Anya Lindholm has touched Ryan Lochte’s shoes.“They were pretty snazzy and

had wings on the back,” the freshman said.

She has had the honor of carrying Lochte’s belongings in a plastic basket. She was on NBC Primetime TV at the Olympic Swim Trials in Omaha’s Century Link Center.

She has walked where every 2012 Olympic swimmer has walked. How did she get so lucky?“I got the job at the Swim Trials through my coach at my swim club. Every kid who got picked to volunteer was a local swimmer, and we were the only volunteers under 21,” Lindholm said.

The official name for Lindholm’s job was basket carrier and block wiper. All the volunteers, including Lind-holm, were required to attend special training sessions at Beveridge Middle School where they were shown videos and demonstrations of what their job would be like. They practiced their duties during a “swimvitational” two weeks before the real trials, which started June 25 and ended July 2. After training was over, they were given an exclusive tour of the pool and backstage at the Century Link Center. “We were some of the first people to get in there and see the pool,” Lind-holm said.

But what did it mean to carry bas-kets and wipe off blocks at the trials? The basic outline of Lindholm’s job goes a little something like this:She waited backstage with nine other basket carriers. Once the swimmers dove in, the carriers grabbed the baskets that held the swimmers’ shoes, towel, and other items.If she was not a basket carrier, she and four other volunteers each followed

two basket carriers with towels to wipe off the blocks. They all had to walk in a straight, uniform line and wait for the leader to signal them when it was time to grab the baskets and wipe the blocks. All the baskets with the swimmers’ belongings were placed backstage so that the baskets would be waiting for them once they completed their race. (This was when she got to touch Ryan Lochte’s shoes!)

“It was over 20 hours of work, but I thought it was pretty easy,” Lindholm said. “One of the hardest parts was running the baskets and wiping the blocks during the 50 Freestyle. We had to do it all before the men were done swimming, which only gave us 22 sec-onds!” According to Lindholm, there is even a YouTube video called “Basket Kids” which shows her and the other volunteers sprinting from one side of the pool to the other during those 22 seconds.

Even with all the running and wiping, there were perks that came with being a “basket kid”. Lindholm was seen on national TV while she waited on the sidelines to grab a basket. She also got her pass signed by all the swimmers. “During the races, we weren’t allowed to talk to the swimmers unless they talked to us first,” Lindholm said. “Once, when we were hanging out backstage, Nathan Adrian had a funny towel with a hood on it, so we told him ‘Hey, cool towel!’ After that, he called back and said, ‘Thanks!’”

Touching Ryan Lochte’s shoes wasn’t on the list of appropriate behav-iors for all basket kids at the trials, but Anya Lindholm didn’t care. She was sharing the stairs with Olympians, and she loved every minute of it.

laurentussey

Baskets of GloryFreshman’s job at Swim Trials has her hanging with Olympians

Entertainment [ 7 ]The Network [ August ]

Summer Olympics

Anya

Lin

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16 Ally Pietrok, ‘13Marian girls take part in the London action

Lauren TusseyHeadline WritingA2 Marian

Normal people call it “Twitter.” My mom calls it “Twittering”. My 9-year-old sister calls it the “Bird

Site.” I call it “The Place Where you Forget About Your Conscience.” Don’t get me wrong, I love tweeting about how I’m feeling (fantastic, thank you) or my fave tune at the moment (“All or Nothing” by O-Town). But the thing that really grinds my gears is the way people take on a whole new personality on Twitter. I completely understand that you wanna get your twitter grind on and rack up as many followers as possible, but tearing people down while doing that is just not the way to go. The brilliant science teacher, Mr. Bruce Esser, once brought this subject up in class. He really got me thinking about my own actions on Twitter. I will fully admit that I am guilty of subtweeting (defini-tion: subliminal tweeting about a certain person without using their @name). And I also fully regret being ever-so- ignorant. For some strange reason, people fail to censor what they say when it comes to Twitter. Some people change the second they get behind a screen, suddenly saying things that they would not be able to say in person. If this applies to you, please, for the love of twittering, stop being a coward, and tweet about something more import-ant, like not drinking orange juice after brushing your teeth.

One of the most disturbing things I have seen are countless tweets of people telling other people to KYS (twitter lingo for “kill yourself ”). Well, first off, if I am grammatically correct, which I know I am, the abbreviation should be KY. Yourself is one word, ya fools. Suicide isn’t a joke. It’s not something that you can just throw around to be funny. I know from personal experience that a suicide can devastate a whole community and many people are affected by it. Second, telling someone to kill them-selves just because they like Cinderella more than Mulan is kind of uncalled for. Obviously, they are completely wrong, but telling someone to kill themselves over what movie they favor is taking it way too far, even if that person is your BESTEST FRIEND IN DA WHOLE WIDE TWIT-TER WORLD. Or maybe they got Juice Stop and you didn’t, so all of the sudden you hate them. Woah, what? That’s weird, because I dislike people who kill puppies, not people who buy themselves smoothies instead of buy-ing one for me (Side note: if you happen to stop by Juice Stop on your way to school, I like the Butterfly and my locker number is 120). A group of University of Nebraska Lincoln students has recently set up a site that reposts derogatory tweets by their students. They leave the username of the

person who said it on the post so people know who said it. The point of the website is to get people to stop being so derogatory on Twitter. The site allows anybody and everybody to see tweets that are posted by people even if they do not follow them. Basically, the website makes people look bad for being mean. I applaud the anony-mous person who created http://unl-hat-ers.tumblr.com/. Just like these UNL students represent UNL, we Marian girls represent Marian. It is crucial that we monitor what we say online. Once you put something online, it is out there for anyone and everything to see. It’s time to wake up and hear the birdies tweeting, people. Just because your profile is set to private or you delete a derogatory or rude tweet, it can still be found by some crazy smart hacker (Mr. Esser for example). It truly pains me to see my followers tweeting about other people. Chances are, you have no idea what they are going through or if they have had a bad day. You never know if just three little letters can send someone over the edge. It is just completely better to be safe rather than sorry. @mariangurlz I challenge you to stop with the subtweeting and derogatory tweets. We are #confident #independent #thinking #leaders

Tweet Others How You Want to be Tweetedmariacorpuz@corpalapagus

The Network [ October ] Headlines by Laruen Tussey

A single touch of this fabric, and junior Hannah Lajba has it. She knows she can make it easily. No

effort to it. Several hours with her needle, her mannequin, and a single idea is all it takes.

Past designs flow through her head: mountain skirts, a boning dress, sleeveless hoodies. “Been there, done that,” Lajba thinks. “But what’s next?”

She purchases the fabric and waves goodbye to the well-known employees at Hancock Fabrics.

Maybe at home she’ll hop online and search on Google images for some-thing.

Something bold.Something bright.

Something out of the ordinary. Whatever it is, you won’t find it com-

mon in America.This is fashion - Lajba fashion. Ever

since she was a baby, Lajba (pronounced “Lie-buh”) was never encouraged to “fit in” when it came to dressing herself. It was forbidden by her parents for her to shop at brand-name stores such as Hollister, American Eagle, or any store with their logo plastered onto their clothing. Having style and individuality was highly en-forced. “I wasn’t encouraged to be like everyone else and their style,” Lajba said. “I guess I’d say that I was pushed to have my own sense of style.

See Lajba p. 10

The Fashion ProdigyA bold fashionista puts a voice to her unique stylelaurentussey

Shopping at places like Goodwill, Urban Outfitters, Scout, Forever 21, and Pacsun are common for Lajba. “Some-times I find myself having the trend before it’s out in magazines,” Lajba said.

Starting trends and discovering new ones are her specialty. As a young trendsetter, Lajba looks to many other influences as a base for her own composition. She

admires Key, a

member of a famous Korean Pop band called “SHINee”. Other inspirations for Lajba come from magazines and Japanese apparel.

“I look towards Harajuku fashion from Japan for mixes of prints, colors and textures... and of course Nylon magazine has awesome styles. Nylon is my favorite source for what’s new,” Lajba said.

In her flurry of inspiration, Lajba also admits to discovering her favorite article of clothing: a Korean jacket her aunt got her from Goodwill. “I love to wear it when I’m in a ‘I’m so in Paris right now’ mood,” Lajba said.

Lajba raves about her favorite pair of shoes, her T.U.K. creep-ers, which are flat shoes with a 1.5 inch platform.

Lajba uses her own tech-nique of “mood dressing” whenever she’s planning an outfit. “My style depends on how I’m feeling that day. Some days I’ll go super girly and wear a skirt with a giant bow in my hair, but other days I have this punky at-titude and I’ll wear my super-tight black skinny jeans,” Lajba said.

When it comes to dressing herself every week, Lajba admits the difficulty in finding outfits that work for her. “I’m more into trying something out for a test run, then changing it again,” Lajba said.

Lajba also claims that throwing outfits together in her head is what soothes her before she goes to bed. “I think of my outfits to help me fall asleep at night, so that cuts back on time during the day,” Lajba said. “I always keep at least one thing from the original plan, but change the rest usually.”

In addition to her store-bought clothes, Lajba is an avid clothing de-signer. She founded the Fashion Club at Marian and is also on the costume committee for Field Day, since she can sew. Lajba applied to be an Omaha Fashion Week designer last February, but has been too busy to apply for this year’s show.

Lajba’s inner designer has thought up unique ideas for future clothing articles and creations. “One of my inspirations

right now is altering the body shape. This can mean pants

that have a dropped crotch, are

high-waisted, or even doing things to clothes that visually make your body shape look different,” Lajba said.

Her own way of piecing together a clothing article to sew is unique, and this

is the moment when her true fashion mastermind shines.

“Once I find a fabric, I feel it… then the idea pops into my head. It’s when I realize if I want to

do something,” Lajba said. “I’ll be in the store and feel a fabric and think and think ‘Oh! That could make a cute dress’ and I’ll immediately buy it.” There’s a mysteri-ous connection Lajba has between visually seeing something being done and then instantly being able

to do it herself. Once she watches a technique being performed, she’ll apply it to her own designs in the future. “I have kind of a photographic memory,”

Lajba said.When brainstorming design ideas,

Lajba turns to science teacher and sew-ing expert Mrs. Kris Calhoun for help when it comes to estimating measure-ments and sizing.

“The best time to design clothes is at night for me. I feel happy when I design. I get so excited, so I sew really fast, too,” Lajba said, regarding her emotions during the creation process. Some of Lajba’s colorful concoctions include a sleeveless hoodie, a mountain skirt, a Power Rangers suit, a dress for Gnimocemoh, an owl skirt, a poncho, two kimonos, and a reindeer hoodie in honor of Marian’s Christmas spirit week last December.

But what could possibly out stand the level of adoration Lajba holds in her heart for her world of prevailing fashion taste? Three words:

Eastern. Asian. Culture.Right now, Lajba is teaching herself

the Korean language through a free website called talktomeinkorean.com that includes podcasts and videos to help learn how to speak the tongue. Lajba also enhances her language knowledge through watching Korean TV shows

such as “Salamander Guru and The Shadow Gang” and “To the

Beautiful You”.Next to speak-ing the

language, Lajba also enjoys eating authentic Eastern Asian food. “It’s all I eat,” Lajba said. “I eat other things too, like pasta, chicken, applesauce, and cheez-its, but east Asian food is the food I’m the least pickiest in. I really just like how it tastes.”

She often makes Kimchi, which is a spicy condiment made of cabbage and tons of chili powder. At lunch, people may find Lajba’s lunch box a little odd as well. She packs all her lunches with a Bento box style. A Bento box has several tiny plastic containers to put your food into. “It’s like a Lunchable, only cuter,” Lajba said.

Another giant chunk of Lajba’s Asian infatuation is dedicated to KPOP (Korean Pop) music. “It’s not the high pitched stuff that most people think of. That’s JPOP. KPOP is like JPOP, but it flows more like a ballad,” Lajba said. “Oh and an-

other thing: Every sin-

gle KPOP song has its own dance.” SHINee is one of Laj-ba’s favorite groups. “I’m a major Shawol [SHINee

fan],” Lajba said. Her

favorite song is a recently released track by the band called “Sher-lock.”

Fu-ture plans for this au-dacious designer? Lajba’s dream college is the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. “Being a designer as a career seems difficult, but it’d be cool to be a fashion editor for Nylon or French Vogue,” Lajba said.

Extreme as it may be, Lajba will always fashionably stick to what she

knows and does best.

Continued from p. 1

Dropped Crotch. A pair of dropped crotch leggings, sewn by Lajba.

Black and White. Lajba’s hand-sewn dress models her love of body shaping.

Lajba: Fashionista designs her own style