“It’s nice meeting people with similar interests, we get to be nerds the entire weekend. My favorite part is the dances, and being able to buy things in the dealer room that you can’t find anywhere else,” said Senior Emi Wagner. Wagner dressed as Tifa Lockhart from Final Fantasy 7, and her own personal coordination for the rave later that evening.

Anime Detour is a weekend Convention, and recently celebrated its tenth year running. Many features that draw people from all over the surrounding states and Buffalo High School, include AMV and writing contests, a masquerade, a dealers room, an artists alley, guest of honor signings, a gaming room, panel discussions, a charity auction and a dance. The festivities aren’t always strictly anime related, the convention also celebrates US and overseas pop culture.

A handful of devoted BHS students will be joining in the yearly trek to “Detour”. Many attendees ‘cosplay’ or dress as their favorite characters from pop culture, as a creative way to show what sort of media their into, and show support for the show/game/comic/books/ect.

“First you have to decide what to dress up as, there are so many shows to pick from. when its narrowed down, how have to figure out what you’ll wear on each day. Saving money is a big part of preparation too,” said Senior Becca Bzdok. “It’s a party, its so much fun. the people are so friendly and willing to talk.” It is Beccas third year attending the convention, and she dressed as a female version of Alfred Jones from one of her favorite anime, Axis Powers Hetalia.

Besides cosplay, there are small meetups for  “fandoms” or groups of people interested in the same thing within the convention, where people hang out, talk about or draw related things. The spring/summer season is usually referred to as  “Con season” by the BHS students who also attend other local conventions in the summer like Animinneapolis, CONvergence, Metacon and Anime Fusion, and count on these yearly gatherings to strengthen their love of pop culture.

Whether its stickers, cases, sharpies, charms or some other medium, phones and laptops are being transformed into a personal statement about the owner. Cell phone culture has been growing since phones went from a luxury item to more commonplace, nowadays 82% of women under 18 believe their phone is what people notice first about them according to a survey from Vuclip.

 “Its definitely a personal expression.” Sandra continues continues.

The trend of decorating phone cases comes from each person’s different style and inspiration, but the goal is usually to satisfy their own taste, rather than showing off to others. Though many may view phones and their decorations as status, they also seem to be a very personal thing.

“Its just cute.” adds Junior Marissa Meyers.

Robinson frequently plays for Crows Feet, a local band, and been in a myriad of bands previously.  After that successful month of fill-in jobs and various shows, he experienced an eight month dry spell. He had joined his first band in college and has been playing guitar  since. Each band has had its ups, downs, clashing personalities and band moms, but that hasn’t ever made him stop.

“I’ve played plenty of gigs to empty chairs too though,” Robinson said.

One of his more memorable shows was playing a small wedding, the audience was bouncing up and down on the wood floor almost louder than the bands cover of  ‘Knock on wood”. He mentioned how the audience becomes as much a part of the band as any member, and adds a kind of energy that just makes you want to play louder and better to add to that.

“Playing music is mostly beneficial to create connections with students,” Robinson said.

Robinson will occasionally bring in his guitar or harmonica to help with students projects, but most times feels nervous playing in front of students. Robinson  enjoys making connections with students through music, sometimes he is able to see a student move forward with a music career or just with a deeper friendship and understanding of music.

Occasionally, he says he’ll play a gig and later a student of his will rush up, having been unaware that he is in a band. He’ll gauge the quality of his performance on weather or not they decide buy him a drink after the show. It’s not a well known fact that he plays music, but those who do know have been able to forge a deeper friendship because of it.

More than 60 Ceramics 2 students gathered on February 15 in Holtz’s Ceramics room for a demonstration from Keith Williams on how to make both functional and nonfunctional teapots. Keith mentioned how he wasn’t a natural at clay in high school, but because he enjoyed working with it so much, he pursued a career teaching at Concordia University in St.Paul.

Keith is a Liberal Art Professor and a good friend of  Holtz. Keith has previously came into Holtz’s Ceramics classes, numerous times over the years. Keith talked about his love of working with clay, the sound that creating art makes, art careers and how he is reflected in the art he creates.

”I love making music, but clay art gave my life direction in the 1970s,” said Williams.

One of Mr. Holtz ceramics 2 students, Junior Michelle Lee is visually impaired. While doing demonstrations for the students, Keith guided Michelle by having her feel the clay and how his hands were sculpting it throughout the process.

The students walked away with a more in depth understanding of how to work clay, different ways to wedge, how to use a variety of tools and how art can influence someone’s life.

The event being the annual Rube Goldberg machine competition, an event where 25 teams from all across Minnesota make a machine to accomplish a simple task in the most over complicated way possible. The competition blends engineering, logic, creativity and imagination as well as being able to physically build something. It  took place at the University of Mankato , and this years goal was to Hammer a Nail. Apart from the basic hammering of a nail, the machines had to have at least 20 steps, and be able to be transported to Mankato.

“Its something more fun than just doing papers and taking tests.” He continued.

At 6:15 Thursday morning there were two teams that started the trek, Mr. Andersons AP physics class, and a smaller group that wanted to throw their hat in the ring as well. Each BHS team had about 4 days to design, build and test their machine, as opposed to teams from other schools who had months to create theirs. Neither team brought home an award, but these first year entries really didn’t have winning in mind.