Sports in college operate on a whole different level: the competition is more intense, the training hours are longer and the pressure is much higher. But getting there can be the hardest part.

"First of all, I don’t like Frisbee, I love it. And second of all, 'Frisbee' is a wham-o disc, 'Ultimate' is a lifestyle," jokes junior Devin Rutan, a co-captain of Blair’s Ultimate Frisbee team, "Home Cooked." The Ultimate team, along with crew, paddling, running, ice hockey, are Blair’s club sports, meaning that they don’t receive school funding, their coaches and referees are not paid for by the school and they don’t follow country established schedules for competitions.

It’s the second half, and the boys’ JV basketball team (3-7) is just starting to get in rhythm. But only getting energized towards the end of the game is normal for the team, as they have three buzzer beating wins so far this season, and have made a name for themselves as a comeback team when they have won.

Wearing jersey number 43, senior Olivia Nono’s presence captivates on the court as she selflessly leads her team. Standing poised and at the ready, she calls out to teammates, giving direction, and then sprints, blasting ahead of the crowd, as she rushes to defend the basket.

"Beautiful black women mother of the earth/A skin who’s been embraced by the sun but led by a curse." These words begin senior Andy Mbala’s poem entitled "Black Women."

At the age of four, junior Tranelle Dodson was sitting in her living room when her aunt collapsed from a stroke. Dodson rushed into the kitchen to warn her mother, but the words just would not come out.

Some friendship roles are universal: the jokester, the listener, the leader. Not so common is a friend group that also has the forwards, the point guard and the captains. For best friends and senior varsity basketball players Morgan Chase, Adrienne Jackson, Johanna Lopez, Olivia Nono and Myla Sapp, friendship and basketball are inseparable.

At her boarding school in the Central Province of Kenya, Eunice Muchemi’s English teacher often moved the lesson to a field in the wildlife reserve just outside campus where monkeys, giraffes and antelopes mingled.

If you flip through an issue of Silver Chips from the past couple years, you’ll find one topic suspiciously missing: what Blazers do once they graduate Blair.

In a recent study, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) recorded and analyzed the deaths of teens in the age range of 16-19 in order to access the effectiveness of the Graduated Licensing System (GLS). According to their findings, after the implementation of the GLS, states have suffered 1,348 fewer fatal automobile accidents with 16-year-olds behind the wheel. But in the same period of time 1,086 more 18-year-olds have been killed behind the wheel.

Second semester seniors can smell the end of the school year from months away. It’s the light at the end of the tunnel; a carrot dangling from a very, very long stick. And sometimes the tantalizing taste of oh-so-close freedom can be a little…distracting. We lose the drive, the focus. We loaf.

As we enter the icy heart of the winter months, Blazers continue to succumb to the perilous symptoms of the common cold. Although many head to the pharmacies to stock up on Ricola and NyQuil, there is a whole universe of alternative remedies that you won’t find at CVS.

As seniors receive admission decisions and start planning for next year, they start to look around the hallowed walls of Blair and begin to wonder what they will miss most about high school. But this December seniors aren’t the only ones who have cause to look at Blair with a sense of impending nostalgia. Be it in plague, explosion, pollution or flood, it’s pretty much a fact that the end of the world is coming in 2012… Maybe. It’s time to look at all the things that are still left to be accomplished and create a plan of action. The internet is riddled with suggestions of things that are simply necessary to experience before you kick the bucket. But these ideas are lacking in creativity, and might, perhaps, devastate the rest of your life just in case the Mayans were off in their calculations. So! We set off on a perilous journey through school rules and policies into a Pandora’s Box of rebellious deeds to do before we die. Let’s begin at Blair.