Starting with the Dallas Museum of Art, this collection of fancy finger paintings practically illustrates the productive capacity that Dallas holds. The art museum opened back in 1984. It stands as the only museum in Texas to house more than 23,000 works of art that come from all sorts of cultures. Now here is the cool part, for all the penny pinchers out there Thursdays are free from 5:00 to 9:00 pm. The museum even throws together a jazz concert for those who show up. Not the kind of guy who wants to stare at a bunch of paintings and pontificate? Well there are a number of other activities that the museum puts on during the weekends, such as films, family activities and studio creations.

The Morton H. Myerson Symphony Center, designed by a Pritzker Prize-winning architect is a really cool looking building. As Apparently the Pritzker Prize is like a World Series ring to the architecture world. When completed in 1989, Dallas finally got some fancy music space for world-renowned soloists and conductors to strut their talents for us underlings.

Moving on to other venues comes the Crow Collection of Asian Art in the Trammell Crow Center. This building holds all sorts of restaurants and gift shops that somehow go well with a collection of Asian art. The place is full of rich cultural experiences.

The next thing on the list of “Things that make the Dallas Arts District awesome” is the Nasher Sculpture Center. Yet another building designed by a Pritzker prizewinner, this addition gives us a rock-solid collection of statues and designs. Opened in 2003, this is the only place in North Texas dedicated to contemporary sculpture.

Now here is the biggie, the recent addition to the arts district. With the sell out, commercial title, the AT&T Performing Arts Center Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House is a must see venue. With this addition, the city of Dallas now has four buildings designed by Pritzker Prize winning architects. The design is modeled as a 21^st century redesign of the classic horseshoe layout. The only good thing I can find about this place is that there is a café open all day.

So with all that the ornamental building and shops seem to let out that Dallas is serious about its arts program and it’s willing to pay up the nose to get what it wants. Not to forget that there is an Opera house next to a symphony hall with an art house down the street, the district meets all artsy needs that the public can think of. The location is perfect; the inner city liquor stores nearby seem to fit right in with the million dollar institutions. So make plans to visit the magnificent add on and have a rich cultural experience in the city of Dallas.

This years auditions for region 25 were held at Carpenter Middle School in mid-October. Students went through an intense process to get through to the end; sitting around for hours, round after round, waiting to play for intimidating judges.

“Before hand, it’s really hectic because everyone is practicing around you really hard.” junior Derek He said, “The minute you walk into the room it’s really tense and quiet. A lot of people get really anxious.”

Knowing that so many students of the orchestra got accepted to such a prestigious group brings pride to many other members of the orchestra as well.

“It’s really exciting to know many of our students got into All Region, “ Orchestra Council President Carmen Tinker said, “We have a great program here and that just proves that we have so many great players.”

Students who have been welcomed into the program already have a big responsibility along with the title of All Region member. Not only did these students have to practice hectically for months before the auditions, after being accepted they still must practice by themselves before the first and only rehearsal.

“The good thing about this program is that we are able to pull it off, after only two days of group practice.” Junior Conan Lee, “ This orchestra pulls the best players from all over the region.”

The High school groups play their concert/clinic January 22^nd and 23^rd of 2010 at Lowry Freshmen Center in Allen. The concerts are open to the public and displays the amazing talent of the best students in this region.

“In subject matter, this play is surrounded by eating disorders, but its not really what its about,” senior Mark Cioffi said. “It’s more about struggles people face as being a teenager. I know people are going to think ‘Oh, a play about eating disorders. I don’t want to sit through that. It’s going to be boring and depressing.’ But it’s not like that. It’s more real, but there’s definitely comic relief.”

In the spring of 2008, the theatre program attended the play, EAT, at the Dallas theatre, where director Lisa Hale found inspiration for choosing the play.

“When I saw this play last year, I felt sad, but hopeful and enlightened because I didn’t realize how vast the problem is, and how it affected boys as well as girls,” Hale said. “The playwright also told us that bulimia, especially, used to be the ‘rich, white girl disease.’ But it’s sort of grown over the years to where it’s affecting all kinds of social-economic classes.”

Although more than 10 million females struggle with eating disorders, one million males do as well. Alcohol and drugs may be a problem in high school, but hidden eating disorders are just as deadly.

“In some ways, eating disorders can be much more dangerous than alcohol abuse because alcohol for the most part is generally isolated to high school and college,” junior Matthew Eitzen said. “Eating disorders can start as young as third grade.”

Studies show that people with eating disorders cannot fight it alone. A person needs family and professional help to survive. Sometimes, even that’s not enough. One third of people with eating disorders will survive and overcome it. Another third will still struggle. The last third will die.

“For me, these issues are very difficult to understand,” senior Sarah Schultz said. “But they are very real topics. I think people should definitely be aware of what’s going on. Both patterns and effects.”