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By: Elizabeth Patrick

According to “The Month of January 2023: Holidays, Fun Facts, Folklore”, “January was named for the Roman god Janus, known as the protector of gates and doorways who symbolize beginnings and endings.” “Janus is depicted with two faces, one looking into the past, the other with the ability to see into the future.” Originally January and February were not a part of the Roman calendar as the winter months were considered dormant. Some of the most popular holidays throughout the month of January include New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr Day, Benjamin Franklin’s birthday, and the Lunar New Year. The Lunar New Year is celebrated each year annually on January 22nd. The Lunar New Year is celebrated mostly in East Asia and begins with the first new moon after the winter solstice. Some other fun days in January include National Chocolate-Covered Cherry Day, National Bean Day, Elvis Presley’s Birthday, National Houseplant Appreciation Day, National Dress Up Your Pet Day, National Penguin Day, National Answer’s Your Cat’s Question Day, National Puzzle Day.

January is considered the coldest month of the year in the northern hemisphere. Also, in the northern hemisphere, the days are starting to get longer again, and the light begins to emerge again. January is also known as the best time to start planning your garden for the upcoming season. The birthstone for the month of January is the garnet, and it is said to keep the weak safe during travel. January’s flowers include the snowdrop and the carnation. In conclusion, January is a very interesting month with lots of fun events and days to celebrate.

Tim Rickabaugh, Professor of Exercise Science

The next epidemic likely to affect young Americans might just be sports gambling addiction. I’ll admit that I watch way too much football, and being an NFL fan since 1970, I know quite a bit about the sport. In fact, my mighty Smashing Bumpkins squad won a fantasy football dynasty league championship this season. This could easily create the illusion that I know more about the NFL than the bookies, but I am wise enough to know that, given time, they always take your money. Recent statistics associated with the growth of US sports betting are actually quite alarming.

Data below from Altenar, Inc. summarizes US betting activity since 2016:

Year Total Betting (All Forms) Sports Betting
2016 $7.5 Billion $4.0 Billion
2020 $12.0 Billion $6.0 Billion
2022 $14.0 Billion $7.0 Billion
2027(projected) $24.0 Billion $13.0 Billion

In addition to the exponential growth of the sports betting industry, it is especially alarming that the highest participation rate is for those individuals that earn less than $50,000 per year (S & P Global, 2023). One can also speculate that young males, many of whom perceive themselves as sports experts, are the target audience for companies such as Caesar’s Sports Book and Draft Kings. Much like the tobacco industry marketing strategy, if you can hook a smoker (gambler) at a young age, you are very likely to have a life-long consumer.

Given the potential of online sports betting to cultivate a young generation of gambling addicts, I am perplexed that they can find wholesome sports figures, such as Peyton and Eli Manning, to willingly market their product (experience). Caesar’s Sports Book, along with Peyton and Eli, only makes money when you lose more bets than you win. The highly skilled professionals that set the odds are simply going to ensure that you lose your hard-earned money given enough time, of which they have an unlimited source. Five dollars to earn $200 in free bets may actually end up costing you thousands!

Director: Matthew Vaughn

Where to watch: HBO Max

By Mallory Timbrook

This movie is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Not really, but I still really enjoyed it. The combination of Ralph Fiennes (he played Voldemort, but don’t worry, he has a nose in this movie), Gemma Arterton, and Djimon Hounsou is a hit. Their chemistry together is outstanding. This film was considered a “box office bomb,” but I beg to differ.

You know it will be good as the prequel to the Kingsmen film series. It’s a spy film set during World War I, so there’s lots of action. The main cast is English (I love those accents), so unlike most war films we’re familiar with, this is not from the American point of view. The King’s Man puts a fictionalized spin on the events leading up to WWI, and I love it. We get to see Rasputin, who has a very interesting Russian accent, a mysterious Scottish fellow who is the film’s main baddie, and an infamous woman named Mata Hari, who seduced Woodrow Wilson. 

The film’s main star is supposed to be Ralph Fiennes’s character, the Duke of Oxford, and his band of merry heroes, Rasputin steals the show. With his vulgar language, (bad) Russian accent, and singing and dancing skills, the film should be renamed Rasputin: Not a King’s Man. The fight scene between Oxford and Rasputin should’ve won an award for best fight. It was that good. The music during the scene was absolute perfection. However, it was not as perfect as the amazingly wonderful Nanny Polly, who was an absolute queen. She took feminism and female empowerment to a new level. I want to be her when I grow up. 

The King’s Man is a wonderful film with an all-star cast. Unfortunately, it didn’t make as big a splash as the first two Kingsmen films, but there are still talks of a sequel. Hopefully, a sequel will be created so the franchise can continue.

By: Caia Bevins

It is the beginning of the Spring Semester, and everyone is back on campus for the rest of the school year. I don’t know about you, but I am super excited about this semester. Some of you may be Freshmen, a little more confident with a semester under your belt. Maybe you’re a Sophomore or Junior, settling in for another semester of work to achieve your goal. Or maybe you’re lucky enough to be a Senior, and you’re on the homestretch toward graduation. Whichever category you fit into, it is always a good thing to start the semester off on the right foot. It is a new year, after all, and with that comes new year’s resolutions.

I always had a problem with new year’s resolutions, to be honest. They always seem doomed to fail. Everybody starts out strong, don’t get me wrong. But the problem is, for most people, their resolution may be to be active, and they’ll do great for a few days, and then by January 7, they’re back to sitting on their couch watching YouTube. So how do you stop this from happening?

You could start by coming up with an attainable goal, something that you can actually achieve. Be realistic. You’re not going to become an Olympic athlete in one year. Instead, start thinking about things that might be good for you but also doable, like eating breakfast every morning or taking an hour every day not to be around electronics (yes, that includes your phone). You could make it a goal to read every day or take a few minutes to tidy up your dorm room and put your stuff away. Now that you have some ideas think about something that you could do. Do you have an idea? Great.
Now that you have your idea think about whether you can reasonably incorporate it into your daily life. Maybe you can’t take an hour-long break from electronics, but you can do half an hour. Maybe instead of eating breakfast every day, you make it a goal to eat lunch every day. Tailor it to your needs and schedule. Maybe you chose a goal like walking a mile every day, but then you remembered where you live and realized that you don’t like the cold or treadmills all that much. If so, then go back to the drawing
board and think of something different.

Once you figure out something else, make sure you find ways to make sure that you succeed. If your goal is 10,000 steps, get a step tracker. If it is to read every day, create a reading log. Set reminders on your phone, put a sticky note next to your light switch, or get someone to check in on you to make sure you are doing what you’re supposed to. Find a way to succeed.

Finally, don’t just give up. If you skip a day or two, keep trying to achieve your goal. You are doing this to
better yourself so keep that in mind. You can do it, just keep working at it and put your best foot forward. Best of luck!

The Overnight Guest, by New York Times Bestselling Author, Heather Gudenkauf is a chilling page-turner. This story is set in rural Blake County, Iowa, deep in the country where the houses are slim on the backroads. This story keeps readers wanting to know what is going to happen next.

Wylie Lark is a true crime author who doesn’t blink an eye when she gets snowed in at the farmhouse she is staying in to finish her latest book. The only thing is the farmhouse she is staying in is the same house where a decade-old murder took place in. A murder in which two people were murdered and a young girl comes up missing. The storm outside the house continues to worsen, and she finds herself completely trapped inside of the house with nowhere else to go, she is forced to relive her own secrets. That is until she discovers a young child in the snow outside of her house and brings the child into warmth and safety. She begins to investigate, but what she uncovers is just as unnerving. It is soon made evident that it is not as isolated out there as Wylie once believed, and someone is willing to find them at any cost.

This story had so many puzzle pieces that connected together at the end. If you can get past the multiple perspectives that are going on in the book, then the read is quite good. Everything makes sense at the end of the book. I really enjoyed how the author seemed to keep the readers on their toes. Just when you thought you had something figured out, the author would throw another curve ball at you. The ending is one that I would never have guessed, but looking back, all the pieces were there they were just blurred into the story.

Overall, I would rate this book a 4/5 because the first 40 pages were kinda confusing with the skipping back and forth between the perspectives. I really enjoyed the book after getting through those few pages.