by the staff at Altoona as they challenged her ability to learn. When asked what advice or wisdom she would give to a large audience, Boettcher said, 'I think my experience growing up LGBTQ has been interesting in the field I am going into, but I think it is so important to not let that label box you in. Take every opportunity you can to do what you want to do. You can really make a difference in people's lives. Just go for it.'
Independent Singapore
22-05-2025
- General
- Independent Singapore
‘I've never felt more alive': 16-year-old says failing O-Levels was the best thing that ever happened
SINGAPORE: In most Asian countries, educational achievements are everything, and failure can feel understandably devastating. Therefore, it was refreshing to hear from one youth who said that failing the O-Levels was actually 'the best thing that ever happened' to them. In a post earlier this week from r/SGExams, u/aestheticalish explained that when they received their exam results four months ago, they 'felt like the world ended' at the age of 16, 'like I was a total flop.' The failure, however, was a real eye-opener because they realised that no one would save them and that if they wanted their situations to change, they had to be the ones to act. Which they did, with pretty spectacular results. They proceeded to enrol at ITE ( Institute of Technical Education), where they're majoring in Business and Accounting, which they 'low-key love.' Also, they're now working part-time at McDonald's for 28 hours a week, as they don't want their parents to pay for all their bills. They have also joined the student council, drama club, debate, and rugby, which they never thought they would do. While their schedule is chaotic because they go to school in the mornings, to the gym in the afternoons, and work in the evenings, often only getting seven hours of sleep per night, they added that they have never felt more alive. 'S o to anyone out there feeling like a flop… your comeback is gonna hit harder. Trust,' the post author added. Many commenters have congratulated the post author, marvelling at how much they have accomplished in such a short time. 'T hat's amazing for youuu!! All the best to the rest of ur journey :),' was the top comment on the post. 'The best stories, our best heroes, ALWAYS have a down period. You'll be awesome, keep climbing!' wrote another. Others also shared advice, like one who wrote, 'Keep it up, OP! But make sure u take sufficient breaks when needed so u don't burn out.' Many Reddit users also shared similar stories of having failed important exams and what they learned from the experience. 'I was in the same boat as you! Ended up in ITE after doing badly for O's (was not my plan, and I remember feeling super depressed about it). Turns out, it was a blessing in disguise! I had extra internship experience compared to my Polytechnic peers. One wrote, 'I just keep reminding myself, it definitely wasn't my plan, but it is a blessing in disguise!'. 'I failed my O levels maths back then and actually, I do feel that ITE allowed me to experience youth,' another chimed in, saying that their peers who went to Polytechnic 'were just grinding through endless projects.' Several thanked the OP for their inspiring experience. A student who had failed their A-Levels wrote, 'Thank you so much for inspiring me at one of my lowest points. I sometimes forget that the wings I have were not made for just walking… Let's keep doing the craziest things that keep us feeling alive.' /TISG Read also: ChatGPT fails PSLE after acing Wharton Business School exam
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
I Finally Got To Date My Crush Years After Middle School. Then The Unthinkable Happened.
The author at her 13th birthday party. Everyone remembers their first big crush. Mine was Jeremy, a name I had written hundreds of times on my seventh grade binders in big loopy hearts. He'd held the starring role in dozens of notes I passed in class and the daydreams that got me through fourth period science with Mrs. Banks. Jeremy ― the immortal 9th grader, vice president of student council, tennis player and wrestler with the dreamiest green eyes. He appeared each morning on our school's television announcements with a smile straight out of Teen Beat. Every morning, when those school announcements came on, I watched that boxy television set like Peter Jennings himself was delivering the news. Since we weren't in any classes together, I intentionally moved my locker within feet of his, just to be in his orbit every day. Seventh grade was a traumatic year. My parents were in the thick of a messy divorce. My mom underwent surgery and then radiation to remove a tumor from behind her eye. My sister, my only sibling, went off to college. And my childhood home went on the market (and was later sold, coincidentally by Jeremy's mom, a real estate agent). But even as my world erupted around me, seventh grade was magical, because of him. He was kind, if not patient. I wrote him a lot of notes, and from time to time, he wrote me back. When my friends cornered him in the school cafeteria during a Halloween dance — at my instruction — and pushed him in my direction so he could slow dance with me, he obliged. My friends and I also conspired about how we could bring him on a triple date to see the Steven Spielberg movie Always, and he joined us, a group of 12-year-olds, without much prodding. I spent the next two hours and three minutes with my arm brushing up against his, watching him out of the corner of my eye. At the end of the year, he wrote 'Love ya' in my yearbook, told me I was 'sweet and cute' and asked me to KIT (keep in touch) next to his number scrawled on the page. I was gawky with a perm-gone-bad and a mouthful of braces, and when I read those words, it was the pre-teen equivalent of a marriage proposal. Some called it 'puppy love.' But even at the time, I felt as though that cheapened it, made it seem inconsequential. He was magnetic, and I was drawn to him like nothing else in my life. We loosely kept in touch as the years passed, enough to keep track of one another as he went on to high school, and I moved an hour north. We traded AOL instant messages around the time he graduated from college and then law school, and I became a general assignment reporter outside of Philadelphia. After he began to practice real estate law, I told him about my hope to become an author one day, and he humored me. From time to time, when I was back in Miami, I would swing by his place and hang out on his couch. Throughout those years, even when we weren't actively talking and as I dated other people, he actively lived in my mind. I thought about him so often he made repeat appearances in my dreams. It was clear, even then, he owned a piece of me, no matter what else happened in my life. But as our lives continued to move at a dizzying pace and became more complex, we drifted almost completely out of touch, and a few years went by without us speaking. Then, more than 28 years after we'd met, the tables had turned, and he was watching me on TV. He saw me on CNN, where I appeared as a political analyst, and decided to send me a message on Facebook. The 12-year-old in me was giddy. Related: 19 Wholesome Posts I Saw This Week That Were So Cute, They Legitimately Put Me In A Happier Mood The message Jeremy wrote in the author's seventh grade yearbook. Related: A Woman Went Viral For Not Tipping On A $350 Hair Service, So We Asked Hairstylists To Weigh In What followed was an avalanche of text messages, not just that evening but in the days and weeks that followed — from morning until we fell asleep every night. For the first time since I'd known him, his flaws began to come into view. He told me about a dark time in his life a couple of years earlier and how stress had led to a drug addiction and then time in rehab. And while he had been in recovery for a while, he continued to cling tightly to near-daily Narcotics Anonymous meetings for support. I told him about my two-and-a-half-year-old son and my struggles as a single mom, trying to juggle it all, always wondering if I was failing as a parent. He liked books and politics, and lucky for me, I had just co-written a political book on the 2016 election. We often swapped songs throughout the day, as if we were making each other mixtapes. They were mostly cheesy tunes from the '80s when we were kids. In no time, our texts moved to phone calls and then, just a few weeks later, he boarded a plane to join me in Washington after I was invited to a White House holiday party for journalists. It was our first official date. The party was accompanied by a weekend of dinners, a long walk along the Lincoln Memorial, and even a quick jaunt to New York. We held hands. We kissed for the first time. We shared a bed. Before he returned to Florida that weekend, he agreed to join me in California for a week-long trip a month later. I was speaking at a book festival there, and he watched from the front row. And after that, we were reunited again and again just about every couple of weeks. I was finally his girlfriend. We talked about moving in together and getting married. He joined my extended family for a Passover seder. Then a few days later, I had dinner with his parents, his brother, and his sister-in-law at their neighborhood country club. It was full speed ahead... until it wasn't. Sitting at a hotel bar in Washington, Jeremy told me he was scared of commitment, and he worried he would end up hurting me ― if not now, maybe years down the line. He also wondered whether he would be able to leave his life in Florida and stand on his own without the support from his NA group back home. At the same time, he wasn't sure if he was good enough for me. It turned out he had his own insecurities about whether he could match up to me, a reversal of sorts from our time in middle school, when I came one degree short of stalking him. Life sometimes, I realized, has a way of changing trajectories. 'I'm not going to chase you around like a puppy dog,' he said. To make matters worse, he had also been seeing someone on the side, someone so different from me that it made me question what he ever saw in me in the first place. We never really said it aloud, but we were breaking up. 'I wouldn't worry about it,' he told me that Sunday afternoon before catching a flight back to Florida. 'It will all work out.' I begged him to change his mind in a dramatic scene at the Newark International Airport after he set his baggage on a conveyor belt. 'Don't go,' I said. 'Stay here. Stay with me.' I watched him in the security line, moving slowly toward the front, until he was out of sight. It crushed me. I doubted myself in every way after that. All my insecurities ― every one I've had since I was that 12-year-old standing by his locker ― surfaced in ugly ways. How could he walk away from what we had after nearly 30 years? Did he not love me after all? Was this all in my head? I read a book called How To Fix A Broken Heart and then found the man who wrote it and met him for therapy sessions. I also hired a love coach who emailed me tips on ways to get Jeremy back. Still, she cautioned, 'The onus is on him. You have to be willing to walk away if he doesn't meet your standards.' So, in the painful months that followed, I pushed myself forward because I knew as much as I loved him, as much as our decades-long story was more captivating than if we had met last week on Bumble, it wasn't enough. After we broke up, he sent me roses and vinyl records and even a strange paperweight of a distorted face. He told me he missed me and hinted that maybe one day we'd be back together again if he could work through his problems and fears. I wanted so badly to believe him. It took several years until the sharpness of the breakup had finally dulled. Around the same time, he relocated to Atlanta looking for change. We texted each other from time to time, and he would call me randomly. 'I wanted to hear your voice,' he'd often say. During the pandemic, after we were both vaccinated, he asked if he could come visit me. I changed the subject, like jerking a steering wheel to avoid an accident. I still adored him. I still thought about him every single day. But I had built a wall by then, desperately afraid of getting hurt again, unwilling to plunge so deep into the water that it would take me months, even years, to recover. Still, somewhere in the heart where we dead-bolt our secrets, I thought maybe someday there might still be a future for us if he would just let himself love me. In the fall of 2021, I noted that a month had passed since we texted and promised to catch up on the phone. I was sitting on the couch beside my mom one evening when my phone buzzed and a Facebook message flashed on the screen. I didn't recognize the name, but I opened it up. A woman introduced herself as a longtime friend of Jeremy's, who had spent time with him in recent months in Atlanta. 'I'm so sorry if I am the first one to share the news,' she wrote. 'He would want you to know, and I think you deserve to know that the time he spent with you was very meaningful to him. He always spoke highly of you and thought you were brilliant and kind.' She attached a short memorial from a funeral home. 'He loved you,' she wrote in a second message, a few minutes later. 'He made bad choices. And he regretted not choosing to be with you. Just wanted you to know.' I learned he wasn't able to find his footing in Atlanta. He turned to drugs again to mask the loneliness of the pandemic, of a new town. The author, age 13, with "The Game of Life" board game that Jeremy gave her. To say it wrecked me would be an understatement. I wasn't his wife, or even his girlfriend anymore, but the searing pain of it all was like nothing I've ever experienced. I was mourning our adult relationship, of course, which had come so close to blooming. But I was also grieving the passing of our youth. I kept coming back to the time — a week before we ended our relationship — when he and I drove together through the Miami neighborhood where we'd grown up. We parked outside his old house, where I'd made my friends walk dozens of times decades earlier, hoping to 'bump into' him. Then we drove a few blocks to my childhood home, where he once showed up for my 13th birthday party carting the board game LIFE. We didn't know it at the time but it was as if the universe was granting us one last tour of our adolescence. Grieving his death was like breaking up with him all over again, except this time there was no way of trying to salvage the relationship. No advice on how to win him back. The hope, the promise, that it would all work out, as he declared in our final moments together, was gone for good. That's the part that still jolts me awake at night. A few months after we ended our relationship, he sent me an email once again expressing that hope we had both clutched . 'I just have to say one thing,' he wrote. 'Despite where we are right now, and how bad things have been between us, I have a strange feeling that the glass we share is half full...' I often think about what could have been, how he was the missing piece I had craved for nearly all my life. But there are times I also wonder if he intentionally tried to spare me from additional heartache, unselfishly, knowingly, cutting me loose because he did love me. Jeremy taught me that love isn't perfect. Sometimes, it's messy and hurtful, and it doesn't always end the way you want it to. But it's a love story all the same. Amie Parnes is a senior correspondent for The Hill in Washington, where she covers the Biden White House and national politics. She is also the author of 'Lucky,' the #1 New York Times best seller 'Shattered,' and 'HRC State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton,' which was also a New York Times bestseller. She was previously a staff writer at Politico, where she covered the Senate, the 2008 presidential campaign and the Obama White House. This article originally appeared on HuffPost in January 2024. Also in Goodful: Men Are Sharing Things They Wish More Women Had Sympathy For, And I'm Already Laughing At How Women Will Respond To Some Of These Also in Goodful: I Believed I Was Destined To Be A Nun. But When I Moved Into A Convent, Things Changed. Also in Goodful: 19 Wholesome Posts I Found On The Internet This Week That Are So Urgently Needed Right Now
The Review Geek
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Review Geek
Bet – Season 1 Episode 6 Recap & Review
The Bet Gala Episode 6 of Bet opens with the announcement of the upcoming Bet Gala, setting the stage for more manipulations and power plays. Ryan makes an awkward attempt to ask Yumeko to be his date, which she declines since Yumeko decides to skip the gala. Meanwhile, Michael meets with Yumeko to discuss the photograph she stole. The picture includes influential figures: Kira and Riri's father, Dori's parents, Runa's father (a council member known for lending to students), Suki's mother, and an unnamed man whom Michael identifies as a house pet. Yumeko realizes that these individuals now form the current board of the school. Her new goal: get into the top 10 students and join the incoming student council, which will grant her access to a secret meeting with the board at the end of the term. To gain more leverage, Yumeko sets up Michael and Dori as dates for the gala, hoping to distract Dori. Meanwhile, Riri asks Mary to be her date. Yumeko finally asks Ryan, hoping they can win the king and queen titles and their cash prize, thanks to Ryan's dancing skills. Meanwhile, the student council vows to make her lose. As the dance begins, attendees arrive with a few votes already in hand. Ryan and Yumeko's performance on the dance floor quickly becomes the highlight of the evening, drawing attention and votes. But just as their win seems assured, the DJ is revealed to be none other than Suki, back from the dead. Suki, now reintroducing himself, claims he faked his death in agreement with Kira. He justifies his Alpha Sean persona as a way to hide from toxic masculinity. His sudden appearance receives cheers, but his motives remain baffling. To upend the event, Suki announces that since he's 'the only queen here,' Yumeko and Ryan must duel each other for the title of king or risk becoming house pets. The winner takes $100,000 in chips, while walking away means losing everything they've gained. Reluctantly, Yumeko and Ryan duel. She chooses Skirmish. Ryan tries to throw the match, unwilling to hurt Yumeko, but ultimately ends up winning, forcing Yumeko into the role of a house pet. Elsewhere, Mary and Riri share a quiet, romantic moment away from the chaos. Meanwhile, Michael discovers that Dori had been spying on him. He leaves after realizing Dori's toughness, symbolized by her eyepatch, was a fiction crafted by Kira. Dori later breaks down, blaming herself for not being 'normal,' but rushes to comfort Michael after seeing him cry over the mystery man in the photograph—the unknown house pet. The Episode Review Episode 6 of Bet continues its trend of relying heavily on plot conveniences and abrupt twists rather than coherent storytelling. Suki's return, under the pretext of escaping toxic masculinity and collaborating with Kira to fake his death, is both bizarre and narratively pointless. His reintroduction doesn't contribute meaningfully to the central plot and instead comes off as a clumsy attempt to shock viewers. Yumeko and Ryan's duel, which should have carried emotional and strategic weight, is disappointingly flat. There's little tension, no psychological warfare—just another mechanical sequence that fails to evoke the thrill that earlier episodes of Kakegurui once mastered. Moreover, Bet appears to have entirely dropped its core identity—gambling. What remains is a watered-down high school drama, peppered with light power plays and surface-level emotional beats. The revenge plot involving Yumeko's parents feels like an afterthought, and the show squanders every opportunity to explore deeper motivations or build compelling rivalries. With inconsistent character arcs (Michael's flip-flopping loyalties, Dori's conveniently tragic backstory, Suki's baffling resurrection) and tensionless confrontations, Bet seems more committed to shallow drama than to delivering a meaningful payoff. Previous Episode Next Episode Expect A Full Season Write-Up When This Season Concludes!
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Meet our Student of the Week winner, one of two juniors from Pulaski
Our Student of the Week poll has now closed. Thanks to all who voted. For this week's Wisconsin Student of the Week, we had two Pulaski students — both high school juniors — compete for the title. Keep reading to see who won, and how you can nominate a student for our weekly poll. We plan to continue Student of the Week through May, so we're welcoming submissions through May 23. Our winner, Samantha Wyent, nicknamed "Sammy," was nominated by Pulaski learning support teacher Mindy Micolichek. Micolichek nominated Wyent for her "positive attitude, leadership, hard work, and kindness," she said. "(Wyent) puts in extra effort to get items done, gets tasks done as soon as asked, problem-solves on her own, and is always the first to volunteer to make sure different things are done," Micolichek said. In addition to working hard on classwork, Micolichek said Wyent also devotes her time to many extracurriculars, especially student council. Her involvement "enhances school culture," Micolichek added. High school students are nominated for Student of the Week by principals, teachers, youth organizations and others who work with teens. Voting is open each week from 5 a.m. Monday until noon Thursday with polls at and Do you work with youth and know someone who should be Student of the Week? Reach out to Debi Young, statewide education editor, at to get a link to the nomination form. Rebecca Loroff is a K-12 education reporter for the USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. She welcomes story tips and feedback. Contact her at rloroff@ This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Meet this week's Wisconsin Student of the Week winner, Samantha Wyent
