Melrose Alliance Against Violence

                Melrose Alliance Against Violence (MAAV) is an organization that began in Melrose in 1995. It was created to help spread awareness about domestic violence. Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) is a branch of MAAV, run by Northeastern Sports in Society, and helps educate students to better understand how to play a role in stopping issues such as sexual assault and sexual harassment.

                MAAV focuses on violence prevention, and works closely with the community to raise awareness about teen-dating violence and domestic violence. MVP is a program that encourages and empowers student leaders to play a central role in solving these problems that MAAV focuses on.

                Alyssa Abbot, a senior at MHS, has been interested in the MAAV program since she was a little girl. She attended the annual MAAV walks with her family and applied to the MAAV’s Student Action Board at the end of her freshman year. She has since been deeply involved with MAAV.

                “I truly love being part of such an amazing and selfless organization.” Abbot said.

                Every half-day, nominated student-leaders join together with the MVP mentors (from Northeastern University) and discuss how somebody’s actions can make a negative or positive difference in the community.

                “I feel I am making our society a better place with what I have been taught through MAAV and MVP.” Abbot said, “To me, MVP is an opportunity for a wide variety of students to be taught how their leadership and their voice can make a difference in the community, and at large. I enjoy every minute spent with MVP, and I know that the other students do too.”

                MAAV helps the Melrose community, through its devotion to support people and educate them about teen-dating violence and domestic violence.

                “No one should have to face these grueling issues alone, and MAAV serves as an outlet and support for anyone who faces violence,” Abbot said.

                MAAV’s Board recently has put the MVP students in freshman seminar classes to train and teach them on what they have learned through the program.

By: Christian Hashem

Justin Timberlake's Peformance

Justin Timberlake wore his suit and tie and left audiences amazed Thursday night during his sold out concert at the TD Garden. Timberlake kept the audience singing and dancing along the whole night with his high energy show.   

Timberlake performed non-stop for 2 ½ hours, and didn’t break a sweat. He performed with ease, never missing a beat or step. Since November 2013, Timberlake’s 20/20 Experience world tour has been putting on concerts across America.  The tour will continue over the summer in Europe.  This is Timberlake’s third headlining tour, the first time he has been headlining since 2007. 

The performance included songs such as, “Suit and Tie,” “Take back the Night”, “Let it Groove”, “TKO”, “Mirrors”, and many more from his 20/20 Experience album.  But Justin treated the audience to his old songs “Cry me a River”, “What Goes Around”, “Like I Love You”, “Seniorita”, and the famous “Sexyback”.The singing and dancing stopped only for a brief intermission, (where Timberlake did a costume change) and cracked jokes about New England weather and his band members.  When he talked about Boston’s resilience after the marathon bombings, the crowd cheered on even louder than before.

On the stage with Timberlake were the band, The Tennessee Kids, numerous dancers, and back up singers.  The back of the stage had a huge white screen that was used for the show’s visual effects, background videos and an impressive light show. The visual effects were one of the highlights of the whole concert.  The performances and stage gave a classic appeal, which relates to many of his new songs. He glided through his songs without any hesitations, he looked comfortable on stage and he never slowed down. The whole show was amazing and Timberlake’s performance was exciting and gripping.

Timberlake will return to the TD Garden July 19^th.   


By: Anna Garofalo 

 

Review: “The LEGO Movie”

          “The LEGO Movie’s” theme song sums up the movie perfectly: “Everything is awesome.” The movie opens with Emmet (Chris Pratt), a perfectly normal LEGO construction worker who only wants other people to like him. Emmet’s perfectly normal life soon becomes anything but. He finds the magical Piece of Resistance, a woman whisks him away to a different world, and brings him to a mysterious old man who informs him he is the “special” foretold by a prophecy. Sound familiar? (coughcoughTheMatrixcoughcough)

            Emmet must use the piece of resistance to stop evil Lord Business (Will Ferrell) from gluing all the LEGO pieces together. With help from Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) and Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman), Emmet meets up with the other Master Builders, which include Batman, Superman, Abraham Lincoln, and Robin Hood, among others.

            The animation is amazing. Everything is made of LEGOs. When something catches on fire, there are pieces of LEGO fire everywhere. If something explodes, little LEGO bricks fly into the sky. “The LEGO Movie” makes the animation entertaining in and of itself.

            “The LEGO Movie” has everything a successful movie needs: humor, good plot, good voice acting, and good voice animation. It will entertain and delight viewers of all ages, and is well worth the price of a movie ticket.

By: Emma Morrison

Opinion Article

Headphones are a the simple, convenient invention that allow people to listen to their music without disturbing the people around them. There are many different varieties of headphones: over the ear, in ear, sport, even wireless. Of course, when choosing headphones many decisions go into picking just the perfect pair for your sensitive ears. First, you must consider the sound quality, then the comfort, then of course the price. You want to make sure that when you blast your music and close yourself into your own world that you have the opportunity to understand your music and enjoy it. Unfortunately, the thing most people don’t take the time to consider what it sounds like to the people around them.

Your music is very personal. The bands you listen to, the genre of music you particularly enjoy, and even the artists within the genres. Now in a given crowd, your music most likely differs from the people around you. For example, if you are rocking out and blasting Kanye’s new hit single, the person sitting next to you, who we will say in this situation enjoys classical, probably does not want to rock out with you. As I am sure, if the situation were flipped, you probably would not want to sit there trapped listening to Mozart blasting through their Beats headphones… ha.

Now, how is this relevant to me? Here in the wonderful environment that is Melrose High School, there are quite a few people who have taken their music choices and decided to push it upon everyone else. Now, I know what you are all saying: “Headphones aren’t even allowed!!!” Yes, the tragedy, but that rule doesn’t apply to hallways or certain teachers’ discretion. Walking through the hallways doesn’t bother me as much because I can avoid the full blown concerts that people decide to put on. But sitting in class, taking a test, minding my own business, and attempting to focus on a test, like the good students we all are… *cough cough*… I really do not need to suffer through Riff Raffs ‘sick’ new album. I would honestly much rather suffer through a pre-calculus test in silence.

Don’t get me wrong. I completely understand the "headphones in, world out" rule. When I walk home you can bet I have my headphones in; all I focus on is the sound of the music. I most likely have it on full blast, too. Now before you sit here and cuss at your computer screen or the newspaper open in your lap and decide to call me a hypocrite including some other names I am not allowed to write in this little rant, hear me out. I understand that not everyone likes the music I do, I do not expect that, and even if they did, I still would not want to sit and listen to it being paraded through your headphones in the middle of the test.

What I am trying to say in this article is that, in my opinion, there is a time to rock to sox off and there is time to not. “Well, how can I tell if it is an appropriate time to do that?” you may ask, and that, my friend, is precisely the question I was hoping you would inquire about:
The Golden Rule to Listening to Music with Headphones: OPEN YOUR EYES. LOOK AROUND. I cannot stress this enough, but all it has to do with is people. When you are walking home alone and you are in the middle of nowhere, completely alone then go ahead and bump those funky beats. But if you are in the middle of a test, then half volume is completely alright, heck, even 60-75% if you have good headphones. But please, PLEASE, be considerate to the people sitting around you. Now if you are not sure if it is too loud, then take the headphones off, listen real hard, and if you can hear your music with them 5 feet away from your face then guess what… it is TOO LOUD. If you cannot hear it, then you are fine *gives applause*.

Headphones are a glorious invention. Portable music that allows us to momentarily block everything out, but as you are doing that, make sure people don’t need to, in turn, block you out in the process. You were not hired as the DJ for the day, so please do not act like it.

By: Madison Forsberg