DEV Community: Braydyn Lents

Introducing... The 2023 College Javascript Tournament

Braydyn Lents — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 00:51:01 +0000

Tech wizards and college students, listen up about this amazing opportunity to test your skills in the first ever 2023 College Javascript Computer Tech Tournament.

The 2023 College Javascript Tournament is a brand new tournament, ranks the best schools with the best computer tech programs in coding, marketing, and engineering all in one roof.

The tournament begins on March 2 and will last through April 1, as you will need to follow me on Twitter and Instagram to see who has advanced on to the next round, but you can fill out your bracket by downloading this image below:

The winner of the contest will get a shoutout in one of my YouTube videos, and a collab opportunity.

You can download the bracket above or upload it as a PNG photo to fill out. If you would like the Excel version of this bracket to fill out, email me at braydynlents09@gmail.com, and I will feature your bracket on the leaderboard if you follow me on Twitter @lentsbraydyn as every week during the official NCAA Tournament, we will reveal the winners week by week. Have fun playing the 2023 College Javascript Computer Tech Tournament.

Have fun and enjoy playing in the #javascriptthTournament.

What is the Point of Bell Work?

Braydyn Lents — Sun, 19 Feb 2023 00:51:38 +0000

Once the school bell rang in middle and high school, students like myself would just be huffing and puffing up the stairs of our crammed school hallways to get to our next stage of classes. As I walked into the classroom of my next class, let's say it's science or math, then I realize that you have little time to interact with friends, get girls' phone numbers, or ask my buddy for the extra tater tots from lunch that he would sneak into his pocket.

You had just a bit of time, about four minutes or less, to answer a question projected on the projector and write a prompt about some topic an employer might not care about. Our teacher would tell us to think long and hard about our prompt. The dreaded words on the chalkboard projected on a large projector were the words we all dreaded when we were young, "Bell Work." Then there would be a ridiculous question from maybe a chapter we had to read in our textbook or something we were supposed to remember from class the previous day. Once the bell officially ran and the hallways became a ghost town, our teacher would yell, "All right! Bell work! Let's get working on it! You won't get extra points unless you write all of the prompt, and not just part of it! Let's go!"

To me and other than puberty-filled Gen Zers like myself, I thought bell work was the dumbest thing I had to do in school.

It was five minutes to write, draw, or narrate on paper, with my hand as sore as ever from maybe four two-hour courses earlier in the day, and now it's 1 pm, and I have to write about something I forgot about throughout the day or the last two days before this class started?

Back in school, I thought about girls, food, going home, and sports talks. The more I did the bell work, the more the teachers I had would always mark my work with a 30/50 for the response. The nicest teachers who care about my performance and grew a bond with me would score me a perfect score for trying my best (which described a lot about my adolescent school years).

Throughout this week, I thought more about the term that would haunt us in high school, but I question its purpose in its effect of grasping the combination of inspiration, emotional distress, and memorizing knowledge. How can a teacher expect their students to memorize material when they might have behavioral or major social situations affect them daily?

Through my research, I dug up this conclusion, social, political, and emotional norms drive bell work to become important for students for it's social and emotional connection between life and study.

In other words, bell work is an acronym for be wise. Be prepared for the game.

For example, when Colorado football coach, Deion Sanders tells his players not to use a phone before a game, he means to put the phone away, keep it out of sight, out of their mind, and focus on the task, the game, and the road at hand.

Bell work, in its simplest form, is preparing you for class. The human brain is the largest and most precious bone in your body, and when bell work begins to make you wiser, you're thinking about the work you will do for the day.

I watched a ton of cereal commercials while I was researching and writing this article, and let me say that in the advertisements, they promote "heart health," or "sufficient brain growth," while you eat the cereal and prep for the day ahead so you can work and grind, then go home and sleep.

Bell work is a refresher. Like drinking a bottle of water after mowing the grass on a dry summer's day. Bell work is supposed to make you wiser because this skill is a great lesson to have for students to use when they eventually graduate and head to the workforce.

Bell work is like preparing for an athletic event, your brain should be recharged and now you can go into class, perform at your best, never miss a day of school and feel rebirthed about your studies. This shows teamwork and shows a level of determination in and out of the classroom to work.

That as I have learned in college is a very important skill to obtain.

Educators think of this reason differently as the educational field has changed and expanded since the pandemic and other social issues have occurred throughout one of the most challenging times in education.

According to an article published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, educators have changed what bell work has gone away from its traditional norms to add an energy boost of sorts, and just like my reasoning, add in a boost for students to think as they walk into the classroom.

The article says, "Traditionally, educators have implemented bell work -- shortened assignments that begin class with content reviews, silent reading, or completion of assignments -- as the students trickle in carrying backpacks and a broad variety of needs and emotions. This past year, I began looking at research about the primary/recency effect and how I could better engage students the minute they walked through the door each day. Bell work rang my bell! I was reminded how content and experiences in the first few minutes of a lecture, teaching episode, or assignment have the best chance of staying in working memory, where new thoughts and ideas connect to what students already consider relevant or meaningful."

The article also makes another interesting point, "Brain-aligned bell work captured the engagement that I desired for longer-term learning. Not all bell work has to be tied to whatever standards or topics we're teaching that day or week. Sometimes, it activates powerful ways to explore perceptual data from the students with regard to their interests, passions, feelings, insights, and bundles of beliefs."

Believing a student can try is like an athlete on a field. You need coaches to instill toughness and strength in your players. We all need motivation and teachers are the coaches for the next generation of employers, so we need to learn the skill of the trade no matter how ridiculous AP Calculus might sound to the average person, you need a minute to stop thinking about the girl you want to ask out, or the big play you will make in the football game, and center your focus on the task you are assigned to do.

I think now I get this lesson of the point of bell work, but it is clear that it is supposed to motivate us, and through all of our #teachers hard work and dedication to coaching us every single day, with low pay and hard lives, I am not criticizing the teaching industry by saying bell work is silly or foolish to speak. In college, I love to take notes and occasionally check emails if I didn't do that at my apartment because as a college student, you learn that life is harder in school and you need to take a break and collect what you forgot to do during the days.

I know an employer will not accept this notion of missing emails or not checking your files before work, but hey, I'm still learning even though I should know by now to check my emails and get my tasks done, I am thinking in 50,000 thoughts and I thought bell work will not replace what I am thinking about during the day.

Stress happens and that is life, but bell work was used as a huge moment to socialize when I was in school, and before I knew it, it was time to turn in the assignment and move on with the meat and potatoes of our lecture for the day.

In the end, even with these reasonings, I still think bell work is silly to do for students who have hard lives or a lot going on. The words "Bell work" will still haunt me in my sleep.

Understanding Workplace Narcissism at a Young Age

Braydyn Lents — Sat, 18 Feb 2023 05:16:19 +0000

Narcissism in the workplace will turn many people who get sick easily, have a disability, have a stressful life, have kids, have another job, or have other priorities, into a walking machine if they do the things we tell you, the worker, to do in this informative article.

What I am trying to say is that dealing with a narcissist or narcissism in the workplace can be a living hell.

Dealing with so much pain from your employer could end you up into self destruction, or in worse problems than you already are in.

You might collapse easily if you don't pick up on the narcissism in your line of work, which is why identifying narcissism in your chosen profession, so college seniors, whether you have your career choice of field all figured out yet or not, what I am saying to you will be a great skillset to use in your everyday life because, sadly, narcissists are everywhere and you have to deal with getting crushed once in a while in order to build yourself back up.

It is so bad that even dealing with narcissism can be a life altering prescription, which can challenge you throughout your life, marriage, health, and your morals. If you are not a narcissist and you are "humble," if the pills are not taken correctly, you might have slip ups in your work life, get fired, and if you speak out, which I encourage you to at one point or another, remember to take these pills responsible because the side effects of a narcissistic rage will send you packing your bags from that software company and move back in either with family, friends, start your own profit company, raise kids, or have a life of sitting around what that boss told you to do that kept you working in utter distress.

But first, let me educate you a little bit about narcissism and it's trait as a personality disorder, so it's time for our the three p.m. meeting.

For those that don't know, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, also known as narcissism, is a neurological condition that spawns into ten different types of personality disorders including borderline personality disorder, Schizophrenia, and antisocial personality disorder amongst eight other classified personality disorders listed by The Cleveland Clinic. Experts say that only 0.5% or 1 in 200 people are diagnosed with the disorder, but what makes this illness so dangerous is like most other personality disorders, narcissism is in all of us. We can all hide it better or we might not hide it as well, and it's main symptoms show in times of stress.

A narcissistic rage on an everyday scale can turn out to be life altering for the employee or the member in the room.

You may view your boss as just being a "Meenie" or "a grouch." For people that don't know about narcissism, my mother, Amy (who we will call Athena) has seen it all from a work and home base. She lectured me for hours on this topic, especially when I was struggling with the effects of an employer's narcissism myself.

She was severely abused by a narcssistic mother and father, and she questioned why she was born on countless occassions. At the age of 19 she dealt with my father getting drunk, partying, and abusing her left and right. She didn't fully heal from her abuse until 2020 after my narcissistic grandmother died from Alzhiemer's, but the pain was worse than even I could have imagined. After 39 long years, I can finally see some hope, and she wants me to tell others to heal from their narcissistic pain, but without her, I would have probably thought narcissism wasn't a thing. I would have been galloped onto the horse of career choice and idea building like classmates in college would do when they hear a professor speak in a 300 room lecture hall, and he/she promises connections over morals.

She is the go to person for me ask about this weird brain function, and in narcissists I saw at work, the feeling of entitlement is striking.

They think they are the king of everything. One's aging 1998 Chevy Silverado with a busted out window can be, to a narcissist, is similar to driving an all new Mercedes Benz.

The rage can get so intense that you sometimes, as was the case with a psychatrist I worked with who raged at myself and my mother at an appointment, we were forced to see her, bubbled up and smiley like nothing even happened.

Athena, my mother, would tell me, "The physical abuse gets better, but it's the abandonment that hurts worse than getting hit. Because you know your parents don't love you, they never cared about you, nor did they want you alive."

In otherwords, when you encounter a narcissist, they will politely give the worker credit. Pass on new, shared ideas that will shape your business as you know it. They are collaborative, smart, funny, witty, and will always give you a fair shot to work at the company with a collaborative workforce, excellent work service with great pay, and a simple reminder that you belong here and if you need anything, give us a call.

At work, this is what one of my former bosses would tell all of her employees at a newspaper office I worked at while I was still in college at Indiana University Bloomington.

This was the first sign to me that a narcissist will steal everything that you have to offer to the company, and tear you down to nothing. With little pay or effort to show forth unless you are the boss' son, daughter, maybe a grandparent. The girlfriend to the boss' son, or the minister of the executive marketing strategy manager's city church who he knew back on the high school football team. Then you will get a say on all of the company's most primal decisions.

An echoing cry whenever I dealt with these narcissists, shutting doors for private chats, and little talk about how to improve sales, I would repeat a quote from George Carlin's "Dumb Americans" last comedy show in 2005, and I would replay this message like a recorded call over and over again. "You got owners, they own you! They own everything!" and "It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."

The moral of this whole first part of the article is to get you, the worker, the freshmen student, the intern at an I.T. firm in Chicago, the videographer for a college rugby team in South Africa, or the young Head Executive President of Marketing and Communications for a NASCAR Racing team based out of Charolette, North Carolina, remember, sometimes that job will love you, then steal your heart, and they never do care about you.

Some jobs are agendas, and as my mother put it, "They don't want you to succeed, they want you stuck, and they will take the food from out in front of you because narcs don't care about you."

That got dark in hurry, now let's brighten the spirits up a little bit.

Here are four tips on how you should deal with this problem of narcissism. Whether you are in the workforce, an intern, or a college student finding their next endeavors, this is advice that I have used and my mom has used to help you the next time you encounter a narcissist.

1. Recognize early on that you will get beaten down

In college, you might have been able to write a speech about how good or bad your experience was, but one thing you need to consider is that college cannot and do not set you up for connections. They want you to learn, grow up, and mature living on your own, finding connections through yourself or your line of work yourself, and go to class and pass a useless test that the employer does not care about.

If you didn't have this in college, and were privileged with getting work opportunities because you stay connected with postings, and you have tried something new, that is good, but the professor in your marketing class at the Kelley School of Business will turn on you when you leave.

There are no hugs or times to go back to the past when you were a junior in college, and you took something out of that Business professor's course. The one you loved so dear. They are apart of a business, and you only communicate with your professor when there are business needs.

In other words, there is no A+ in business, or even walking back in a school building and meeting your professor from god knows when. This is an example of you getting beaten down.

For those that are 18-24 years old, you're an adult... the workforce will beat you down, so much so that you might go calling mommy and daddy asking to quit the job because it's not for you.

Sorry honey, but nothing is granted and yet, say goodbye to your care free, love of life high school/college attitude.

Narcissists usually start their manipulative task when they first hire an employee. As for the case of a magazine company I worked for in Bloomington, the two bosses messed around with me, tossing me around like a rag doll until I reacted. I never fell for anything they did to control me, and I nearly got fired from the job on the interview day because I didn't know my availability, and my boss rung me out over it. "See you're starting on the wrong foot already. We need a lot more communication from you, we need you on top of things."

Then the job got weird after my fifth month working for them as part of an internship I did before heading back to college, and I left more scarred than nurtured into the print industry, but that's for another day. Increasingly at this job, the love bombing began with them wining and dining me at some of Bloomington's finest gourmet restraunts that were completely out of my price range as a broke college students being around two rich white women and two rich white guys, former reporters and editors of newspapers and magazines by the way. Around June 2022, the vibe shifted because our desk secretary, who designed the Wednesday meal days left the job to work for a church.

My bosses, who were cool with beating me down, beat me down some more and things got very explicit very quickly before I left the internship to start school in July of that year.

After I left, I fought off of my demons and realized that being beaten down is a sign to build yourself up. To find a strength in you, so you can understand how to deal with the narcissistic bosses better, and this can take up to months, even years to figure out. You're also finding out about yourself at the same time, so take the advantage to find an external calling because if a job will toss you around the office, since an intern is fresh meat, an external being and yourself will mentor you and guide you to where you need to go in your journey through this job.

2. Set strict boundaries
To set these boundaries, start by making little to no interactions with your team members. Don't say much, just go with the flow, and don't make your presence known to the narcissist.

They are only going to find this as fuel to control you more if you need help. They will view you as weak and pounce on you.

While working for Indiana University Student Television (IUSTV), my mom told me to "Set boundaries with your group," and I didn't know what she meant until after the first night of filming one of the shows for the organization. Probably Hoosiers Sports Night and The Toss Up, I don't know, all I know is that I walked into Franklin Hall (a.k.a. The IU Media School) to tape the show that night. My boss, a skinny but yet, a stereotypical version of a fraternity brother, called the remaining people off for the night.

I left the school upset that there was no spot for me. Enraged, I had to defuse myself and as I called my mom on my way out of the building (which was what I did a lot after club events and meetings, you're seeing how unlucky I was while I stepped foot in that building) I called my mom. She told me to not make your presence known.

She told me that I did a good thing not attending that taping, but it felt like I walked into a rich college kid club that never once would care about transfer students like me, or anyone of that matter, and I never fit in until I got the hint.

When I was assigned the role of being the official IU hockey play-by-play announcer for WIUX 99.1 FM in Bloomington, which restarted the hockey commentating team with me and six other boys. The sports director, Griffin E. and IU hockey reporter Sam W., pumped us up to thinking that we needed to bend over to him and follow their orders. Only Griffin did this more than Sam did, but what I will tell you next was the realization that they did not really care about whether we make it to the stadium or not, and this would cause a tale spin for me after this interview session with me and six new broadcast members.

He toured us through equipment checks and meeting notes, but he promised that me and another boy will work the first home game of the season against Xavier. He told us while telling us about our equipment and how to use it, "I demand you respond to my emails in less than 24-48 hours, or... yeah... we got bigger things to do than to do a broadcast that no one responds to."

If you heard his words closely, you can hear the devil come out and his demenor showed it as well. He was a cocky college kid, yes (he did mention drinking to many beers at some sports events he covered in Israel) "I demand, if you listen and do what we tell you to do, if you want to take this serious and be a member of our exclusive club, if you listen to us, if you need anything, let me know."

After the meeting, I had discussed leaving with my friends and family, but I still did what a broadcaster is supposed to do. Prepare, prepare, ask and prepare. I still remembered listening to a hockey radio call of the 1994 Eastern Conference NHL Finals with the New York Rangers and the New Jersey Devils, prepping boards, spreadsheets of players, and staying up until 6 a.m. doing boards.

The next day, I walked to get my equipment at the Franklin Hall, the same building as the meeting, to pick up the radio production equipment I was assigned to get. The young college student at the counter said, "You didn't reserve this. Reschedule again."

I stood in shock, and went straight up to the studio building on the fourth floor, palms and face sweating due to walking almost 10,000 steps and being as sick as a dog, walked to this small college radio station and pounding my head against the wall... literally.

I walked out of the studio and into the van my mother drove, given it was Friday and didn't have a car on campus, I screamed, "I quit!"

I didn't just quit because I was sick again, sick from doing these clubs and organizations no one told me to do, and being hospitalized as mentioned on the last reason, I learned that my sports broadcasting club dreams were over at IU. I have never cried so much in my life because I still don't view my industry the same.

I later looked back on that day and realized after being sick, down in the dumps depressed, sick twice, and ill that these kids will and won't ever care about me.

So setting boundaries between a narcissist, no matter if they are this bad or not, is an added plus because you have gained respect and maturity if you try not to do too much and yet don't do too little at the job or in school.

Do clubs where you know you will get respect, but don't go searching for these clubs, jobs, or companies to work for.

If you have problems at your job and they tell you that you can come back, remember to schedule a time to stay and a time to leave (which might be easier in college), set a goal in mind for the day, and think about other things than work sometimes, but don't do this when there is work to do.

Listen but be attentive to everything going on. This means to recognize the narcissism but act like a metal shield is around you. Protecting you from all costs, and finally be around a support system at work and always do what your best friends are trying to do.

Set boundaries on the little things, but also don't do too much and know your limits. This advice is great for college students to grasp right now, as this article is intended mainly for you, the college kid who works like me. For the worker, finding boundaries might be more difficult.

3. Do not poke the bear
When a narcissist is in a rage, do not poke the bear means do not mess with the boss and ask him a question when he/she rages or is already upset.

Remember that narcissists are sometimes not upset with you. There is something else bugging on their nerves which is causing them to flip out like a parent at a youth soccer match.

Everyone is human, but narcs might not act human because they aren't like people such as you or me. When they rage, get mad, or have a million tasks, don't ask for favors. Be diligent and work with them but when it is too much take a break.

4. Vent your feelings out in a positive way
First of all, do not vent your feelings out on your children (if you have any). Like my mom, who is scarred for life from the yelling her parents did, it's unnecessary to let your kids deal with what is going on in your work life.

Vent your feelings out with someone you trust, even a therapist, but also do not reveal too much about your line of work, the people you work with, and don't reveal too much taboo information about the company.

For many of you, that is easier to do, but from me, since I have bipolar disorder, a loud mouth, and am more outspoken than the majority of you reading this article, this statement was hard for me.

I performed at a comedy show once, and I talked too much about IU's Board of Trustees and joked about IU graduates who say that they are the First woman to be, first woman in sports, and first Black and Latino woman to lead a media organization and how IU helped them become the person they are today. Which did not sit well with the mostly gullible IU freshmen crowd.

In other words, I shared too much information about my work.

Do this responsibly and don't try to go out, write a rap song, and diss about how the boss sucks at your job and flips out at everyone.

Finally... I want to close off by saying do not form a work union protest, it never solves anything. You can never get the already rowed up narcissistic companies and corporations to budge.

You can never win in a corporate setting.

and finally I will add an extra tidbit of information to share:

*5. The more sick you get at work, the more you need to leave *
In September 2022, I was rushed by ambulance to IU Bloomington Hospital where I felt a numbness I have never felt before or since. Later I would be diagnosed with the rare illness of Gillian Barre syndrome, which attacks your central lining of your nervous system, causing lifelong damage if not rushed to the hospital in time to receive treatment.

After five long days at the hospital, I was spooked out by the thoughts of continuing to work at toxic, greedy businesses that took my energy and time away from healing myself. The cruelest part about the whole hospital stay, was that I was dismissed from Indiana University due to medical reasoning, but just this week, I had answers as to why I left.

I was not physically, mentally, or emotionally ready to go back to IU due to having COVID-19 and then this twice in the same year. In other words, I needed to be a solider that can handle any obstacle under any circumstances.

That was the biggest eye opener I ever had through this process of recovering and going back to school and work. I needed to be fit to rejoin the Marines so to speak.

I learned that through my unnecessary work habit of doing meaningless jobs and dealing with narcissistic young college kids at my job, it was not worth me killing myself for a dollar sign.

I need you to go with that same attitude as well. There are no promises with a narcissist that you can have a job, or a line of work. You won't be loved, and according to the organization SHRM, narcissism can drastically impact how, if you, the washing machine, doesn't work properly, the idea that a job will recover fast is slim to none.

You getting sick will make the work you do a hell of a lot worse than when you applied. So dig into yourself and what you can do to change your habits with narcissists, even recognizing them by seeing their unpolluted behaviors, their comments, their love bombing and feeding you, then making you work too hard. The signs might not hit until you leave the job, as was the case with my friend R.J. who worked for the Indiana Daily Student with me as IU students. It took him months to even talk about work because he had so much to heal from. Unlike me, he was the head of a section of the newspaper titled "Black Voices," and for four years he fell for their act until the treatment and respect of working for such a prestigious newspaper came back to haunt him. He now works for a news station in Memphis, Tennessee, and from what I heard, has healed from his wounds working for the company. He so to discovered himself through healing from this narcissistic pain.

In the end, whether you're new or old, you will find out that the job is toxic eventually and when you do the healing process can take years to get over, as long as you followed the first step and talk to an adult about your problems at work. Then it will hit you and you are set to find another career path.

Workplace narcissism starts to take shape for every employer as a child in either high school, as it was for me, or in your childhood by parental guardians. Some of us are more intuitive than others and can recognize toxic signs in a workplace or even in their own homes.

Narcissism is at an alarming rate becoming the new norm for the fourth industrial revolution of the workforce as we know it.

One lesson I took out of writing this article is to do one thing. Kids, it's more brutal out here.

One Boy at Campagna Academy Saved My Life

Braydyn Lents — Thu, 16 Feb 2023 22:19:06 +0000

On Tuesday, I found out some unsettling news that would strike me to the core. It was a tidbit of information, yes. Still, it was critical and downright heartbreaking, especially given that I was once a troubled youth at this facility, Campagna Academy in Schererville, Indiana, and to hear about their longtime reputation of Catholic gospel and healing youth for over 75 years and counting, is now turning corporate.

And this will now make Campagna's storied triumph and history ever more tainted than ever before.
In January, according to the Northwest Indiana Times out of Lake County, Ind., the newspaper reported that a company, Gibault Children's Services out of Terre Haute, Ind., will now be taking over the site's mental health services, therapy, and staff licensing. Campagna Academy, the company, is now verging into darker waters with a company out of Terre Haute due to budget cuts made by the state on facilities like Campagna not to stay open.

But it only gets worse as Elena Dwyre, CEO of Campagna Academy, is stepping down after 11 years as their chair and lead organizer. This will leave Campagna in a dire mess compared to how it got started.

The big question for me, past alumni 2017 of the academy, who had dealt with a major suicide attempt, bipolar disorder, running away, overdosing on pain pills, running a muck, and clinical depression, is when are our children going to get the right mental health care they need?

Now with this company, Campagna might not ever be the same loving, nurturing place of yesteryear, founded by Fr. Michael Campagna 75 years ago to originally help orphans misplaced and with no home. By 2001, when the facility was called Campagna Academy, the site worked more with agencies such as the Lake County Juvenile Justice Department and the Department of Child Service, have used the facility in recent years for troubled, at risk youth who might have criminal or addiction issues in their lives, and as I told my mom before writing this piece, Campagna gets partial funding from the Catholic Diocese of Lake County and Chicago, Ill. and partial funding from government programs such as the Department of Child Services/Department of Homeland Secruity/ the state of Indiana.

With this company from Terre Haute, that owns another mental health facility, Harsha out of Vigo County, owning a historic institution under this much stress and underfunding, this academy, which I took true pride of going to for six months in 2017, might tragically not exist before it is too late to not save the facility because the state doesn't care about mental health, especially for troubled youth not just across Indiana but also Wisconsin, Illinois, and even northern Michigan.

Shutting down the facility, will be a historic failure to how the government views troubled youth like you and me. In otherwords, would be an absolute tragedy for the troubled youth that need support, and extra guidance, along with more medication checks as this would negatively effect parents, law enforcement, & adolescents because jail would be overpopulated.

Our mental health services and non profits will be exinct from Indiana in this already depleating market of resources for both kids and adults across the United States.

As a lost boy who needed to reflect on his life at the hard age of 15, I would run away from home, overdose on pills, and with a near criminal resume to almost boot me into the juvenile detention system, I felt like my life, at the age of 15 was falling apart right in front of my eyes, with little to no support system to help me out.

My family was focused on my grandmother having Alzhiemers and my sister was diagnosed with autism around this time. My mom had issues in her relationship between her and our "father" and things were just a mess up to that point.

The amount of mental health trips counted Overdoes talied up to three, runaway attempts 5, and suicides 6. The sixth and final suicide I broke a partial ligament in my back and broke my sternum in the process.

The recovery, rehabilitation, and just over therapy services that was provided to me through Centerstone out of Bloomington, and through the amazing work of Bloomington High School South took five long years for me to recover from 2017-2020, but I will say that in that recovery time Campagna Academy nutured me into the man I am today because of the outreach between service and faith, and what I learned about not just being a man, but being a functioning person I took to heart during my stay at the facility the boys I met and they stories they shared on Unit One East.

When the staff slid their cards into the nob of the door, I knew that there was going to be a huge change in my life that week.

The 12 young boys between the ages of 12-17 years old were violent, reckless, but also loveable through the brightest times and most of all, they were boys recovering just like me, so the bondage between man and recovery made me feel more united and it felt as if we carried the blood from one soldier to the other.

In otherwords, I met a group of boys that were willing to recover and battle back whether we were going to prison or back home, even a group home. We battled through the unit together.

I met some great young men, men that were healing just like me, so you learn how to battle together, but also learn a common bond between what we should do and what we like. I played the card game of Pokemon for the first time in my life while I was on the unit. I made fun out of the kids, but did whatever I needed to do to fit in on the unit, whether that meant acting "perfect (they called me Mr. Perfect on the unit and even made fun out of me from time to time, that was my nickname because I faked my behavior)", and yeah, I was manipulative and very controlling... fifteen year old me that many people viewed at during my time at Bloomington South, but I did whatever it took to both fit in with staff and fit in with kids.

That was an important life lesson for my adult life as well. When I was at IU, I learned this lesson very well because I didn't fit in with my peers but was able to study the room, and try to fit in with what my mom calls the "corporate dads and the corporate people." That was a challenge for my family, but I was able to master being like a sales person at times.

It's called fitting in with the journalism majors out there.

The young men I met in this facility were broken, but also gave me pride to continue fighting for my journey to learn about myself, and learn how to manage this new condition, bipolar disorder that I have through today.

Our unit was about the size of a two bedroom apartment with beds more comfortable than the other facility I went to at the time, Bloomington Meadows Hospital, and our rooms were full of hard walls and hard beds, and the room smelt like a YMCA men's lockerroom, but we needed to see how much discomfort our parents went through at the time. More my mom and sister, because as they needed a break to take care of my grandmother, they hoped that I could somehow get better. Reframing their mindset from seeing me in a gurney heading to the hospital.

When I arrived to Campagna on the night of April 14, 2017, just two days before the Easter Sunday holiday, the first boy I met had almost combed brown hair with braces. He was short and brazen with a hard exterior, and as my memories are fading away from being in the facility, I remembered meeting him on the first night, and then eating a partial amount of dinner. Lasagna with green beans and a small strawberry cake. Then the boys were working on chores, I was told by my staff on unit one east to read a seven page pamphlit about the rules, history, and regulations of what makes being a Campagna student, a Campagna soldier by the time the facility's end came into play.

The weather was a drizzly, wet spring night in April during the heart of tornado season down south from me, and as the chores, food, and things were kept up on the unit, the boys introduced themselves to me. One staff member said in a stern voice, "If you [meaning me] want to pass phase one (which is the first of four phases given to Campagna residents to learn the ropes and work up due to good behavior and ethical strength building to prove your worth) you have to memorize everybody's name by the end of the night."

I failed at this task memorizing only seven out of 12 clients, but then I was able to learn the names of the people in a month. Then, to wrap up our night, the boys gave me a test as they gave me a Playstation 4 controller, and the game of choice the boys stuck into the PS4 console was Madden NFL 16. This was a test to prove my worth on the unit as the boys began to know me more.

With seconds left in this simulated football game between the Pittsburgh Steelers (me) and the Cleveland Browns (a boy named Jason) came down to the wire, I would set up a game winning drive and yet Ben Rothelisberger, the then quarterback of Steelers, played smoothly in this game, but once I threw a quick slant to Antonio Brown for a touchdown with four seconds in the simulated game, the kid who I met when I walked into the unit, said to me, "He's my favorite kid in the whole wide world. You really made me proud."

Later I grew on these kids and the valiadations came in like roses. By the dozens. From love, they despised me the first time I ever lied and got my only, yes, only hour on the unit after lying to staff and telling them to let me have an extra Poptart, even though, yes, I had two extra Poptarts.

I grew on the staff and my minor licks of bad behavior like lying and healing, made me public enemy number one on the unit from April-June. The first boy I fell in love with as a roommate was a brown boy like me named Cameron. He would gossip, sleep, and talk to me about well... anything. Before he left the unit that July, he taught me how the play Pokemon but most importantly, he was the greatest influencers I have had on the unit.

He barely flipped out, and before he got discharged, I saw a confident boy become more scared of the fragment of what the real world would look like. He was my age but he had dreams of getting and job and being married. He taught me how to crunch numbers in paying your bills and even crunching numbers for taxes. He was my financial expert and the best roommate I have ever had.

This article is dedicated to him. When he left in July, my security felt gone for a little bit on that unit, but as the end neared for me, I understood one thing about him that still continues to carry me on through life after being discharged.

That is to not be scared of the next opportunity, and not worry about what is ahead.

One night I thought about my purpose on Earth, and he told me to think of myself as an "Oreo cookie" or a "goat." He told me, "An Oreo has the cream in the middle and the goat is the greatest of all time. Like Tom Brady or Stephen Curry. You need to be softer about life, but also be the goat in your life. Be the greatest of all time in anything you do."

It has championed me through my remaining college years because he was telling me that life will get harder, and you will face more obstacles than you would being in a 12 man pod full of teenagers. He had seen life, and even wanted to get married after working full time again. He was 16 but had the heart of a 27 year old man. When he left I left a piece of my heart on the unit.

When I left, the impact I made for those kids were apparent at 12:30 pm on October 20, 2017, exactly 40 years on my grandparents' wedding day in 1977, and these boys, young and old, gave me hug after hug. After I said goodbye to everyone, scared as a frightened cat, I will never forget everyone and I mean everyone smiling at me. It wasn't a fake smile like "Yay! He's gone!" No... these boys knew that I would do anything to get out of the facility, and I would prove to them that I would make the correct decisions in life. From staff to student, the image of everyone smiling at me in a "Thank you for making us believe," moment felt like a sports movie where the football coach was coaching his last game, and no matter how hard emotionally he would be, he proved a point to the players. If you get out of your ways, you will do anything. That image is still fresh in my mind every time I think my life gets hard, I think of being a goat. The Greatest of All Time.

My college years have given me grief, but also hope as I have lived with my family taking IVY Tech courses in an effort to be "the goat" of winning, the goat of coming back and graduating.

The boys at Campagna influenced me, in an realistic view of the world, to get away from prison, jail, or death. Take strides and be the goat in your life like how Cameron taught me to do years ago.

You may have bills stacking up, you have failed again and again, and your lights are turned off by the electrical company, but if you have a goal, a job, a task, what will you be the greatest in. Once you find that greatness, run with it and then when time goes on and the internship is over, be the Goat of your company's position and begin to work up the ranks, start your own business, or make a dream a reality.

This is why I thank Cameron who saved my life on this unit, and told me a lesson I carry throughout my life.

When Student Media, University Officials, & Police Work to Protect the Community, Positivity Sprouts

Braydyn Lents — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 02:24:57 +0000

Last night, I would gawk at the news from time to time thinking, scrolling through my Twitter feed, and would tragically watch eyewitness videos about the tragic shooting occurrence with yet another shooting on a college campus. This time it was at Michigan State University, and after 3 were killed and several people were injured in the carnage that happened on the university's on-campus housing, I scrolled through Tweet after Tweet and I saw the same things. The police, journalists, and even high-ranking university officials were "doing a great, professional job their work tonight."

I wondered about this quote over and over again as the night progressed, until you listen to the Broadcastify radio transmissions between MSU Police and other task forces on the scene, then you will see what I mean.
The quote didn't just mean police officers, it also meant journalists, which one reporter said, "Stay safe reporting tonight and always be aware," and it also meant police units, and even Barstool Sports Michigan State were keeping the community safe in a time of so much tragedy. Everything but the message from the university's EText alerts, which are also used at Indiana University, that said, "Run Hide Fight," were the correct ways to respond to a dangerous, almost life changing situation that night. The officers stayed diligent, calmer for the heat of the moment than I would have been, and the media, yes, the media, were more trustworthy last night than they would have been on a 6 a.m. news jump.

The way the Michigan State Police, campus police, university officials, and even the likings of, as mentioned Barstool Sports, displayed the proudest example of man and community.

This is material that is lectured on while using amateur radio, or Ham Radio, to use calling signals to keep others safe, but I have not seen a task force act so quick in this high octane, adrenaline filled situation. Officials were professional, more than in any other U.S. mass school shooting in history because they are aware of the dangers and the outcomes that come with getting people out and people safe.
The media broke the story, and the journalists who were on the ground, some of them were students in the line of danger. I looked through Michigan State's student newspaper, "The State News," and just like the man-in-the-sewer situation that took place in September 2022 on the campus of Indiana University, student reporters, who I value and respect as a student journalist myself who craves news and information like a sponge, went to work reporting around the clock on and off of campus. Every student writing was involved in one way or another in reporting this tragic tale.

Alex Walters and Miranda Dunlap were two writers I gravitated towards during this incident. Both are staff writers for "The State News" and their staff put out stories and presented each tale from students being traumatized by the incident, some processing the incident while thinking back on the Oxford High School shooting two years ago, to the memorial services today on campus, from information about classes and even on campus sporting events cancelled due to the shooting, the staff were and are industry professionals from one story to the next. As a former staff writer for multiple publications before I switched to freelance reporting, even some stints on the The Hoosier Network from time to time, the way these stories were told in the moment where you want to cry and tear up, even let yourself go at the end of the day, these industry professionals will be seen & heard by millions of alumni, students, even the average public.

After being on campus during the man-in-the-sewer incident at IU, as my mom would call it, "The Teenage Mutian Ninga Turtle incident," I met reporters, even while working remotely at the time, who wanted to vent their feelings out at the end of the night, but their pure, calm demenor to a partial city incident, at the depths they went in their reporting on this incident, where a homeless man from Montgomery, Ind. went down into the city sewers for over six hours and almost the whole afternoon on a sunny day in September 2022, was not only lifechanging to be a part of, but also extremely nerveracking.

An anchor is different than a news reporter for many of us professionals, or soon to be professionals, we know the importance of student journalism, and reporting on maybe what's happening on the campus dining hall renovations or how the baseball team will do this year, but you learn very quickly how to act, how to behave, how to break the story, how to properly comfort others, and even how to socialize in life threatening moments where either I will be killed on assignment or my colleagues will be killed.
These reporters, and all reporters not just on "The State News," but on other student publications on campus, but even Barstool Sports MSU of all people, handled themselves like professionals. Us reporters know the trick even in a world changing situation, and I always go by this model which helped me navigate what was going on on our college campus once when I was at IU (as I mentioned with the Ninja Turtle incident), No panic, just report, comfort, report, send, type, photography, video tape, audio record, edit, conclude, go to meetings, journal, write on a pen, laptop, or pen and pad till your hand turns pink, ask, ask, and ask some more, crave information, expunge false beliefs, and when it is all set and done, stay alert and report some more the next day because as my newspaper teacher in high school would always say, "The news never sleeps."

But that doesn't mean that there will be ramifications going forward with investigations on what particularly happened during this incident. The usage of "Run, Hide, Fight" by university alert systems should be questioned by many people involved, but one thing and one thing is for sure, as said by one student on campus, "We're all broken."

There is a broken piece of America every time a shooting like this happens, and I don't know what is going on on Valentine's Day or Christmas to just set these shooters off, and go bezerk at their school causing rampages that have gotten worse... a lot worse since the other shooting that happened five years ago today at a high school in Parkland, Fla.. I was a member of the March for Our Lives group at my high school, Bloomington High School South in 2018 after the deadly shooting. My views on politics, race, even gun control has changed drastically since I was a big dude who supported Joe Biden, attempted suicide, and was on wrap around program after wrap around program, being the leftist, feminine trigger monster I was in high school, but one thing is for sure since I left high school and have been in college for three years:

Race is discriminatory in gun violence, and it shows how fallen our politicians are in America. Today, being Valentine's Day, I bet our nation's politicians can't think twice about gun control, because we have a self centered government fighting for the community bench or profiting to Ukraine, not what is going on on our their home soil. It has been a disaster, and even when former President Barack Obama tried to pass an nonpartisian agreement to have safer gun control laws in 2015, before Congress convened again last year for more stricter gun control laws, he even couldn't get Congressional leaders to agree on this agreement. It seems like the attacks on January 6, 2021, where guns were used and demonstrators invaded the Capital, didn't scare them enough either.

They're hollow Easter bunnies, and soleless to the American ideals of hope and freedom.

When I think of Michigan State, I think of three things. Tom Izzo, the legendary head basketball coach for the Spartans of over 30 years, The Battle for the Old Brass Spittoon Trophy which Indiana University Bloomington and MSU fight for every year since its inception in 1922, and of course, winning against them in basketball. Basically I loved seeing Michigan State lose in all sports, but not after last night.

I now stand united with Michigan State University our Big Ten brothers, rivals, are now our friends in this time of unity through tragedy. In the end, if America can be this united in tragedy, all of our media works will work, and our system is set up to save and protect, we would live in a more just world, and Michigan State's response and recovery were professional and swift.

That is how every bit of action should be, swift and safe.
Say prayers for the Michigan State University community, even as an IU fan, we will love you no matter what. To the four victims families and to those injured, I lit a candle at the church, although I am tired of doing it, I hope this fire, this light, can spark action in gun control laws and authority.

All in all, enough is enough with these shootings. Let's spark some change.