Valeria Dancea, graduating from North Cross this year, walks our halls and the stage with a huge smile on her face. She has been gracing North Cross’s theater productions for four years, her favorite character she has portrayed as “Eliza Doolitte!” and her favorite production being The Crucible. She says that her favorite play she hasn’t been in is Beetlejuice the Musical. Via shares that her sister got her interested in the stage, and that if she has time, she will continue ‘breaking a leg’ in college productions. 
To students on the fence about participating in theater, “It’s less scary than you think!” Via says, “And it gets easier as you get on stage more, so you should definitely give it a shot even if you don’t think you’d be good at it.”.

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As we near the end of trimester one with tests and papers coming due, it’s important to remember to take care of ourselves as we work in our classes. 
Mental health is an important part of ourselves, closely correlating with physical health. For example, signs of heavy stress over long periods of time include headaches, fatigue, tiredness, lack of sleep, frustration, and changes in appetite. Little things such as taking a brain break, knowing your limits and respecting them, and not doing things that make us feel scared or threatened are ways of protecting our mental health. 
“I think stress and anxiety are the most common mental health issues that upper school students struggle with as they balance a heavy course load, sports and extracurriculars.” Upper School counselor Sarah Cocowitch said “It is a difficult task for upper schoolers, and understandably there are periods when they are learning to manage their time.”
And North Cross does care about student’s mental health. 
“I appreciate the fact that we have an entire counselor devoted just to students' well-being instead of also being tasked with scheduling classes, the college admissions process and standardized testing,” Cocowitch said, “all of the other huge tasks that public school counselors are asked to be in charge of.” Ms. shares.
Mental health is a serious matter and should not be taken lightly. Respecting and acknowledging our struggles is kind and important, because no one is made less by respecting and catering to their mental needs. Remember that going to therapy does not belittle us or admit weakness. It is a way of taking care of ourselves. 
“The most common misconception about mental health that I encounter when working with the North Cross student body is probably the idea that being  ‘mentally healthy equals happiness,’” Cocowitch said “Really what mental health means is experiencing the wide range of ups and downs in life and knowing how to work through the lows, we have to cope with the hard days and recognize that that's all a normal part of our life's experiences.”
Tudor House, which some of our classmates are involved in, is a good resource for mental health awareness and suicide prevention. Suicidal thoughts or contemplating suicide is not to be taken lightly, nor is a laughing matter. 
“I hope that all the upper school students know that they can seek out my support at any time when they feel things have become unmanageable or too difficult to carry on their own,” Cocowitch said, ”And I hope they know that I am also happy to help connect students and families to outside resources.” 
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, reach out quickly and that communication saves lives. 
Please try to use person-first language, and reach out to someone we think could be struggling. Person-First language puts the person before the deed, such as, “ died by suicide,” not “they committed suicide.”
Avoid talking about mental health or mental health issues with a negative connotation, because mental struggles are not and have never been a choice. 
Taking care of ourselves and loving yourself really is very important, and while mental health is important, it is not a reason to skip school unless we are really struggling. In fact, spending time with our friends could improve how we are feeling. 

If you feel you or someone else is at risk, the suicide hotline is 988. You can call for yourself or a friend, family member, or important other. ​

By Caroline Welfare
On Earth Day there are 24 hours each spring when everybody is reminded to keep good habits and conserve energy. But our leaders don’t do a good enough job of telling us why we should care or what we should do. How are all animals important in the great circle of life? How will the scars we leave now come back to bite us later? Yes, it’s important to turn off the lights when we leave the house because it saves energy, and overuse of resources is interfering with the planet’s natural patterns, but with more and more of our lives spent online, it becomes easier to question why we need to do this. Beyond that, the lack of communicating and spreading environmental awareness is making people unaware of what to do when the unwanted side effects of woodland creatures are thrust into their faces. The lack of information can also lead people into potentially dangerous situations. 
Who hasn’t heard their parents complain about the raccoons getting into the trash? Or pigeons (and seagulls… and crows…) trying to steal their food? More and more wild animals are getting pushed into the cities, and are adapting to survive. And while it’s great to see more of them surviving (coyotes have been seen looking both ways before crossing the street), it also means that we are being confronted with new problems, namely, aggressive animals, pests carrying diseases, gardens getting eaten, raccoons that can open trash cans, and predators capable of injuring our pets.
However, there are some other considerably worse side effects of being in close quarters with wild animals. Sometimes the consequences of not respecting them has something to do with eating something or being eaten. 
CBS news recently released an article about people getting sick and dying from eating a delicacy in Zanzibar: sea turtle meat. Not only is this sad for the sea turtles, it’s also a miserable thing to go through as the consumer, as the list of symptoms is “all of them”. People being unaware of these sorts of dangers can get hurt, as shown in the more extreme example of the early 1900s Maneater of Champawat; an injured tigress that claimed an estimated 436 human lives. It was finally stopped in India in 1907 by famed tiger hunter and conservationist Jim Corbett, the India Times said. In the book No Beast So Fierce, it is explained that the tigress had been maimed by a poacher’s bullet early in life, and was left unable to hunt its usual prey. As the East India Company pushed farther into the forests, its encounters with humans became more frequent, with us becoming its main food source. What stings the most is that both of these sufferings were entirely avoidable, if people had been responsible in their resource use and not tested their luck with a questionable delicacy.
While those are somewhat (actually, they are) very unpleasant examples, their message rings true: People need to know and respect the boundaries of nature, for our safety, and everyone else’s. Earth Day is a prime opportunity to remind ourselves of what we can do to help, but what we do on Earth Day should carry over into every other day of the year. There is a reason that the image of a quiet mountaintop with a cool breeze and a warm sun nurturing blooming flowers is an idyllic image in our minds, and the day that we forget that, we have to protect that for ourselves and our future is a dark, scary day indeed.