Mark Wesley Pritchard

What grinds my gears, you ask? There's a lot of things that most people do that annoy me, but I'll be talking about the one thing that I've been curious about for so long: some of these school districts who are so concerned about how students, even people of color, choose to wear their hair. Over the last few years, I've seen and read stories about students being suspended for wearing, dying, and having them in cornrows and braids. People being fired from their jobs or not getting a job because of their hair. As a person of color, I take offense to what these schools are doing to children and lowering their self-esteem. Our hairstyles are part of our self-identities. It's part of who we are. Just like what we like to wear: it's part of our own individual personal style. In July 2019, California became the first state to ban discrimination against black students and employees over their natural hairstyles. I believe that more states will follow suit and adopted in all states. Last month, I ran into an article that not only upset me, but was angered. It took place in my home state and I have a lot to say about it.

While almost everyone was giving their significant others flowers and candy on Valentine’s Day, yours truly saw an amazing movie. A movie that I and everyone else have been talking about for months. That movie was Sonic the Hedgehog. As of this article, it topped the box office and made $57 million dollars and $100 million worldwide, marking the largest showing for a video game adaption and surpassing Detective Pikachu, which grossed $54.3 million last year. It's expected to earn between $68-$70 million through President's Day. Movies based of off video games tend to be epic fails or flops, but Sonic proved critics wrong and if it weren't for the redesign of the titular character, the movie would have not had earnings like these.

Greetings, Vocal readers. It's been a while since I've done a perler bead DIY. Having a hectic schedule is normal for me, but it keeps me going and motivated. You must be wondering what the whole point of this picture was shown above. I have an answer for that. The DIY that I've done two weeks ago is none other than Porygon. Porygon is described as a Virtual Pokémon standing at 2’7” and weighing at 80.5 pounds. It’s genderless, meaning that it doesn’t identify as neither male nor female. It also can covert its body into digital data, traveling into cyberspace. For the Porygon perler bead creation, you’ll need the following items:

Greetings, Vocal readers. I'm back with another cosplayer interview and if you're a fan of the Power Rangers, especially the Green Ranger, you're going to enjoy it even more. Recently, I had a chance to interview Shelly Santiago and got to know more about her. This is my second cosplayer feature of 2020 and I'll be interviewing more cosplayers throughout the year, so be on the lookout for those. In the meantime, sit back and enjoy this interview.

Dear Ms. McGovern,

About two years ago, I had a mental breakdown during my shift at work. I worked at a call center six days a week: Monday through Friday and also Saturday. From November 2017 to the middle of February 2018, I had a job that was stressful and took a toll on me. The long hours and working on Saturdays was the start of my mental breakdown. I hardly had any time off and would work up to 10 hours on most days. I enjoyed it for a while, but it literally sucked me dry. So I ended up quitting a few days after Valentine’s Day of 2018, for the sake of my mental well-being. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety in February 2012. For almost the last decade, I was on medications for my depression and anxiety, but it made me sleepy and didn’t help. Also, I also sought help for my mental illness. However, it didn’t solve any of my problems either. So I decided to do some hobbies that will benefit mentally and also physically. Things are well with me now, but I wanted to set aside some time for myself by doing hobbies I enjoy and I’m going to share a few of them with everyone.