Photo Illustration by Thanh Ly

“My big dream, since I’ve had since I was a little kid, was to play professional basketball,” Naidoo said. “I’m thinking it just depends on how hard I work. How much I’m willing to sacrifice to get to that level.”

According to the NCAA, National Collegiate Athletic Association, an estimate of about 3.1 percent of high school senior boys playing basketball move on to play at the college, or NCAA, level.  The probability, as a NCAA athlete, to play in a professional men’s basketball league is even less with a 1.2 percent chance. But counselor Sally Wooly believes professions, like athletes or musicians, need a back up plan.

“Pursue your passion if you need to pursue it,” Wooly said. “A lot of people spend years working towards [their] goal. But have a back-up plan that’s related [to your passion].”

According to Wooly, students should look into what schools and programs their college of choice offers in order for them to work towards their passion. This year, he has been approached by about three colleges and has been invited to workouts every Sunday at theDallasChristianCollege. He attended a basketball workshop this past summer inChicago, exposing himself to different colleges.

“Learning from the camp, I realized that whether you [perform well or not during a game], just me going out there and taking that chance was an opportunity that could basically help me in the future,” Naidoo said.

There have been others who have discouraged him however, such as close family members telling him that he would not be playing basketball in the future and instead end up working at Wendy’s. The negativity, however, is a driving force to make him work harder to prove them wrong.

“There are a lot of people that tell you things like, ‘You’re not going to be able to play college basketball here’ or ‘You’re not going to do that great’,” Naidoo said. “A lot of my coaches told me that you can’t let that get to your head.”

Even though his dream is to continue to play basketball, he has a back up plan to get a degree in finance or business. But Naidoo chooses to take a different career path from the rest of his family. He wants to do something different rather than going into the medical or law field like most of his family members. His parents encouraged him to pursue a different career. His mother wanted him to go into the medical field while his dad wanted him to live out his personal dream of joining the Army or Air Force.

“They didn’t think I’d be playing basketball in college,” Naidoo said. “They just wanted me to go to college and get a degree. Now, they’re more supportive towards me. Even though they know it is not the safest career path, they see that I put passion towards it.”

After being approached by colleges and making varsity, his family, including his parents, have become more supportive of his endeavors. His mother even attended the workshop inChicagowith him and watched him play. But the backbone of how Naidoo started becoming serious about persevering college basketball is due to his older sister, alumna Valencia Naidoo. She had pushed him to contact the colleges first instead of vice versa, convincing him to present his skills to them.

“She was the reason I put myself out there,” Naidoo said. “She said ‘hey, let’s be real about this and show coaches films of your games, email them and contact them through phone’. She really showed me that I have to go and pursue the colleges I want.”

But Naidoo’s biggest role model, the person who had pushed his dream of playing professionally, wasValencia’s friend and alumnus, Kola Togunde. The summer before Togunde was preparing to go off to play college basketball inCalifornia, Togunde had asked Naidoo to attend his work outs with him. For Naidoo, it had become the hardest summer of his life. He had even given up a couple of times, but eventually motivated himself to keep going. He looked up to Togunde and was able to learn from the mistakes he made and better himself.

“This dream with having playing basketball professionally, it started to come alive,” Naidoo said. “I was like ‘Hey, I could actually do what I want to do,’ if I work hard at it and have faith in what I do and believe in myself.  He taught me about work ethic and how you have to really work hard to be one of the best basketball players. He’s the one I give a lot of credit to. He always will be.”

But after leaving for college, Togunde had changed his career plans to pursue music instead of basketball, upsetting Naidoo. However, Togunde’s new career choice did not discourage Naidoo but instead motivated him to do anything but quit.

“In my time, being with [Togunde], if you’re going to do something you love, you might as well do it to the fullest,” Naidoo said. “He got me that far. Look how far I’ve gotten to this day. I just think I might as well pursue it while I can.”

Photo Illustration by Thanh Ly

About five to 10 minutes away, they popped one or two pills. After showing their fake IDs to the parking lot attendant Sara* and John* entered Afterlife. Thirty minutes later, their senses began to heighten and their jaws start to chatter and clench. The release of serotonin causes a rush of emotions for both of them. They dance for what seems like forever, as they have lost all sense of time. Soon, reality kicks back in and although they’re tired and sweaty, they both decide to take another pill.

As of Oct. 4,Dallaspolice are trying to shut down Afterlife, a popular rave club that many students have attended after the recent death of a 19-year-old male due to an overdose that occurred at the location. This club, known for its electronic dance music (EDM) events, has become a popular site for young adults to experiment with various party drugs, like ecstasy.

“[The reason] people have problems with ecstasy and push themselves until they die is because they don’t realize how hard they are actually pushing themselves,” Sara said. “When you’re on this drug, you don’t realize [that] at all, so you just keep going.”

Raves, throughout history, have been notorious for its association with mood-altering drugs.  Hyperactivities such as shuffling, a type of dance commonly seen at these events, and laser light shows help stimulate the sensations of ecstasy pills. Though ecstasy use is on the rise, other aspects of the culture have also increasingly become more mainstream.  Recent hit songs, often feature variations of EDM, and shuffling has become so popular that people who have never even attended a rave club can be seen doing the dance.

Already, aspects of this culture have influenced the school. For example, students can be seen wearing “kandi” bracelets, a plastic bead bracelet worn at these events that sometimes have words on them referring to pill names or the letters “XTC.”

Parts of the rave culture can already be seen in school related events. For instance, at the Homecoming pep rally, the Mam’selles shuffled as part of their routine. Also, last year’s TWIRP dance theme was “P.L.U.R”, a common phrase used in the ecstasy culture meaning “Peace, Love, Unity, Respect.” This saying was also used in a quote in the 2011 Marauder yearbook.

“You don’t make anybody do whatever they don’t want to do,” Sara said. ”In that community, I learned that it’s all about love. Even though I knew people were under the influence, it was kind of believable that people actually cared about you. This drug makes you think a lot of things. ”

Electronic dance music was the main type of music that was played. The music, according to Sara, is necessary for ecstasy users to hear while they “roll”, a common term referring to the high people get when they take ecstasy. Sara first tried ecstasy in July 2010 at Afterlife’s Foam Party, her first time at the club. Despite the fact that she had no interest in listening to EDM, she went with her boyfriend and friends.

“I was totally against it in the beginning,” she said. “But a group of my closest friends at the time were all going to be under the influence. My boyfriend gave me the choice, and when we got there, I said ‘Yeah let’s do it.’ I wanted to see what the hype was about.”

She says trying ecstasy wasn’t about peer pressure, but rather her own curiosity.

“If you’re always a sad individual, it’ll just make you happy,” she said. ” Your sensation and your touch [are] enhanced. You don’t notice when you get tired.”

After hours of partying, the next day took a toll on her body and mind. Sara describes it as the “Crackdown” Sunday or Monday because of the after effects. Also called the “comedown,” people will often feel dehydrated, tired, nauseated, sore and experience a lack of appetite.  She says some people, if they can even fall asleep, have lucid dreams.

“I felt depressed afterwards,” Sara said.  “I felt myself getting more stupid and it made me really lazy. I couldn’t pay attention to one thing at a time for a long time. I wasn’t the same me as I was before, and I hated it. That’s why I stopped. And I know that I have so much going for me. It’s basically [that] I miss it, not that I want to, but I miss it.”

After deciding to quit, it took her six or seven months to completely stop from using, taking less and less each time until she refrained from going to Afterlife all together.

John started getting involved in ecstasy at around the same time Sara did, even occasionally partying together. But he was a more frequent user, using an estimated 50 pills over the course of a year. The last time he used was this summer, and though he says he is unsure if he will ever use again, he wanted to take some time to focus on school.

“I just want to take a break from it so it doesn’t get repetitive or boring, but I don’t think I’ll start going again until I turn 18,” he said. “I don’t think I will continue to do it often, like I used to, but it will probably be every once in awhile to have a little extra fun. The only negative thing that is on my conscious is doing drugs in general. That’s the worst. But everything else, it’s just for fun. Like at rock concerts, they do other types of drugs and they go for the music. I like to shuffle, and I’ve always liked the music since I was a little kid.”

Most of the friends he used to roll with have now graduated and some have seemed to grow out of the habit. But not all of them have quit. John knows how difficult it is to be at a rave and not be tempted to take drugs.

“If you’ve done it once at the club or a party and you go again without doing it, it’s really hard not to take it. Because you get bored easily, since you’re not used to standing around all sobered up,” he said. “I tried to do that once. I was there for like two or three hours without rolling, and I bought one at the end to keep myself busy.”

There are several things people do to “boost their roll”. Some people take a Molly, the powder form of MDMA, because it is stronger due to its pure form, compared to the tablets that can be mixed with other substances. And though more frequent users just increase the amount of pills they take at one time, some of the more common “boosters” include drinking orange juice, watching light shows or sniffing vapor rub. However, some people will take extremes to get a better high.  “Rebirth,” taking even more pills after coming down, and blacking out makes the person go unconscious for a short time and according to John, who has personally tried it, it boosts a roll more than anything else.

“People say it’s dangerous,” he said. “I know a couple of people who tried blacking out, but when they gained consciousness they started screaming and had seizures. You couldn’t stop them from having a seizure. That’s the only scary part. I don’t think about not waking up, but I think about how [I could] wake up brain dead or having a seizure. That’s the scary part.”

Both Sara and John have experienced a police raid while at one of these rave clubs. The minimum age limit to enter Afterlife is 17. Sara did not have her fake ID, as she was under 17 at the time, but managed to get out. But John was not as fortunate as he was pulled aside by an officer during the raid.

“First time I went to Afterlife, I was sitting on the warehouse couch and I see cops walk through the warehouse door flashing lights at people,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do, since it was my first time. So I just sat there being calm, and he came over toward me and asked for my ID. He said something to me, but I couldn’t hear because of the music and I was still rolling. He asked if it was my address [on the ID] and I just took [it back] and left as fast as I could.”

The type of students that get involved with this scene vary, according to Sara. She says it is not just the people who are dropouts or do not succeed in school, but people could start experimenting with ecstasy purely by who they associate with. Sara and John both agreed that peer pressure, along with curiosity, were reasons as to why they had tried it themselves. Their reaction, once they had taken it, was that they felt good and just wanted to have fun.

“I think kids have always been risk takers,“ LIGHT counselor Mrs. Karen Gordon said. “If you go to a party like that, you don’t go to hurt yourself, you go to have fun. But some of the things they choose to do to have a good time could change their lives in a very, very overwhelmingly negative way that they might not even be able to imagine.”

Sara believes that as this year goes on, and the EDM becomes more popular, ecstasy users might become more prominent as well. However, she does mention that as the EDM hits mainstream media, it will help bring awareness, so people will know what is going on.

“I know some people that do it every weekend,” Sara said. “It’s become their life. And [they have] done it so much, that it has blocked them from themselves. They don’t realize that it has taken over their lives. They’re probably not going to go to college or [be able to] finish college. “