The Old, The New, The Better

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After attending Catholic preparatory school for the past two and a half years with a number of my closest friends, I never imagined I would have transferred to a quite liberal, low-key school with such a relaxed environment.

Because of the many negative experiences I had at such a strict and old-fashioned school, I decided that it was necessary to make a change in my academic life.

One of my best friends and her older brother advocated highly for the school they went to; Ojai Valley School. Sounds like some tiny, boring school in the middle of nowhere.

Boy was I wrong.

Photo Credit: thelavenderinn.files.wordpress.com

The second I arrived on campus for an interview with admissions, I was taken aback by the breathless view from the top of campus.

Not only can you see a majority of the Ojai Valley, but as I looked around I noticed the extent of beauty around and on campus. Horses grazing among the green, lush hills, the large and obviously eco-friendly solar panels that consume the top of a hillside, and the relaxed social environment.

Boring? Too small?

Absolutely not.

Intuitive, environmentally aware, fresh, clean, warm, friendly.

These are the words I would use to describe this new school I call home.

 

Everything It’s Cracked Up To Be

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Trivia Crack a game that’s taking over smartphones worldwide. Trivia Crack is an online trivia game very similar to the board game trivial pursuit.

There are six question categories: science, art, history, entertainment, sports, and geography. Win 3 questions in a match to earn a crown, and you must get six crowns to win a match.

You are afforded three lives and your lives are replenished one per hour. When the game opens, you spin a wheel to randomly select your topic.

The question is presented in multiple-choice fashion with a thirty-second time limit to answer it. If you answer the question wrong, the right answer is flashed on the screen momentarily.

This game is not only addicting but educational as well. Most students and teachers on campus are challenging each other with questions all through the day.

While I’m sure at some point this game will fade out like all other iPhone trends, but as of now, the widespread rush of trivia knowledge is ever so present.

Photo Credit to: http://www.whatishub.com

 

Puppeteer

raining17

My right hand raises, slowly, until it is pointed directly at the sun, extended toward the heavens and the stars above.

My left is drawn across my face, deliberately blocking my view of the earth surrounding me. Silhouettes dancing over vast, open plains are shut out, blocked from sight, from sound.

Slowly my feet move forward, step by step, moving toward an unknown location. I have lost all physical senses – I cannot tell where I am.

Controlled by a puppeteer, I have no power over my movements. There are strings attached to my every joint so that each microscopic movement is mastered. Over time, every motion becomes second nature, and the puppeteer has succeeded.

The conductor of conscience, and courier of communication, the puppeteer invests hours of time, meticulously perfecting its puppet. The strings bind them together, and until they are cut, the puppet moves as it is controlled – each and every motion, forever and ever.

Photo Credit: 2.bp.blogspot.com

A Night to Remember

kennyroo

Tall, talented, and terribly handsome G-Eazy is hands down one of my favorite artists.

This man is a lyricist like no other.

He reigns from Oakland, California, which is only a mere 7 hours northeast of Ventura County.

He has come to Southern California to perform for the past few years, but the timing has never worked in my favor – until this year.

The arrival of the concert could not have come sooner, because the anticipation was killing me.

It was the last night of the “From the Bay to the Universe” tour, and it was going to go out with a bang.

After waiting in line we finally got to enter the venue. With friends in tow I walk all the way to the pit of the concert hall to prepare for the night of my life.

A DJ appears who plays a potpourri of electric music and classic rap remix’s to get the crowd excited for the opener.

Two hours after we entered and watched three different opening acts, the curtains finally close so they can get the stage ready for G-Eazy.

The whole theater starts chanting his name in bubbling excitement, and then we begin hear a countdown from 60 seconds.

Three, Two, One…

The curtains open and the night has officially begun.

The set list he created was unreal, and every single person was dancing more than they ever had in their entire life.

I wish I could go back and rewind time so I could experience the immense fun I had last night at the show all over again.

I have been to many concerts, but this was like nothing else.

As the last song of his encore ended, confetti and smoke rained down on the sold out crowd.

Walking out of there with a smile, last night will go down in history.
http://pushtotalkteens.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/gggeazy-2.jpg?w=644&h=368

If I was President

kennyroo
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Photo Credit to: http://uanews.org/

The world would be a better place if I were President.

I’m well aware I’d be a little bit over my head with some topics, but let me tell you what I would change right off the bat.

Let’s talk foreign affairs. Let’s talk Women’s rights.

How about we make sure that fewer kids go to bed hungry every night, in our own country.

When you’re on a plane, an educational video comes on the screen before you take off.

The video tells the passenger to put on their own oxygen mask before helping their child – or anyone else, if the plane was to go down.

The same standard should be held to certain aspects of foreign affairs.

Women’s rights? Where do I begin? There needs to be more women elected into higher positions so we have both genders represented on Capital Hill.

If I was President, I would make sure I practice what I preach.

So, watch out election of 2033, because I have some big plans.

News or Not?

raining17Leave a comment
Photo Credit: http://www.boonepickens.com

I often find myself on Yahoo! News, whether it’s to find information for a news quiz, or just to laugh at the ridiculous articles I find. What I see on there really makes me question the relevancy of the website.

Although there are current pending issues like Ebola, and controversies like the Ferguson case, Yahoo! News still chooses to broadcast articles like, “Ohio family recovers missing Sasquatch statue” or “In Wisconsin, Black Friday shoppers come for beer.” Although that Sasquatch statue may be very near and dear to the Spence family, I am unclear as to how this makes national news.

On the other hand, Black Friday is an event created specifically for shopping deals, so why shouldn’t people of Milwaukee, Wisconsin get their beer? People spend hours in line for a toaster, or the newest shoes, so why not stand in line for something that at least holds a food value?

However, I don’t see why this makes national news either. Why is 800 people waiting outside their local brewery a bigger deal than thousands of people waiting outside their nearest Apple store for the newest iPhone? And why is a town and their beer relevant to the rest of the world?

Lastly, however concerning “Austria fire explodes in wood stove”  might be to the people whose stove exploded, and maybe the manufacturers, this issue doesn’t seem more, or even equally as important as Ebola.

Granted, Yahoo! News keeps producing interesting articles, but I feel like they might be grasping at straws here.

Food for Thought

raining171 Comment

All those controversies about what’s in your McDonald’s Big Mac or chicken nuggets are disturbing, sure, but it’s just as disturbing to have other’s unwanted opinions shoved in your face.

Super Size Me, for example, is a grotesque documentary following a man while he eats nothing but McDonald’s for a month. This proves a significant point, and is absolutely worth paying attention to.

However, for people who can’t afford healthier food than McDonald’s, hearing the fatal effect of their only food source is beyond depressing.

Wealthier members of society are parading around, throwing around argument after argument about how harmful McDonald’s is, yet providing no solution for those who have no choice but to consume it.

I agree that McDonald’s is unhealthy, and shouldn’t be eaten, if given other options. However, for those who have no other choice, I think that it is wrong to tell them what they’re doing wrong and provide no help. That is just as unhealthy.

Photo Credit: pbs.twimg.com

 

I Have No Idea What I’m Doing

indigoshell

This is my fourth year at Ojai Valley School, and I’ve taken an art class every year here. My freshman year I took Photography, and my sophomore and junior years I took Ceramics and Ceramics II. My senior year, this year, I recall signing up for a drawing class.

Never would I imagine that I would be put into AP Studio Art.

Yes, I may have had three years of art, but none of those three art classes involved hand-drawing anything. Now, in AP Art, we have to produce 24 art pieces to be put into our portfolio, which is a staple if you want to get into art school.

Which is not where I want to go. But I took it as a challenge and went with it anyways.

12 of the pieces are our Concentration, which is “a body of related works that demonstrate sustained and thoughtful investigation of a specific visual idea.” Basically 12 pieces of art related to one topic, such as drawing a 12-piece short comic.

12 of the pieces are our Breadth, “a variety of works demonstrating a range of conceptual and/or technical approaches.”

There’s more than just drawing with pencil and paper. There’s black charcoal, white charcoal, oil painting, oil pastels, color pencils, watercolor painting, things like that, and our Breadth section is basically us showing off what we can do in as many different ways as we can. (My favorite so far is white charcoal on black paper.)

Apart from “art” classes in elementary school, I’ve never taken art before, so since the beginning of the year, every time I sat down in our art studio, my first thought was always “I have no idea what I am doing.” To be honest, I still don’t know what I’m doing.

But that’s alright, I guess. Most of us don’t know what we’re doing there anyways.

ASITs, Attention! ASITs, Begin! Junior Missing, Junior Missing!

indigoshell

The buddy system – it’s a common thing among younger children, for safety, you know, for safety. With 240 acres of land and forest and potentially dangerous animals at every corner, campers must walk in groups of two or more at all times. Even Seniors and ASITs have to do it. Counselors are the only ones that don’t need to follow the buddy system, though I think they’re the ones that have the most potential to get injured.

The buddy system is fairly complicated. The ground rule is that you must have a same-gender buddy at all times. You know, so nothing happens. Last year, my female friend and I would have a male friend with us, and that was allowed. This year though, it wasn’t allowed, so the only way we could hang out with our guy friend was if he had another male buddy. It wasn’t a huge deal, really. The only complaints we had were “freedom” complaints, but most of us were too tired to really care.

When Juniors have their Free Time, us ASITs have to sit in an area and make sure that they have their buddies, water bottles, and name tags. We also have to make sure that all the animals aren’t too perturbed (a favorite word of one of my counselors) to be handled, nobody leaves their buddies to go to a different Animal Area, they take with them everything that they brought into the room, and above all that, we have to make sure that everyone’s handling their animal correctly.

My (specialty) favourite room is the Reptile Room, and let me tell you, having 10 juniors with 10 different snakes and lizards out can be a little stressful. Not only do we have to make sure that snakes and lizards are on opposite sides of the room, our Kingsnakes have to be five feet away from any other snakes, we have to make sure none of them touches the ground, snakes aren’t allowed around necks or shoulders, and we have to watch each animal for irritation.

For different Animal Areas, different rules apply, and different amounts of stress follows each area. But the same idea remains: keep the animals safe, keep the Juniors safe, and hope that the Seniors are smart and listen to their Counselors – because Counselors are the ones that work during Senior Free Time.

Beyond Earth Part One

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photo credit to http://www.deviantart.net

Intro:

The year is 2044, the population is over 20 billion, but the world is at peace. All the worlds problems like hunger, disease, and pollution have been solved. It’s a perfect utopia. All the mysteries of the world have been solved – there’s nothing left to discover except what lies beyond Earth. A space program called SEA was created to look beyond. SEA stands for Space Exploration Association. SEA is highly selective, there’s only 100 pilots. Being a SEA pilot is the new celebrity. They’re all over the news and the face of SEA is Zach – a new pilot only 25 years old.

“I am honored to be a SEA pilot. It’s the greatest job in the world. I can’t picture myself in any other job. In a world where everything is known, most fear what lies beyond, but I grow excited. I was born to do this.” says Zach.

“Okay thank you for coming to talk on are show, that’s all for tonight folks.” says the TV host.

It is weird I haven’t even been inside the office building. I passed the test and got the job and already I’m a celebrity. “We are here sir,” says the driver. I get out of the car to look up at a large skyscraper. It’s strange it took them a whole three days to build. Normally it would just take one or two. I get in and a lady from the front desk gives me an ear piece. She then says “It’s also your ID badge and access pass. As you can see, security is pretty low. It is because without your earpiece, you can’t go anywhere besides the lobby,” She pauses slightly “Oh almost forgot your office is in B30” she smiled then walked back to her desk. I went to the elevator and it asked what floor I wanted. I said “B30” then the elevator responded “going down to B30” I found it strange that I was 30 levels underground when it is 350 floors tall.

When I walked in, it was really different from the rest of the building. High security, entirely cement, but very open, and the furniture was very basic. I assumed that it was so you can’t hide bugs or steal information. I walk up to the group of 24 pilots that are all sitting around a conference table, and at the head was a very intelligent and powerful looking man. The man said: “Okay lets begin. None of you will know me because I don’t exist. But for simplicity you can call me X.” At this point I began to sense something much bigger was going on. X continued: “Unlike the other 75 pilots this group has been selected to work on the more delicate matter. This means that every thing in this room can never leave this room. There is a major problem and our head scientist, Z, will tell you what is going on.” Z then said: “Okay so there’s a problem and we have 5 years to fix it. Your job as pilots is to fly to other galaxies and collect data. The problem is that the moon has been rotating around the earth at an inconsistent speed decreasing by 15% on random date. There are no coincidences from when it happens. But if we can’t fix the problem in five years, the earth will be covered in half ice and the other half fire. Your mission is to find a moon with non-livable and livable planets and collect the data so we can try to find a solution, or at least find out why.” X then said: “Okay go to floor 350 and get ready to take off. Each of you will have a partner which you will be assigned once you get up there.” This will be the first time in human history that they leave the galaxy. But the people wont know because of the secrecy of the mission.