By Grace Flinn

Thanksgiving Day is a holiday of blessings and giving thanks on the fourth Thursday of  November each year.   

      It was first celebrated in 1621 when the Pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians shared their harvest. Families have their own or follow the same traditions on the holiday. When one thinks of Thanksgiving they think of the traditional Thanksgiving feast: turkey or ham, potatoes, gravy, stuffing, and pie for dessert. Before the Thanksgiving dinner some families join together around the table and give thanks for the food they are provided. After the families finish their Thanksgiving dinner, two individuals take the “wishbone” the bone attached to the breast meat in the turkey’s chest. They each take and end of the wishbone and make a wish. They pull on each end to break the wishbone in two, and whomever has the bigger piece, their wish will come true.

     Thanksgiving Day is the busiest travel day of the year when families travel far distances to be with their loved ones. Giving thanks is an important part of this special holiday. Family and friends get together and think about the moments they cherish and are grateful for they have. We are reminded on this day it is important to give thanks and share and give. Some families even like to help others in need that do not have the home or family to visit on Thanksgiving Day. Some will volunteer to help serve or donate to the homeless, Thanksgiving food at homeless shelters.

     Before the Thanksgiving feast, loved ones gather to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. There are many bands and floats with giant balloons shown in the parade, along with dancers and singers. Also, the traditional football games on television. It is a day to relax with your family and sit around to enjoy the Thanksgiving food.

    Thanksgiving Day allows families to get in the Christmas Holiday spirit. Black Friday is the Friday after Thanksgiving where it gives a day for one to shop for the holiday season at stores with the best deals. Some stores and malls start their deals on Thanksgiving Day to give more time for people to get shopping done. Although, some might think it will cut into the family time they need on the special holiday.

     Thanksgiving is not all about the food, football games, parade, and shopping. It is a day to spend time with loved ones, and give to others. It reminds people to be grateful for what they have.

     Weekends are days where students can sleep in and relax, but homework can get in the way of those relaxing days.

     Homework, whether during the week or on the weekend, is something most students are not looking forward to doing. Getting home from a 7-hour school day to look at 2-3 hours of homework a night can be a drag. While most students dread homework over the weekend, it is also okay to bring school somewhat into students’ lives outside of the classroom.

    “[Homework on the weekends] is sort of debatable, some students do not even think about school on the weekends while there are some students who are in honors classes who get homework over the weekend.”said freshmen Jason Liu.

     Unfinished projects or papers sometimes need that extended time the weekend offers. Some students work after school or are involved in extracurricular activities, so they are not able to get what they need to get done during the week. It is true in which some students have events that take the entire weekend and homework over those days are added stress, but those are not very often. On top of that, most teachers are lenient on giving extensions for unplanned circumstances.

    While it can not be helped, homework should not happen all the time over the weekend, only when it is necessary. Most students do not mind doing a little bit of homework here and there sometimes, but when it starts to get in the way of their family life and such, then it starts to become a problem for them. Students would much rather go and hang out with their friends then do homework, but there are times where students have to sit down and get work done.

     “[Teachers should not give students homework over the weekend] because that is the student’s only free time during the week. It is [their] only two days off from school during the week,” said sophomore Brianna Erler.

    It is not a bad thing for students to bring home work from school but some students believe that school work should stay in school. Although this is understandable, there is not enough time during the school day to finish all that needs to be learned. Going home and doing some school work helps students remember what they were taught in school. It also allows them to get help from older siblings or parents if there is something they do not understand.

Even though most students would disagree, having homework over the weekends is not as troublesome as they think.

The Cleveland Browns have had a poor record for a historically long time. Most fans say that the team is “close” to being on the next level, but others see zero signs of them being “close” in any aspects of the game.

For starters, the Browns have had 23 different starting quarterbacks since 2000. Even for people who do not understand a touchdown from a field goal, they can probably figure out this is not a good stat for the team.

It is not like any of the quarterbacks have had much potential either. Quarterback Brady Quinn had very high hopes coming into Cleveland. Fans believed he could have been the quarterback to take them to the next level; however, in 12 games, Quinn posted a 3-9 record.

All the blame cannot go on the quarterback, just like all the praise cannot go towards him. The quarterback needs to be surrounded with offensive weapons or a good defense in order to succeed. Neither of these have been the case. The Browns had high hopes in star wide receiver Josh Gordon. This was, of course, was until he could not stop smoking marijuana and found himself getting suspended more than he was actually playing. While Joe Haden has been a lockdown corner for the past five years, he has fallen off a cliff his past two seasons. This is due to him just getting burnt too often by Steeler wide receiver Antonio Brown or just getting injured every one out of every three games.

The signing of wide receivers Dwayne Bowe and Brian Hartline were supposed to bring life to the Browns offense. They have done just about everything but that. The Browns have virtually zero weapons on the offensive side of the ball. If they had decided to trade away Joe Thomas before the trade deadline, some would come close to saying that their defense has more of a chance to score than the offense.

The defense has had tons of problems all year. They had high expectations coming into the season, and they did not meet any of them. The Browns rank in the bottom three for almost every category of run defense. They give up the most amount of yards and are bottom three in touchdowns and yards per carry.

It is just silly to say that the Brown’s are “close” to anything really. They do not have much potential to do anything unless they hire guys who know how to find players out of college who will succeed. No one knew the likes of Time Brady; however, picking Justin Gilbert and Johnny Manziel over Odell Beckham JR and Khalil Mack is just not going to get it done. Unless of course, the organization secretly wants to lose, because sometimes it honestly looks as so.