Student’s Writings

The students were presented with two poetic lines about angels & demons and asked to consider those competing concepts.

 KHORI…reminds us that striking a balance between these two inevitable concepts is what defines our individual humanity.

                                                           Balance

In real life, angels and demons aren’t actual beings. They’re the voices in your head that influence the choices you decide to make in your life. The angel is the part of you that always wants to do the right thing. It constantly tells you to follow the rules, and not to disappoint anyone. Sometimes this voice can help; other times it can create pressure, and guilt. 

The demon part is the part that feels everything. Anger and temptation specifically. It questions rules, and pushes back when certain things may seem unfair. People always see this voice as bad, but ignoring it doesn’t always make it go away; in fact,l it can cause inner conflict. Everyone lives with both. 

When one takes over completely, things may start to feel off. Balance comes from recognizing the two voices, and deciding carefully which one to listen to. Angels and demons aren’t about good and evil. They represent the internal struggle that shapes all of us as human beings. 

                                                                                                                             Khori Mtchell 

                                                                                                                               2/6/26

The students were tasked to craft a story about a coin toss—the simple gamble of Heads or Tails.

MOHAMED…takes us inside the thoughts of someone who uses the coin toss to make a decision he could not, or could he?

Luck

In a coin toss, there are two possible outcomes: heads or tails. And based on that, there is a fifty percent chance you could get either outcome. But life doesn’t flip that clean. 

I stood on the cracked sidewalk outside the gas station, the air smelling like gasoline and burned pizza, rolling a quarter across my knuckles. The sun was setting and my heart was beating faster than it should’ve been for something this simple. 

Heads, I’d do it. 

Tails, I’d walk away.

That was the deal I made with myself. No overthinking. No last-minute excuses. Just luck deciding for me, because honestly, luck felt more reliable than my own brain lately.

I flicked the coin into the air.

It spun fast, catching the light, flashing silver like it was showing off. For a second, everything slowed down. The cars passing by. The wind brushing my hoodie. Even my thoughts shut up for once. All I could focus on was that coin flipping over and over.

Clink.

It hit the ground and bounced once before settling.

Heads.

I stared at it, feeling something weird twist in my chest. Not excitement. Not fear. Something in between. Like when you’re standing at the top of a roller coaster and realize there’s no getting off now.

So that was it. Luck had spoken. I picked up the coin and slipped it into my pocket, my fingers shaking just a little. People say luck is random, but in that moment it felt personal. Like it looked at me and said, “Yeah. You. Let’s see what you do with this.” 

I took a breath and pushed open the door. Inside, everything felt louder. The bell dinged. The fridge making noise. Some guy in the corner was laughing way too hard at his phone. I walked forward, each step feeling heavier than the last, like gravity was trying to hold me back. My reflection stared at me from the glass doors, unbrushed hair, tired eyes, someone pretending to be confident.

I wasn’t fearless. I was just done waiting. Luck doesn’t make you brave. It just removes the excuse.

So I finally did it… said the thing, made the move, took the risk. It wasn’t perfect. My voice cracked. My hands were sweaty. The moment didn’t play out like some Instagram reel. But it was real.

A few minutes later, I was back outside, the sky darker now, stars starting to peek through like they were curious how things turned out. I leaned against the wall, exhaled, and laughed under my breath. Not because everything went right, but because I survived the choice. I pulled the coin back out and flipped it again, just for fun. This time, tails. I smiled. Not because tails meant anything, but because I finally understood something nobody tells you. The coin never decides your life. It just gives you a push. A tiny excuse to move when you’re scared of standing still. Luck isn’t about chance. It’s about what you do the second the coin hits the ground.

Mohamed Cisse

January 30, 2026

The students were tasked to craft a story about a coin toss—the simple gamble of Heads or Tails.

 MINGO…deploys a fictitious walk to school to dispel the belief that a coin toss is a 50/50 proposition.

Not Quite 50/50

There I was, at the crossroad between me, my brother, and five dollars. And the fate of the money was all up to a coin toss.  Allow me to start from the beginning. 

It was a relatively gloomy school morning. I must have been in eighth grade, my brother in sixth grade. Along with my dad who always walked us to school, we were making haste toward the school. When the time came to cross the street, the pedestrian signal (the walking man) illuminated a bright white in the gray day, and I grabbed my dad’s hand and began to cross the street. That was a rule of his. Whenever crossing the street, you first check if the walking man is up, then, look both ways, stay inside the crosswalk, and hold his hand. This never irked me. My dad, as an auto-accident lawyer, had seen a lot of things in his work, and he knew best. My brother, on the other hand, was more of a rebel, and despite my dad’s plead, he did not hold his hand. Instead, my brother decided to stay as far away from my dad as possible. Now that I am reminiscing about the circumstance, I believe they had gotten into a fight the previous day. So my brother opted to be a free bird crossing the street, while I was confined to my dad’s side. 

Of course, my brother being free meant that he could go as fast or slow as he wanted. That ability became his strength when we both saw it. Green paper lay on the ground. From my distance I couldn’t make out what the bill read, but I knew it was money. It could be a dollar, it could be a hundred. I saw my best friend, my own brother, eye that money, and look back at me. We maintained eye contact for a second, and then he broke it, bolting forward. I tried to do the same but my dad (who hadn’t realized what was at stake) held me back. I was trapped, and I had to watch as my brother grabbed up the money. Five dollars.
My dad, the one technically, responsible for my loss of five dollars, made a proposal. A coin toss. The winner keeps the money. To this day, I have no idea why my brother would agree to such a gamble. It was already his money. He was the first to get to it. Dad pulled out a quarter from his pocket. I observed that the starting face of the coin was tails. He threw it up high into the air, and I watched it bend into the color of the sky, and then fall, flipping all the way down. Dad looked at me first.

“Call it.” He said.

“Tails,” I confidently exclaimed. My brother shifted in his spot.

After he revealed the coin, I was claimed the winner. My brother, the loser, pouted. I had information that he didn’t after all. 

A coin toss isn’t 50/50. 

The chance of a coin landing on the side it started on is 50.8 percent more likely. You are probably under the assumption that my success in the toss got me five dollars; that is unfortunately incorrect. Just as the odds of a coin toss are nearly 51/49, the embellishments-to-truth ratio in this story is the same. There was no coin toss, nor did I get the money. 

Mingo Cord

January 30,2026

The students were tasked to craft a story about a coin toss—the simple gamble of Heads or Tails.

 DANNY…dissects the film, “No Country for Old Men,” and the dispassionate way the film’s main antagonist deploys the coin toss to decide life or death.

Death

Anton Chigurh is one of the greatest antagonists in fiction. This is a spoiler-free review, so no, the open-ended fate of Llewelyn Moss’s wife is not a spoiler. We actually have no idea what happened to her.  Anyways, I will be talking about what he exactly represents. Anton Chigurh is a cold and nigh-emotionless psychopath who is the main antagonist of Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men.” The popular movie is directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. The actor for the main antagonist is Javier Bardem.

Anton Chigurh is a hitman, completely devoid of empathy, remorse, and compassion. When set upon a goal, he stops at nothing to achieve it; he kills anyone in his way, and he has an eerie presence of near invincibility throughout the film. He often seems to be ontologically inevitable, which is very significant, but I’ll get into that later. Psychologists have ranked Chigurh #1 as the most accurate depiction of a psychopath in cinema. Chigurh wields a suppressed Remington shotgun and a captive bolt pistol, often used for painlessly dispatching farm animals.

In Cormac McCarthy’s works, such as “No Country for Old Men” and “Blood Meridian”, he often depicts his antagonist as being the ontological representation of certain concepts. It’s arbitrary and implicit pertaining to what they are exactly. For example, in Blood Meridian, the antagonist Judge Holden could be interpreted as many different things. Judge Holden is a pale, 7-foot-tall man with the visage of an enormous infant. He is highly intelligent and indulges himself in the depths of depravity. He enslaves, scalps, murders, and rapes many people throughout the novel, which include children. He proclaims himself to be immortal and declares himself the suzerain or keeper of the Earth. He declares that war is God, and that anything in creation that exists without his knowledge exists without his consent.

He leads a gang of cowboys in the West during the period of westward expansion in the United States. Some believe him to be the devil, some believe him to be war itself, some think that he embodies the dark truth of Manifest Destiny. In contrast, Anton Chigurh does not relish himself in depravity to this extent. Although he obviously isn’t good.
Chigurh’s cold and unstoppable nature makes him seem more like an entity than a real human being. We’ve only ever seen him bleed a few times, and he seems as if fate itself works in his favor, as he wipes out dozens of people against seemingly impossible odds. His infamous coin tosses, which he offers to a select few of his victims, are what define his character. When faced with someone whom he decides is worthy of a chance, he’ll tell them to call a coin toss. If they win, he lets them go; if they lose, they die.

Much of Chigurh’s dialogue gives the impression that he feels as if he’s the arbiter of fate. Human life means nothing to him, and he’ll kill people who even slightly inconvenience him. Because of this, many interpret him to be the embodiment of death. He represents the inevitable fate of all human beings, operating on a nihilistic code that reduces human life to pure chance. Conversely, Llewelyn Moss, the protagonist, is a brilliant depiction of man vs fate. Overall, Anton is a brilliant character, and it’s extremely entertaining to see him operate. I’m excited to read the book, since it was gifted to me recently. I would highly recommend anyone to watch the movie, since there are a lot of interesting things that happen in the film. The ending is very chilling.

Danny Buck
January 30, 2026

The students were presented with a 1965 video of Bob Dylan’s iconic song, “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” and asked to consider its message.

MOHAMED…pens a letter from the songwriter himself.

Back Then is Starting to Look Like Now

Dear leaders of the future,

When I wrote the song, “Subterranean Homesick Blues”, I wasn’t intending for the future to revert back to the past. At my current age of 84, I have seen plenty of change, both good and bad. And I can say with confidence that the United States of America is in big trouble. I’ve seen it all: war, corruption, economic frustration, and even the systemic disillusionment America presents. I thought that there was nothing worse than what I experienced in the 60’s, but there is. And that’s the current administration. Within a year of the President being in office, the damage done could take years to repair. Our global relations with other nations are fading. What they call the issue of immigration is not only hurting countless families but also taking a toll on our economy. It’s a major betrayal to drive out to the very people who build this nation. Democracy is being shattered with the corruption happening in the government. Those in power only look out for themsleves rather than the people of this nation. It’s a tragic world we live in and only the leaders of the future can rebuild the damage that is being done. I urge you all to step up and fight with unity and justice

Do not be comfortable. That only leads to mediocrity.

“First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me”

By: Pastor Martin Niemöller

Don’t overlook the past. Lean from it. Knowledge is power. Whether it’s used for good or bad, depends on the user. Whether you decide to act or not depends on you, but the least you could do is learn. I will leave you with is this: without change, nothing will change.

Best Regards,

Bob Dylan.

Mohamed Cisse

January 23, 2026

The students were presented with a 1965 video of Bob Dylan’s iconic song, “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” and asked to consider its message.

 RYLEE…finds the “twenty years of schooling” line to be alarming.

A Song Stuck in My Head 

 A dark room, and an alarm that’s been stuck in my head for as long as I can remember! It’s a pattern that has been embedded in me forever. Yet, I continue this cycle because, once I get out of school, I will be moving on my own schedule. Or maybe that’s just what I tell myself to get through these days. I listened to the song “Subterranean Homesick Blues” by Bob Dylan, and one specific lyric that stands out to me is “Twenty years of schooling, and they put you on the day shift.” Which makes me wonder, will I ever break this trying cycle? Waking up and going to school for what feels like the majority of the day and then going straight home is what feels like one of the most repetitive things that one can do. By the time I actually enjoy the concept of life, and my actions stop counting towards how successful my future will be,  could be at retirement age! I suppose if your career ends up being something you enjoy, then it might not feel too bad, but getting to that point can take years. There really is no being certain when the cycle stops, or if it ever will. So I guess my real question is, when will that alarm that I know so clearly in the back of my head stop ringing?

Rylee Breeden 

1/23/26