Favorite places in our hometown

October 8, 2024 HPSH Plaid Line Leave a comment

By: Priya Anderson and Ruby Anderson

Growing up in Rochester, MN is different from St. Paul in various ways: from the size of the city, to the activities you can do and the type of people you meet. We moved in October of 2021, so a majority of our life was spent in Rochester. For people unfamiliar with the Mayo Clinic’s birth place, we’d like to share some of our favorite places to get readers acquainted.

Apache Mall:

Apache Mall is like the centerpiece of Rochester. It is located in the SW portion of the city and has 114 stores. we’d say it’s the place teens and young adults hang out the most. The relatively small size is great for an impromptu shopping day, but sadly it is not as popular to actually shop as it was before COVID. When we visit Rochester, we mainly like to go to the food court and get Caribou coffee, since a large number of the stores that drew people in had to close. It is still a great place for teenagers to safely chill out and relax.

Soldiers Field pool:

If you’re looking for a place to cool down and have fun with your friends during the summer, Soldiers Field pool is the perfect place to go. We have had so many great memories at this pool from when we were toddlers to when we were teens. A lot has changed around Soldiers Field, but the pool remains open every season. We actually consider it to be nicer than the Highland Pool near Highland Park High School due to its larger children’s area and the length/number of slides. The pool is also located very close to downtown Rochester, so after you are done swimming you can go see any of the “tourist” stores and restaurants it has to offer.

Downtown Rochester/Peace Plaza:

The Mayo Clinic brings all walks of life to Rochester, which means it can be a source of “tourism”, if that word works. Things like restaurants, clothing stores, U of M merch stores, and countless hotels are due to the patients staying at The Clinic. The restaurants located here are very good in our opinion. For example, Chesters, which serves ‘upscale’ American food, Canadian Honker, a great family breakfast place (great for birthday brunch) and Victorias, an Italian style restaurant Mayo employees love, are some of our family favorites.

The Peace Plaza is in this same area, and is right in the center of all of the hotels. We highly recommend staying at one of these a couple times, even if you aren’t staying for the Clinic. Mayo Clinic history is also all over downtown, and you can walk through all the artwork/statues made for the hospital. Overall, this might be the second most popular place for anyone to spend time in Rochester.

Oxbow Park and Zollman Zoo:

Oxbow Park and Zollman Zoo is a campground and zoo that holds previously injured animals that have been inhibited from living in the wild. It houses 30 species of animals, from bobcats, black bears, foxes, porcupines, turkeys, chickens, bald eagles, insects like tarantulas, and amphibians and lizards. This was a lot of fun to go to as a young child and we still really enjoy it. It really is fun for all ages because of how diverse the animal selection is, and the walkable outdoors. Events also take place there, like holiday light shows and animal shows. Oxbow pPark also has great hiking trails, and forestry all around.

Quarry Hill:

Rochester Public Schools used to take us here the most out of any destination for field trips. Quarry Hill is a nature center with outdoor and indoor activities, and is primarily for younger children and elementary school events. Personally, the best part of any Quarry Hill trip was finally coming inside out of the cold and the forest, and seeing the T-Rex skull on display. In this room, they also had several large fish in a long tank, turtles, bees that lived inside of a hive within a see-through wall (and their queen which you would always try to find and when we were there for school, we used to get raw honey comb from the bees as well), snakes and lizards, and more large bugs. They also had things like animal pelts, antlers, bones, and fossils to put under microscopes and observe. There’s also a bird watch room behind the beehive. As said before, the T-Rex skull was always the most exciting, and being a little kid, it looked unbelievable. In the quarry there are more fun secrets like caves, rock climbing, trails, and rivers.

Even with the limited things we could do in Rochester compared to St. Paul, great memories were made and the connection Rochester has to nature is also evident. From the Apache Mall to Quarry Hill there are a variety of places to hang out and make memories with friends and family. We miss it a lot, and hope to go back soon!

Advice/How To, Books/Art, Fashion/Make-Up

HOW TO MAKE A FASHION BOOK/TEMPLATE

October 8, 2024 HPSH Plaid Line Leave a comment

By: Charlotte Bistodeau

Many people want to get into fashion designing but don’t know where to start. You might think you need fabric, special notebooks, special pencils (which is all true eventually but not in the beginning). Here I’ll take you through some of the simple things that will make getting into fashion design easier overall.

The first thing you’ll want is a fashion book. Any notebook can be a fashion book, but there are many things I’ll suggest here that will make things simple.

I suggest a notebook that has blank pages (think sketch books). Having lines on your paper may distract you from the final product.
When choosing your sketch book you want to think about what art supplies you’re going to use most. Example, If you are going to be using a lot of watercolor then choose a sketchbook with watercolor paper.
Your sketchbook does not have to be fancy, in fact you can purchase one at Five Below and you’ll be fine.
Small sketchbooks are a great starting point especially if you have no clue what to do or design. Less space means less stress on the line and makes it seem like you’ve done more.
A bigger sketchbook might feel like a nice idea (not filling it up as fast, having more room) but it can make you feel threatened by how little you seem to have drawn or how much you still have to draw.
Don’t pick out your sketchbook for ascetic purposes. Just because it looks nice doesn’t mean you’ll like the feel of it. You should check to see if you like the feel of the grain and if it works with the main art supplies you choose to use. If you really are worried about it looking nice, you can always decorate the cover yourself with paint, paper, stickers, etc. and make it your own.

The second thing you might want to do is create a stencil to make it easier to draw your design. So, here are the steps to make a stencil.

First, you’ll want to sketch out a picture of a model template. After you finish your drawing and are happy with it, you should take a photo for a later step.

Second, you’ll want to glue your drawing down on a piece of cardstock or thin flat cardboard. Example, I used a side from a box of ice cream (taken out of recycling).

Third, you’ll want to use an exacto knife or box cutter to cut out the drawing from your template; make sure if you have extra pieces (example, for me it was the gaps between the body and arm) that you find a way to keep them connected to the rest of the stencil. Also make sure to have an extra piece of cardboard, cutting mat, etc, to make sure you don’t scrape whatever surface you’re cutting on.

Now you can take a pencil and trace it. Notice I drew on a lined sheet of paper; I did this as an example and if I am actually going to use the template I’ll draw it on a blank sheet. Going back to the first step, look at the photo you took of the original drawing and add anything you may have missed with just the basic stencil (Red is what I added to make it look better).

Now you have your fashion book and stencil and can start your fashion drawing experience!

Movies/TV/Theaters

‘Downtown Owl’ movie review

October 8, 2024 HPSH Plaid Line Leave a comment

By: Sophia Elmstrom & Lily Sheldon

(Warning: Rated R)

As many may know, in April of 2022, the students at Highland would end their school day and see cameras and trailers outside everywhere. Out of all the schools to film a movie, why would they choose ours? Well, that’s because the movie was based out of the 80’s, and our school hasn’t changed much since the 80’s. It was exciting knowing that a film was being created in our town and our school. Getting to see the classrooms we sit in and halls we walk in every day on a big screen was something pretty special. They even used our football field for a lot of scenes. The movie came out, called ‘Downtown Owl’, and we wanted to give our thoughts on it.

First, here is a quick rundown on the movie. ‘Downtown Owl’, it was based on the novel by Chuck Klosterman. It is set in the isolated, fictional town of Owl, North Dakota in the 1980’s and there are 3 main characters that the story follows: Horace, Mitch, and Julia. Horace is an old man who spends most of his days at the local coffee shop in town, Mitch is a depressed high school back up quarterback, and Julia is the new English teacher at Owl High School, who moved to the town for a semester so she could be out of the way while her husband gets his PhD. The story follows their lives in Owl and how they all become connected and a part of each other’s lives. Julia begins to make friendships, and a possible romance, as she tries to escape her home life with her husband by going to the small town. The movie leads up to the massive whiteout blizzard (based on the one in Minnesota) that enters the town towards the end of the movie.

After watching this film, here are our thoughts: The movie had a very small town, nostalgic feel, which made you feel like you really got to know the characters. The trailers to the movie got you very captivated and interested in watching the movie. But honestly, the trailer was better than the film. The plot was very confusing and vague, it quickly became hard to understand what was going on. It seemed like the whole time you were waiting for something to happen, but nothing ever did. There were also some points in the movie that felt just a little bit off. For example, there was a teacher student relationship, but it didn’t seem a huge issue to the characters, it also seemed normal or like they weren’t concerned about this at all.

The film also seemed low-budget, as the bell would ring for the students to go to class, you would only ever see 2 or 3 students walking in the halls. There were also a couple scenes with the football team, and they only ever showed around 5-7 players, even when the whole “team” was gathered in the locker room during halftime of a game. It seemed like they should have had a few more extras in the movie to just make it feel like a more realistic high school experience.

Overall, we felt like this movie had a cozy small midwestern town feel to it but it had no clear plot. It felt like the movie was put together quickly with no conflict or resolution of anything. On many other people’s ratings they agree with our take on this movie; many thought there was no clear plot. Many other reviews also said that the trailer looked very captivating but when they finally got to watching the movie they were let down. This movie got a 49% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 4.9/10 on IMDb. We agree with these ratings and it really shows how much the plot needed to be thickened. We believe that the idea of this movie was a very good idea though.

We rate this movie a 4/10 because of the fact that there is no clear plot.