nombres

For some reason, I like to make friends with people that have uncommon names.  Sayeh, Mira, Ines, Raquel, Hana.  It’s not like skylar is too popular either.  I believe people grow into their unusual names and become interesting people.  There are fabulous stories behind the name, an added emotion.  Extra oomph that “Jack and Jill” certainly don’t have.

 So then why does my friend Sayeh use the name Sarah when ordering smoothies?? “It just makes everything easier…” She claims.  Why does Hana use the name Hannah when ordering frozen yogurt?  ”God skylar it’s just so annoying correcting people.”  Why now are we in some sudden quest for simplicity?

Embrace your names!! Its in an extra spice in the melting pot of one’s life.  Why would you want to be plain toast when you could be spicy indian, persian, or Spanish?

Previously written on a piece of paper…

I wrote this entry on *gasp* a piece of paper.  

Sitting on the train I feel ridiculous writing with a paper and a pen.  Everything is digital, electronic, requires batty power.  I can’t begin to explain the mess of chords in my desk drawer.   Who reads the actual paper?  Magazines are so 1990s.  People are giving me looks as I scribble on a piece of actually paper.  Not even a pad of paper, a piece of paper torn from a book.  My handwriting is terrible- probably because I haven’t had to turn in a handwritten assignment since 6^th grade.  The pen industry must be dead.  Why do people take notes on paper in meeting still when its all typed up anyways?  Anything that is important you can find in a typed document, on the internet.  Why buy a people magazine when I could go on people.com.   Are companies like Comcast thriving in the recession?  Because people are sitting at home without work, and the two easiest things to turn to when you are depressed without work?  The tv and computer.

naked without a phone

I love my phone. I bring it everywhere, I use it all the time.  Bored in class, text my best friend.  Kill time at a tournament, an addicting game is a touch screen finger flip away.  But it’s become an addiction.  For me, and along with every other teenager.  

We are glued to our phones.  When we hang out, we are texting different people.  In movies, we check email and play games.  My fingers itch to check facebook when I eat dinner with friends. Everything is too accessible There is no more focus.

On the train, the people surrounding me are in pairs; yet are all listening to their own ipods and texting other people.  Can’t we just enjoy the company of others ro do we have to multi-social-task.  Not too friendly.

smart>pretty or pretty>smart?

Everyone wants to be friends with the popular kids.  Everyone wants to be liked.  And go to crazy lengthes to be known as “hot shit.”

When gossiping with my water polo teamates- we tried to define popular.   “uhm well she like kinda popular- hot, slutty, pretty stupid.”. The popular girls are the ones the boys like.  Guys don’t like to be threatened.   Easy way to avoid looking stupid? Choose the hot dumb girl.  So why do the non populars spend hours seething of jealousy of the popular clan?
Once you graduate, smart > pretty. The smart ones are the ones that get far in life.  Well, the smart ones with people skills.  But with such a media, mobile, and computer based economy- you don’t even need the social skills.  Asside from the 0.00001% chance of becoming a socialite or actress, if you are the dumb cheerleader in high school, you are going nowhere in life.

The smart ones build a career and prosper.  Then everyone wants to know them because they are Rich.  Why is bill gates grouped with vapid celebrities, and not the other way around?

tv=computer?

My friend has a bedroom and an office/hangout room.  In both rooms she has a large flat screen TV.  My friends and I used to be so jealous of her easy access to TV, but then realized that we have just as simple accessibility.  Instead of a remote click away, we are a computer click away.  

If one looks close enough, they could find every single TV show or movie on the internet.  The result of this, teenagers everywhere procrastinate by watching tv shows.  Parents think it is so inappropriate for kids to have TVs in your room, yet they have more TV available to them on the internet than on an actual television.  We need computers, but with them, are we ever going to fulfill our potential as students, or as people?

College, the newest pair of Seven Jeans

Stanford, Princeton, Brown, Harvard, Columbia, UCLA, Yale.  Everybody wants to make other people jealous.  Everybody wants to brag about their ivy league or internationally acclaimed school.  Every single high schooler in Palo Alto wants these bragging rights.  The first words out of your mouth when you meet someone who looks younger than 25, “Where do you go to school?”  Just like a pair of designer jeans, where you go to school is part of your outer appearance.  It is what people judge you by. She goes to Harvard?  Woah, that’s cool, she must be an awesome person.  She goes to UCSB?  Oh…   We are so judgemental.  The result?

My best friend is in Argentina working in a poor village for 3 weeks this summer.  Does she want to? No.  Her mom is making her do it for her college resume.  

 Freshmen in high school going to college counselors and SAT tutors, getting involved with ridiculous extracurriculars, spending the summer in a classroom rather than a bikini.  Pressure is on.  What is the new standard for college admissions?

Stressed

D: “Mom what if I dont go to a good college ?”

M: “Honey there are so many good colleges out there. Don’t worry!”

D: “But i want to go to a famous college so i can brag about it to my friends when i’m older…”

Every single teenager in a highly populated, metropolitan area feels pressure. And I’m almost positive that every single one of them thinks about college from the first day of freshman year. Pressure and stress consume us. Do we play sports and get involved in extracurriculars and charities because we love it?  Or because we know that it will help us get into college.  Everyone is trying to find a balance between passion and pressure to succeed.  We are competing against our classmates, our teammates, our best friends.

Book? that’s so 5 years ago

Last night i was flipping through people magazine.  I usually skip over the section on books, but was killing time while babysitting so read through the section on “unique books” according to celebs.  The definition of a unique book according to Martha Stewart?  The book isn’t on kindle, she actually had to go and buy the book in a bookstore.  Technology may add new business opportunities and industries,yet wipes out so many others, like bookstores.  

Will anyone read actual books in 5 years?  Write by hand?  Will this effect how kids grow up?

NYC Prep

go to a good college, marry rich, party hard, high social status in high school….all necessary

NYC Prep.  Do people really live this way?  This is supposed to be “real life.”  Is it expected of teens to act this way?  Is it “cool” to be self centered, underage drink, and obsess over little things, thinking that the world depends on it. 

The one common theme in real teenage life and nyc prep?  pressure.  In everything

Secondly, the show is almost like a giant commercial for shopping and being frivalous.  Most of the united states cannot live the way the teenagers on the show do, or at least how their lives are portrayed on the show.  Yet the media and tv portray this as the cool thing to do.  Kelly from NYC Prep may be able to buy a 200 dollar top habitually and hire a personal stylist, but not the majority of insecure American teenage girls.  It was one thing portraying this lifestyle on fiction shows, such as Gossip Girl, but now “reality tv”?  Really?  Our financial crisis is based a lot on the US enormous debts, credit, and excessive spending.  Could our financial crisis be influenced by shows like this?

Death?

So many deaths.  The media is full of tributes, sadness, and shock.  That’s the only thing that we see, hear, and talk about.  All deaths having to do with the entertainment industry.  Coincident?  I think.  

Where we this obsessed with celebrities and the entertainment industry before the tech and social networking boom?  Is it expected for everyone to fall into this death saga?

Is celebrity obsession causing us to lose sight of real problems?  Isn’t there still war in Iran?  Aren’t we still in the middle of an economic crisis? Yes.  

Are we turning into shallow, obsessed people?