Drawing of a shoe 2

By: Pwe Doh Gay

This is a drawing of an Adidas shoe, also called a Superstar. I drew this shoe because Adidas is the second most popular shoe brand in the world (after Nike). There are a lot of people that wear Adidas shoes in the world, including me.

For this drawing, I used a pencil, then went over the pencil with a Sharpie. After, I used markers to color it in. I also put cross-line designs on the shoe to give it a different look.

I like this shoe a lot because of how it turned out with the cross lines and the two colors on it. This shoe really looks different from the normal ones you can buy from the store.

For my next drawing, I don’t know what I want to draw, but I will draw something.

‘When Wind Meets Fire’

By: Yohan Lee

Elevation Worship is a Christian band and it began in 2007 at Elevation Church. They are some of the most well known churches and worship groups. One of the most popular songs is “Praise” from the album ‘Can You Imagine?’

‘When Wind Meets Fire’ by Elevation Worship music list:

  1. New Thing Coming
  2. What A Miracle
  3. Sure Been Good
  4. Faithful Now
  5. God Is Not Against Me
  6. Owe You Praise
  7. When Wind Meets Fire
  8. Always On Time
  9. Another One
  10. Great Is
  11. Easy
  12. All Of The Sudden

For “New Things Coming” it gives like motivation because in the lyrics it says “Darkness bow down to the day. Mountains get up out of my way. Breaking out of yesterday. I got a new thing coming.” It says even though the enemy is going to come down and try to attack you, and even when you’re being attacked, you always know that tomorrow is going to be a better day and not going to be the same as yesterday.

Also in “New Things Coming”, when the lyrics say “[T]ell this giant in my face. You’re no greater than my faith.” It’s implying that even though your enemy could be bigger than you, it can’t beat your faith. If you just know that your faith is much stronger than your enemy then your enemy can’t do anything.

I think this song is pretty good. It has a lot of meaning behind it. Some of the stuff I said is not half of it.

For “What A Miracle” this song is implying that our savior is always going to love us. The lyrics that stuck out to me are “You called me from the grave and pulled me from the dirt. I love how you love me first.” For me, it says that even if you’re at your lowest point he will always somehow pull you from your lowest point to your highest point. Our savior will always love us even when we are lost.

I believe that this song is really good because it shows how our savior can still love us forever even when we did a bad deed.

For “Sure Been Good”, when the lyrics are saying “You took the mess that I was in and you have done some incredible things.” I believe that this is saying that our savior can just turn our mess and flip it to make our life better.

For “Faithful Now”, the whole song is basically you putting your faith in God and once you do he’ll do the task that is impossible for someone: like moving a mountain. If he wants that mountain to move he’ll start an earthquake. In my opinion, I really like this song because it’s catchy.

For “God Is Not Against Me”, the song is saying God will never go against us even when we make the biggest mistake. He is never going to betray you because he created us. I think this song is pretty good.

“Owe You Praise” is basically talking about how our savior has done a lot for us and he deserves our praise. Our savior will get tired but from afar it will always watch over us. I think this song is speaking the truth because after all the stuff he did for us I think he should deserve all the praise.

The “When Wind Meets Fire” song means bringing something that’s stuck in one place to another. Like imagine if the fire is all of us and we’re all stuck, but once our savior comes and touches us then we can quickly spread and move far apart. This is an opinion, but I think this is one of the best songs on this list.

“Always On Time”. This song basically is telling that our savior will always be there at our lowest and his timing is always going to be right. I like this song because it’s true. His timing is always going to be right. It could take a few minutes, a few weeks or even years, but during those times you can always learn more about him which can work or improve yourself.

“Another One” is a very good song. In the introduction it says “You do everything on purpose” which of course everything he does to us he does on purpose. It could be a test to see your faith in him or it’s just a life lesson. And in the next line it says “I’ve been praying and you’ve been working” which is saying he is working on that prayer but like again, it’s on his timing, and if he tells you about something it will happen.

“Great Is”, is another good song. This song shows how our savior can simply make something that seems impossible and just flip it. You might not know it but like everything else he does it’s on his timing. And if you have faith in him then you can trust the process.

“Easy” is a great song to show how powerful he is. Some of the lyrics are saying he can move a mountain, part seas, fight ten-thousand battles and still win and take down giants. In this song, a good lyric is “What I call impossible is easy for you”; nothing is impossible for him.

And finally, for the last song “All Of The Sudden” it tells if you just breathe him in, as in knowing or letting him in your life just a little bit, at your lowest point you’re going to feel strong all of the sudden. The strength just rushes through you and just overflows your soul.

I hope you guys will listen to one of these songs. You could even listen to a glimpse of it and it could somehow change your life. But if you do like this kind of music, I strongly recommend listening to ‘Praise’ by Elevation Worship or ‘Wake’ by Hillsong United.

Plastic bag bans

By: Karl Salkowski

Although plastic bags are terrible for the environment, over 500 billion plastic bags are used yearly; 100 billion are used in the USA alone. The average “working life” of a plastic bag is only 15 minutes, and sadly, according to Stillwatermn.gov, only 1-3% of plastic bags are recycled, and less than 10% are reused. This means that the average family using plastic bags in Stillwater, Minnesota will use over 400 a year. Most of these bags are made of polyethylene and can take centuries to degrade. Because of statistics like these many countries are taking action to construct a cleaner future.

California became the first US state to ban single-use plastic bags in 2014. However, this backfired unexpectedly. Instead of consumers switching away from plastic bags, they instead moved toward thick-walled plastic bags. These thick-walled bags not only cost more, but are worse for the environment. According to Nytimes.com, Californians tossed nearly 50% more plastic bags by weight in 2021 than they did in 2014. In response to this loophole, in September of 2024, California  banned all plastic grocery bags regardless of thickness, and required consumers to begin paying 10¢ per paper bag if they lack reusable bags as of 2026.

Some countries have already banned all forms of single-use plastic. One of which is Rwanda. According to Undp.org, in 2008 Rwanda became one of the first countries to ban all single-use plastic bags and bottles. Rwanda even goes as far as to search tourist’s luggage for these single-use plastics upon entering the country. The first country to ban single-use plastic bags was actually Bangladesh in 2002.

More and more countries around the world are beginning to ban single-use plastics. So far, over 3.5 trillion plastic bags have been produced, 160,000 are used a second, and worldwide less than 1% are recycled. These plastic bags can take up to 1,000 years to break down, so it is crucial that countries begin to ban and restrict these plastics as soon as possible.