On March 13th-18th, I visited Disney World in Florida. Quite frankly, it was one of the best trips I have ever been on, and it seemed like a kick-start to a new travel life after 2020. With masks requirements being lifted all over the states, this trip had felt like any other normal traveling experience…
Author: Niomi Ellis
Niomi’s Notes: Goodbye Masks, You Won’t Be Missed
On Monday, March 9th, 2020, probably no student woke up thinking this will be the last week I go to Avonworth High School and not have to wear a mask. That Monday seemed normal, everyone just going about their mostly regular daily high school routines. By that Wednesday, students started to talk about the new…
Niomi’s Notes: Mask Down?
Over the past two years, we have gotten used to seeing our peers’ eyes only. In our day-to-day life, when interacting with people, the new norm had become judging an expression from how squinted their eyes were, or how their eyebrows moved. Yet, with this necessary change for the protection of our health, had come…
Niomi’s Notes: No More ‘Snow’ Days
The most core memory I have of a ‘snow day’ would be all the way back to 2011 when Pittsburgh was covered in nearly a foot of snow. The night before school, my mom got the phone call from the school that we would get the day off the following day. My sister and I…
Niomi’s Notes: Pep Makes a Return to the School
On January 21, all high school students flowed into the gymnasium for the first ‘normal’ pep rally since COVID. The stands cheered as students and faculty played tug of war, and the winter sports got their recognition. Are things finally going back to pre-pandemic times? I ask myself this as the tv in front of…
Niomi’s Notes: Short Shift To Virtual Is Ok, Just Not Longer
The first Monday back after winter break I expected to come back to classrooms full of exhausted students who all messed up their sleep schedules the past week. Instead, I came back to nearly a quarter of the students in my classes out of school due to being in quarantine – while the ones that…
Niomi’s Notes: Take It into 2022 or Leave It in 2021
Below are a few things I would like to take with me into the New Year or leave in 2021! Also, check out our TikTok @Official_Avonews for a video where I discussed these topics. Leave behind in 2021: The amount of unnecessary pressure we put on ourselves as high school students Procrastinating: This is thankfully…
Niomi’s Notes: If Life gives you Omicron, maybe make Hot Cocoa Bombs and Banana Bread?
The past two years have consisted of a rollercoaster of unexpected changes. Within these past few years, the news on TV has consisted of COVID, vaccines, and masks. However, at the beginning of this school year, the pandemic looked as though it was to possibly be a thing of the past in the near future….
Niomi’s Notes: Lets Get Thankful
Fall leaves scattered everywhere, cold snaps that feel like winter, even some snowflakes the past few days… I can’t help but think about the holidays quickly approaching – especially Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is typically just rushed through, or just viewed as the ‘food’ day before Black Friday. But, as cheesy as it may sound, it is…
Niomi’s Notes: Outside Lunch Trend Should Become An AHS Norm
For juniors and seniors, you might remember back before the pandemic to what lunch was usually like at school. It was everyone gathering in either cafeteria, typically 4-6 people per table. Lunch lines would stretch across the whole lunchroom for around the first 15 minutes of lunch. The hallways and outside seemed forbidden as underclassmen…