Author: yourgingerkid

Coachella!

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The music festival, Coachella, has just released its tentative list of performers.
It’s big news in the music world. The concert that has now been going on for nine years and has hosted the most famous artists including Pearl Jam and Rage Against the Machine.

Lineup

In the hot and dry Indio, California, the concert lasts a total of three days each year with at least 20 artists playing on one given day. Thousands of people of all ages flock from across the country to see the spectacle and believe me it’s worth seeing.

Personally, I have never attended the concert, but I have had dozens of friends who have. I haven’t heard a single bad review. Although I only found out about the concert three years ago, there hasn’t been a year where I wish I couldn’t have gone. Hopefully this year will be the first.

For more information visit here

Tumbling

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I have a new addiction. You see, here at the Ojai Valley School we can’t access youtube.com and many other partially essential websites for teenagers due to “sonic wall” blocking for random reasons. Photography, writing, self-expression has always been an interest, and I finally found a way to curb my cravings here.

Tumblr

Some people call it tumbling, some call it self-expression, but Tumblr is the new MySpace.

It may not include things such as a “profile revealing personal information,” but if desired users can make that information accessible. The gist of it is posting anything you want, and having people who subscribe to you, and even guests, see your work or what you have “reblogged” from other users. I can say that I’ve found the most inspiring and entertaining things through tumbling. It’s awe-inspiring entertainment those who have an eye for art or a good sense of humor.

Go make an account now.

We Aren’t Really Horsing Around..

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I’ve been riding horses since I was five and there have only been a few years of my life where I wasn’t fully immersed in a riding program. When I came to OVS, I expected the riding program to be just as it was at my old barn, Springdown, but it wasn’t at all. I can barely remember the Lower Campus’ program, but when I came to Upper and I was incredibly pleased.

Horses

It was 2006 when I joined the Upper Campus’ riding program, and since then I can safely say that I’ve ridden almost every horse, jumped every fence, and gone on every trail offered.

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Welcome to the Rest of Life

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Lately I’ve been becoming more and more stressed. Not only are finals coming up, but college apps are due. College

As a California resident, my dad has me only applying to four schools, all in California. However I’ve seen people applying to maybe even 15 schools. To be honest, I question how they do it.

Here at the Ojai Valley School we use Naviance, a program that allows college counselors, teachers, and students to access the same program in order to lessen confusion and stress of the application process. Faculty can easily input their letters of recommendation and student can manage all their different applications. I haven’t really used Naviance to be honest, but I’m sure that I will in the near future. I’ll let you know whether or not I find it to be useful, because you care so much.

But really, college apps aren’t just stressful because of the application itself, it’s also the idea of going away, leaving home, and finally being independent. At least for me it is. I’ve been at boarding school for five years and having as much free time as college gives you sounds rather terrifying. What do you do when you only have maybe four hours of school a day? Here we’re booked solid from the time we wake up until the time we go to sleep on the weekdays and plan days in advanced what to do on the weekends. Isn’t OVS supposed to be a “college prep school?” If so, it only prepares us for the academic side, not the real side.

Stolen

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It’s almost ironic that last week I posted a blog about how incredibly fantastic the iPhone 4 is. At the Best Day Foundation, another post of mine, my iPhone 4 was stolen.

MEEP

It was sitting in my beach bag, inside my small make up bag, and underneath all my makeup; somewhere I thought no one would look.

I honestly have nothing to hide on my phone, or on any other electronic item for that matter, but it’s still a bit nerve-racking to have something of yours stolen.

My iPhone was the first item to ever be really stolen from me. I’ve had people “borrow” my things and not bring them back. I’ve have lost things and just assumed that I have misplaced them. Never has someone directly taken something important from me. It’s like your privacy has been invaded.

Which bring me to to the topic of privacy.

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Best Day Foundation

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Not many people are born with what we all take for granted, and we aren’t given many opportunities to remember that. This last weekend a group of five OVS students and I volunteered at the Best Day Foundation’s Ventura Chapter in Oxnard, California where we all worked with children with disabilities ranging from being blind to have cerebral palsy. I’m pretty sure that everyone learned something from that experience.

Best Day Foundation

More than enough volunteers showed up to help and each child had at least one partner. Each station had more than enough helpers to take the children out canoeing, kayaking, body surfing, surfing, and simply spending time in the water. Some kids hadn’t even ever been to the beach. Some hadn’t ever felt sand. Some hadn’t ever experienced a wave.

I joined the canoeing station where we’d all take turn sitting in the bottom of a canoe in the harbor talking children out in groups of five or so. I met a normal boy who was there accompaning his brother who was practically the most social seven year old that I had aver met and a fifth grader from the valley who was partially blind. Even though I wasn’t faced with the most disabled people, just hanging out with them and talking to people who were their buddies made the experience worth while.

For more information visit http://www.BestDayFoundation.org

Losing it

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People die everyday. In fact 146,357 people die each day, 6098 people die each hour, 102 people die each minute, and almost 2 people die each second.

Out of all those people, out of the whole entire globe, we meet somewhere between fifteen and eighteen thousand people in our lifetimes.

Out of all those people, out of the whole entire globe, a person has two to three true friends, and thousands of other aquaintences.
When you lose one, it may seem like the worlds over.

Kittehs

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The iPhone Craze

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Ever since the rumors of the iPhone developed, the iPhone has been the phone of phones. At least it has in my world
p
For my birthday, I received my first apple product. My dad bought me a black iPhone 4. Needless to stay I was ecstatic, and the little gadget very quickly became a basic function of life for me. Everywhere I went it came in handy. When I needed directions back to school, it was there. When I needed YouTube and guitar tabs to learn a song, it was there. It’s practically come in handy with every situation that I have ever found myself in. Not to mention the thousand of applications available. I must say that I am a fan of “Pocket Frogs” and “Urban Spoon.” I don’t mean to broadcast apps for any certain reason either. I’m just saying that if you have the chance, their free and you should download them.

If you don’t have one now, I recommend you get one. They will be a fantastic new toy for anyone.

Lights

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I’ve been to plenty of concerts in the last couple of years. From Gwen Stefani and the Black Eyed Peas to Attack Attack, I’ve made my way around San Francisco’s music scene. After attending the Bridge School Benefit Concert last weekend, I went with another friend to go see an small, Canadian girl perform at Slims. Seeing Lights was by far the best show that I’ve seen.

Lights

333 11th Avenue, San Francisco. I could almost call Slims my second home. I’ve seen friends play on that stage as well as large-scale bands. The small, but mighty, stage also has one other title that no other stage can hold, the host of the best show that I have yet to see.

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Bridge School

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Bridge School

Last weekend I went home to San Francisco, or more specifically, Hillsborough, California. I attended two out of three elementary schools, one being called “North School” while living in Hillsborough. At North, each student was required to help out in some sort of community activity such as helping out with the lower grades or working at the Bridge School. I was one of the very few in my class to choose the Bridge School.

The Bridge School was not something you’d find at an average elementary school. The definition provided on the website “a non-profit organization whose mission is to ensure that individuals with severe speech and physical impairments achieve full participation in their communities through the use of augmentative & alternative means of communication (AAC) and assistive technology (AT) applications and through the development, implementation and dissemination of innovative life-long educational strategies.” I have vivid memories of working with a girl who had a tube through her belly button so she could eat, and a boy who could not speak or walk. I worked mostly with the boy, hand feeding him, playing with him, and reading to him. I was ten, and he was thirteen, but I felt like we were on the same page. I’m not sure about what happened to him after I graduated, and I’m not sure if he’d remember me, but I do know that I’ll always remember him.

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