Mount Hood

Cheesecake recipe

Rebecca Meyers | Lifestyle editor

Making a nice meal instead of going out usually comes with the satisfaction of having put a lot of effort into the result as well as the comfortable, familiar atmosphere. But why stop at dinner? There are plenty of dessert recipes to accompany a nice night in either alone or with guests. For those who really want to impress said guests, or just enjoy trying something new, this recipe offers a unique option for a homemade dessert. On top of that, it’s surprisingly simple.

 

HOMEMADE CHEESECAKE

Start to finish: 1 hour

Servings: One standard pie pan

Crust:

1 ½ crushed graham crackers

¼ cup confectioners sugar

5 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon butter, melted

⅛ tablespoon salt

Filling:

2 cups cream cheese

2 eggs

⅔ cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, mix together the crust ingredients. Using the crust mixture, take the pie and and spread the mixture on the bottom and sides evenly.

Make the filling by mixing the cream cheese (at room temperature) with the sugar until smooth. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix until smooth again. Pour the filling into the pie pan on top of the crust.

Place the cheesecake in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes. Remove and let sit. The filling may not look fully settled at first. After letting sit, refrigerate until it’s ready to serve.

Serve plain or with desired toppings.

(Recipe from kingarthurflour.com)

 

Contact the author at howllifestyle@mail.wou.edu

Photo courtesy of Rebecca Meyers

Where to get student discounts

Rebecca Meyers | Lifestyle editor

It’s a well known fact that college can be expensive. Many students face the challenge of being financially conscious and responsible, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to treat themselves every so often. Fortunately, the rest of the world has become aware of the modern student’s situation and have created student discounts to take full advantage of, both online and in the real world.

Many well-known websites and commonly used apps offer student discounts. Amazon Prime, which includes two day shipping on a vast number of items as well as a streaming service, offers a unique experience for students. For most users, they can expect a one month free trial and then a charge $99.99 yearly. For students, however, there is instead a six month free trial and then a yearly charge of $49.99. The Amazon Prime membership is useful for students who wish to rent textbooks to save some money, as the website offers textbook rentals that arrive in only a few days.

Spotify, a popular site and app for streaming music, now offers a combined discount on Spotify Premium and Hulu. Students have the exclusive opportunity to pay only 99 cents for the first three months and then only $4.99 after that.

Most discounts that can be found in the real world allow for students to enjoy their recreational time. For example, Cinema 8 in Independence offers discounts for both matinee and evening showings. Students wishing to see a matinee pay only $7.50 and only $9 for an evening showing.

AMF Firebird Lanes in Salem doesn’t have a daily discount, but does have College Night. This means that on Thursdays students get unlimited bowling for only seven dollars as well as other discounts on the menu.

College life can be rough on the wallet. It’s not uncommon to find students worrying about current or future finances. However, discounts are reminders that it’s still possible to enjoy life as a student without breaking the bank.

Contact the author at howllifestyle@mail.wou.edu

Low time commitment extracurricular activities

Rebecca Meyers | Lifestyle editor

Being a student in itself is very time consuming for most, but many college students are also forced to juggle assignments, work and social life, as well as some other commitments like extracurriculars. Working students know the struggle of trying to piece together a schedule that stills allows basic necessities like eating and sleeping.

While certain extracurriculars and school involvement activities look tempting, it can be hard to find a slot in the calendar to fit them in when life is constantly busy. For the student dedicated to both academic and financial success, here are some extracurricular activities that won’t make too big of a dent in that already limited time supply.

 

Intramural Sports

Those who have seen recent articles of the sports section may already know some about intramural sports. Essentially, they are more casual teams than the club sports, and anyone can join. More information can be found at Western’s website.

 

Peer Tutoring

For students with a 3.0 GPA or higher, there’s the option to become a peer tutor and help other students understand their course material. According to Western’s website, tutors can typically expect two to six hours of tutoring appointments to be booked per week. An upside to becoming a peer tutor is that students have the option of volunteering or being in a paid position. For more information, go to wou.edu/advising/tutoring.

 

Conversation Partners

This is one of the least time consuming activities that will also help another Western student. By signing up for conversation partners, you agree to meet with a foreign exchange student once a week for a minimum of an hour. All that’s required is having a casual conversation with the other student, as this will help improve their conversational English skills. Conversation partnering is ideal for students who like schedule flexibility and are interested in learning about other cultures. If interested, contact the program managers at cp@mail.wou.edu

 

SAB activities

Western’s Student Activities Board regularly organizes events for students to enjoy. For those who are interested in casual, fun activities to get into the school spirit, it’s easy to find a calendar of events on Western’s website or on the bulletin boards in the WUC. These have the benefit of not being mandatory and easy to work around a schedule.

 

Contact the author at howllifestyle@mail.wou.edu

Wolves’ scoreboard

Lake Larsen | Sports Editor

Date Sport Opponent Score

Varsity

10/6 Football @ Texas A&M Kingsville W 13-7
Women’s Soccer vs. Simon Fraser University L 1-3
Volleyball vs. Western Washington University L 0-3
Cross Country Conference Crossover @ Lewis University Men place 9th
10/9 Women’s Soccer vs. Saint Martin’s University W 1-0

Club Sports

10/6 Men’s Soccer vs. Willamette University L 0-7
Lacrosse vs. University of Portland W 7-5
Lacrosse vs. Humboldt State University W 6-2
Lacrosse vs. Montana State University L 3-10
10/7 Men’s Rugby vs. Central Oregon Community College L 15-19
Men’s Soccer @ Central Oregon Community College W 5-2
Lacrosse vs. University of Montana L 2-9

Wolves’s Men’s Rugby lose close match against COCC Bobcats

Lake Larsen | Sports Editor

Clouds covered the sky and rain began to fall as Western Men’s Rugby took the field to battle against the Central Oregon Community College Bobcats. A week prior, Western Rugby took on Oregon State University and pulled off an upset beating them 31-29. Hoping to continue their season in the winning column, the Wolves matched up against the Bobcats.

The first 20 minutes saw offensive domination by the Wolves with the ball only crossing back over midfield once. However, despite the offensive pressure, Western was only able to score one try, missing the conversion.

Shortly after their try the Wolves’ defense fell back on their heels. The Bobcats scored and were able to complete their conversion to take a 7-5 lead with close to 15 minutes left on the clock in the half. After a few defensive stops by Western, the Bobcats once against found themselves on the board with another try. After missing the conversion the Wolves were down 12-5 going into the half.

Western needed to make some adjustments at halftime in order to stall the offensive momentum of the Bobcats.

“We made some substitutions because some guys were a little fatigued,” said senior criminal justice major Chris Davis. “But overall it was more so just getting back to the basics… settling back down and getting back to what we do well: running our offense.”

Shortly after the half Western started to battle back, bringing the score to 10-12. However both defenses were relentless as no points were scored either way for the majority of the second half.

As the clock came down to just a few minutes left, the Wolves pulled ahead 15-12. Unfortunately for Western, this lead was short lived as the Bobcats scored a try and conversion to retake the lead. With just a few minutes on the clock Western was unable to recover the lead, finishing the game 15-19 with the Bobcats on top.

Despite the loss, Western still kept their heads high.

“It was encouraging because this team was the conference champion last year and we matched up pretty well,” said Davis. “I think that going forward for the rest of the season, only a two point loss to a really good team like this can be pretty encouraging”

 

Contact the author at howlsports@wou.edu

Photo courtesy of Ashlynn Norton

Opinion: From the Sports Desk

Lake Larsen | Sports Editor

The football program has been a part of Western Oregon University since 1923. However, the end might be in sight.

Western belongs to the Great Northwest Athletic Conference and competes at the NCAA DII level for football. Along with Western there are four other schools: Central Washington, Simon Fraser, Azusa Pacific and Humboldt State that complete the conference.

As of July 17, Humboldt State announced that the 2018 season will mark the final season for football at their school. Due to this loss in the conference, I believe that the GNAC might be seeing its final days, leading to an eventual death of Western football.

After losing Humboldt State, the GNAC will only have four members. For a comparison, the average NCAA DI conference hosts about 12 teams, meaning the GNAC size is far below average. Due to this, Western is forced to play every team in the conference twice in order to field a full season of games.

With Humboldt State no longer on the schedule, Western will be forced to travel approximately 1,000 miles at the closest to play another opponent. This is due to NCAA DII football being very sparse on the western half of the United States with only five teams west of Colorado. The added travel will lead to student athletes being away from classes for a longer period of time as well as an increased cost — something that Western Oregon, per the fiscal year 2019 working budget, already budgets $85,630 for.

If Western wants to continue to field a football program, the answer might lie in moving up a competition level to NCAA FCS (DI-AA). The FCS level hosts far more teams much closer for Western to travel to. However, in order to join, Western would have to pass a multitude of obstacles, something that the school would need to investigate if they wanted to keep a program.

Regardless of which route Western wants to take in regards to a football program, action needs to be taken. The GNAC is already a tiny conference in comparison to the rest of collegiate football conferences and with the loss of Humboldt State, Western’s options are dwindling. Traveling hundreds of miles for games will only increase the budget making the funding side of the program increasingly more difficult. If the school doesn’t act soon, I believe there will no longer be a team to watch.

 

Contact the author at howlsports@wou.edu

Western Women’s Soccer secedes to Simon Fraser Clan

Lake Larsen | Sports Editor

Saturday, Oct. 6, the Wolves looked to turn their season around and climb the rankings within the GNAC with their match against the Simon Fraser Clan. After losing two in a row to top ranked opponents in conference play, the Wolves had a lot of work ahead of them. If Western was able to pull off a win against Simon Fraser, they stood a chance to move up in the rankings within the conference. But the Clan had other plans.

It was a tight game for the entire first half. The Clan’s defense got the better of Western’s offense, holding them to only two shots and no points.

Western’s defense didn’t stand as tall as they gave up eight shots. However, due to effective goalkeeping by junior criminal justice major Alex Qualls, the Wolves kept the game scoreless going into the second half.

The second half did not go the way the Wolves had hoped as they gave up two unanswered points to the Clan. Western started to mount a comeback by scoring a goal to bring the game within one. The goal came off the foot of first-year communications major Hannah Cabral with the assist coming from sophomore early education major Alyssa Tomasini. Cabral’s goal marked the first of her collegiate career and the assist was Tomasini’s third of the season.

The Wolves’s comeback came to a screeching halt when the Clan scored their third goal off the foot of a Western defender. This would be the final point of the game as Western’s offense stood no match for the Clan defense. The Wolves finished the game in a 1-3 loss.

 

Contact the author at howlsports@wou.edu

Photo courtesy of Ashlynn Norton