Category: entertainment

Kylie Krisis?

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Photo Credit: eonline.com

For a while there have been rumors circling around reality star, Kylie Jenner, about her supposed lip injections.

In a matter of a few months, her lips went from being thin and natural to puffy and large, sparking rumors that she had undergone plastic surgery.

Whilst attempting to comprehend how Kylie’s lips made such a drastic transformation in such a short amount of time, the “Kylie Jenner lip challenge” became quite popular.

In this challenge, a shot glass is placed around the lips and the person has to suck in as hard as they can for a couple of minutes. However, there has been a lot of controversy related to the challenge because of the permanent damage it can cause; discoloration and popped blood vessels.

After months of trying to figure out how Kylie managed to grow the size of her lips so quickly and so drastically, viewers finally got the truth when an episode preview of Keeping Up With the Kardashians came out a few days ago.

Kylie has temporary lip fillers.

“I have temporary lip fillers. It’s just an insecurity of mine, and it’s what I wanted to do,” Kylie said in the video.

Kylie’s age has raised some eyebrows, as a majority of plastic surgeons will not perform any plastic surgery on anyone under the age of 18, regardless of parental consent.

Is Kylie too young to be getting lip injections?

Or does she have the right to fix her insecurities, especially as the whole world watches her every move?

Burnout

indigoshell

School is hard.

Don’t get me wrong – education is supposed to be challenging. But more frequently I’ve heard people say “Is he okay?” Following comes the response, “Yeah but he’s all burnt out.”

Burnout is real. It’s a state of chronic stress that can cause lethargy, depression, and general numbness and not a care in the world. (I suggest you read the link given below.)

“Burnout happens when you’ve been experiencing chronic stress for so long that your body and your emotional system have begun to shut down and are operating in survival mode,” says Dr. Sara Denning, a clinical psychologist based in Manhattan who specializes in dealing with stress and anxiety. “You numb out because you can’t think. You can’t even make decisions anymore.”

Further delving into the article reveals that burnout symptoms were arriving in younger and younger people, as early as college freshman. Which is where I will be next year. And it’s also where I feel like I’m heading next year.

There’s something called Senioritis, and it’s, as described as me, “a high school senior lacking in motivation because WE’RE GRADUATING OMYGOSH.” The symptoms are similar to a burnout, lacking motivation, lethargy, etc. The difference is that Senioritis isn’t usually stress or depression caused. It’s just that knowing how I won’t be here next year to deal with consequences makes me want to… Slack off.

I’ve gotten off topic.

Burnout.

If a college freshman is already feeling the symptoms of burnout, then what does that say about the education system? Are we supposed to be holding these children over a fire with a stick? Maybe. But are we then supposed to let them slow roast until a perfect, golden brown –

Photo cred; Cook In / Dine Out
– or let them catch on fire and watch them try and quench themselves?

Photo cred; Dreier.com

Graphic image aside… There goes my two cents. And I don’t care enough to get them back either.

The Faults of Living (at school)

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When I was younger, I thought that teachers lived at school.   I imagined them sleeping in the classrooms, pulling out the mats we used for nap time and creating comfortable beds.  I thought it sounded really fun and cool to live at school.  Now that I actually do live at my school, I have a better understanding of what it means and what you give up.
At OVS, there is a clear divide between the day students and the resident students. This is because the day students have time to see each other outside of school every day without the resident students.  Similarly, the resident students have a lot of time every day without the day students.  This has created a noticeable rift between the student body.  When you live at school, it’s harder to put aside free time for your friends.  With a schedule that maps out almost every minute of the day, it is a lot more difficult for residents than day students.
There are a lot of day students that I really like and want to get to know better.  However, as much as I wish I could change it, watching them drive away as I am confined up on the hill is pretty much standard procedure.

Long or Short

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Buying a prom dress is hard.
Yes, I know that makes me sound like the ultimate spoiled white brat, but it really is.  First, prom dresses are ridiculously over-priced.  Second, you don’t want to get the same one as anyone else, so you need to try to find the most low-key stores.  And third, you have to obey “the rules”.
At some schools, the rules of dresses are very prominent at a social level.  Although never articulated on paper, it is a well-known tradition that only seniors can wear long dresses.  I have witnessed actual shaming of 11th grade girls who have worn long dresses to prom.  As a result, I was nervous when trying to find a dress for OVS prom.  I do not get dressed up often, and when I do, I like to go all out.  I had never worn a long dress until just a few weeks ago, aside from the school musical.  When I went shopping with my mom for dresses, I fell in love with the first one I tried on.  One problem:  it was long.  I texted multiple friends that were seniors at OVS asking if they would care about me wearing a long dress, expecting a rage in response.  However, I was completely surprised with the positive response.  Apparently, the “rules” were non-existent at OVS.  Once I got over my shock, I was pleased.  This absence of the rule, although small and insignificant in the long run, shows the loving, family aspect of the OVS community.

It’s a Small World

indigoshell

When I was in first grade, I went to school in Hangzhou International School. The classes ranged from preschool to twelfth grade, totaling to about 312 students. At least, that’s the only number I remember.

HIS is a small private school with students from Japan, Korea, Germany, Australia, you name it. It was a day school, ending at 3, and uniforms were required. Nobody got dress-coded, and each class became very, very tight.

One of my most vivid memories is walking down a long, white hallway decorated with life-sized paintings of dinosaurs. It was an empty hallway with big windows and no doors, so we could be as loud as we wanted. And with 25+ students in my grade, we were definitely loud. We travelled from class to class as a pack, because in lower and middle school, that’s how classes worked.

Photo cred: Byrne Robotics

I was at HIS for 8 years. Leaving China to go to Ojai Valley School was probably the biggest change in my life.

There’s only 114 students at OVS. At least, that’s the only number I remember. We have a dress code and students that ran around campus in all different directions to different classes.

It’s wide, crazy, open, and very, very, very small. You’re basically forced to  get to know the people here because we’re kinda-sorta stuck on top of a hill together.

The two college dorms I applied to, Skarland and Moore, with 100 and 322 students living in them. Which are the sizes of the only schools I have ever been to. I guess you can consider me a small-town girl.

It was a small world for me. This school, with about 9,000 students, is going to be an entirely new galaxy for me.

Courageous or Crazy?

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The all too well-known BRCA1 gene is a genetic mutation generally found in women that causes breast cancer.

Breast cancer will affect 12% of the women population in the world, making it one of the most common forms of cancer, alongside skin cancer.

Two years ago, Angelina Jolie was tested for the BRCA1 gene and was told she had a 87% chance of getting breast cancer. She was also told she had a 50% chance of developing ovarian cancer.

A lot to digest?

Yes, but this is nothing new. Hundreds of thousands of women develop breast cancer every year, but Ms. Jolie took a bolder approach than most.

She had a double mastectomy two years ago, and recently had her ovaries removed as an extreme, but somewhat necessary, preventative measure

Her strong voice in the media has been an inspiration to many women, as she shows the not so glamorous side of her life, and the honest fear she felt when she received the news that she had a very large chance of developing breast or ovarian cancer.

Photo Credit: thedbz.com

She’s a whole lotta woman, with a whole lotta courage.

Piano Keys

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The soft pangs of the notes filled the air, swirling up from the grand piano all the way around the curving stairs and straight to the top of the high ceiling of the hallway. The girl sitting on the black leather bench had wispy blonde hair, her feet dangling far above the pedals.

She shared the small seat with her mother, a woman appearing to be in her forties. She had short dark brown hair, and her makeup was applied deliberately, giving her face a slight orange tint. As she pointed to certain keys and moved her child’s small wrists up higher, her brow creased and defined the onset wrinkles there.

They were an offsetting pair – the small girl’s fragility was evident next to the woman’s full frame. It was almost as though their appearance conveyed the unsung words of their relationship; the dominance of the woman over the powerless child. And as the small blonde girl clinked away at the keys, her small fingers were barely able to reach the far black rectangles, and so the woman pulled her hands further apart, stretching the little pads of her pointer fingers further than they could go, mounting a tremendous tension of tingling sparks in the girl’s tiny fingernails, ready and itching to explode.

The Spiders Rise pt. 2

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Parts of the following blog are fictional accounts.

Tuesday
I’m always the first one back from breakfast, so the dorms are quiet and still. Halfway down the hallway, a drawing of a cartoon spider flutters to my feet from it’s position on the wall. It was an omen, I swear it was. There was a spider in the dorm’s cutlery drawer when I was looking for spoon to make hot chocolate with.

The girls went to bed that night feeling weary but quite hopeless. We all knew that the relentless torture would not ease up yet. “Third time’s the charm,” they say.

3am and the all-too familiar sound fills the dorm. I laid awake in bed for 20 seconds or so, contemplating just staying in my room and facing the consequences.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one with that thought, as I was the first person out of the dorm. The other humans took their time coming out because they knew that there was no fire and no danger.

We’re all tired. We’re all bickering.

Wednesday

No sign of our 8-legged friends anywhere, so I felt internally relieved. The other girls felt hopelessly exhausted and didn’t have as much knowledge as I do.

All was quiet that night. Not a peep, not a ring, not a twitch.

Thursday
6:40am and I’m brushing my teeth, eyes still closed and dozing off in the silence. A friend screams and points to the wall – a large brown recluse, crouching and staring at me from the mirror. I bring him outside and try to calm my beating heart, now definitely awake.

There’s the cartoon spider at my feet again. I had stuck it back onto the wall on Tuesday, and today… Well, there it is.

9pm Thursday. I’m prepared for their final attack.

Friday
5am and I was woken by the smell of smoke. It was faint enough that the fire alarms didn’t go off.

There were about (aw heck no) a dozen spiders on my floor.

They all ran under the crack of my door and I followed them out into the hallway and out of the dorm. It was hot outside. Like, fiery hot. Actually, there was a huuuge fire outside the dorm that singed the edges of my tie-dye shirt and curled the ends of my braided hair.

The fire alarm finally went off but the dorm didn’t jump like it usually did.

Everyone was sick of the fire alarm. Every single one of them stayed in their beds and covered their ears and groaned. Nobody was awake enough to smell the smoke or to even bother to check the hallways, where smoke was coating the ceilings.

The dorm dogs ran outside silently, followed by a cat and several hundred more insects of all shapes and sizes.

I thought I was dreaming, which is why I only laughed and waved at the dorm.

Bye.

Photo credit ifiberone.com

Goodbye.

The Countdown to Summer

kennyroo

I’m ever so patiently waiting for long summer days, and even longer summer nights.

I would always rather be at the beach, but that urge is actually attainable during my favorite three months of the year.

The way the warm sand feels on the soles of my feet, the warm sun beating down on my shoulders, and the shock of the cool salty water brings me to a happy place like no other

There is no need to go to bed early for an upcoming class or even worry about homework.

These next few months are going to feel like a life time, but I know it’s worth the wait.

https://i0.wp.com/www.law.indiana.edu/lawlibrary/blawg/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/summertime-blues.jpg
Photo Credit to: http://www.law.indiana.edu

Paper Towns

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Photo Credit: pbs.twimg.com

The highly anticipated movie poster for author John Green’s Paper Towns was just released, sparking interest and excitement in all fans.

Journalists are scrounging for material to write about – putting out article after article on the movie, and the poster in particular. Some articles are reaching as far as to write about how actors Cara Delevingne and Nat Wolff look like siblings, simply from the similar appearance of their eyebrows.

However, since Cara’s popularity did stem from her brows, this could be relevant for her.

Other writers are confused about the message the poster is depicting – unlike most movie posters, this one does not give much of the plot away. Many fans are complaining about this, but some are appreciative of the mystery.

This poster has brought mixed feelings from fans of the book and fans of the actors alike. An opinion that has been agreed upon, however, is how much excitement the release of the poster has brought, and how highly anticipated this movie is.