Graph's Crap.

Let my people press Start!

2012-01-30T20:21:00.000-08:00

My New Year’s resolution this year is to play more video games.

Scoff if you like, but I’m dead serious.

Now, I’m not an IB-saddled masochist or anything, but I don’t think I’m a burnout. I have four solids, three of which are honors or AP. I’m planning to do the same thing as a senior, too.

So why not resolve to do something less self-destructive? Why not, say, pledge to get a 4.0 GPA, or liberate a small despotically-run island nation, or some other pleasant hypothetical?

Because – get ready, this might just blow your mind – I like video games.

I love the feeling of booting up a game for the first time, controller perched in my lap, and watching the title screen load with childish anticipation. I love the music, the visuals, the characters, the plots. I love the searing rage at losing a boss battle over and over, and, in turn, the religious ecstasy of finally beating them.

Video games, to me, are not a guilty pleasure. They are not a timekiller, or an addiction, or a waste. They are something I do when I find the time, and they make me happy. Nothing more, nothing less.

So why isn’t gaming thought of in the same light as a more legitimate, “normal” hobby?

I’ll answer that with a teensy history lesson. In the mid-90’s, when 64-bit consoles were the must-have Christmas gift and Pokemon Red and Blue commercials were airing on TV – that is, when most kids were at least acquainted with video games, if not yet addicted – there was a societal pushback against them. As a kid, you were told that they’d “rot your brain,” right?

I know my own parents bought it. They lived in fear of their child becoming a degenerate freak who stayed indoors all day, playing for hours and scorning the outside world.

So they did the only sensible thing, and tried to shield innocent little me from the wretched world of gaming. (And you can guess how that worked out.)

But something funny happened, something that rings true for nearly every major technological development in modern history, from the steam engine to the TV: People got used to them.

The gamer I just described, once deemed a hopeless sociopath, would now be considered merely a member of a now proud subculture of nerds.

So then I ask you, why stop there? Why are gamers content with being an internet-propagated subspecies, rather than just normal people with a normal hobby? What makes them so special – or so unworthy – as to be denied a place in the (real) world?

Let me put this another way. What is there to distinguish gaming from, let’s say, fishing? Fishing isn’t exactly aerobic, but it’s still unquestionably a sport. It requires skill, luck, and special equipment, and it’s a way for people to bond in a fun, controlled environment.

You wouldn’t mock someone for saying that they wished they had more time for fishing, or that they really looked forward to fishing trips. You wouldn’t assume that someone who fishes is unhealthily obsessed with their hobby, or that fishing has somehow impaired their ability to be a thoughtful, considerate, productive member of society.

So what makes gamers any different? Nothing, really – aside from the restrictions and outdated social morays we, the gamers, force on ourselves.

Speaking to my fellow geeks now, it’s time for us to stop acting like we’re this underground society nobody has heard of. Gaming has lost its exclusivity, and whether you mourn that loss or not, we need you to stop venting your pent-up prejudices into your headset.

How can we ever hope to be taken seriously if all we ever do is troll and mock each other? How can we complain about the lack of women in gaming if we objectify and demean them at every turn? How can we claim to be enlightened, sympathetic outcasts if we are hostile to every new player we meet?

Gaming is a massive industry now, and franchises like Madden, Halo and Call of Duty have proven that, time and time again. Maybe bringing ourselves into the mainstream will destroy the nerdish camaraderie we once had, but if we don’t clean up our act, developers will do it for us, and we’ll like that even less.

Besides, I’m not saying we need to completely censor ourselves, but come on, we’ve gotten away with using slurs so offensive they get bleeped on HBO – and sometimes we use them as terms of affection. We don’t need to be Puritans, but we can’t keep the racist-sexist garbage up.

It’s not the 90’s anymore, and the worst stereotypes about gamers are, by and large, outdated and irrelevant. All we have to do is try not to live up to them, and we will be not-so-lovable outcasts no longer.

Come on, wouldn’t you rather live in a world where I can proudly say that this year, I want to make more time in my life for video games? Because when I say that, I mean I want to do something I really enjoy, without being ridiculed or scorned for it.

It’s optimistic, I know, but I think that sentiment is just universal enough to change people’s minds about us, the button-mashing masses.

RIP Jeff Fehr.

2012-01-02T00:33:00.000-08:00

I know nobody reads this, so that's why I'm going to tell a little story. Just to get it on paper somewhere. I'll probably delete it later but whatever.

When I was a freshman, I wrote a Gazette article about Formspring and its uses/abuses. It was pretty dull stuff, truth be told. But somehow, while I was fiddling with my own Formspring account, I stumbled upon Jeff's.

I don't remember any specifics, but the hate and anger thrown at this kid, holy shit.

He was one of the very few people I'd ever met to come out as gay while still in high school. I'd always looked up to him for that - like maybe, just maybe, if he could do it and still have everything a "normal" kid could, there was hope for me. He was gay, but he had friends, and he seemed happy. As a freshman, a sick-in-the-head why-the-fuck-do-I-like-women-just-as-much-there-must-be-something-horribly-wrong-with-me freshman, that concept blew me away. He contradicted everything I had ever thought about life as a young gay person in Granite Bay, simply by the fact that he had a life. I probably never spoke more than ten words to the guy, but I swear to God, I really admired him.

He was kind to me, too - an oddity in itself. He would buy lollipops from me during first period, often treating his friends. I remember how seriously they took their little ritual. Ranking the flavors and whatnot.

But more to the point, his Formspring archive remains etched in my mind for a reason. I'd always felt very uncomfortable here, with my bisexuality, and all those knowing glances, but I thank God I never had to deal with what he did. It was unrelenting. Often obscene. Always anonymous.

But he replied to them without animosity. That was the really incredible part.

I sent him a message on Formspring, too. Anonymously, of course. I don't recall what I said, but something to the effect of what I mentioned before to you: That I envied and admired him, and his courage to live as I could not.

I don't know how Jeff died and I don't care to. I have no idea if his sexuality figured into his decision or not. And I say all of this from the perspective of an outside observer - I wasn't his friend, or even an acquaintance, nor do I pretend to be.

My sympathies lie not with Jeff himself, but with his family and friends, and I cannot emphasize that enough. As with any death, they are the ones truly suffering, not him.

I merely hope that if we can possibly take any good out of this tragic loss, it is the fragility of life, and of the lives around us. I pray that none of you reading this would ever force such sad, selfish heartbreak on your own loved ones.

To the terminally trendy: Stop trying.

2011-10-07T20:25:00.000-07:00

I don’t much care for “Pumped Up Kicks,” Urban Outfitters and TOMS. I’m generally not a fan of falsettos, synths not used in the 80’s or ironic facial hair on scrawny adolescents. And I just don’t see the point of any glasses you can see without.

I think you know what kind of people I’m getting at. The h-word. Once merely urban fauna, they’re now a commonplace sight in good ol’ Suburbia. I would never have predicted their weedlike success.

Now, before I even start, I want to make it clear I don’t mean to imply that people who dress and live this way are inherently bad.

So what if they don’t share my taste? I’m the first to admit that I listen to terrible, terrible music. I’m not well-read, and I barely watch new movies. And as for our clashing preferences in clothing, fashion tends to be more subjective than a PSAT test.

So I don’t mind that we disagree on things. What bands you like and what clothing you wear have no effect on whether or not you’re a jerk.

Or, well, see, that’s exactly the problem. They think those things actually matter.

People of this exceedingly trendy persuasion spend eternities trying to look like they don’t care about anything except designer coffee and the raw depth of ___’s lyrics.

They spend hundreds on clothes that are designed to look used. They follow all the right blogs, listen to all the right NPR clips, and watch all the right shows.

And – if I may generalize for just a moment – they look down on people that don’t, thus propagating their v-neck-sporting, bespectacled species through shame. What they do, they do for approval.

These people don’t make me angry. True, some of their fashion choices irk me, and I cannot stand much of their music, but that’s not enough for me to truly loathe them.

No, what bothers me so much is how hard they try to be something which requires no effort: original. They are everything that’s popular, because they are everything that isn’t.

But they kid themselves, like so many cliques and fads before them, that they are in some way better than ‘conformists.’ That somehow the designer commemorative charity t-shirt they sport makes them more unique than someone who wears nothing but American Eagle.

They are hypocrites. They do everything they can to project a certain image – an image which just happens to contrast with the blander-than-motza idea of ‘normal.’

But I pity these floral-draped creatures, I really do. Don’t they realize that originality isn’t something that must be earned or purchased?

To the lace-and-jegging-clad masses: If you really want to look thrown together, go on a thrift store adventure! Listen to what you like! Watch what you like! Do what you like! And do it because you want to.

It’s a free country, so why let someone in an acid-washed tee and intentionally messy hair boss you around? They’re just missing the point of it all.

Three chords and a new you.

2011-09-12T14:27:00.000-07:00

Most people at Granite Bay High School don’t know where I go on weekends.

Now, granted, I’d be pretty worried if they did – I don’t know most people at GBHS – but when I’m asked, I usually reply cavalierly, with eyes misted over, “Oh, I’m just going to a concert somewhere.”

Then, come Monday, I’ll show up at school, clothes held together with canvas patches, jacket bespeckled with buttons, and headphones permanently attached to my skull.

Where do I escape to, you may wonder? Am I some pretentious hipster who just wears super-obscure band shirts all the time in a vain attempt to flaunt my good taste, or is there something more?

I’ve got to be honest, GBHS – I’ve been leading a double life.

By day, I am the shoddy columnist and reluctant AP kid you’ve come to know. But by night, I spirit myself away to midtown Sacramento, and there, in a club, bar or basement, I am truly free of responsibility.

There is something about punk shows that never ceases to thrill me. Certainly, the music draws me there – the energetic screech of guitar, the heartbeat-esque throb of the drums, the spectacle of the singer running about on (or off!) stage.

And of course, there’s all the sensory details any English teacher could ask for. The scent cocktail of cigarette smoke and sweat. The adrenaline rush of being shoved around in a mosh pit. The wonderful feeling of peeling off your jeans after a long, humid night of dancing.

But it’s more than the sum of its parts. When you’re at a show, you lose your sense of identity. Gone is your social standing, your job, your age, the things that establish your place in the world. You are just a person, equal to everyone around you.

And that utter lack of hierarchy extends beyond the mosh pit, as well. I’ve met quite a few punk musicians over the last year or so, ranging from hyper-obscure local bands to enduring pioneers of the genre, and, if I may generalize, they don’t have an ounce of the typical rockstar snobbery in them. They’re sweet, friendly, fascinating people, just happy to be performing. Some local bandmates have even become personal friends of mine.

I know punk rockers aren’t thought of as having the sunniest dispositions, but I’ve lucked out. Since I started making my weekly midtown pilgrimages, I’ve gained a whole new family of misfits, geeks and ne’er-do-wells. Some of us don’t have much in common besides a shared taste in music, but ultimately, that’s all we need; when I walk into a punk club, I feel like I’ve reached Valhalla. I feel like I’ve come home.

As scornful as it sounds, part of what I love about the punk scene is the fact that it’s still fairly underground. Shows are organized on Facebook, and certain venues won’t even list their addresses – you just have to know, or ask someone who does.

Aside from being a more practical way of getting the word out about shows, the thin veil of secrecy helps keep the punk community intimate and connected, like its own little tide pool of weirdness. Seeing a band at Arco Arena isn’t anything like seeing them in a basement on half-broken equipment with a few of your closest friends.

So I’m often hesitant to give out the addresses of my favorite nooks and venues – not because I mean to be exclusive, but out of fear of losing that intimacy, and the duality of my school life and this beautiful underworld.

It’s not often in life that we’re given a chance to reinvent ourselves, to meet new people without our past or our reputation haunting us. But that’s probably the most valuable thing my punk family has given me: a fresh slate.

They don’t know me as the kid I was in freshman year, or 6th grade, or kindergarten, like some GBHS students do. They know me as who I am now, in the moment – and that, as much as punk music and its devil-may-care attitude – is a fantastically freeing sentiment.

I can be whoever I want. But when Monday comes, I’ll still be me.

I love how waterproof eye makeup is always marketed as though you're supposed to go swimming in it. We all know that's bullshit.

2011-07-15T23:05:00.000-07:00

For one, you cannot get in a pool and expect your makeup to stay on, even a little bit. If you swim with waterproof eyeliner on, you will get out looking like a hayfever-stricken Marilyn Manson.

I digress; women buy waterproof makeup because we can cry in it and not utterly fuck up our faces. Don’t think you’re kidding anyone. You’re just smart enough to plan ahead.

I feel like makeup companies aren’t oblivious to this, but they act like it. Just once, I want to see, like, Maybelline start marketing a line of waterproof cosmetics for women with psychological issues like myself.

Introducing Crazy Hormonal Bitch mascara! It lengthens! It straightens! It doesn’t clump or rub off! And most of all, when you have a panic attack in the mall bathroom because your ex-boyfriend called and reminded you that you’re a worthless leech of a person, it won’t turn into a torrential downpour of black, nasty crap when you invariably bawl your lovingly made-up eyes out!

Crazy Hormonal Bitch cosmetics - you may be in a dark place right now, but your eyes don’t have to be!

Oh, come on. I’d buy it!

And for the record - Maybelline’s “Unstoppable” eyeliner is my weapon of choice.

I want to burn Daniel Tosh's closet.

2011-07-13T12:29:00.000-07:00

I’ve been meaning to do a fashion rant for well over a year now, so I may as well get to it. I know this is on a Tumblr, so you probably weren’t expecting anything intelligent anyway, but just in case you thought maybe this piece would have just a smidgeon of intellectual substance to it, sorry to disappoint. To make up for it, I’ll do my next rant on Libya or calculus or nihilism.

But now I won’t waste any more of your time.

V-necks.

V-necks are the greatest offender on this list. Specifically, the abuse of deep V-necks by men.

Now, one of my best friends wears a V-neck shirt on an almost daily basis. And never once have I mentally cringed. My eyes don’t sting a little bit when they catch a glimpse. Why?

She is a well-endowed female. She has cleavage and chooses to show it. This has been a valid fashion decision since the Renaissance, and will continue to be one until time immemorial.

But, see, men do not have tits, I’m sorry to say. And there is nothing enjoyable about being forced to view a little triangular cut-out of your man-cleavage. You’re not being sexy or cute. You’re reminding me you have chest hair greasier and darker than Charlie Sheen’s manic-depression.

And the deeper the V, the more I despise the man wearing it. If it only shows, say, the first inch of your collarbone, I can deal. But I’ve seen male necklines plunging deeper than the Tower of Terror, and they instantly make you look like a serial killer.

Almost as horrible are “muscle” tank tops – you know the ones, with the ludicrously huge armholes that stretch halfway down the wearer’s waist?

You look like a toddler if you’re wearing one of these, mostly because they only seem to be made in bright, juvenile colors.

But worse, so many millions of times worse, is how frequently these shirts result in male nip-slips. I don’t care how skinny or ripped or attractive you think are – I do not under any circumstances wish to see your fun dots, any more than you want to see mine.

Please, please understand that when you’re picking your outfits, or I swear to god, I will make you wear a bra.

But, girls, you aren’t off the hook here. Far from it.

Three or four years ago, I was in Pac-Sun and trying on anything and everything black. (I was overweight, and Pac-Sun was one of the few cool stores in Roseville that carried anything in an XL.) I found something strange, that looked like a tank top and cut-off sweatpants, sewn together. I tried to figure out how to get into the weird, jumpsuit-esque thing, but realized soon after that it was the most hideous article of clothing I had ever seen.

This summer, those horrible things caught on. Ladies and gentlemen, the jumper short. It’s an unflattering blouse and nasty silky whore shorts – in one!

These things are truly an abomination. Ignoring the fact that jumpsuit-ish articles of clothing should only be worn by skydivers, jumper shorts have a habit of taking otherwise fit, attractive young women and making them look like potato sacks.

I want to meet whoever designed these Frankensteinian creations. I’d love to meet the guy/girl who thought, “Hey, I’m going to make something that’ll accentuate nothing but the crack of your ass and drown the whole front half of your body in fabric! That’ll sell!”

And the sad thing is, they do. Please, women, stop this madness. You don’t have to look terrible just because it’s in fashion – and, come on, there isn’t a human being on the planet that can make these floral shapeless blobs of material look good. Nobody will shed a tear for a warehouse full of unbought Forever 21 jumper-freaking-shorts. So knock it off.

I’m finding that’s what bothers me most about summer fashion this year – it’s not slutty, it just isn’t flattering at all.

A friend and I had this discussion with my mom during a commercial for Old Navy sundresses:

Me: Ugh, these all look awful!
Nikki: Yeah, they make the models just look shapeless.
Mom: So? They’re sundresses!
Nikki: That doesn’t give them the right to look terrible!

We can do better than this, women. Please understand that light, flowy, floofy things make you look like a pregnant Biggest Loser contestant, no matter how anorexically skinny you are under them.

So, then, what do I think you should wear?

Anything! Nothing! Women overthink things so often. Shorts (with actual legs, not those stupid diaper-like Daisy Dukes). T-shirt or fitted tank-top. Interestingly-colored sneakers. Done.

Men, same goes for you – simplicity is a virtue, and revealing clothes reek of douche. Button-down shirt (either actually buttoned or with something under it). Band/video game/random t-shirt. Shorts (they’re ugly, but I understand, you get hot too) or jeans. Socks short enough that I can’t see them poking up from your shoes. Sneakers. Not too hard, right?

Stay beautiful, Internet. If my eyes haven’t bled out by the time the fall/winter trends become self-evident, I’m sure I’ll do this again.

This rant is a lie.

2011-04-01T21:33:00.000-07:00

The baked good is a beautiful thing.

Aside from being the most delicious sub-genre of dessert ever devised by man, they are commodities, a sort of karmic currency, to be baked and bought whenever one needs an extra dose of sugary deliciousness in their day.

But there’s this cake fad that’s starting to bug me. I’m not sure how it came about, or really, why cake has suddenly started to irk me, but perhaps you’ve started noticing them, too.

Whenever an even mildly popular girl celebrates a birthday, she’ll be promptly given an obnoxiously large cake, still in the pan, clearly thrown together by her friends in a last-minute yet somehow omnipresent birthday gift.

Birthday Girl and her friends will parade this gloriously ugly, gruesomely well-frosted abomination of a cake around all day long, laughing and picking at it with plastic forks from the cafeteria.

I envy this girl and her cake. I envy how obviously homemade it is, and how the 12 pounds of sprinkles dumped on top of it make it look like a tray of unicorn vomit.

I envy the fact that this cake will invariably be carted around through all of Birthday Girl’s classes, and though she’ll never show much interest in actually eating more than a forkful of it, I will never, ever be able to bum a piece.

Maybe I’m just bitter. I’ve been cursed with a summer birthday, which means that if I get a cake, I’ll have to eat it indoors sitting down, like a civilized human being.

I’ll never get to eat a crumbly, icing-inundated half-stale hunk of cake-like substance in alternately freezing and scorching Granite Bay weather, huddled around the cake pan with a few of my friends.

And I guess it’s that classic experience I regret not having, mediocre as it may be.

Maybe it’s the proliferation of the cakes that bugs me so. I mean, there really can’t be a birthday in all of my classes every day, can there?

The pastry pandemic has gotten so uncontrollable that there is actually a table in the girls’ locker room specifically reserved for cakes, cookies and the like. Even then, the plates are fighting for space.

I’m sure part of the recent cake influx is due to Sadies. What better way to ask out your man than with a big heaping dish of fatty, chocolatey awesome? I know I wouldn’t say “no”.

But even so, the cakes are everywhere. Are these girls just searching for excuses to bake things now, and parade them around the school, making everybody wish that they, too, had cake?

Could there be a cake conspiracy? Is it an endless chain of pining for cake and then flaunting it?

Maybe what I’m hoping for is office-style cake socialism – that is, everyone gets pastries whenever anyone brings any.

But this is America, and I suppose we all have the right to our own sweet, frosting-topped property. Just because I’m amiable to making truly irresponsible amounts of hideously delicious cookies and distributing them to my peers on the Gazette staff doesn’t mean I should expect the world to be so forthcoming.

Ultimately, though I may gripe out of jealousy as those girls tote their treats around campus, I hope that perhaps someday I, too, will get my very own fail cake, even if I have to make it myself.

After all, that’s kind of the beauty of the sloppily-made from-mix pastry – you don’t need any special occasion. You just need a few hours, an egg, and some cake-craving friends. It’s the memories of baking things that make them so sweet.

I'm sorry, and I'll keep this brief.

2011-03-29T16:56:00.000-07:00

If you find this trite, or too soon, or in bad taste, try to forgive me. I just needed to say a few things. I didn’t know Adam, and I’m not writing this for him, or for anyone specifically, though I give my most sincere condolences to his family and friends.

But it’s not often, in our sheltered Granite Bay world, that we’re given the opportunity to really reflect on the fragility of our own mortality, and I feel as though we owe it to ourselves to take it.

Personally, I don’t believe in much of an afterlife, and maybe that’s why I think so much about the butterfly effect. But no matter what you believe in, please, humor me and take a second to really think about everything. Think about people you love, the experiences you’ve had and have yet to have, and the truly remarkable ripple effect you, as a living, breathing human, have on others. Think about what you have to lose.

I’m not asking you this because I think anyone reading this has any intention of dying early. But you only get one life. Be careful with it. You affect more people than you could ever imagine, no matter how unimportant you presume yourself to be.

For once, Granite Bay kids, please, show some empathy and camaraderie to one another. Not just until the sting wears off, but forever.

You are significant.

Okay, that's all for my only serious post. If you want to go get cheered up, go look at something funny I've written. I just had to get this off my chest.

You bet your yoga pant-clad ass I feel the burn.

2011-01-18T16:23:00.000-08:00

In the sweat-miasma-covered, medically-clean holistic underworld that is my health club, survival is hard for the un-fittest.

I joined a gym with average enough intentions – that is, I wanted to walk out a week later looking like a non-pregnant Natalie Portman with the abs of a Greek god. That’s what everyone wants, right?

But now that I’ve actually started showing up on a regular basis, to the extent that the sandy-haired attendant with the healing lip ring nods approvingly at me as I check in, I’m quickly realizing just how much of a wimp I am.

I’m a gym n00b. And chances are, if you’ve ever uttered that word, you’re right there with me.

The cross-trainers and treadmills aren’t so hard to figure out, if you can manage to claim one. But it seems as soon as I set foot in the gym, a gargantuan flood of yoga-pant-clad 30-somethings is swarming towards the few working machines.

My strategy – I couldn’t make this up – is to run inside and cling to a cross-trainer, as if it were a safe zone in a demented game of tag.

Weights are where the real degradation kicks in. The fluid, eerily seamless movements of the ever-ripped regulars contrast pretty starkly with the oh-so-elegant clunk of my kindergartener-appropriate weights clashing back down when my flimsy carcass gives way.

That is, of course, providing I can actually figure out how to use a given weight-lifting machine.

Give me a smartphone fresh off the assembly line, and I can write you a user’s manual in ten minutes flat. But stick me in front of some Medieval-looking tangle of steel and padding with a few stacks of weights loosely strung on one end, and you may as well have asked Michael Bay to make a movie without explosions in it. They just don’t make sense.

What’s worse is that an acquaintance of mine frequents this very same gym, and suffice to say she’s ripped like the wrapping on a Katy Perry CD.

I live in fear of the day she pops up behind me and says that I’ve been doing everything wrong this whole time. I know I’m probably not using any of the equipment right, and have instead been flailing around like a drowning pill bug, but give me the right to believe I’m working out.

To my point, as treacherous as my pathetic quest for fitness may be, and as intimidating as all those gurus in skin-tight nylon seem, and as stupid as I look, humming along to my pop-punk workout playlist as I screw even the simplest of workouts up, it’s that unpleasantness that makes any success there all the more rewarding.

I mean, what kind of person would wake up from a super-mega-liposuction, look down at themselves, and think, “Wow, I’ve earned this – I feel great!”

A whole mess of celebrities, but that’s beside the point.

If you’re like me, slugging along on the ‘weakling’ setting on the Stair Stepper, know that while you may not look attractive or have a fraction of a clue as to what you’re doing, you are, at least, not alone.

Maybe in a couple months, I’ll get my own pair of yoga pants, and we’ll see who’s the n00b then.

We only read the A in 'AP'.

2010-12-10T21:45:00.000-08:00

It’s winter break, and I’m not happy.

Now, sure, the weather has been more depressing than Sarah McLachlan singing at a puppy’s funeral, and sure, the stack of new horror video games I’ve accumulated during Hanukkah has effectively stopped me from sleeping.

But I know what’s really wrong.

By the time you read this, I will have survived my first term of Advanced Placement European History. I’d complain if I were in the minority, but there’s no martyrdom in slogging through hours and hours of homework when more than 40 percent of the sophomore class is right there with me.

What’s the point of it all? To take – and pass – the AP exam, which roughly two-thirds of us will actually be successful in doing. Apart from a grade bump, which, for a sophomore, is really more of a consolation prize than anything, a year’s work rests on that one single test.

That means we – the students – are put in the decidedly awkward position of telling our teachers to hand out A’s like candy and just tell us how to pass the stupid test.

In a world perfectly suited to AP, we wouldn’t learn a thing. We’d just sit around memorizing our textbooks, listening to Motzart, and wearing earth-friendly cotton onesies as we calmly discuss the pros and cons of the capital gains tax.

Or something like that.

My point is that we’re being trained to take tests, not being taught. Forgive me for being so blunt, but isn’t that the whole point of being in an “Advanced Placement” class? Proof that we are smart enough to comprehend the larger, more complex ideas behind the trivia drilled into our heads?

And speaking of advanced students, is it really possible that nearly half of my class is gifted? Maybe it’s just me, but the mood in my AP class seems less optimistic than a Goth Democrat running for a public office in Placer County. I know we’re not doing that well.

I can’t help but fear that AP is slowly becoming the norm, as the GPA boost and college credit it provides are making it essentially a college – or perhaps, parental – requirement.

Such are the academic standards of our beloved Granite Bay. We are addicted to A’s. I no longer care what I learn – if, at the end of the day, I’m left with a 4.0, I’m happy. That’s not the way things should be, but that’s the way they are.

I’ll be honest, here: I don’t have any perfect, Disney-esque solutions to the problem of AP culture. But why is it on us, the students, to fix a broken system we were born into?

Like you, I’ll play the college game, whether I get a good education in the process or not. I wish there was something more inspiring I could write, but empathy is the best I can offer my academic comiserators.

Someday, we’ll go to college, and this will all be a funny memory.

(ran in December's Gazette)

I'm trying to find the words to describe this dude without being disrespectful.

2010-10-01T13:43:00.000-07:00

“Money.

Clothes.

Ho’s.”

So read the shirt of a kid in my math class, seemingly oblivious to the air of trashiness and sexist piggery it gave him. He disappeared during the period – cited for dress code, I pray – but the casual way his shirt had used that word stuck with me. And it made me mad.

Pop culture – and, by association, teen culture – has begun a downward slide into sexual inequality, a theme more infectious than an anthrax-covered Beatles album. It’s beyond shameful.

In our music, particularly the chart-toppers, that word which even now I loathe to reprint is thrown around like a term of endearment.

Our fashion has reached new lows (literal lows, though that’s a rant for another day).

Our movies and television shows objectify and demean women as much as they always have, and have you seen those cologne commercials? I haven’t seen that much beefcake against my will since I was dragged into seeing Eclipse.

Why, girls, do we let them get away with so much? Why was this boy allowed to mosey on into my math class, wearing a blatantly profane shirt, and not get so much as a finger wagged at him?
That was, to me, the most disturbing thing about this little T-shirt tragedy – no one cared.
The ideal of a strong woman lately has taken on this paradoxical, Beyonce-esque form, of a woman so confident and secure she needs to constantly be admired by lots and lots and lots of men.

Why does our society tell us we need to be the object of men to matter? There is no reason to subject yourself to hypersexualization; we should expect more from the boys who are our supposed equals – if not in the world at large, than at least in our school.

They have no right to use slurs as compliments, and if you’re treated like an object by a boy, please, for me, for all womankind, do not stand for it.

Boys, there is no excuse, no matter how innocently intentioned, to have such a filthy, despicable word printed on your shirt for the world to see.

And don’t you dare say I’m promoting censorship, because I’m not. I’m as big a fan of the F-bomb as the next stressed-out sophomore punk. But I don’t come to school with pants that have the F-word printed all over them. I could, but I don’t.

There’s this little thing called appropriateness we all need to re-learn. If you think women are nothing more than walking reproductive organs, that’s your opinion. Your opinion is stupid, but it’s your opinion, and I won’t say you can’t express yourself.

But I have a right to feel comfortable too, and if that means you can’t wear a shirt advertising that you approve of women being paid to be raped, then boo hoo. There is no shortage of T-shirts in the world.

Now, I think of myself as a feminist, but I’m not the kind of feminist that assumes all men are slime and that women should plot their enslavement so that they may build a glorious monument to womanhood – five-story tall gilded statues of Lady Gaga and Alanis Morisette.

That would be, um, ridiculous. Forget I said that.

My point, though, is that I think the majority of boys have genuinely good intentions when dealing with the opposite sex. Despite your Dirty Ghetto Kids clothing and your disgusting rap lyrics, you don’t actually want to abuse and subvert girls. It’s all for the image. I get that.

But supporting media that’s demeaning to women gives the impression that you’re demeaning to women, and I can tell you now, that won’t – or shouldn’t – make getting a prom date any easier.

Women, don’t let men walk all over you or treat you like pop culture claims they should. You are beautiful, all of you, and you deserve to be treated with kindness, love and respect. Anyone, male or female, who can’t live up to that, doesn’t deserve your time.

And men, there’s no need to enrage the women like me just for the sake of a sexist t-shirt. Why risk getting on a girl’s bad side? Avoid – or better yet, boycott – the aspects of our culture that insist women are tools, and encourage your friends to do the same.

We can only truly achieve social equality when everyone’s on board, and who will lament the loss of sexism – all sexism – in our culture?

Just the sexists.

(ran under a different title in October's Gazette)

My frosh children and I are drowning in embarrassment.

2010-08-23T12:29:00.000-07:00

Give up.

I’m not going swimming. I never will. I don’t have a skin condition, and never mind that my disturbingly processed hair will dye the pool purple. I just plain old hate to swim.
This summer I was hounded by my friends to get in the water, but preferred instead to bake on the pool deck like the pathetic hydrophobe I had slowly become. What spoiled swimming for me?
The two weeks of hell so casually referred to as the Physical Education swim unit.

I’ll be honest here, and any of my former P.E. teachers will be happy to confirm: I am not a fan of that sporty state-mandated time waster I must endure for two terms of high school. I think P.E. eats up school budgets, does nothing to limit teenage obesity, and degrades those whose only crime was being born to uncoordinated, physically awkward nerd parents. But Arnold says we have to, so we have to, and I’ve come to terms with that.

What I’m upset about is the swimming unit, which tacks on a whole new level of humiliation to an already unpleasant class.

First and foremost, the swim attire. The vast majority of my peers are more than comfortable trotting around in public in their water-friendly undies, more confident with their own bodies than a shirtless Taylor Lautner at an all-girls boarding school.
But I’m not. Sue me; I’m a very modest person with a smattering of body image issues. It was a living nightmare for me, walking around half-naked in front of my classmates.

Imagine how difficult that would be if I was, say, anorexic. Take a second to think about how scary that would be.

Of course, there’s the pool itself. The Gulf of Mexico is cleaner. And it’s colder than the subdued expression of a kid who’s just taken an AP test. It’s not luxury aquatic fun. It’s a cesspool of bacteria, blood and Band-Aids.

The mandatory swim unit needs to end.

Now, I may be an abysmally bad swimmer, but some people aren’t, and I respect that. Some people actually, for some masochistic reason, enjoy the sport of swimming (for reasons other than watching me flail helplessly like a dying trout). They have every right to take the swim unit, if they want to.

What I propose instead is another option, like, say, running laps around the pool area (which my class did a couple of times), or using those expensive stationary bicycles (which my class never used last year), in addition to swimming. That way, I can keep my shirt on and still get a passing grade.

I understand there’s the challenge of supervision, and that my idea would require another set of eyeballs. But if the teacher’s aids or interns aren’t certified to watch the non-swimmers shoot hoops or walk in circles, they could be temporarily adopted by another P.E. class during the same period.

If nothing else, there should be the option to write a lengthy report on swimming, or get an independent swimming contract, or have the student sign away their firstborn child – there’s got to be some way around it. Not every school has a swim unit, and somehow they’ve survived without one.

It’s too late for me, but I’m writing this for the freshmen. The swim unit is unsanitary, inhumane and unnecessary. The P.E. program was established with the students’ best interests in mind, so let’s listen to them, shall we?

But, hey, on the bright side, if the swim unit persists, I’ll have a whole class of hydrophobic freshman to keep me company come next summer.

(working title; will run in September issue of Gazette)

Please grow a pair of hypothetical balls.

2010-08-22T21:25:00.000-07:00

Women, a word, if you please.

Now, I’m a girl myself, and a proud one at that. We are the perfect minority in that we really aren’t one. American men and women aren’t equal in every way, at least not yet, but hey, we’re getting there. The computer I’m typing this on wasn’t sold under the pretense of being ‘so easy a girl could use it’.

But to my point, we – not me, specifically, but women as a group – have been doing something so vicious, so cruel, so mind-bendingly annoying, that it makes Justin Beiber’s voice actually sound like music by comparison.

Girls, girls my age, are prissy little creatures.

You give fake phone numbers, you make hushed little comments into each other’s ears as the freaks pass us in the hallways (or the preps, or the normal kids, or whoever you personally hate), and you spread rumors faster than the SARS virus in an airplane cabin full of sniffling children. You gossip day in and day out, online, anonymously, and without even a half-second of thought about the innocent, socially unhip life you’re destroying.

And, as both the recipient of a bad rap and a young woman, I am sick of it.

Why? Why do you insist on texting your friends that Julie’s shirt is hideous today, then ask her why she thought such an awful piece of clothing was a good idea on her Forumspring account, then scrawl all over your BFF’s Facebook wall about it instead of just being rude and saying it to her face? I mean, I’m not saying you should be cruel, but if you’re going to be, at least have the decency to own up to it.

Like all bad things, I guess the snideness of my generation can be traced back to the Internet. You can buy a pair of totally cute shoes online from Abercrombie, send a photo of your kitten licking itself to two thousand of your friends, and singlehandedly, namelessly destroy a person’s self-esteem and sanity in the space of ten minutes.

But that’s just half of it. When you do decide to deface someone in the real world, you don’t do it when they’re around. Oh no. You wait until they’re out of earshot to burst into giggles at that ridiculous haircut, or how she’s such a poser, or he’s such a fatass. Then you come up to that very same person and ask how their summer went.

No other animal fights the way two teenage girls fight. You feel the need to drag the simplest little skirmish into a month-long ordeal – assuming it ever gets resolved. Half the time women don’t even realize they’re in a fight. I recall I once inadvertently started a war with an acquaintance of mine when, during a class trip, I borrowed her hair straightener without asking. She never forgave me – a fact I stumbled upon several months later.

I envy how men fight. I truly do. Generally speaking, when one guy pisses another guy off, they yell at one another, occasionally throw a punch or two, and then it’s over. No secretly sneering at one another for six months, no rumors, no ‘drama’. That’s a much better system, don’t you think?

We females are less direct than a Sarah Palin speech, and there’s no good reason for it. I can’t tell if you’re lazy or just that mean, but my life, and the lives of every freak, geek, nerd, psychopath-in-the-making, faggot and loser would be much better off if you would kindly grow some hypothetical man-parts and tell us what you think, when you think it, to our face.

Look, I don’t want to get all preachy on you, but what you say matters, no matter how much my fellow weirdos and I love telling you we don’t care what you think. We don’t, but all your half-assed bullying is eroding our already miniature egos; you’re not helping.

I’ve been wronged by many a girl in my life – the details of which I won’t bore you with – and it doesn’t have to be like that. Women are awesome. You are. There is absolutely no reason we should treat each other – or anyone – as horribly, as snobbishly, and as viciously as you do.

So stop. Stop your friends. That way, I won’t need to Sharpie on devil horns on your yearbook photo. You look lovely without them.

Third time's a charm.

2010-07-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

Hello, there.

This little number (don't you just love the name?) is my third blog. The other two, tragically, have gone stagnant after I realized I was posting absolute shit.

Oh, yes. I can swear now. Be proud, Mom.

Anyway, let's hope my ambition holds out a little longer this time. Graph's Crap will be the home of my columns (henceforth "rants"), whether or not they appear in the Gazette, as well as the occasional anecdote or random free-floating thought. Crap like that.

I'm going to post everything that ran in the Gazette last year, so my poor little newborn blog doesn't starve. It's the writing equivalent of putting a handful of change into your own tip jar, just to get the ball rolling. Maybe it'll work.

Much love.

Expensive clothing doesn't make discrimination acceptable.

2010-04-16T00:57:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present for your consideration: The Abercrombie Debate.

Is it wrong to deny a qualified person a job based purely on looks?

I was asked this question on St. Patrick’s Day, during my first period English class. And one of the most passionate debates I’ve had in years erupted onto the floor of that classroom, the remarks flying faster than Apolo Ohno in a wind tunnel.

The question in question gets its name from the infamously pricey Abercrombie and Fitch clothing company, which prides itself on an image of manufactured perfection.

Large images of mostly naked half-starved college students are plastered upon every wall of their storefronts, air cannons blast cologne into shoppers’ eyes and one pair of jeans costs about as much as James Cameron’s home computer.

It’s no secret that I am no fan of the brand, their gleefully shameless self-promotion or disgustingly beefed-up poster-boys (or girls, for that matter). Abercrombie is the Jillian Michaels of the fashion industry: self-obsessed, expensive and armed with the uncanny ability to make me feel fat.

But I digress; this is not about Abercrombie, those four syllables of pure evil. It’s about discrimination, and what exactly that is in a corporation-dominated, culturally numb 21st century American workplace.

Much of the Abercrombie Debate centered around the recent firing of a young, stylish Muslim employee, whose religious headscarf didn’t fit with the company’s disturbingly stringent “Look Policy.”

The employee has decided to sue for this blatant injustice, and I say more power to her. Sue their $200 acid-wash jeans off. Prove a point – that discrimination is never OK.

But an honestly shocking number of my peers disagreed, saying that, since a Muslim headscarf probably wasn’t part of the Abercrombie Spring Collection, she should forgo the job and look for some place less bigoted.

I say no. All obvious religious discrimination aside, how dare a company turn a perfectly good employee away based on an article of clothing?

And racism may be one thing, but even if the case rules in the Muslim employee’s favor (which it will – legally, Abercrombie must make provisions for employees’ religious needs), where do they draw the line?

Would they turn me away, too, if I showed up for an interview wearing my Star of David necklace and with my hair dyed purple?

Would they turn away the world’s best customer service rep because she wore a size XL, or had a visible tattoo?

Would they? Almost certainly.

But should they?

No. No excuses.

And to those of you who will say that Abercrombie merely has an image to uphold, that shouldn’t matter if you’re folding shirts or working the cash register.

Prejudice is prejudice, whether it’s by the color of your skin, what’s printed on it, or what’s pierced through it.

Abercrombie, you have no right to turn applicants away if they have a working frontal lobe, just because they aren’t the prettiest cake in the bakery. You don’t just get to pick and choose by comparing human beings to your mannequin-like mold of perfection.

I wish I could tell you that Abercrombie is the only company guilty of this crime of superficiality, but they are merely the greatest example.

No matter what your style is, no matter which fashion buzzword you’ll use to describe the pair of shoes you’re wearing, you don’t need to give the vultures at Abercrombie any more of your mall-bound cash.

If you value your individuality, shop somewhere else.

Integrity behind the sparkles.

2010-03-05T00:49:00.000-08:00

It was winter break, and I was wandering the streets of Los Angeles, killing time in a shopping district with my mother. My father left us alone, content to gorge himself on Korean street food, and I spent the evening windowshopping.

As we passed one boutique, we noticed a rack of skinny jeans outside, with the obscenely low price of $10 advertised on a piece of cardboard. My mother pestered me to try on a pair, claiming that I could always use new pants, and shooed me inside. The shop was deceptively large, and deserted, leaving me to awkwardly search out the fitting rooms.

It was then that I met him. While I don’t recall exactly how it happened, I will never forget him. He was about a head shorter than me, stout and bulkily built. He wore a peach-colored flannel shirt, the bottom buttons undone, and a pair of black stretch sequin pants, which he had to constantly pull up and readjust (as they were clearly too small). His eyes were offset by massive, dark glue-on eyelashes, and atop his head lay a toupee that just barely clung to his scalp. When he spoke, his gravelly voice was reminiscent of Harvey Firestein, a mixture of Jewish and Brooklyn accents. His strangely disarming smile never left his lips.

Sparkly Pants Guy directed me to the fitting rooms, and I slipped away silently, trying to make this as quick and painless a process as possible. As I changed, I couldn’t help but overhear a large group of people in the stalls next to me. It became clear, from their criticisms and laughter, that they were all good friends, trying to pick out an outfit for a member of their gaggle. He was a young man, supposedly a rapper, and was off to shoot his first music video.

I, hoping not to disturb anyone, slid past the group and in front of the communal changing room mirror. They fawned over me, these total strangers, each offering his or her comments on my new pair of skinny jeans. Overwhelmed, I fled the dressing rooms, unsure of how to react.

Eventually, I made my way to the register, pants in hand. My mother stood near the front of the store, having grown impatient. She, too, had been startled by the sudden appearance of the Sparkly Pants Guy, and as I tried to purchase my pants without further interruption, he pulled me aside. “You look just like your mom,” he said, before adding, “She’s quite the looker.”

Suddenly he froze. My father had entered his shop, and now loomed viciously over the Sparkly Pants Guy, cold disapproval clear on his features. Without skipping a beat, Sparkly Pants Guy grinned, and said to my 6-foot-2, 190-pound plus father, “Hey, your dad ain’t so bad either.”

We must have been laughing for hours. I still have those pants.

I tell you this story because it would probably never happen in Granite Bay. Sparkly Pants Guy was an individual, acting and speaking as he chose without fear of approval or societal acceptance. And, while I’ll never know much more about him, if I had to guess, I’d say Sparkly Pants Guy was a pretty happy man.

So here’s to the Sparkly Pants Guys of the world, those who dare to do as they please, those who can shrug off the judgments of others, those who can find their own sense of personal, linguistic, and cosmetic fashion. Wear those sparkly pants with pride.

The wretched world of 'Weepy TV'.

2010-02-05T00:46:00.000-08:00

When I return home after a busy day of procrastinating and staring at ceilings, nothing sounds more appealing to me than a few hours of suspended animation in front of my family’s precious, precious high-def flatscreen.

But as of late, I have found myself heading for That 70s Show re-runs, in an attempt to avoid more recently filmed programming.

An explosion of so called “reality” shows are clogging up America’s TiVos faster than my editor’s endless free gummy bears are clogging my arteries, and that’s a problem.

It seems as though the major (and not-so-major) television networks of the world have decided it’s better to watch E-Harmony rejects duke it out for their 10 seconds of fame than pay for intelligently scripted material.

Now, to be clear, I do not hate all shows branded with the name “reality.” Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch can be quite engaging, and A&E’s Interventions paints a tragic, hour-long portrait of addiction.

What bothers me is what my father has dubbed “weepy TV” shows with a potentially interesting premise, but which focus on trivial personal dramas instead of whatever the original point of the show was.

Take NBC’s Biggest Loser. I have been a fan of the show since its early days, back when the contestants were sane and Jillian Michaels’s face wasn’t permanently stapled into a scowl. The Biggest Loser wanted to prove a point: that a morbidly obese person could shrink down without surgery.

The show today is an embarrassment. The background music has gone from dramatic to comical, and the show contains more brazen product placement than an Abercrombie and Fitch Shoppers’ Convention. The scientific angle of the show has been replaced by hour-long explorations into the contestants’ personal history, and, frankly, I don’t care what Vinnie’s mom said to him when he was five, or who Beckie cheated on. I just want to know how quickly the cookie dough I’m eating will kill me.

And Biggest Loser is just one of many. That’s my second issue with not-really-reality TV: It’s everywhere. Networks have been cranking these shows out by the dozen, quick to cannibalize the ones that don’t work out, and prolonging the ones that do.

The worst of these shows are the Frankensteinian hybrids of reality television, documentary and teen flick. They’re more annoying to me than a Justin Beiber Christmas album, and, most hideous of all, they’re successful.

For example, MTV’s Jersey Shore. The only reason why I can even imagine these beachgoing psychopaths are interesting is because they’re just so obnoxious, famous in much the same way the Head-On headache medication ads became famous.

But no. People actually like it.

Now, I may not understand the appeal of weepy TV, but I’m not saying we should ruin it for the saps who do. What I do think is that it needs to be labeled for what it truly is – warped-reality TV. That way, I can enjoy my series about crab fishermen and drug addicts, and my mother can watch her program about rich housewives with too much time on their hands.

Luggage blunder.

2009-12-18T00:39:00.000-08:00

When I leave home for an extended period of time, as I did in mid-November for a journalism convention, I usually discover a few truths about life along the way. These profound little discoveries about humanity can come at inconvenient times, but I walk away from them a stronger, more experienced person.

This journalism convention outing was no different. If I learned one thing from my five days away, it would certainly be this:

Never, ever, ever tick off a flight attendant.

It was some ungodly hour at the George W. Bush Intercontinental Airport. I stood by my chaperone and instructor, Mr. Karl Grubaugh, as we waited for the second leg of our flight back to California to arrive. Grubaugh asked my fellow journalists and I to listen up, still wearing his usual demure expression. I had no idea that anything was amiss.

He told us that someone who had been on the flight from DC with us was complaining of a stolen carry-on, and asked us each to check our bags, and make sure they were indeed ours. I scoffed. Of course it was my bag. But to humor the man, I cast a glance down at my carry-on.

At first, all I could do was laugh. The large suitcase I had been wheeling around for 20 minutes or so belonged to someone else. I’d stolen luggage.

“Oh, um, yeah, this isn’t mine,” I told Grubaugh, giggling at my own stupidity. But Grubaugh didn’t smile – no, he scowled. The realization hit me then.

If I had someone else’s bag, someone else had my bag.

Oh, crap.

Grubaugh pointed down the endless airport hallway, screaming at me to run. I obeyed, half-tripping on my stolen suitcase with every step. Now, it should be noted that my lack of physical agility is legendary. It should also be noted that this was taking place around 4 a.m., and I had not had coffee for a good 24 hours. I was a zombie, and, while one never expects this sort of thing to happen, I was especially unprepared.

As I raced towards Terminal C17 (will I ever forget that number?), I heard footsteps echoing behind me. Being the paranoiac I am even in dire situations, I spun around to face my attacker.

It was my editor, who, to preserve what remains of her dignity, I will refer to as Pat. I had put Pat through a lot during those five days, and this was merely her final trial. I can’t believe Pat will still speak to me.

Pat said that Grubaugh had asked for her to follow me, and why, I’ll never understand. But I went along with it, and Pat and I raced together through the airport – well, as together as I could manage.

When we reached Terminal C17, a strategically-positioned airport staff member waved us over. We explained that I had taken the wrong carry-on, and I offered my apologies between breaths.

Then, finally, salvation. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my bag. My bag. With my stuff.

Being wheeled by the angriest, most furious, vengeful stewardess I have ever seen.

Her eyes blazed with hatred, her face contorted in a grimace. Her fist was clenched around the handle of my innocent wheeled suitcase, and she dragged it toward me like mobster dragging a corpse. When she spoke, I could all but feel the venom dripping from each vicious syllable, the pent-up rage from thousands of annoying airline patrons suddenly being focused on me.

“I’m so sorry,” I stammered.

“Sorry won’t bring my stuff back, will it?”

I exchanged glances with Pat, grabbed my bag, and ran, sheer terror giving me a second wind of still sub-par energy. We were Indiana Jones, and the flight attendant that huge boulder. If we hadn’t fled, we surely would have been crushed.

I somehow made it back to the relative safety of Grubaugh’s troupe, out of breath but alive. Pat was still in relatively good condition, though I’m sure she is as thoroughly traumatized by this as I am.

Like any fable, this cautionary tale provides a lesson to be learned – specifically, that flight attendants are more dangerous on the ground than in the skies.

The aftermath of a sudden cold.

2009-11-10T00:32:00.000-08:00

I hate being home sick from school. There, I said it.

I hate being quarantined to the couch for hours on end, with only old sitcom reruns as company. I despise the nearly endless quantities of full-sugar soda, and I loathe watching 2:35 tick by without the accompanying sound of the school bell. Not even sleeping in late can console me. Why?

The endless avalanche of makeup work that awaits me. It’s agonizing and terrible and goes on forever, like a Saw film. But, unlike a Saw film, it’s hard to learn any valuable lessons in the process.

I think I’ve developed a good theory as to why makeup work is so drawn-out, when compared to an average night of homework. When you miss a day of school, for whatever reason, you’re missing the lesson and the worksheets you were supposed to do in class and tonight’s homework and last night’s homework (since you didn’t turn it in). Multiply this times four, times however many days you’re out.

And, here’s the best part: When you do have to make-up all of this glorious work, you have to do it half-sick, and on top of current homework assigned the day you got back. I don’t know how people manage.

All of this would be easier to deal with if students returned to school when they are actually healthy, instead of just less sick. But we – the students – are all so terrified of missing school that we run back into class the moment our fever is under 100. Which is bad, because, for example, a person infected with H1N1 can spread it up to a week after their symptoms have gone away.

School policy seems rather flakey when it comes to absence. Earlier this year, at the height of the H1N1 scare, schools were urging their students to stay home if they were sick. But, at the same time, school officials frown on absences in general, and, needless to say at this point, makeup work is as difficult to recover from as the illness itself. So we’re left with classrooms full of contagious zombies with loads of makeup work to do.

I think it’s a flawed system

To be clear, I’m not saying makeup work is itself a bad idea. It’s the sheer volume of it that I object to. Some teachers try to alleviate the pressure by posting assignments online or giving students extra days, but not all of them are so forgiving.

I think that students should be partially excused from the homework they missed, and instead required to makeup in-class work. Another solution would be to offer alternative projects, such as an English report on the student’s activities while sick, or a line graph of the student’s temperature. Be creative.

The bottom line is that students absent for health reasons weren’t goofing off – just unlucky. And a bit of leniency from staff would be a huge help to those of us still playing catch-up.

Dandy, dandy, dandy dances.

2009-10-09T00:22:00.000-07:00

I have, do, and will always attend school dances.

It’s not a school spirit thing – I rarely bother following the theme – but, rather, I don’t get invited to a lot of parties, and feel I’d be missing an opportunity by not going. I can’t dance at all and am painfully aware of that fact, but that always seems secondary to me.

‘Oh, it’ll be fun,’ I tell myself, as I spend seven hours doing my makeup and hair. ‘I’ll just dance like no one’s watching. No one will care.’ It’s a flimsy rationale, I admit, but one that works every time.

But reality hits all too hard as soon as I enter the gymnasium, auto-tuned music blaring and a zillion moshing minors blending into one pulsating, throbbing amorphous blob. To say that I feel out of place wouldn’t even begin to suffice; I feel like a paraplegic watching an acrobatics show.

Believe it or not, I do have a point buried in this sad little anecdote. As a generation, I think we need to ask ourselves a few serious questions: Girls, since when is it okay to spend an hour and a half rubbing your rear against some poor schmuck you can’t even make eye contact with? And guys, since when is it morally acceptable to get a woman that close to the zipper of your jeans without even asking their first name? And to everyone, everyone, who spends the entire evening smack in the middle of that psychotic human tide pool: Are you really going to look back on this, your hands on someone else’s thighs and a stranger’s badonk-a-donk inches from your face, as a particularly smart decision?

Now, to be clear, I have no problem with dancing, nor PDA, nor the subsequent hybrid that I’ve so eloquently described. If that’s really the kind of stuff you’re into, who am I to judge?

But it’s the vulgar nature of these dances, combined with the relative anonymity of both partners, that disgusts me so. Let’s be honest: There’s a reason why nightclubs are dark. Nobody really wants to see two total strangers commingling. It’s just not considered socially acceptable in most circumstances. How, then, does a school dance differ?

“But, Haley,” you say, “I only dance with my closest, bestest buddies. Surely that’s moral?” Well, yes. But it’s still meaningless promiscuity. I mean, when have you ever heard someone say, “It was fun grinding with you last night. Give me a call sometime.”

Maybe our parents had it right. Whenever I watch Sixteen Candles, or one of those other sappy 80’s teen movies, I can’t help but envy my mom and dad. Their dances were perfect: Monogamous, romantic, and required only minimal physical coordination. Oh, what a glorious age.

Even Grandma has a leg up on my generation, when it comes to partying. She occasionally tells me stories of her youth, a dreamy look in her eyes. According to her (and the few films I’ve seen on RetroPlex), the 40’s and 50’s were a pretty good decade to party in. Everything was glamorous and beautiful – yes, there were horrific things going on in those Golden Years, yet they remain Golden just the same. Maybe there’s a good reason for that.

Now, I’m not trying to demonize those of us who partake in school dances. You’re braver than I, if nothing else. And I may not see the fun in invading the personal bubble of twelve different people simultaneously, but if that’s what “dancing” is to you, then to each his own, I suppose.

I myself will almost certainly attend Bogus Ball tonight, all dolled-up for a party I feel unwelcome at. But so be it; I may not be one for freaking, but I can certainly understand the appeal of lowered inhibitions, impulsiveness, and music so loud you can’t hear yourself think.

See you tonight.

Finding comfort in the pop.

2009-09-11T00:14:00.000-07:00

I was herded into the room with a few hundred others of my kind, my new uniform draping over my jeans. The psychotic screams of my captors rang in the air, and they chanted and howled as we entered.

They had formed a sort of human tunnel around us, and they reached out to us, clawing and poking with cruel curiosity. I shielded my head with my forearms, placidly following the mob, and simply did as they asked, wishing only for a moment of my former solitude.

They forced us onto bleachers, cheering wildly, before commanding us to salute their leader. I was all but frozen with terror, despising this nightmarish new world.

This place of horror is not a prison, nor a concentration camp. I am not held because of my beliefs, nor my culture.

The leader of their clan isn’t a dictator – rather, he is seen as an inspirational, benevolent man, who has touched the lives of many.

I speak of our own Granite Bay High School.

Now, I may be a newbie, a greenhorn, naught but a lowly freshman. But even I know that I am attending an exceptional school. Awards and plaques seem commonplace on classroom walls, and, for the first time in my life, I am not ashamed to admit, ‘Why, yes, I do go to Granite Bay.’

Dare I say it? I may actually have school spirit.

Things are different at the innocuously-named Grizzly Retreat.

I was torn abruptly from my summer (which consisted of Japanese classes, video games, and a shameless addiction to Diet Coke) and left to fend for myself, mingling with six hundred of my peers after adjusting to endless solitude.

I was scared, and lost, my few friends vanishing amongst the predatory upperclassmen.

And I was going to spend the majority of the next four years of my life in Granite Bay’s cavernous passageways, just barely surviving.

By the end of the pep rally, which consisted of a lot of hand-raising and applause, I was ready to smother myself with my new Grizzly Retreat T-shirt.

Then I met my tour guide, Erin Salinas, sister to my best friend, and through association, an ally. She, along with a companion named Jordan Schultz, let a pleasant, if low-intensity tour. I was sleepy by that point, already suffering from caffeine withdrawals, but salvation was in sight.

Pizza arrived. With Diet Coke.

I could live through this four-year horror, I decided, my favorite beverage now icy and crisp in my hand. I was ready to face all challenges, conquer all that opposed me. I was ready for high school. I could succeed.

But, as became apparent only minutes later, I will never, ever, ever be able to dance.
I was quickly thrown to the sides of the amoebic clot of close-dancing freshman, left to shuffle awkwardly in step with my friends. Dances, for me, were better ideas on paper than in practice.

That said, the evening concluded well enough. What had begun as a crazed onslaught of information and pep ended like any other school dance before it: with a vague and unearned sense of accomplishment.

Though I am still just barely keeping my head above water, things have worked out far better than I expected. The fact that you’re even reading my words is testament to that. I’ve at least somewhat recovered from the shellshock of week one and have yet to make a public idiot of myself. So far, I’m a success.

And, as for my dancing ability (or lack thereof)? Well, I figure that I have four long years to improve.