Category: school

Shadow

indigoshellLeave a comment

It’s a snake. She’s black too, but the kind of black the night sky is. She’s dark. She’s vivid. She’s powerful.

She’s real. She can never leave you, and sometimes, you want her to leave you. She can be your strength, and she can be your weakness.

She speaks your mind when you lose it, she’s there when your sibling’s a bother, she’s there when you don’t understand something.

She fights. She will fight hard, and when you think she’s done fighting, she will fight even more.

Her enemy is Conscience. Conscience makes her mad, and Conscience makes her strong. She fights Conscience with all she has.

The longer she fights, the less control she possesses. She looses herself in an effort to protect, she grows stronger and out of control.

Fangs, venom, whipping tail, flared hood, she fights Conscience and eventually she fights you. Your body turns from heavy to angry.

She is Anger. Anger must be held back. She must be held back. Nothing can hold back Anger.

She rises, hissing, spitting, glowing, menacing, fighting Conscience and fighting you. She’ll fight you and everyone and everything around you.

DESTROY

Her Anger will infect you.

ATTACK

You will be a danger to be around.

KILL

You can’t fight fire with fire. You must drown it with water.

Imagine never finding water.

Admissions

enternity1030Leave a comment

As far as our college applications go, I’m pretty sure that everyone is now stressed out and curious about how the college counselors would review our apps. It reminds me of a great movie I watched this summer – “Admission.”

“Admission” is a comedy directed by Academy Award nominee Paul Weitz, starring  Tina Fey and Paul Rudd.
Every spring, high school seniors anxiously await offers from college admissions. At Princeton University, admissions officer Portia Nathan is one of the counselors who evaluate thousands of applicants.

On her visit to New Quest, an alternative high school, she then meets with her former college classmate, idealistic teacher John Pressman – who has recently surmised that Jeremiah, a gifted yet very unconventional New Quest student, might well be the son that Portia secretly gave up for adoption years ago while at school. More importantly, Jeremiah is about to apply to Princeton.

Now Portia must re-evaluate her personal and professional existences, as she finds herself bending the admissions rules for Jeremiah. She recommends Jeremiah to all the officers who refuse to admit him. And the result does not change – he gets rejected. In the end, in order to get her son into Princeton, Portia steals Jeremiah’s folder and changes the decision into a “Yes.” Portia quits her job and starts a new life.

Even though the movie is mainly about love and family, I personal find it is also a fairly helpful movie for high school students to get more knowledge about the process of applying to college and more closely, about how the officers review our materials and make the final decisions.

If you haven’r watched it yet, I strongly recommend you to do so!
And also, good luck to all the seniors!

“There is no formula to get in. Just be yourself.”   – Portia

What Hill?

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“Ready, set, GO!”

I’ve never even thought about running 3 miles before. And I am not kidding.
But once I reached that goal, I fell in love with running. And I am not kidding either.

I was not born to be a runner, so I did not treat running seriously in the beginning.

Last year I joined the cross-country team, because we did not have tennis.
“It’s just running, not a big deal,” I told myself. But I was totally wrong.

Everyday we ran different things. At the beginning, I could not even finish one whole mile without walking and the worst part of my day was always  sports time.
The sun never rested during the practice. We did harder workouts at least once a week. I could not walk the day after tough practice. I was hurting everywhere on my body.

But I was getting better.

Then I had to face the very first cross-country meet in my life – at Thatcher.
I was extremely nervous. I could feel my legs shaking and my heart was beating like a drum.
I did not expect to run the whole three miles, that seemed impossible to me. But I decided to try anyways.

Everyone was exhausted and I just kept running in slow pace. I thought about the days we ran together; I thought about how Mr. Alvarez encouraged us and pushed our backs; I thought about home and wondered if my parents were having fun this holiday; I thought… I thought about everything, i thought about nothing.
I just ran and ran.

Everyone was encouraging me as well. “Let’s go, Shelly!”

“Almost there!”

“Way to run girl!”
And yes, I finished it without stopping or walking. I guess that would be the time I felt the most proud of myself.

After the very first race, I changed my opinion of running. I did not hate it or fear it anymore. I started to accept it because I knew I was capable of defeating it.
Three month’s of training, the season ended strongly with all the incredible improvements i gained everyday.

This year, I was glad to see our cross-country team grow much bigger, with more than 20 people.
The weather was fervent as well, of course. We ran pretty much the same courses but it did not feel as painful as it did before.

As for me, running is not only the thing I do to fulfill my sports time. It changes me, slowly but thoroughly. I became faster and stronger.

Our team got new shirts this year, and they says “What Hill?” on the back. They are the best shirts ever, I think, because no one else but we runners know the special meanings of those two words.

Finally it comes – my last cross-country meet at Thatcher, the place where everything begins.

It is probably my last time running a whole 3-miles course with my friends, wearing the green uniforms which we would never stop complaining about.

We don’t run for the certain miles or the destination, we don’t run for fame or glory.
But we do run to conquer all kinds of hills, we do run to challenge and prove ourselves.

We line up as usual. Everyone is encouraging each other and smiling.

Suddenly my heart is filled with joy.
Suddenly I realize that running does not only bring me power and strength to defeat all the distance and hills; running brings me courage, friendships, love, and valuable memories.

Yes, we are Cross-Country Team.
And WE RUN.

Monsters!

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This summer, a movie called “Monster University” was fairly popular. I watched it with my friends, my family three times in total. And I still love it.

Monsters University is a 2013 American 3D computer-animated comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures.It was directed by Dan Scanlon and produced by Kori Rae.

If you have seen the “Monsters Inc.” you would then be really familiar with the two main characters – the one-eyed goblin Mike and the fuzzy blue scare-master Sully.

“Monsters University” told the story of the two monsters as students attending Scare U. The movie began with a brief prologue of Mike as a young monster. He studied hard and finally got accepted into his dream school – the MU. Mike believed in everything said in the books but lacked talent. Sully, on the other hand, got the gift of scaring ability. The story mainly showed how these two monsters learned from each other in order to achieve their goals and eventually became friends from enemies.

My personal favorite part from the movie is how different types of monsters have their own features and all their expressions are vividly portrayed.

The movie is both comical and meaningful. From the movie, people can not only find amusement, but can also discover some life lessons, such as how to communicate and treat others appreciation and honesty.

However, I am not really trying to dig out the very profound meanings from this movie, because it is still produced as an entertainment cartoon. I just found that each monster kind of represents different kind of people.

Well, human beings do look better.

Camping

Daphne PsaledakisLeave a comment

This past weekend the Juniors went on their class camping trip. Personally, I love camping. Some of the best memories I have are of camping with my family and friends. So of course I was excited for this trip.

We were told it was going to be cold before leaving, and so me being me, I packed my ski clothes. That was probably the one time I’ve over-packed and it’s been a good thing.

We left school Friday afternoon and drove up towards Mammoth, California. The minute we stepped out of the vans after our five-hour drive, I was glad I had stuffed my bag with extra clothes until it was bursting at the seams.

That night, we struggled to get our tent up in the dark. The tent poles would numb our hands, forcing us to take turns trying to set it up. It also didn’t help that the four of us had no clue how to set it up. But with help from our teacher, we were eventually able to get it standing.

The next day we took a trip to the local fish hatchery, which was apparently one of the largest rainbow trout hatcheries in the West. Or something like that. From there, we continued to a much needed trip to the natural hot springs.

Definitely the highlight of the trip right there.

There were two different pools – we called them the party pool and the senior pool. In the party pool they did belly-flops and covered each other in mud. My friends and I were not a part of that. We went to the senior pool (which wasn’t actually a senior pool, we just decided to relax and enjoy it) instead. It was so nice sitting in the hot water and looking at a stunning view, even if the water wasn’t exactly the cleanest.

After the hot springs we headed back to the camp and another freezing night. We attempted to make beef stroganoff for dinner, which didn’t work out too well. As soon as dinner was over we all crawled into our tents and sleeping bags and huddled for warmth.

The next two days we spent hiking. We hiked quite a ways the first day, and the second day we made the short trek to the Devil’s Postpile, and then continued on to Rainbow Falls, which was amazing.

The night after our hike to Rainbow Falls was our last, and we froze our toes off yet again. In the morning, we woke up, packed our bags, and loaded into the vans.

We took a small detour to Pie in the Sky up the road, and had some 0f the best pie I’ve ever had. The Pecan Chocolate Chip Pie was to die for.

After our detour, we loaded back into the vans for the five hour drive back to school – and some much needed showers.

Overall, the trip was fun. We may have been cold and hungry, but the things we did and saw were really cool. We also grew much closer as a class. It was definitely worth it.

Daph

1-0…. Again

callmemaybe321 Comment

Well we just played our first game of the season on Wednesday and just like last year’s first game…. WE WON!!!!

It was a great game against Thacher’s JV squad, but we came out on top.

The game started of with an upbeat tempo.

One of our running-backs, Min Choi, scored a touchdown on the first play of the game.

I thought I was going to be a lot more excited when that happened, but I felt like crap.

I had been fighting a gnarly cold all week and I still am.

I had crap in my lungs making it hard to breathe, and I was just generally exhausted from being sick.

On top of that I was stupid and forgot to drink anything during the day which is unlike me. I was so crazy dehydrated during the game that I kept getting dizzy, and I didn’t really pay attention to what was going on; I kind of just played and that was it.

Anyways, it was still fun to play.

Playing a game is always fun especially when the score climbs and climbs and climbs, with nothing on the opposition’s side.

By about 8 minutes left in the 4th quarter the score was 44-0 in our favor.

Thacher ended up scoring shortly after that, but it wasn’t enough to make a come back.

We were very excited to play, and we as a team are looking forward to playing Trinity Classical Academy next week.

It is going to be a very tough game, as Trinity was 5th in California last year, but we are a different team then we have ever been.

Before our games and during practice sometimes I lead a chant where I ask my team what season it is. The answer to the question…. THE SEASON!

This is the season for OVS football. Almost our entire team is seniors. We have all played and started for 3-4 years. The total years between all the players is what all high school teams are looking for.

Not to mention, or defensive and offensive line adds up to close to 1,000 pounds of pure man.

I hope this season goes well and I hope we go undefeated. The only downfall to us going undefeated is that I made a bet with a teammate.

I bet him if we went undefeated I would pierce my nipple and my ear, and connect the two piercings with a chain.

I have no idea why I made this bet, but in the state of happiness I will be in if we win every game, I don’t think the pain will bother me.

Stay tuned to the blog to check on the well-being of my nipple, oh yeah and also how we do on the rest of our games.

This is THE SEASON!

Yes, I’m Gullible

Daphne Psaledakis1 Comment

This past weekend I couldn’t get a hold of my dad. I called him a ton, trying to find him so he could ship me a tent for our class camping trip this weekend. He finally called me back on Sunday, but couldn’t talk for long, as he was hiking up a mountain.

Naturally, I assumed he was hiking up a mountain at home in Aspen.

On Sunday night, I got a text from him telling me not to eat dinner, because his girlfriend’s daughter might swing by at school to visit me on her way to Santa Barbara. I love Sarah, so I was really excited. He texted me again letting me know that they were in Calabasas, and then Sarah sent a friend of mine to tell me when she was in the girls’ dorm lounge.

Only when I walked into the lounge, it was my dad and his girlfriend waiting for me, not Sarah and her boyfriend.

I was so surprised. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t even know he had been in Santa Monica visiting his girlfriend.

A couple of the teachers had been in on his surprise, so he was able to take me off campus for dinner. We went to this really nice restaurant called Suzanne’s, which was absolutely delicious.

It was so nice to see him. I’ve been at school for about a month, and it’s about this time that everyone realizes how long the stretch before the first break is. It was perfect timing, the food was delicious, and it was so nice to see my dad.

And yes, I am very gullible, as my friends pointed out afterwards.

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Half Mast

callmemaybe321 Comment

It wasn’t always been this way, or at least so I hear.

It has become semi-normal to see the red, white, and blue flag the represents freedom to be halfway down the pole.

September seems like there has been an unusual amount of days to have the flag be lowered.

We started the month of with 9/11.

That was the only day that made sense for the flag to be at half-mast. Not to say that 9/11 should have happened, but it’s been 12 years, the wounds have healed, but to see it down two other days this month, that was unexpected.

First we start off with the Navy shooting.

I don’t even really know what happened, but that’s the issue.

I don’t read into these things, it’s just like oh, there’s another shooting, and I move on.

I see 12 people dead and while yes I get sad, at the same time we have been trained to go, “oh 12.  That’s a lot less than that other one.”

Excuse me, but for the children, teens, and even adults to just expect that is really f****d up.

It is common talk to just be like, “hey, did you hear about that shooting?…Oh yeah some guy went crazy and just shot some people.”

Usually the response to that would be tears and cries and millions of questions why.

I literally had that exact conversation on the way to football practice the other day. I talked about 12 people dying for no reason, and then just strapped on my helmet and went on with my day.

And then again a few days later I look up, and there the flag is, just hanging halfway down the pole. I was like somebody must’ve gotten lazy and forgotten to put it up, but nope, another shooting.

I just saw that on the TV the other day and I was like you’ve got to be kidding me, another one. 

IT IS JUST SO NORMAL!!!! Why is it normal for 3 year olds to be shot in a park having a good time? IT’S NOT!!

A 3-year-old was shot in the head while having a fun day in the park, and the world just moves on. #wtf

I was sitting at breakfast with my grandparents and I brought up the latest shooting.  This time it wasn’t in the U.S., but still, any shooting is crazy.

My grandma said, “I feel so bad that you guys have to grow up in this time, it wasn’t like this when I was young.”

That got me thinking. Is it just going to keep getting worse? By the time I have kids I’m going to have to put them in bullet proof vests to walk out of the house.

Now, this isn’t a lobby for gun control. This is a lobby for the crazy people in this country.

If you are crazy and reading this…. please don’t shoot people.

For everyone else. I don’t care if you have a gun. Shoot targets, go hunting, but not for people.

But, do you really need an AR-15 hanging around your house. Are you really gonna go shoot a dove with a gun used to kill enemy forces overseas. If so, more power to you, but I think there are some more sensible gun options for you.

There’s not really much that I can do to control the crazy effed up people in this world, but I’m just a little sick of that flag not flying at the top is all I’m saying. I want to see good ol’ red, white, and blue, flying at the top of the pole, majestically flapping in the wind.

Dawn Patrol

Daphne PsaledakisLeave a comment

Today, for the first time, I decided to join Dawn Patrol. Dawn Patrol is a small group of students at my school who head to the beach at 6:15 on Sunday morning to learn how to surf.

Now, I’ve been telling myself for years that I wanted to learn how to surf. It’s always been something that fascinates me. I love movies about surfing, and I think it’s an amazing skill to have.

I’ve actually been surfing twice – once with a family friend when we lived in San Francisco, and then once when we were in Cabo. But those times I never did more that ride the whitewater to the shore. Today, I went past the point where the waves were breaking, which was a brand new experience for me.

It didn’t exactly go as planned.

As it turns out, when you’re about to be hit by a wave and you’re my size (about 5’2″), the wave looks a heck of a lot bigger. It’s also a lot easier to be tossed around. I had a really hard time getting past the point where the waves were breaking, but once I did, it was amazing.

I didn’t ride very many waves. But the amazing part of the trip for me was sitting on my surfboard in the ocean, feeling the swells come up and down underneath me, and watching the sunrise and the fog clear away. It was an incredible feeling.

I did only catch two waves, once after I got out, and then again when I was ready to go back in. I didn’t stand up, in fact I did the exact opposite and got tossed around quite a bit. On my last wave, the board hit me in the face while I was underwater, which wasn’t very pleasant.

Overall though, the trip was worth it. I may not have made huge progress, but at least I got out there and started to get a feel for it. And watching the sun rise was perfect.

I definitely plan on going again. Maybe after I catch up on my sleep though.

Unforgettable Summer.

eternity1030Leave a comment

Summer vacation would never be better than spending time in a big city like New York.

I personally always consider the Big Apple an artist. She paints herself into a large, colorful picture that embraces different views and various culture.

However, instead of hanging out and having fun in the crowded city, my summer was mostly spent at a more academic spot –NYU.

Before my summer started, I applied to NYU’s precollege program and  waited a long time to start the exciting experience.

When I arrived at the campus, which consisted of lots of different buildings located around the Washington Square, my heart started to beat strongly and eagerly. God, I do love this place.

Then my six-week school prgram started. Just like colleges, each student had their own schedules and for me, as I applied to the journalism program, I chose “Report in NY” and “Multimedia Journalism” in order to get a more professional experience as a journalist.

The classes went well. For the Multimedia class, we stepped outside the classroom and shot pictures and videos, and interviewed people -basically everything about the topic of the story we were dealing with. As for me, I did a profile story on a subway musician at Times Square Station; a story about the heat in the city and how the weather affected people’s lives; and a review story on the CNN Tour we went on as a class. My favorite -or my most successful- project was the final which was about, “Dining at NYU.”

It was a brand new experience for me to present news via multimedia ways. I learned a lot about shooting skills, and the editing process of videos and what should be shown or not shown. Six weeks were absolutely not enough to become super good at it, but at least I got a unique opportunity to start something valuable.

Walking around in NY with my camera shooting the life of the city, has been my dream for a long time, and it came true. I did enjoy it.

“Report in NY” class was more traditional compared to the other one. We found stories by ourselves and did all the interviews and edited them until it reached the perfect level.

The most part I liked about NY was that it was not hard at all to find stories. Things were happening all the time around us. The city was busy and so as the people.

Talking to different people and listening to their stories only made me more obsessed with journalism. Because I do want to share them with others and let more people know about the world around us. And I guess that’s what I’ve learned this summer.

Besides studying, I also went to other places in the city to relax. It’s New York, as long as you are in the city, it would never be boring.

My summer was busy with classes but at the same time, I felt fortunate to learn something new, to meet new friends, and to get more knowledge about New York.

It was a life-long unforgettable experience for me and I will miss that purple place very much.