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Featured
The Mount Observer
Featured
Creative Writing at MWCC
By Daniel Dow | Editor in Chief
Greetings MWCC students,
Moving forward, the Mount Observer will feature a creating writing section spotlighting students’ poetry and short stories. In an effort to drive creativity and to interact with our community the paper will also post a writing prompt each month that is selected at random by rolling writing dice. Dice will be rolled to create a prompt for each of the five w’s (who, what, when, where, and why); the author will then need to use each of the rolled themes in their creative piece, which should be around 1000 words. When completed, your pieces can be submitted to mountobserver@mwcc.mass.edu and the journalism team will choose the most relevant, creative, and polished pieces to publish. All members of the college are encouraged to participate in this activity!
An Interview with the Vampire Blackout Poem by Elysian Alder | Editor-in-Chief
Excerpt from page 19 of Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
“I saw
Lestat again.
I saw him
as I have seen him before,
stark in the night.
I saw him,
his life and blood;
radiant, luminous.
I saw only Lestat.
It was as if I was so
enthralled with Lestat
that I looked at nothing else
for a long time.
His laughter,
his heart.
It was confusing:
soft but distinct,
increasing but discrete delight—
my Lestat.
Rid yourself, don’t fall so
madly in love that you
lose.
Recipe of the Month: Moroccan-Style Stuffed Acorn Squash
Submitted by Benjamin Heffner (Passed on from my grandmother and great-grandmother!).
Serves 4.
Ingredients
2 Acorn Squashes
2 tsp Olive Oil
Ground beef
1 tsp salt
1/8th tsp of cinnamon and nutmeg
1 onion, finely diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
¾ cups bulgur
2 cups water
Directions:
Pet Wellness Month at the Mount
“Here is my turtle Bip dressed up as Leonardo the ninja turtle! He’s a 6 year old painted turtle. He likes to spend his time basking and digging in the gravel for tasty tidbits! His favorite thing is getting shell scritches!”
— Vivian Stronghold, Health Science major
“This is Dobby. His favorite toy is his sock from when he was born. But he does also like his peanut butter filled pacifier.”
— Helene Metivier, Substance Use Counseling (SAC) student
“Her name is Gypsy. She loved carrots, and her favorite word was ‘Food.’ The shelter we adopted Gypsy from told us she might be a Norwegian Elkhound mix. Gypsy loved the winter! Her favorite thing to do was scoop up snow with her mouth while running. It was the cutest thing.”
Photos by Tom Hill Jr.
By Desiree Leader | Staff Writer
Dakota Potter, a 29-year-old Liberal Arts Major from Keene, New Hampshire is not your average community college student. Potter, in his last semester at the Mount, will be graduating in May. He will be transferring to Bridgewater State University for the spring semester, where he was recently accepted into their Archeological program; but that is not what makes him different from your traditional college student.
Potter has a gift for the English language – a gift he has been nurturing since he was just a child. “I got my start when I was really young,” he reflected, mentioning that he was quite a precocious reader. At just five years old, he was reading (and comprehending!) the Harry Potter book series, and he started writing stories when he was eight or nine. “They weren’t very good,” Potter admitted, ”but I had the passion for it.”
Thackery Binx Remembers Life as a Cursed 300-Year-Old Black Cat
By Desiree Leader | Staff Writer
Thackery Binx, a 312-year-old Salem resident, is a hero in every sense of the word. Waking on a cold October morning 300 years ago to the sound of his beloved sister Emily being abducted, he followed discreetly behind to the home of the Sanderson Sisters, known throughout town as being witches.
“It was terrible!” he declared. “Their house smelled like chicken soup and dead man’s toes!”
Binx retells the tale he has shared for 300 years to anyone who will listen. He shares how he was discovered by the Sandersons when the middle sister, Mary, caught his scent. “It was uncanny, the way she was able to sniff out children – I’ve never seen anything like it!”
How Students Celebrate Halloween Traditions
By Elysian Alder | Editor-in-Chief
As the leaves begin to change and the fall season settles in, candy, costumes, jack-o’-lanterns, and haunted houses begin to make their comeback—some of the familiar staples of Halloween, celebrated every year on October 31.
The holiday may have its roots in ancient Celtic traditions, particularly the pagan festival of Samhain (pronounced “Sow-in”), which celebrated the transition from the lighter half of the year to the darker half, marking the end of summer and the changing of the seasons, as well as a time when the “veil” between our earthly realm and the spirit world is said to be at its thinnest.
While Halloween today is often a gloriously whimsical time for tricks and treats, scary stories, pumpkin picking, and dressing up, it actually shares some similarities with how ancient celebrants of Samhain may have observed their holiday.
By Kent Yang | Staff Writer
As part of the ongoing workforce development expansion at local community colleges, I had the incredible opportunity to team up with my classmate and fellow Computer Information Systems (CIS) major, Kourtney Tibbets, to serve as instructors for the “IT for Healthcare” course at Greenfield Community College, hand-picked by Dr. Gary Ackerman. For those unfamiliar with Dr. Ackerman, he serves as an adjunct Professor at Mount Wachusett Community College and teaches in the CIS department. Outside of MWCC, Dr. Ackerman is the Director of Teaching and Learning Innovation at Greenfield Community College.
MWCC Community Can Look to Brewer Center for Registering Before Deadline
By Jordan Chila | Editor-in-Chief
The 2024 election is fast approaching, and surprisingly, not every state offers same-day voter registration. Massachusetts is one of those states, with a voter registration deadline of October 26, 2024. There are several last-minute ways to register: by mail, in person, or online. Since not everyone in the community is registered, take advantage of the right to vote and register today.
Massachusetts is among the 28 states that don’t offer same-day voter registration, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get your vote in before the deadline. MWCC students can register in person at their local election office or by mail. For those who are registering to vote by mail, be sure that the registration form is postmarked by the deadline date of October 26, 2024. For an even simpler option, there is also the option to register or vote online. Where exactly is one able to find the online registration form? Well, the commonwealth of Massachusetts provides the link here: https://www.sec.state.ma.us/OVR/. It takes about five minutes, and all that is required is valid identification.
Deciding the Future of the MCAS Graduation Requirement with Question 2
By Princess Yeboah | Assistant Editor
Question 2 on the election ballot addresses the MCAS testing requirement for high school graduation. This year, Massachusetts voters will decide whether to keep or change the rule that requires students to pass the MCAS to graduate. A “yes” vote would remove the requirement that students pass MCAS, while voting “no” would mean the requirement would still be in effect. According to the Rennie Center Education Research and Policy, the MCAS became a requirement to graduate in 2003. While some find this test motivating, some educators support keeping the test but without making it a graduation requirement.