Author: Daphne Psaledakis

Honors Ski Trip

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Break is quickly approaching, and on Friday the campus will begin to empty out. Students will go home, or to friends and family, for the week long winter break. And then, on Sunday, they will return.

However, there are the lucky few that leave the morning after boarding students return to campus. They will load bags and bodies into the school vans in order to make the trek up to Yosemite. These students get an extra week of break on Honors Ski Trip.

The Honors Ski Trip is a week long excursion with the headmaster and a couple other teachers, and a handful of students who put in the work to keep their academic and effort grades up to standard.

Last year I went on the trip and I had an amazing time. In the mornings we would cook obscene amounts of bacon before loading into the vans and driving to the nordic track.

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Lore

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One of my favorite movies of all times is Sarah’s Key, a story about a young girl’s journey during the Second World War. It’s an amazing story, and both the book and the movie are fantastic.

The other day, I watched a similar movie called Lore. It’s about a teenage girl who’s parents were Nazi’s. The movie follows her and her siblings after the war has ended as they make their way to their grandmothers house following their parents arrest.

Lore was interesting because it took a different approach to the topic. It’s a German film, it takes place in Germany, which post war is in shambles. The citizens are confused, not sure what to believe or think. And none more so than Lore and her siblings.

The movie is tough to watch, in more than one way. Lore must come to terms with accepting the help of someone she has always been taught to hate, and that brings along with it many challenges.

The people of Germany after the war are often not accommodating, or merely looking out for themselves. Throughout it all, Lore must remain true to herself. All while growing up much too fast for a girl her age, and learning of the responsibilities life holds.

Lore is an excellent movie, but I wouldn’t recommend it for the squeamish or traditional. It’s not exactly easy to wrap your head around, although it is very good.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

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This post is somewhat, if not very, overdue, seeing as the movie Perks of Being a Wallflower came out quite a while ago. I did however feel that a post on the film was necessary, as I truly enjoyed it. It made me laugh, it made me smile, it made me cry, and everything in between. It is the perfect movie, and for many different reasons.

The first reason is that it is relatable. The writers don’t try and hide the unattractive parts of being in high school. In fact, they embrace it, making it so the characters don’t seem like movie stars, but rather like someone you would pass in the hallways.

Which brings us to the second reason: The cast. Emma Watson was amazing. She fit her role perfectly, even more so than her major part in the Harry Potter series as Hermione Granger. In my opinion at least. Logan Lerman and Ezra Miller were fantastic as well.

The third reason is perhaps my favorite, but it could also very easily be my least. The roles played by the cast, and portrayed so well, made me want to be there standing in the back of the pick-up truck, cruising through a tunnel and listening to quality music. Wallflower made me want to try listening to new music, find a group of friends who accept me and push me to have more confidence, as well as deal with my emotional shortcomings in a safe way.

Perks of Being a Wallflower is a great movie, not just for teens but for adults as well, to really provide an accurate representation of what high-schoolers deal with on a daily basis. I wouldn’t particularly recommend it for the younger child, but to each his own. I loved this movie, and was incredible glad to have watched it. I would definitely say it’s high on my list, if not at the top.

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Drama, Drama, Drama

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As you would expect of a dorm filled with girls, there is a lot of drama here at OVS, and probably more than usual because of the small size of the student body. We’re all friends in the girls dorm. Sure, you get the couple of girls who absolutely hate each other, or the few that don’t bother to speak to the rest. But I think I speak for everyone when I say we’re all here for each other.

That being said, I don’t understand how we can be so awful to one another. It begins with the infamous Freshman drama, which I am ashamed to say I played a part in last year. But looking back now, I see that we argued over the most pointless things we could possibly have thought of. And this years Freshman class is doing the exact same thing.

After the Freshman drama comes the realization of who your real friends are. I imagined this as being a mental process you think about inside your head, and don’t necessarily talk about to other people. After all, talking smack about others is the root of pretty much all the problems.

Unfortunately, I was wrong. I thought the cattiness would end after last year, but it’s far from it. I sit on my bed and watch a stream of girls come into my room to talk to my roommate, either about their drama or hers. I honestly can’t keep up with it all.

We all live together. We go to school together. We eat together, sleep in the same building, use the same showers. We know each other so well, and if we tried we could all be as close as sisters. We just all have to learn to get along. I understand that it isn’t easy when you throw a bunch of hormonal teenage girls into the same radius. But instead of tearing each other apart, we need to learn to live together and start letting things go.

Moosey Goosey

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So as promised, I’m writing a blog about the newest addition to our family, Moose. After our dog Hattie passed away from cancer several years ago, we went in search of a companion for our other dog Luna.

The first dog we came across, who we named Ute, was a bit too feisty for the family lifestyle. So we took him back to the animal shelter, and came home with Moose.

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When I first saw Moose, I was grooming my horse in the barn. My dad and brothers walked into the barn aisle with him on a leash, and I am not kidding when I say I thought he was the ugliest dog I had ever seen. He is very clearly a mutt, and as my mother says, “he is everything but the kitchen sink.”

He is black, with brown feet and brown cheeks. His tongue has a small birth mark on it, and his feet are absolutely ginormous, if that’s even a word. He’s gotten a little less odd looking as he’s gotten older, but my first impression was to look at my family and think “what have you done?”

Much to my surprise, Moose was a character. He would walk out our back door and disappear for hours on end. When we first got him, we lived on a ski mountain. He came home one night with a cut on his foot from someone’s ski’s, and another time he came home with a huge gash on his leg from getting hit by a car.

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The Second City

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Over the summer, my dad had a business trip in Chicago, and I had nowhere to stay. We decided that I would go along with him, and while he was working I would wander around Michigan Avenue by myself. He tried his hardest to make it fun, and he did an excellent job.

I went shopping, which is always productive, often more so than you can afford. I watched movies in the hotel room, and went to Wow Bao for lunch every day (it’s absolutely delicious for those of you who have never been).

At night, my dad and I would go dinner somewhere new, and then to a movie or back to the hotel to relax. One night though, he really wanted to go see a The Second City show. I resisted, but my dad was determined, as he often is. I had never been to a comedy act, and I didn’t really know what to expect. I honestly thought the show would be filled with cheesy humor that wasn’t especially funny.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The Second City turned out to be one of the world’s leading comedy acts, and experts at improvisation. Their website advertises 50 years of funny, which is an accurate statement. I could hardly stop laughing the entire show, even during the political acts which I knew nothing about. The show was hilarious, and the humor was priceless.

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Winter X Games

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The Winter X Games have been held in Aspen for the past ten years, and since I can remember my family has made a habit of sitting around the TV and watching them. When we moved to Aspen, this was made a lot easier, and I finally began to understand the excitement.

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The X Games begin on Thursday, and carry on until late Sunday night. Over the weekend, Aspen is packed. Tons of people fly in for the event, and none are disappointed. Especially the students in the Aspen School system.

It used to be a school holiday, and it might as well should be because of the amount of students that actually turn up. When we heard the contract for Aspen had been renewed, it was all anyone could talk about for days. Some of the classes make a field trip of walking over to the base of Buttermilk, where it is held, and watching. At night, you can see the lights, and hear the music, announcers, and roar of the crowd from the other side of town. It’s mayhem, but the locals love it.

When I first came to school here last year, my dad called me and told me the X Games were gonna be in town. I immediately went to my computer to see if there was a way for me to watch them live, but I couldn’t figure it out. I resigned myself to the TV in the girls’ lounge. I pretty much camped out there all weekend, and my classmates thought I was crazy.

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To me though, it was perfectly normal. I mean come on, it’s the Winter X Games. In Aspen.

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Dogs Really Are a Mans Best Friend

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My family has always had a dog around. In almost every memory of mine, one of our dogs is present. They are as much a part of the family as my little brothers, and a lot easier to get along with.

When we lived in London, we got a labrador retriever named Hattie, which was the first dog my younger brother was introduced to. My dad knew well before getting the dog that Peter was terrified of them, and well, he figured the best remedy for that would be to give him no choice.

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Unfortunately for Peter, Hattie took a particular liking to him. She used to chase him around the house and tackle him to the ground, and then spend a good amount of time licking him. At first, Peter was not very pleased. Eventually, you could hear his shrieks of laughter from a mile away, and he became the dog lover of the family. More so than the rest of us that is.

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Aside Daphne PsaledakisLeave a comment

As a kid, we all have that one thing that brings us comfort. Sometimes it’s a blanket, or a stuffed animal, or even a lullaby sung every night by your mother. We all have that safety blanket we run to whenever things get tough. For some, the teddy might stick around a little longer than […]

My Second Family

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As I step off the plane, my friend texts me: “Welcome home!” Normally, I wouldn’t even think twice about this. I would respond saying thank-you, and how excited I was to be home. Only this time, I paused for a second. I had to think twice about it.

I spend the majority of my time here at OVS. I live here, I go to school here. And at some point, withought me even realizing it, I started thinking of it as home.

My family is in Colorado, and when I’m on break that’s where I go. Aspen is beautiful, but at the same time it’s hard for me to be there. The friends I had while going to school there I have grown apart from.

It’s hard to go from living in the dorm, where almost all of my friends are around me 24/7, to Aspen where I don’t have very many people to connect with. When I came to school here my friends slowly became best friends, and from there they morphed into a second family.

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And while I miss being home at times, when I’m home I miss being at school.

So when my friend texted me that welcome home message at the beginning of break, I thought to myself that it’s just one of my homes. The home where my family is. But my life, my life is back in California.