Here Comes College

I’ve already made plans to do laundry at my brother’s house and take turns intruding on my aunts and uncles in Seattle for an occasional homecooked meal.
Whoever said college means time away from family didn’t know my family. I will actually be surrounded by more family members at college in Seattle that I am here at home in Yakima.
However, I know there will definitely be a disconnect. I will wake up to my two roommates instead of my parents.
I will still hear from my siblings every so often even though we’ll be in the same city. I will be too engulfed in college life and homework to talk to my parents every night and tell them about my day as I would when I was at home.
Oddly enough, as much as I love my family and enjoy being home, I wouldn’t consider myself a home body.
When I left for a week to stay with my cousins as a kid, I never got homesick. When I slept over at a friend’s house for birthday parties and the other girls were eager to go home the next day to meet their parents, I was always the last to leave because I was simply having too much fun.
When I went on a two-week trip to the east coast last summer to visit friends and attend a service camp, I didn’t call my parents until a few days before I came home and that was just to confirm my flight time. It’s not that I never missed them; it’s just that I kept myself too busy to feel lonely without them.
However, I don’t think college will have the same effect. Once the excitement of the initial freedom wears off, I will hit a lull in which I will miss my parents and my home. The thing is that, with college, where you go home to at night isn’t where they are anymore.
Suddenly, you can’t escape from your friends when they’re annoying you because they constantly surround you. You don’t have someone telling you what movies you can watch or which friends you can drive with.
When you leave home, there is no one to catch you when you inevitably trip and stumble. College brings an incredible change into one’s life.
I don’t do well with such change; I never have.
The transition from small-town life to big-city life will be drastic for me, and there are so many aspects of this life that I treasure and that I will miss.
For one, I will miss the sun. Rumor has it that it rarely makes an appearance on the west side of this state.
I will miss not having to pay for parking, and the fact that 10 cars at a stoplight is “traffic.” The hills will be rough, and factoring in 20 minutes for travel time will take some getting used to.
I will miss being wedged safely in a valley, and I will long for snow instead of the dreary drizzle Seattle has in January. I will miss Davis High School and the teachers and volleyball and dances and football games, even though we lost.
I will not, however, miss International Baccalaureate. Nor will I miss having six classes a day and a zero period. I will miss writing for Unleashed, and I will miss my piano students.
But the encouraging thing about leaving a place you love is you always get to come back. Christmas break will find me sledding at Franklin Park. Spring break will find me with a hot tea at Northtown Coffeehouse surrounded by old high school friends.
And with the end of my freshman year of college, I will find myself back home where all the things I missed will be waiting for me.
I think the reason I never got homesick as a child or never needed to call my parents on long trips was not because I didn’t miss them, but simply because I knew I would always come back home and everything would be waiting for me, just how I left it.
I am ecstatic to go to college, don’t get me wrong. But for someone who doesn’t do well with change, knowing I can always come home is a comforting thought.

— Colleen Fontana is a 2010 Davis High School graduate and a former member of the Herald-Republic’s Unleashed journalism program for high school students. She will attend Seattle University this fall.

Ttyl bff!

My family recently made the earth-shattering decision to get new cell phones on a Verizon family plan.
I say “new,” and most people would therefore assume we had all previously owned phones and now were simply upgrading them to something bigger and better with more buttons. However, the term “new” is more literal than you may realize. You see, my 56-year-old mother has never had a cell phone in her life. Until now.
Unless, of course, you count the one she and I “shared” for three years. But I don’t, because being the self-centered teenager I am, the phone ended up being “mine” 99.9 percent of the time.
So these phones were brand-spanking new. New phones, new plan and unlimited texting.
Now understand that even after a week with the phones, my father was still getting used to the sound of his own ringtone. Everyone around him would be frantically checking their phones until he finally realized it was his that was ringing.
And my mother was still asking me if it was pushing the red or green button that answered calls.
So you can probably imagine their baffled expressions at the prospect of a slider phone with full keyboard and unlimited texting. What do you do with that kind of green light?
Send texts to everyone in your contact list, of course.
“Contact list?”
A message that would take me or any of my peers seconds to compose, even absentmindedly, takes my parents two minutes of total concentration. My dad, in his quest to become a texting fiend, calls me over for help after 10 unsuccessful minutes of searching for the comma, and says, “Teach us, Colleen!”
And so, in small repayment of their years of teaching me to ride my bike and tie my shoes, I teach them that a colon and a parenthesis together make a sideways smiley face.
The keyboard is the easy part. My attempts at T-nine Word blew their minds.
“There’s an ‘A’,” my dad points out, “but I want a ‘B.’”
“Just keep typing the word you want,” I explain.
“But,” he objects, “there’s an ‘A.’”
“Yeah, so?” I says.
“So,” he responds slowly, “so I want a ‘B!’”
After that, we skip Tnine and stick with the full keyboard.
I’m not sure why cell phones and text messaging are largely a “teenager thing.” Perhaps we just catch on more quickly or like that texts give us one more way to stay connected to our friends at all times.
I think, though, it has to do with the fact we barely remember life before it all. The convenience of being able to contact someone whether they’re out running errands or in the bathroom is a normal now; we can hardly live without it!
Not to mention we can throw all spelling and grammar rules out the window.
But I just got a txt so I gtg. Ttyl bff! 

— Colleen Fontana is a 2010 Davis High School and a member of the Herald-Republic’s Unleashed journalism program for high school students.

Life’s a Beach in Westport, Wash.

Life is simpler at the beach.
It is usually the only summer vacation my family takes, but it is also the only one I ever want to go on, so I’m not complaining. My favorite thing about this place is there is no Internet access. Unless, of course, we travel the 7 miles into town and park our car right next to the local public library, behind the Red Apple grocery store, so we can use their free wireless. Rarely do you hear an 18-year-old who admits to that.
Generally, the prospect of a week — or any amount of time for that matter — without access to the World Wide Web would send any teenager running in the other direction. I have learned, however, it can be nice to be un-connected to anyone else’s world and simply be immersed within my own, at least for a while.

It certainly makes for a few rare days during which I get to worry about what book I will read or the state of the sandcastle I built with my 6-year-old cousin, rather than whose Facebook relationship status went from “in a relationship” to “single” or the texts on where tonight’s dance is going to be.
Connections are great, don’t get me wrong, and busyness can be a blessing. But there is definitely something to be said for staying in your pajamas all day in a place where no one can reach you and you only judge the time of day by the rumbling in your stomach or the flow of the tides on the beach.

The annual Fontana destination for such a getaway is Westport, Wash., a place which, over years of summers, I have come to love. I can walk the path from our borrowed beach house to the ocean with my eyes closed. I know which store by the bay sells the best saltwater taffy. I always return to the ice cream store Whale of a Cone because it has both my favorite and my second favorite ice cream flavors and serves them up in generous quantities.
I know the best time to go crabbing is high tide and that if the ones you catch are females, you have to throw them back. I know the water is too cold for sharks but somehow not too cold for an afternoon swim with my siblings.

I can find the blackberry bushes, but only in August, and my breath never fails to catch as I climb the grassy dune to get a glimpse of the ocean. Different from when I am home and often struggle to figure things out, here I know everything I need to know already.
What did I tell you? Life is just simpler at the beach.
Here, I don’t put on make-up, I shower more for the sake of being warm than being clean, and my suitcase is merely packed with my swimsuit and comfy sweats. I wake up every morning to the sounds and smells of my dad making coffee and pancakes or eggs, but I don’t have to get out of bed if I don’t want to.

Mornings blur into afternoons, which at some point fade to night, but time loses its grip on me here. It really allows for a person to slow down as opposed to the rushing around we face back home.
I enjoy sitting on the couch with the Seattle Times crossword puzzle, listening to my brother sing “he was a one-eyed, long-tailed, flying purple people eater” aimlessly to himself while our young cousin does his best to imitate him.
I watch Grandma play Trouble with her grandchild, a game everyone hates unless

they’re winning. I watch my father crack eggs on his head for an omelet, a talent which has earned him the name “Uncle Egghead” from my young cousins.
At home, moments such as these get lost in the hurried frenzy of having to be somewhere or meet someone. Here, these are the moments we live for.
It’s as simple as that.

— Colleen Fontana is a 2010 Davis High School and a member of the Herald-Republic’s Unleashed journalism program for high school students.

More than Spaghetti

There are many things important to Italians. The top three, however, are family, religion and pasta.
Great-Grandpa Fontana ate pasta every day of his life.
My Italian ancestors, the Fontanas and the Bonanos, came to Louisiana from the Italian island of Sicily — like most immigrants — in search of a better life for their families. They brought with them their traditions and lifestyles.
We still celebrate feast days, such as St. Joseph’s Day, like they did. We also value our family and our faith, and — though my ancestors’ Italian has been replaced by English — my uncles can still imitate their thick accents.
As a kid, I never quite understood what was significant about such traditions. Even when the teacher instructed us to go home and ask our parents about our relatives and map out our family tree, I still wasn’t aware of how unique my identity is.

It wasn’t until my family and I visited Louisiana a few years ago, when my grandmother passed away that I truly discovered an appreciation for the sacrifice and the integrity of my family.
We sat around the living room of my father’s childhood home, telling stories and recounting memories of my grandma and grandpa. As is the custom in the South, neighbors brought food throughout the day, so there was never a chance we would get hungry.
MaMa’s funeral was well attended, mostly by people I had never met. They greeted me with hugs, as though we had known each other all my life.
I realized that day that this is what makes me uniquely and individually me. My future will be inextricably affected by my past and by my family’s past.
I realized how proud Great-Great-Grandpa Fontana would be of me. How Great-Great-Great-Grandma Bonano would smile to know I’m going to college. How my Italian cousins will always share my love of lasagna and cannoli.
Accepting my past means creating my future on the foundation of all who have come before me. I now treasure who I am, who the past has made me.
My father moved away from his family for work, coming to Yakima instead of staying in the South like the others. However, as with any good Italian family, weddings and funerals often bring us together.
It can be difficult to hold onto one’s roots, especially when one lives so far from their family. But the ties that bind my extended family have survived the miles and the years.

I value family, I attend church regularly, and my favorite meal is spaghetti.
What can I say — I’m Italian!

— Colleen Fontana is a 2010 graduate of Davis High School and a member of the Herald-Republic’s Unleashed journalism program for high school students.

Prepared to go forward

I have just hung my tassel on my car’s rear view mirror, its shiny “2010” glinting in the sun.
It was a proud moment.
Graduation has always seemed so far away, a day that, no matter how often I wished for it to come, stayed so distant. It has been merely an idea and a goal to work toward, but not actually one I thought would be here.
I was 6 when my oldest brother graduated from high school. I vaguely remember sitting restlessly in the Yakima Valley SunDome during the long ceremony, clapping vigorously at the sound of his name, then falling asleep on my father’s shoulder during the speeches.
Now, however, it is I who shall walk the aisle to my seat among my fellow classmates, I who will receive my diploma and shake the hand of my principal as I reposition my tassel to the left side of my cap, I who, after all these years, will be the one packing my boxes and moving away from home.
I can’t say I’m not ready.
Everything I have done for the past 13 years of school seems to culminate on this day. The late nights of studying, the long International Baccalaureate exams and the endless applications were all efforts to get to this point.

But now that it’s here, I am forced to look back and wonder if it was all worth it.
The stress, the work load and the many activities to form an impressive looking résumé may have paved my way to college, but have they gotten me to where I want to be?
Without much hesitation I can say that, yes, they have. Most, if not all, the things I have been involved in have brought me to a place of contentment, opening up new experiences that have taught me lessons and strengthened my character, not to mention challenged me constantly.
Unleashed has been the greatest honor. Working with teenagers who share a passion for writing, interviewing people and seeing my name in print have been priceless joys that have fueled my love of journalism and my goals for the future.
Teaching piano has taught me the art of patience, and yet has been the most rewarding experience of my high school years. Watching my young students grow and helping them learn have, in turn, helped me to a deeper self-awareness and understanding.
Events such as the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life and various other community service projects have reminded me to stay humble and be willing to serve others.
Because of the life I have lived, I feel prepared to go forward.
Though I know life away from home will not be easy, I still am able to go confidently, knowing that 13 years of schooling and 17 years of life have brought me to this moment.
And, as I walk in my black cap and gown, my orange and black tassel hanging from my cap rather than from my car mirror, I will remember the work that brought me there and the many hands that have helped me.
My parents, my siblings, my ever-supportive teachers and friends have eased my journey.
I know what awaits me at Seattle University and in my life beyond the high school diploma is a mystery. But I have a pretty good feeling about it, nonetheless.
Success is a privilege, but not an unattainable one. I believe we have all worked hard to achieve that privilege.
Congratulations class of 2010! We have succeeded!

— Colleen Fontana is a senior at Davis High School and a member of the Herald-Republic’s Unleashed journalism program for high school students.

“Into the Woods”

If you love musicals and didn’t get the chance to see the recent production of “Into the Woods” at Davis High School, you missed a good one.
As a cast member of the Stephen Sodheim production — full of wit and adventure —  I know I’m biased.
But I still feel like I can confidently say that you would not have regretted the $8 you would have spent to get a ticket.
From the opening lines of “Once upon a time” to the familiar end of “happily ever after,” you would have been engaged within the thick of a fairytale world.
Agonizing with the princes, chasing Cinderella and humming along with Rapunzel, you would have left the show wanting to pull out your old fairytale books.
“Into the Woods” follows the Baker and his Wife — I was his Wife — on their attempts to lift a curse placed upon their family by a witch. The curse prevents them from having children.
During their adventure, they encounter familiar characters such as Jack — of “Jack and the Beanstalk” fame — and his mother as well as Cinderella and Rapunzel, who are all in the woods for their own purposes.
Once everyone gets what they wanted, however, the plot twists and turns in Act II to test what it really means to live “happily ever after.”
The cast and crew of “Into the Woods” worked hard to produce a spectacular show.
And if you missed it this time, you might want to make sure you don’t next time. After all, who knows what can happen when you go into the woods.

— Colleen Fontana is a senior at Davis High School and a member of the Herald-Republic’s Unleashed journalism program for high school students.

Making Susan B. Anthony Proud

The year of 2010 has always seemed like a landmark year for me.
Being a senior, it’s my graduation year. Davis pep rallies echo with chants of “Oh Ten!” as I cheer along with my fellow classmates.
The big two and one — accompanied by a couple of zeros — have always meant college, boxes and choices. They’re numbers I have always associated with the future more so than the present.
Now it’s here, however, and with much more of a bang than I had previously anticipated.
March of 2010 represents the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the state of Washington. And June of this year is when I turn 18 and become able to exercise that right.
So not only am I graduating and heading off into an unfamiliar world, but I’m able to have an effect on that world and its leaders. I’m living proof of a change that took place exactly 100 years ago.
Talk about a landmark year.
It all began in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, the site of the first Women’s Rights Convention. From there, suffragists rallied and women fought. Susan B. Anthony in 1872 was an active advocate for suffrage, followed by numerous others all working for such rights. Not until Tennessee ratified the 19th amendment in 1920, however, did Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby sign the final proclamation.
Though I was not alive for the struggle, I am honored to be a witness of the resulting successes that have changed America. Because of the women — and men — who sacrificed so much 100 years ago, we don’t have to.
The right to vote has become slightly taken for granted, though. Many teens turn 18 with the excitement of visiting a casino rather than a ballot box, and any political views they have are outlined by their parents and encouraged by the media. Most people, including me, have tended to overlook the history behind the vote and the numerous people and years it took for it all to happen.
This year especially is about remembering such people and events so we give proper acknowledgment to the past which is — and will forever be — a constant part of the present.
In these next few months, I will be slowly finishing up my last year of high school. I will be selectively packing my college-bound suitcases, writing my end-of-the-year papers and promising to keep in touch with my high school mates.
Simultaneously, I will be making Susan B. Anthony proud.
I am, as conceited as it sounds, exactly what she hoped a teenager would be. I am a woman who is turning 18 with plans of graduating high school, pursuing a career, and, most importantly, voting in the next election. How fitting it would happen to me 100 years after it happened to her.
I cannot pretend to know the enormity of difficulties and roadblocks surrounding the struggle for equality, but I can be a participant in the effects that were reaped as a result of those difficulties.
Women throughout history have done amazing things and conquered incredible struggles in order to get today’s women where they are now.
I challenge us all to do the same.

— Colleen Fontana is a senior at Davis High School and a member of the Herald-Republic’s Unleashed journalism program for high school students.

Harry Potter Day at Davis High School

Though Davis High School isn’t usually home to witches and wizards, swishing wands, and worn spellbooks, a recent Friday saw a new scene.
Pacing the corridors, avoiding Mr. Filch and pausing in the Great Hall to await our owls, we found school slightly more magical.
It was Harry Potter Day.
“We wanted to have it on May 2, which is the day the Dark Lord was defeated,” says 18-year-old Alex Cottle, better recognized as Ginny Weasley with her strawberry blonde hair, dark formal skirt, red tie and patterned tights, the Gryffindor emblem taped to her light gray cardigan. “But it was too long to wait.”
Conceived on a lazy afternoon in a fourth-period class on the day before Christmas break and organized diligently by a few Harry Potter-loving seniors, Davis’ Harry Potter Day was something in which I just had to participate.
With my curly hair and often-eccentric personality, I was a natural for Professor Trelawny. Donning a purple skirt and maroon apron, and digging odd shirts and scarves from my old dress-up box, I assembled a costume which I believed would have made that old batty professor proud.
Why have a Harry Potter Day?
Why not?

School — the International Baccalaureate program, in particular “is so stressful,” said Lavender Brown of Gryffindor House, though on any other day she’s 17-year-old Hannah Fisher. “This was something really fun and light-hearted.”
Purple tights, a black, flowing skirt, and red tie formed Fisher’s costume, but the lopsided maroon bow atop her head is what really “made” her quirky character.
“(Harry Potter) is such a good story,” Fisher said. “(Author J.K. Rowling) writes in a way that makes it seem like that world exists out there.”
And Feb. 5, at Davis, it did.
Spread by word of mouth and through Facebook, nearly 30 students signed up to be a particular character. Though only about 20 participated, we did so with gusto and pride.
The weird glances and scoffs aimed our way were numerous, and the length of stares could have been called rude. But I was, after all, wearing a silky shirt adorned with cranes as well as a pink-flowered vest and walking next to someone who was carrying a wand. So I suppose such reactions were warranted.
“There were never any really good Spirit Week days,” said 18-year-old Whitney Ketcham, referring to the week of themed days preceding homecoming every year. Feb. 5, she dressed as a young Professor McGonagal.

“I wanted an excuse to dress up like a Harry Potter character,” said 17-year-old Emily Eichner, who dressed as Hermione Granger. Along with Ketcham and Cottle, she helped organize the unofficial event.
“It was just for fun,” she said. “It really had no purpose.”
But I think something about imagining our school as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry made learning more fun. Biology rooms were suddenly potions labs; distilled water, a mysterious concoction simmering in a cauldron.
And words somehow formed into spells as we meandered to class.
“It’s magic!” our math teacher said as a line formed on a graphing calculator.
Cedric Diggory, though dead from a killing curse after the fourth of the Rowling novels, was at Davis that day, too. In a striped yellow and blue shirt and knitted brown sweater with “Quidditch” gloves, he confessed to being bitter towards Potter.
“I really wanted to win the Tri-Wizard Cup!” said Diggory, who — on every other day — is known as 17-year-old David Paolella. “I cannot stand to be one-upped by Harry Potter.”
No one signed up to be the main character of the series, Harry Potter.
Nonetheless, love for the books and appreciation for the story were apparent throughout Davis that day.
“I love the world that it creates,” Cottle said. “The story is full of magic and happiness. I love Harry Potter.”
And I do, too.
The monotony of school is made more bearable when broken by a day like this.
Magic has a way of doing that, I suppose. Or perhaps it’s just Harry Potter.
Either way, we were all under its spell.

— Colleen Fontana is a senior at Davis High School and a member of the Herald-Republic’s Unleashed journalism program for high school students.

Davis follies

Mr. East Valley

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