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Students at Murry Bergtraum High School in lower Manhattan are planning a riot the first day of school in protest of the new dress code and uniform. But this may not be the best approach.

Many students are opposed to the idea of a uniform and believe that a riot is the only way to show the principal that they will not wear it.

The new policy (burgundy, navy and white collared shirts, with khaki or grey slacks) was announced with a flier at the end of the 2011 school year by Dr. Andrea Lewis, the principal. This is her second year at the school and has ordered the dress code to improve the learning environment for the 3,00o students at the school. 

One student created a Facebook event to join his classmates into rioting with him in response.

“In organizing a riot, I was planning to do two things. The more obvious thing was to not have uniform, but the underlying message was that we don’t need uniforms because …it has no effect on the school at all,” said Danny Hoang Vo, 16

Students attempted this same form of protest last December when they were locked out of the bathrooms for the entire day. Students sent out mass text messages to organize themselves.

During the riot, hundreds of students ran the hallways making excessive noise and putting other students in danger. It was impossible to walk in hallways and one wheelchair bound student was trapped in the stairwell.

All the students accomplished was running around like a bunch of wild animals and attracting bad press.

However, rioting is not the only way to protest, there are much safer and reasonable ways to get the students voices heard.

One thing students could do is organize a sit-in, or sit-out in this case, where a large number of students could stay home or come to school and refuse to go in until the dress code is lifted. Instead of causing destruction to school property, creating an unsafe environment and putting students and faculty in danger, a sit out is another effective way of protesting.

Showing the administration that the students can gather themselves in an orderly fashion, would be much more respectable. It would also make the faculty more willing to talk to and negotiate with the students.

Anyone searching for eggs, pancakes, bacon, or any other breakfast item at any time may want might want to consider B.A.D. (Breakfast All Day), a 24-hour seven-day-a-week diner in Williamsburg.

The chef of the restaurant, Steve Lynn, may be familiar to Burritoville fans. He has evolved to owning not only places that serves burritos but somewhere that invites any kind of person in, even if they aren’t breakfast lovers.

Located between Bedford and Berry on Grand street, the diner is near the north side of Brooklyn, meaning it’s surrounded by small establishments that sell quirky and eccentric clothes, books and anything else you can’t seem to find in your average store.

B.A.D. is a quiet place with a loud personality designed with flames on the walls and metallic chairs and tables. Though the tables are small, the staff should be considerate enough to immediately help move two of them together if necessary as ours was. Alive with rhythmic music that gives one the urge want to tap their foot, B.A.D. is the place for a relaxing breakfast, lunch, dinner or midnight snack.

Slightly unconventional, the breakfast menu consists of reinvented platters such as huevos rancheros with sweet potatoes cubed like home fries wrapped in a tortilla.

The service is rather quick and the food seems endless as it comes out on large plates piled on the waitresses arms.

The huevos rancheros ($8.50) was an unexpected delight and came with sweet potatoes.

As for the non-breakfast items on the menu, the hot wings ($7) are especially meaty, the garlic potatoes ($3) delicious, the chocolate shake ($4.25) was filled to the top with whipped cream, and the cheese fries ($5) are drowned in cheese with the occasional surprise of bacon bits.

All in all, the diner is definitely not one that can be imitated, and should be tried by everyone who has an appetite for something new and breakfast at any time of course. 

Just the other day, our class had a sports writer come in to talk to us. Even though I don’t plan on ever going into writing news for the sports world, I found that I learned a lot of things from Rich. He kept offering to give us experience on the “field”, and the opportunity to go out and learn how to be a journalist. He said to be serious about being who we want to be. Besides the fact that he kept saying that being a reporter takes away from your social life, I have to say that he was the most helpful of the speakers. 

The 1941 comic, Captain America: “The First Avenger,” came to life on July 22, with actor Chris Evans. Captain America is one of the first Marvel Comics. This action packed thriller is about a simple kid from Brooklyn who wants to complete his duty as a man and join the army. He wants to fight for America in the mist of World War ll. Even after being denied from every recruiting station and seeing his best friend Bucky get accepted, Rogers continued trying. The opportunity arises when he meets a man that is able to change his life with an enhancing experiment, which turns him into the hero, Captain America.

Among the main characters is Steve Rogers, a wimpy guy determined to get into the arm. Soon enough he achieves this by becoming captain America, through an experiment procedure that makes him buff and irresistible. There is of course the leading lady, Peggy Carter, played by Hayley Atwell (who acted in the 2010 film “Any Human Heart”), and her character is a strong-headed woman. She works as an assistant general to the General, played by Tommy Lee Jones (one of the stars from “Men In Black” (1997).

And of course, what’s a super hero movie without a villain? Hugo Weaving plays Johann Schmidt (from the 1999 film “Matrix”), who later in the movie becomes the “Red Skull.” He steals the mixture that is used to create Captain America. he steals it to form his own empire and control the world, a master plan that is destroyed by Captain American and his team.

The director, Joe Johnston, captures the story and portrays just about everything, from action to romance, and even wise cracks to lighten the mood of the movie, but not too much to take away from the action. Johnston uses the 3D feature well, by having captain America’s famous shield fly into the crowd a couple of times. Having this movie in 3D is an advantage.

This movie is a great movie for Marvel comic fans, and even some who have never seen a Marvel comic or movie. Even though this movie isn’t as popular Spiderman, “Captain America” did well in the box office. As of Aug. 7, 2011, the worldwide gross is $246,203,967. Stay tuned after the credits for a sneak peak of the 2012 release of another Marvel classic, “The Avengers.” 

It’s 2 a.m. on a Wednesday night and 17-year-old Carl Wu grabs his camera and takes the passenger seat of his friend’s smart car. Carl got word that Lady Gaga is staying nearby and his mission is to get a picture of her. As they pull up next to Lady Gaga’s car, Carl pulls out his camera. A security car cuts them off and blocks his shot. Carl’s accomplice jumps the curb onto the sidewalk driving parallel to Lady Gaga, Carl zooms in and snaps the picture.

Soon the 30 million readers of OK! Magazine and People will see Carl’s work on the front cover, not knowing what adventures he took to get the shots.

Carl is one of the youngest paparazzi to get his pictures published in such major tabloids. His pictures sell for as much as $5,000. With the money he gets, he saves some of it and enjoys the rest. To celebrate his most recent birthday, he rented an apartment in downtown Manhattan for a weekend of partying.

His first job as a paparazzi came when he was 14 and his friend got him a job with the photo agency Insight News & Features. “I used to get autographs when I was 12 and sell them, then I was like f**k this cause I love photography anyway,” said Carl.

Carl switched to Fame Pictures two years ago when, according to him, INF didn’t pay him for his work because he is underage. He said they sold the pictures anyway and made money off him, so he quit and went to work for Fame where he gets paid a satisfying amount. Neither INF nor Fame would answer the phone to comment on their relationship with Carl.

Fame pays the expenses for Carl’s travel. “It’s mad fun traveling,” Carl said. “My agency put me up in Jersey Shore for a week last month.” Often these trips result in him missing school but to him, it’s worth it

When he first started he was seen as a little kid with a camera amongst his peers who are more than twice his age. “It took a while,” Carl said “but after a while they saw my shit running and actually respected me.”

He says being a paparazzi is a great job, however when he’s older he sees himself doing other kinds of photography: “I’d much rather shoot for National Geographic.” 

It’s only two weeks into August, and I’m already saying goodbye to summer. Summer has passed by so unexpectedly, and so many things were done. I can say I made this summer productive. I worked my brain for more tips and knowledge. I also got paid for doing something I enjoyed, which is always a bonus. I learned so much about becoming a better writer and I consumed it for the future ahead of me.

Wow, I can’t believe how quickly time flies by! It’s already August,  and the summer is almost over! This class is over tomorrow and I’m going to miss it. I learned so much about journalism in my time here, and I am bringing a home a lot of new skills that I didn’t have before. I am going to miss my new friends and I’m going to miss coming here everyday. Even though my heart is set on anthropology, this class has made me think that maybe I can write on the side. Who knows, maybe I will.

A step inside the “Sporting Life” exhibit at The Fashion Institute of Technology Museum will give people a glimpse of what people, professional and non- professional wore while being active during the last 150 years.

Separated into three small sections with more than 100 pieces of clothing and accessories, this exhibit represents very well from the clothing and explanations explaining how, the material and style changed over time. 

The baseball uniforms resembled what a fireman uniform looked like back in the late 1800s. It was comfortable to wear and had a basic style of striped shirts and tan pants. When compared the baseball uniforms to today’s style, nothing much had changed but adding color and having longer pants.

A stand out change of style that is shown in the exhibit is the football uniforms and bathing suits.

Today, football players wear numbered jerseys and pants, which this exhibit explains, used to be wool and now are stretched polyester material. Another interesting fact is that football players wore a jumpsuit that did not have any padded materials.

Not only football players wore one piece, woman wore one piece suits to the beach.

Bathing suits were made out of natural materials such as cotton and heavy wool. There were only a few bathing suits that had long sleeves, but the rest were short sleeves.

This exhibit did a great job by lining up the bathing suits from long sleeves wool, which must have been out in the sun, in the 1925s to two pieces made out of usually spandex with patterns from the years of 1963 than jumping to 1980s.

The “Sporting Life” exhibit also lets people imagine wearing one of the certain outfits since the viewing of the outfits is very close. For example, female tennis players wore long dresses with sleeves and a hat in the early 1900s. It wasn’t until 1926 that ladies began to wear short dresses.

When people exercised today, they might wear the tight clothing. But in the past people were able to exercise in comfortable puffy pants and a loose top usually long sleeve.

If the “Sporting Life” exhibit is showing exercise outfits, they could have shown more dancing outfits and surfing because those sports would have fit in well with the sporting life. It wasn’t necessary to have a hunting section since they only shown three pieces of the same clothing. Since they did not give enough clothing, it’s hard to give an imagination of hunting in the particular outfits.

Jennifer Farley and Colleen Hill who are both fashion designers focusing more on the active wear organized the sporting life exhibit. This exhibit closes November 5, 2011. It is free and located on 7 avenue at 27^th street, New York City.

Sam Ash is a place that holds a lot of instruments, and different necessities for that instrument. I didn’t find out about this place until a year ago, when my friend took me there. He plays the guitar and we went to go buy him strings. The place amazed me. There are different buildings, different floors and different rooms dedicated to all of these instruments.

There are many Pros in Sam Ash. The workers there have to know what they’re talking about, not anybody can just work there. They have to know how to answer every question you have. For example, you don’t have to be a professional at the guitar, but you do need to know how to play. You need to know what strings a certain guitar needs, the different types of guitars there are and etc. What’s great about Sam Ash is that their workers know what they’re talking about. Also, there are so many instruments there, so you can just sit down and play for a while. They have keyboards, guitars, ukuleles and more. There is something there for everyone.

There are also some cons in Sam Ash. If you are in your teens or younger, the workers don’t necessarily like you sitting down and playing the instruments. You are allowed to, but you will get looks and the workers may even ask you if you’re going to buy anything. But, if you are very careful, the workers won’t give you a hard time.

The workers are scared to let younger kids play the instrument, because of the prices of all the instruments. Many times you just want to sit down and play something, but the prices there are into the thousands. So, if anything happens to those instruments, it’s coming out of your pocket. Therefore, you should be a little hesitant to bother playing with an instrument.

Overall, whether you’re a beginner or a professional at any instrument, you will enjoy yourself in Sam Ash. You will get the help you need, your questions will be answered and you’ll have a lot of fun as long as you’re careful.

“Friends With Benefits” is a romantic comedy that once you hear the title you already picture the pattern sequence in your head (“No Strings Attached,” “The Ugly Truth”). Although it involves two single people looking for a physical connection, the movie gives a fresh new set of characters and a new meaning of having a friend.

Jaime (Mila Kunis) is an executive recruiter who persuades Dylan (Justin Timberlake) to take a job at GQ magazine as an art director and move from Los Angeles to New York.  From there they become friends and soon enough friends with benefits.

“Friends With Benefits” is filled with not only big stars but also big laughs. Kunis, who starred in “That 70s Show” and “Black Swan,” brings Jaime alive with a colorful personality that connects with Timberlake’s character perfectly. Jaime is a strong, independent woman who wants Dylan more as a friend to talk to rather than someone for pleasure only. Jaime doesn’t become the person who is desperately in need of Dylan, but more of a person just learning about herself.

Timberlake came a long way from rising on the music charts — his last album “FutureSex/LoveSounds” sold 10 million copies. He is also currently starring in “Bad Teacher” with Cameron Diaz. Dylan is a comedic, straightforward friend that battles the thought of losing his best friend more than the person he may love.

The movie centers around Jaime and Dylan giving up on love. They were inspired to move to the “with benefits” stage of their friendship after watching a romantic comedy, they promised not to develop emotions for each other by swearing on a bible iPad app. 

There was nothing but laughs as the characters made demands throughout the time they spent together physically and treated this as an act of two friends just having fun.

Director Will Gluck, who also directed “Easy A,” wanted to make this movie stand out from the way the characters engage in each other’s lives beyond sex. â€œFriends With Benefits” has a bigger meaning than having sex with a friend, but of a way of understanding someone far beyond the bedroom. For one thing, both Jaime and Dylan have parent issues with Jaime dealing with a carefree mother while Dylan’s dad suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. Jaime and Dylan helped each other in getting over a breakup but also being a person to depend on when times got rough.

Making $18.6 million in its opening week, the film brings a new romantic side to becoming friends with benefits. Kunis and Timberlake display perfect chemistry on screen and by gaining someone’s heart simply by starting a flash mob in the busiest city in the world.

This movie has strong language and adult situations, so watch it with someone you’re comfortable seeing this with. Watching it with your dad who suggests you start dating until you’re 30 wouldn’t be a wise suggestion.