by Jake Bailey and Jude Wolfe

“It was probably one of the worst I’ve ever had, mostly because of the almost complete disablement and the constant feeling of being uncomfortable as well as the duration of the virus. The feeling of being useless really begins to weigh on you, and it is extremely annoying to deal with.”

At the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year at St John Bosco High School, many students arrived at school happy and healthy, primed and ready to enjoy another exciting year of school. However, a dangerous, menacing, and wildly contagious disease swept over some of the members of the Bosco community. Hand-Foot-Mouth Disease is a very intense and unique disease, most commonly found in children, with symptoms including sores in the mouth and vicious rashes on the hands and feet.

“The bumps came on both my arms and on the bottom of my feet, these bumps were painful to the touch and without ibuprofen it was pretty difficult to even move around the house,” said a Bosco faculty member who wished to remain nameless like the rest of the interviewees.

It is fairly easy to contract this disease as it is commonly found in small children and can be transferred to anyone through just a simple touch, making it extremely hard to prevent and stop from spreading.

“I had family staying with us for the summer because they were having house renovations done and they had two small children. Somewhere at either the park or the beach, one of the three children [including my daughter] obtained the disease and brought it home. I must’ve gotten it through touch,” said another Bosco faculty member.

Once infected, the disease has no treatment, and the only means of curing it are to wait it out and try to ease the pain with topical ointments and pain killers. This is disabling and takes a week to ten days to pass.

“I couldn’t even [expletive] walk or anything and couldn’t hold or squeeze anything. It was like a week and a half to almost 2 weeks over Christmas break so I couldn’t go out with friends and I couldn’t touch anything,” said a Bosco student.

This disease is particularly unique in the case of how extremely rapidly it can spread. Hand-Foot-Mouth Disease is capable of spreading like wildfire, and because of the lack of any real treatment, victims are forced to simply wait it out.

“[You must] repeatedly wash your hands and carry out constant healthy hygiene acts. Once the carrier is aware of the disease, avoid human contact at all costs and remain in quarantine for 7-10 days,” said head Bosco Athletic Trainer Ms. Melody Mohebbi.

Sometimes, the person that has the disease won’t take notice or see signs of contraction for 2-3 days, so the best way to avoid it is by practicing healthy hygiene. For those with the disease, it spreads fast, so stay away from others at all costs.

For example, if a player on a football team contracts the virus, multiple players could potentially obtain it within a matter of days if not kept away. In addition, when compared to other illnesses, many people have described this virus as one of the worst they have ever encountered.

“It was probably one of the worst I’ve ever had, mostly because of the almost complete disablement and the constant feeling of being uncomfortable as well as the duration of the virus. The feeling of being useless really begins to weigh on you, and it is extremely annoying to deal with,” said a Bosco faculty member.

On top of the complete physical disablement, there is another aspect of the disease that carries a heavy burden. 

“It also affected my appetite a lot, because it was hard to eat with sores in and around my mouth. Also with a sore throat and the severe pain that came with, it was very hard to sleep at night,” said a Bosco student. 

Due to the disease’s highly contagious traits, it’s is best to always wash your hands and often sanitize, especially in such a large community like you encounter everyday at St. John Bosco. One can greatly help prevent this virus by instilling this value within the youth, as they’re the most frequently infected. It never hurts to be too clean. 

by Ty Nakagawa

It is a new year at St. John Bosco High School, and there has been no better time than this past summer to turn some things around in the school’s own Oratory.

It has been a decade since Brother Nold and Mr. Woods re-opened the Oratory to its current state. The Oratory is an essential part of the Salesian program at Bosco, for it is both a home and a playground for students at the school.

Many families rely on it as a shelter and safe place for their kids who have to be dropped off at six o’clock in the morning and picked up later in the afternoon. The Oratory is a place where students can take a break to engage in friendly banter outside of school hours.

“The Oratory is a place for students to play and get energy out of them before and after school. I think it’s very positive because it gives you a sense of balance in your life. All work and no play is not healthy, because God tells us to rest, and so there is a time and place for everything that we have to do,” said religion teacher Mrs. Shields.

Every day of the school week, the Oratory is flooded with students. There are students eating, conversing, playing games, and buying snacks. The couches are packed, and so are the game spaces. However, that doesn’t mean there is no room for improvement.

The couches were somewhat old and tattered last year. The ping-pong tables were scratched, the paddles stained and shabby. The toasters and microwaves were also dingy and soiled with food stains.

In reaction to some of these aging resources, the administration at Bosco took action. You can say ‘goodbye’ to the old couches crawling with creatures, and ‘hello’ to new reclining leather seats, as well as brand-new foosball tables.

Other things to look forward to in the Oratory are new pool tables, better ping-pong equipment, air hockey tables, a new paint-job, a new TV along with a new PlayStation, and more. These changes will hopefully encourage more students to participate in the Oratory socially and connect more with the community and each other.

Because some students heavily rely on the Oratory, these new additions will be instituted incrementally so that the Oratory may remain open during renovation.

“Building a pipe underwater, you can’t just stop the water completely. You have to build in the water, and separate [the pipe] piece by piece, and parcel it out,” said Mr. Jaramillo.

The touch-ups made on the Oratory are expected to be fully complete and instituted around October. Mr. Jaramillo hopes that students will take better care of the Oratory this year after they see the time the school has put into remodeling the room and wishes to make a celebration of the new Oratory once the project is complete. 

by Joshua Lucero & Lucas Garrison

By attending St. John Bosco High School, students have to comply with the school dress code. The past few years these rules have been overlooked. So far in the 2018 school year, there has been a clear reinforcement to these rules.

School Vice Principal of Student Affairs Mr. Jaramillo has been tasked with the job to have the structure of the school run fluidly. A former dean on campus, Jaramillo is familiar with the rules and regulations on campus.

“My job is holding up the stage and making sure the lights work on the stage,” says Mr. Jaramillo.

These school requirements of clean shaving, tucked in shirts and belts are all major cultural changes on campus. Mr. Jaramillo is not trying to make the lives of students difficult, as he tries to bring equity and unification to the school community.

Jaramillo understands that there will be push-back by those students used to a laid-back set of rules in the past school years, but all students must be prepared to comply with these rules when coming to Bosco in the first place.

Push back is a great way to understand the students’ feelings about topics such as this dress code dilemma. This is a belief that is welcomed with open arms, as from this faculty can understand and try to make the student life a better experience.

The life of a brave is introduced to us early in our lives at Bosco, as incoming freshmen are told to imagine ourselves not in a school but in a house with your brothers. Experiencing this as a young Brave, students are excited of this idea but slowly lose this belief over time.

The sets of standards that were once the definition of a Bosco Brave are now being rebuilt to our everyday student life. Starting something basic like strict dress code policies can bring these standards back. 

“Walking into this year, we as a staff knew that changes were to come and that our help would be needed to enforce this. Walking into day one of this school year, I didn’t know that it would be this drastic in the sense that we are supposed to report every infraction that would later on result in some sort of disciplinary act,” said religion teacher Mr. Mestas.

Teachers, although informed beforehand, didn’t anticipate this kind of drastic reinforcement of the rules just like the student body.

“I can say that the changes are good. However,there could have been a much better way of handling this. It’s not fair to you – the student – that coming into this year you guys had no warning of what was to be expected of you and what was to come with this new school year. However, all of this change is not a new rule,” says Mestas.

Having these new enforcements are not unbearable, but it’s somewhat like waking up to water splashed in your face. We are going to be caught off guard, but students will soon understand what the administration is trying to do.

Being bull-rushed by these new requirements was a shock to all. Students believed these were not going to stick. After resisting, students were met with consequences. If not following the directions of the deans, the first warning was a lunch detention.

Dress code is not the only policy that has been reinforced, as if students show up late to school, they will also be given lunch detentions. There is no warning or pass, as that day you were late you have to make up.

Many students who live far from school have an hour to two hour drive in the morning to school. Being late to school is not something you plan to happen but happens.

Talking to those who are in charge of student life and seeing how this affects students first hand has cleared up a blurry vision. The reinforcement to these rules is not to contribute to the amount of stress already on the Bosco student but rather to show equity in the Bosco brotherhood. To be one and not divided and to slowly bring back the ideal image of the Bosco man.