Imagine that you are getting ready for a date. 

You pick out that gorgeous red dress that you’ve been waiting to wear for a special occasion, you take an hour-long shower so that you feel super clean and put on your best-smelling perfume. 

After all, you want to make an impression.

This is someone you have been talking to for weeks, smiling at their texts, waiting by your phone until you hear it ring, endless FaceTime calls until the early mornings, all for this special person who has come into your life.  

It’s as if you never needed them and then one day you couldn’t imagine life without them. 

As you get ready to text them to meet at the local Italian restaurant, you notice that when you send your text your iPhone message turns green. You think that your phone is broken so you turn it off and back on, only to realize that your phone is not broken. Your date that you’ve been texting and FaceTiming for weeks has blocked you. 

With no explanation. 

You're confused immediately you run to all your different social media accounts to see if you can find their page, only to find that their accounts, “no longer exist.” What happened? Just a few hours ago you both were planning to see each other and now you're confused, sad and maybe even a little heartbroken. 

You’ve been ghosted. 

Thriving Center of Psychology reports, “About 1 in 4 have been ghosted after the first date or after a couple of dates. Shockingly, 1 in 10 shared they’ve been ghosted after a couple of months of dating! Ghosting has made it such a pain that 30% of singles are fed up with dating in 2023.”

Getting ghosted is a frustrating experience that many people unfortunately have to deal with in today's dating world. It can be really confusing and hurtful when someone suddenly stops responding to your messages or calls without any explanation. It leaves you wondering what went wrong and if you did something to cause it. 

However, more often than not, getting ghosted has nothing to do with you. “I think a lot of us ghost others because that can feel like the “easiest” option at the time with the resources we have,” explains Marriage and Family Therapist, Lindsay Huckaba. 

Whether you are getting ghosted or doing the ghosting, one thing is clear.

It's not a reflection of your worth. Sometimes people just lose interest or have their own personal issues going on that have nothing to do with you. It's best to try to move on and focus on finding someone who will appreciate you and communicate with you openly and honestly.

The Supreme Court needs a better code of ethics

The Supreme Court is responsible for safeguarding civil rights and liberties by invalidating any laws that violate the Constitution. It plays a crucial role in ensuring that there are checks and balances within our government and that everyone is treated equally under the law. 

Given that their decisions have a significant impact on the entire nation, it is reasonable to expect that the nine justices are held to the highest standards of scrutiny.

However, it seems that today’s justices are not held to this standard. 

In recent years, Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Samuel Alito, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice Roberts have fallen under heavy criticism for some of their questionable decisions as Justices of the Court. 

According to the Associated Press, Justice Thomas took undisclosed trips nearly every year from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow without reporting them on financial disclosure forms. Supreme Court Justices are obligated to file an annual financial disclosure form where they must report any gifts that they received. 

In a separate article written by the AP, Justice Alito accepted an Alaska resort vacation from GOP donors. According to the report, one of the two men had interests before the court. When Justice Alito was asked about whether or not they discussed such matters he responded, “On no occasion have we discussed the activities of his businesses, and we have never talked about any case or issue before the Court.”

Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor, came under fire when her staff prodded colleges and libraries to buy her books, according to the AP. 

One thing is clear by omitting details about vacations, personal finances or business trips. These Justices are in clear violation of a code of ethics.

Justices should know better. There is no excuse to make such lapses in judgment. It is not a partisan issue but rather a code of ethics issue. This is why on Nov. 13, 2023, after weeks of criticism the Supreme Court released a written code of conduct for the Justices. 

According to the 15-page document it was released because, The absence of a Code, has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the Justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules.  Although this document is a first of its kind it fails to address the problem at its root.

After reading the document it is clear, the document is more of an advisory document for the way the Justices should act rather than a concrete binding agreement on how they must act. “In the end, this code is neither binding nor enforceable when there is an instance of impropriety among the justices,” said the American Progress. 

How are we holding our Justices accountable with a non-binding agreement? 

When comparing the Supreme Court’s code of ethics to other government employees, including judges and lower courts, the Supreme Court is a free-for-all. The gifts received by Justice Alito and Justice Thomas would never be permitted in other government spaces. “Federal employees cannot accept gifts valued at more than $50 per year. Members of Congress and their staffs are similarly prohibited from accepting gifts from anyone who is not a family member or close personal friend,” said the American Progress. 

Why are we accepting the fact that Justices are in clear ethical violation of their standard of conduct in and outside the Court as government officials? The Supreme Court should be ashamed of its mishandling of such situations and do better to ensure that its decisions are upheld under an enforceable code of ethics. 

After all, no one is above the law. 

 

Why you shouldn't join the High Point University women's soccer team.

I have been playing soccer since I was four years old. By a certain age, I knew the sport better than I could read or write. When I stepped over the solid white line onto the rectangular soccer field and felt the grass beneath my cleats while moving my pink and blue soccer ball across the field, I felt like this was what I was meant to be doing with my life.

It was moments like those that deepened my love for the game. 

That’s how it should be. A love for the beautiful game- an unexplainable feeling that puts you at ease when you play it. It’s as if time stands still and you are four years old again, doing what you love. 

Unfortunately, coaches can influence players and either make or break their love for the sport. If you're an athlete or someone passionate about something, you can empathize with me. As a young player, I had one dream: to play Division I soccer.

In high school, when I started receiving recruitment offers from colleges, I knew that my dream was going to come true. One of the schools that caught my attention was a beautiful Division I school in High Point, North Carolina called "High Point University." During my recruiting visit, I was welcomed by a friendly security guard who directed me and my mom to a black sign with orange letters that said, "Welcome, Bri Davis." Brandi Fontaine, the former head soccer coach of HPU, greeted us as soon as we stepped out of the car and explained to us that she would be giving us a tour of the school on a golf cart. As we crossed the campus, I heard classical music, visited kiosks that served different snacks and saw plenty of fountains. It felt like a vacation getaway more than a college. The coaches made HPU sound like a dream, the girls on the team were friendly and gave a familial feeling and the coaches assured my mom that they would take care of not just my physical but also my mental health. It was all anyone could ever ask for when getting recruited. As we rode back to the coaches' offices, I looked at my mom and knew that HPU would be my home.

However, the thing about dreams is that one day you wake up and you realize they’re not at all what you thought they were. As soon as my mom left me at HPU to begin my freshman year I would soon understand the "real" coaches that recruited me.

Being a freshman on a team in the middle of a global pandemic is uncanny. I was a part of a recruiting class of 11. I got extremely close to most of the girls in my class. We were together 24/7. After all, we couldn't be around anyone else because our coaches and trainers feared we would catch COVID-19 and have to isolate for several days. This went on into the spring until we began conference games.

It was the night before our first spring game when Brandi walked up to me and told me that some of the other girls and I could not be in the locker room before the game, "as a precautionary COVID-19 measure."

I was immediately confused, we had been in the locker room all of the fall during training sessions and were completely fine. It seemed as if she was trying to exclude us from the team. Before each game, I had to get dressed in my car with some of the other girls and then run out of my car to catch up with the "team" before they made it down to the field for starting lineups.

After talking with other teams at HPU (men's soccer, women's lacrosse, etc) who had the same size locker rooms as us and with more people on their team, they explained to me that they thought it was crazy she was making us actually change and get ready in our cars. It was as if she was treating us as club players and not scholarship athletes.

After one of the games, I went to Brandi and explained how changing in our cars made us feel excluded from the team. She offered a solution, putting our lockers in the showers.

There were seven freshmen, including me who had their chairs, and a piece of tape above "their locker" with their number on it, in their individual shower.

It was extremely humiliating and embarrassing. During halftime when the coaches would come to talk to the team, I along with the six other girls would sit in the dark in the showers listening to the conversation that was going on in the room next to us.

This coupled with racially insensitive comments the coaches would consistently make about my hair (as one of only two black girls on the team) saying things such as, "Is that your real hair?", "Can I touch your hair?", "Wow, Bri when your hair is straight it looks cleaner." Added to my humiliation and uncomfortableness in front of my teammates.

To make matters worse when we would have individual meetings they would try and invade your personal life saying things such as, "We want to be able to better understand you." (while speaking in a condescending tone) Knowing that they were only trying to find ways to get into your head and make you question your worth not only as a soccer player but as a person.

There were plenty of girls who quit that year and the year after because of mental and verbal abuse from our coaches. However, no one ever looked into it because we were the Big South Champions each year.

Why look into a team that's winning? Everything must be going well. Which couldn't have been further from the truth.

During my sophomore year, one of the coaches, Associate Head Coach Chris Fox, who created the mentally and verbally abusive atmosphere was let go. Although Brandi tried to acknowledge that she was sorry and that she wanted to do better for the team, it felt as if it was too late.

My recruiting class of 11 had dwindled to a class of three. Most of the girls who quit never played soccer again.

I feel as though HPU athletics failed the women's soccer team. There were numerous times when girls on the team spoke with the athletic director who promised that HPU was going to look into the issue, which never happened. As athletes and young girls who fell in love with the beautiful game, we deserved more and better than what we received. Coaches shouldn't be the reason someone stops loving their sport.

If I had to do it all again not only would I not join the HPU women's soccer team, but I would advise that you didn't either.

Why you shouldn't join the High Point University women's soccer team.

Imagine you’ve played soccer since you were four years old. You knew it better than you could read or even write by a certain age.

There was nothing better than stepping over the solid white line onto the rectangular soccer field and feeling the thick grass on your cleats as you moved the blue and pink soccer ball across the field. In those moments you knew that nothing could get better than this. 

As time went on you realized that you had one dream - to play Division I soccer.

When you started getting recruited in high school you knew that dream was going to come true. There was a beautiful school in High Point, North Carolina called, “High Point University” that looked more like a vacation getaway than a college.  

On your recruiting visit, as you drove into the campus you were greeted by a friendly security guard who directed you and your on mom on where to park. You parked in front of a black sign that had bright orange letters that spelled out your name and said the words, “Welcome, Bri Davis.” Immediately you felt a sense of home.

As you stepped out of the car, you were greeted by the HPU women’s soccer coach who explained to you that she was going to give you a tour of the school, in a golf cart. You looked at your mom in awe, it seemed as if they had rolled out the red carpet for you. 

As you made your way across campus you heard classical music, visited kiosks that served different snacks and saw plenty of fountains. 

Before you had even made it back to the coaches’ office you knew this was the place you would happily call home. 

Little did you know, everything you were shown was a facade and you would soon learn why you shouldn’t have joined the HPU women’s soccer team.