Things don't always go as planned. Last year, despite regularly using contraceptives to prevent pregnancy, one missed pill and one broken condom left Jessica, a senior, in need of a backup. "It was unsettling," she says. It was a Friday night and the clinics were closed for the weekend, leaving Jessica terrified for the next three days.
Anthony, a junior, stares silently, intensely fixated on the flame before him. Without any hesitation, he lifts the lighter closer to his hand, this time so that it touches his flesh. He waits and clenches his fist as the flame engulfs his knuckle. Five, 10, then 30 seconds go by until he finally drops the lighter. He is left with nothing but an empty mind and a scar to remind him of his pain.
Distant drum beats and trumpet blares can be heard on the football field amidst the yells of practicing sports teams. It is 3:10 p.m. on Oct. 14 and the marching band is slowly congregating on the freshly painted football field—instruments in hand, smiles on their faces and ready to play.
Junior Jackson Vassighi's eyes scan the pages as he flips furiously through his notebook during lunch, looking for the quote to prove his point. The notebook, filled with religious passages and facts he has compiled that express an uncertainty about God, has become almost an obsession. "If one day I discovered something in these writings that gave concrete proof of [God's] existence, then I would believe in God," he says.