Celebrity Love
Holly Lyon
BARK STAFF WRITER
Do you find yourself seeing TuPac or Nickelback hanging from the wall every time you turn around? Can you put your iPod on shuffle and still only hear one artist? Do you look through your movies and find that all you have are flicks starring Johnny Depp? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you’re obsessed.
Being obsessed with a celebrity isn’t necessarily unhealthy. Take Jennifer Graham, for example. She’s been obsessed with Britney Spears ever since the pop star made her first debut.
What makes Miss Spears so amazing in the eyes of Jenn? “She’s hot and her music rocks,” she says, “I have all her music and I listen to her all the time.”
Robert DeLorenzi has a slightly worse obsession for Fall Out Boy singer Patrick Stump. “I have a Patrick Stump action figure on my headboard at home,” he said, “and I have all of his songs and all of the songs that he’s been featured in.”
When asked why he has such a passion for the artist, Robert simply said, “I love his voice. If I ever met him, I’d be like ‘oh my God,’ and put him in a bag and take him home.”
Compared to other stories, these teen stories aren’t obsessions at all. One anonymous girl wrote on her blog, “I developed a severe obsession with Elijah Wood…I would cry myself to sleep because I wanted to meet him so badly.”
She continued to write and say that she would get over her obsession, but just seeing a picture of Wood would make her relapse.
Cbsnews.com recently conducted a study on people with celebrity obsessions. “In a study with more than 600 people, psychologists found that about a third qualified for a condition they coined “celebrity worship syndrome”—a condition wherein, at its most severe, the object of worship becomes the central figure of their lives.”
One story of celebrity worship directly involved the object of obsession. 30-year-old Paula Godspeed made life-sized drawings of American Idol judge Paula Abdul and drove a car with a picture of her hanging from her rearview mirror. The car also had a personalized plate that read “ABL LV.”
Ms. Godspeed had written “disturbing” letters to Abdul for 18 years, and had followed Ms. Abdul home after failing to make it to Hollywood in the fifth series of American Idol.
On Tuesday, November 11, 2008, Godspeed was found dead in her car outside of Abdul’s home. She had attempted suicide in the same spot a year ago, according to police reports, and attempted a drug overdose then, too.
Reports say that Godspeed was a regular visitor to Abdul’s Sherman Oaks neighborhood.
A Love for Scrabble
By Jared Schober
Bark Reporter
Mrs. Main, and her teaching assistant, Mrs. Lydon, who have both taught English for over two decades at Vaca High, love to play scrabble.
They also believe it helps their students, “It increases spelling and vocabulary in this day and age where there’s so much texting and forgetting to spell,” says Mrs. Lydon.
So it seemed almost perfect for them when, five years ago, they incorporated their favorite board game into their school lesson plan. They hoped this would be a great opportunity to teach their students spelling and expand their vocabulary while having fun.
Once a week, the students would put aside all of their belongings, pull out a couple of scrabble boards and spend the period playing, relaxing and, as Mrs. Main and Mrs. Lydon hoped, learned vocabulary.
Needless to say, it has been a success for the class.
“It helps me learn and it’s fun,” says Everett Smith, “ And I like hanging out with the best teachers ever!!”
After four years of using class time to play their favorite game, this year this scrabble playing time developed into an unofficial club.
Being a new and virtually unheard of club, it has modest membership- there are only eight committed students, two teachers, and two scrabble boards.
“We play just for the love of it,” said Mrs. Main.
Although it is small and very new it is also very unique. It is the only club devoted solely to enjoying and playing scrabble in at least this area of Solano county if not farther.
If you want to enjoy a peaceful, quiet Wednesday lunch in room one hundred and six and you love to play scrabble too Mrs. Main extends a warm welcome to you.
Rebuilding the Wonder
By Danielle Lara
BARK STAFF WRITER
Andrew’s Park, the well-known and loved park that has served our city for the past fifteen years, is now being rebuilt by local volunteers. Kids and parents of all ages have spent many memorable days there, wearing the wooden structure down. The large structure, yet still usable, is becoming old with age, calling for a local project, yet again.
Fifteen years ago, the city of Vacaville came together to plan and build a play structure in the local park. This project worked with great success, only to be burnt down by vandals soon after. In response to this, the local people pulled-together in order to build the park for a second time.
Laura Kuhn, head of the project, states “The wood was worn and splintered, and many of the moving parts were broken or missing,” making it a necessity for the structure to be improved. Therefore, the Vacaville Sunrise Rotary, the City of Vacaville, and a group called Leather Associates, pooled together to begin planning.
Leathers Associates, the leading designers for this project, have planned out the entire park. They took the opinions of the local children into account when designing, and even decided to add a new dragon.
To complete the work on the playground, the group has been accepting donations in the form of money, tools, or even time as a volunteer. So far, the money collected from the City of Vacaville, the Vacaville Sunrise Rotary and other generous sources lead to a grand total of two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars of donations.
This exciting new park is continuing with great success, and although extending past the original date of completion, is proposed to be open to the public on October twenty-fifth at two o’clock.
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