Author: Daphne Psaledakis

Spring is in The Air

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Spring is my favorite time of year. Why? Because back home in Colorado, it’s when the snow starts the melt. The grass begins to turn green, and the flowers start to bloom. Here at school in Ojai, the weather goes from foggy and cold to sunny, and almost unbearably hot.

In Colorado, spring means the end of a cold winter, which a couple months in, everyone is already sick of. Flowers start to peek out, and it’s when they have just bloomed that they are the prettiest. The grass is green, and the rivers rush with all the snow melt-off. It’s perfection.

Spring also means that the school year is coming to an end. Classes start turning their attention from the everyday lessons to the upcoming finals. Senioritis kicks in as the seniors prepare to throw their cap in the air.

The sun finally peeks it’s head out from behind clouds, flowers decide it’s warm enough to come out of their shell. The world seems awake again. That’s why Spring is my favorite season.

Snow

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Let me start by saying that it is April 22nd. Yesterday I returned to school from spring break. Most people associate spring break with the beach, swimming, and warmth.

Not for me.

I went home two Friday’s ago to a giant snowstorm. The entire week I was home, it snowed almost the entire time. In April, Aspen has received about three feet of snow. It’s cold, and wet, and time for the snow to melt and go away.

On our way home from Denver, we were driving in a snowstorm. Around Vail Pass, two semi’s crashed, causing the road to close for about two hours. There was a very long line of cars behind us.

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My point is that in April, it should not be snowing. The snow should be melting. I am very happy to be back in warm and sunny Ojai.

Bon Jovi

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It’s the first day back from break, and it is clear that everyone’s thoughts still center around their week off. So I thought maybe I’d share with you guys a small part of mine.

A while back, in the beginning of December, I was stressing out. My dad’s 50th Birthday was coming up and I wasn’t quite sure what to get him. I looked at paddle-boards and passes, but I couldn’t find anything within my budget. Eventually I visited the Pepsi Center website to see if maybe I could buy him tickets to a few Colorado Avalanche games.

Advertised across the top of the screen was a banner for a Bon Jovi concert occurring on April 16th, at the Pepsi Center. We had just been to a Bruce Springsteen concert, at which my dad had said that they’re are certain people if given the chance you have to see, even if you don’t like their music. To me, Bon Jovi was one of those people.

I’m not a particular fan of his music, but one of my little brothers favorite songs has always been Livin’ on a Prayer. This prompted me to buy the tickets, and on Tuesday April 16th we packed up the truck and drove down to Denver.

As we arrived at the Pepsi Center, we noticed the six tour buses (one for each member), as well as what must have been about a dozen semi’s. The parking lot was fuller than we had ever seen it, even for Av’s games.

The concert was by far one of the better one’s I’ve been too. Not because I like his music, because I don’t really, or because he’s popular. He put on a show. He threw everything he had into what he was doing on stage.

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We soon figured out what the absurd amount of semi’s were for as huge columns rose and fell from the ceiling, rising up and down from the floor to meet in the middle. Animated graphics were projected onto the columns, matching the song Bon Jovi was belting out. At first we thought they were just fabric or styrofoam, something cheap. That was until the famous rocker started walking across them.

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He sang his hit songs, as well as songs from his new album. He danced his heart out on stage, and changed his outfit twice. The lights were insane, pulsing to the beat of the music. The concert was over-the-top. It was loud. And it was awesome.

Mermaids

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Recently there seems to be a fascination with becoming a mermaid – and not just among seven year-old girls.

Linden Wolbert quit her job in 2005 as a residence director of Emerson College, in order to become a full-time professional mermaid. She is equipped with a 35-pound, 6-foot long hydrodynamic tail.

Thanks to training as a free-diver, Wolbert is capable of holding her breath for five minutes, and swimming down to about 100-feet.

However, Linden Wolbert is not the only one who has made a lifestyle for them-self through an obsession with mermaids. Eric Ducharme, from Florida, was recently featured on TLC’s My Crazy Obsession, for his passionate love of menfolk.

As a child, Ducharme had been enraptured by stories of the elusive creatures. Now, Ducharme makes realistic looking mermaid tails out of various materials.

Personally, I don’t understand the obsession. But to each his own I guess, and I wish them the best of luck with their merbusiness.

My Brothers

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One of the downsides of the schedule we have at OVS is that our spring break falls about two weeks after everyone else has their spring break, and that includes my brothers. This past week, they road tripped from Aspen out to where we used to live near San Francisco. They spent the week staying up there in a friends pool house, and then on Friday they came down to visit me at school.

They showed up around 10, just as morning announcements was starting. After announcements, I was able to catch up with them briefly before having to head off to class. My dad and Peter drove to Ventura to hang out while I finished my classes, while my youngest brother Philip joined me.

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Joyeux Noel

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Years ago, I remember watching a French movie about war. In all honesty, that’s about all I remember, except for this one scene in the middle of a snowy field with an officer in blue standing in the middle. The actors spoke in French, and being fluent in French myself, I followed along as best I could. What I didn’t quite catch, I would refer to the english subtitles in order to interpret.

Because I was so focused on understanding what the characters were saying, I missed a lot of what was actually happening in the film. I do remember that it was amazing though.

This week in A.P. World History, we were assigned group projects. My partners and I were assigned a prompt asking us to compare what our textbook told us about WWI to the song “Christmas in the Trenches” by John McCutcheon. As I listened to the song, I suddenly realized that the scene being set by the singer was one somewhat familiar to the movie I had seen years before, Joyeux Noel.

This week, my research has helped me to understand why that movie was so amazing. I had no idea that it was reenacting the Christmas Truce of 1914, where soldiers on a battlefield during WWI called an unofficial truce for the holidays.

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Gleek Out

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Tonight, yet anther Glee episode will air. The show is in its fourth season, seventeenth episode. And it just keeps getting worse and worse.

When the show first started, I had no idea what it was about. I remember hearing my classmates talk about it almost incessantly, and finally, I watched the first episode. I liked it, but I wasn’t in love. I did like it enough to keep watching though.

The more I watched it, the more I enjoyed it. Until somewhere in the second or third season, I stopped watching almost completely, only to resume my regime at the beginning of the most recent season. But I have to say, out of all the seasons, even though I have stopped watching several times previously, this is by far, the worst.

The show has turned from a somewhat realistic portrayal of high-school life, minus the singing and dancing in school hallways of course. It used to be that the show addressed real issues, and it felt like I was watching actual people, not just actors following a script word for word.

That is no longer the case. The show has turned into a mash-pit of cheesy romance, roommate problems, cattiness, and  downright terrible acting.

I remember a particular episode a couple weeks ago, on Valentine’s Day, episode 14 called “I Do“. It followed the wedding of the show’s two favorite teachers, which was of course, on Valentine’s Day. Predictably enough, Mr. Schuester is left at the altar by the bride to be, and everyone else at the wedding has a one-night stand.

There was also a revolting amount of pink.

This episode was just one example of many other cheesy episodes this new season has brought with it. I’m disappointed with the direction this show has taken, and I hope they can get back on track. I sincerely doubt it though.

Season 4

Happy Birthday Sarah

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This weekend, my friend Kendall Shiffman checked me out, and I spent the weekend at her house. On Friday we watched a ton of TV, which was, as always, really fun.

On Saturday, my best friend Sarah came over in the morning, and we hung around the house. She then went to the lacrosse game while we got ready for her birthday dinner at California Pizza Kitchen that night.

At first, I was a little worried about the dinner. I knew a couple girls from a nearby school, Villanova would be there, and I had never met them before. I was nervous, and expected the dinner to be really awkward. Thankfully, it wasn’t. They turned out to be really nice and funny, and the whole night was a blast.

Then this morning, Sarah and her brother came over, followed by two of the girls from last night. We barbecued hot dogs, and ate ruffles with onion dip while drinking coke. It was delicious.

Sarah is my best friend. She’s funny, isn’t afraid to laugh at herself, and is someone I know I can always count on to be there for me. We have lunch dates every day at school, where we talk about everything and pretty much anything.

She has helped me so much, from problem-solving to leaving behind some of my insecurities and growing into myself. This weekend with her and Kendall was so much fun, and I hope the rest of her birthday day is amazing. Happy Birthday Sarah!!

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True Friends

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I think a lot of people, including myself, struggle with the concept of friendship. What does it mean to be a friend? What the difference between friends and best friends? How should a friendship play into the romantic relationships in your life? In all honesty, I think the answers to these the questions depend on each individual person. Friendship may mean something entirely different to someone else than what it means to you.

To me, and this is just my opinion on the matter, friendship means knowing someone so well that you can laugh at each other, know what they’re thinking based on the look on their face, support them through hard times and all the times they make the absolute worst decision possible.

A best friend is when you tell someone things you never tell anyone else. You laugh with each other, spend time with each other whenever you can, listen withought judging, and can buy the perfect birthday present no problemo. All because you know that person so well, you know their reasoning behind their actions, and eventually you start to see eye to eye with them. And when someone else criticizes your best friend you immediately jump to their defense, not because the voice in the back of your head is telling you to, but because even though they have made terrible mistakes, you know why, and you can honestly stand up for them no matter what. And a best friend doesn’t care if you third wheel, in fact, they relish it. You know without a doubt you are an important part of their life. That is a best friend, and what it means to be a best friend.

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Picture Perfect

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I recently wrote a story about the bike ride our school took. They left on Superbowl Sunday, and rode about 25 miles from the campus to the beach.

I was very proud of my story. I had fun with it, and in my opinion at least, the writing was pretty good. But then came the art…

Every story needs a picture to go with it, some sort of visual. And in our Journalism class we don’t stage or photoshop photos. This would be awesome if it didn’t complicate things so much.

I started out on my mission to get a picture of the group that went on the bike ride by asking the teacher who led the trip to make an announcement at morning meeting. He did, asking all the students who went to meet up with him and I quickly after the meeting.

Since I don’t have my own camera, and have absolutely no idea how to shoot good photos, my classmate helped me out. We had the group stand in a couple different places in the courtyard, then behind the Spanish room as well.

Unfortunately, in all the photos we took the lighting was absolutely terrible. Somehow the background behind the students ended up completely white.

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