"Greenland is made of ice and Iceland is very nice."

Greenland is made of ice and Iceland is very nice.

That is a saying that I got out of a movie called the Mighty Ducks 2 to help me remember for any test that may ask, the Vikings, in order to take the land that was geographically favorable to their agricultural endeavors, misnamed both countries purposely. Know why? Cuz dey iz smart.

Yes, yes. Smart. Intelligent. Did I really just call a group of smelly frizzy bearded lumbering and plundering giants academically inclined?

Don't worry. I was only kidding. They were not actually considered smart. Well, at least I think they weren't...

And, sadly, no opportunity has come up that I would ever need to use that phrase. I just say it sometimes because it has a nice ring to it.

From an analytical point of view one may find that this entry so far is rather pointless and unnecessary, and I would have to very much agree.

So, instead, in the hopes of making this blog a little less pointless (but still mostly pointless), i shall talk about a thought I had about the human race.

The human race would surely die if we weren't so smart.

There. There it is. My thought on the species of people. Laid out, in cold, hard computer print.

And it's true. Could you outrun a cheetah? Nope. Nobody can.

Could you outfight a tiger? Probably not.

But we have guns, cars, and other ways to make sure we are the dominant species on this planet.

Right next to my right hand lies a pair of lime green scissors with gray trimmings. And right next to that is a little container of party toothpicks in a variety of fun colors. Next to the scissors and closest to my laptop is my work schedule, which says I work next Tuesday from 4:30 to 8.

Lying next to that little container of toothpicks is a book my sister left in my room entitled, "Secret Hiding Places". How ironic, a book all about hiding is doing a pretty sucky job at it.

Well, I think this blog counts as the lamest most stupid blog in the history of blogging. I hope nobody reads this, and if you do, I apologize for the amount of time of your life you wasted reading this blog. You'll never get that back. Next week, I promise I'll have better blogs. Well, I'll just at least try.

"Too many of today's children have straight teeth and crooked morals."

-Unkown

If you walk down the hall of an average high school, and even one that's not so average, you'll hear everybody discussing topics that, well...don't even really matter.

Very few teens ever stress themselves out about politics, religion, and other debates that tend to raise some nerves. Everyone, it seems, doesn't like to debate in fear that somebody might get mad.

The day after President Obama made his "stay in school" speech, I was sitting in a 3rd hour class that I'm not normally in. The teacher of that class asked why everyone had been talking during the speech. One girl scoffed and rolled her eyes at his remark. "Because it's something we've all heard before," she said. Everybody, at once, backed her up.

"Well, through out his speech I heard you guys talking about things I've heard all before," he said, "Your plans for the weekend, who's dating who how is that more crucial than the President's address specifically to you guys?"

He continued talking about how we care too much about the trivial things in life, and not enough about what really matters, but by that point people had just tuned him out, and I began to feel some sympathy towards him. He, honestly, was just trying to get us more interested in becoming more mature and caring more about the important things of life.

It's really pretty pathetic how interested we are in things that really don't matter at all. That aren't going to make a difference in our lives, and yet they're the things we concern ourselves over the most. It's pretty rare to find a teenager who cares more about who won the last senate elections more than the recent news of how straight-A Jill turned out to be a total slut.

Do I care about Obama's policy on foreign relations? Sorry, no.
Do I care when Panic at the Disco's new CD is coming out? HELL YES.

See, this whole entire blog is just ironic. All I'm really doing is giving an example of how teenagers care about things that don't matter. I'm a teenager, and if you looked at my list of priorities you might find that some of my tops should really be at the bottom and vice versa.

So let's pause here for a brief moment and evaluate what I've just said. Basically, I've talked compared a teen's depth to the kiddie pool over at Noelridge. Which is not such a nice thing to compare it to, but hey, it's just my honest opinion.

I feel like giving a teenager a blog is also like giving them free rein to post whatever trivial topics they feel fit to talk about. Just look at this one.

"Smoking kills. and if you're killed you've lost a very important part of your life."

-Brooke Shields, #1 dumbest celebrity quote

There are some things made in life that should just be unmade. Very awkward things. Things that are a complete waste for 19.95 plus shipping and handling.
Like, for example, snuggies.

What the hell is a snuggy, you might ask?

Actually, my friend. It is quite an ingenious invention. A little contraption kind of like the everyday blanket you would find in any home. Although, unlike the everyday blanket, it has sleeves. Because blankets sometimes render you helpless. Ever want to pick up a remote, but find yourself unable to without the blanket slipping off your cold, shivering arms? Well, problem's solved, mate. You will never have to sacrifice your warmth to change the channel ever again.

It does sound quite a bit like a robe, you might say. But does a robe come in 10 fabulous colors including cheetah and zebra print?

I didn't think so.

How about the Tiddy Bear? Ever find that your seat belt just digs ever so painfully into your arm? No?

Well, that's probably just because you're so used to it by now. But, people, we shouldn't have to force ourselves to acquire a sense of pain just so it'll, over time, become unnoticable.

So there's a quick, easy, and inexpensive solution to one of the biggest problems that we are faced with this day and age. The Tiddy Bear. The Tiddy Bear is a revolutionary new way to sit in a car with your seatbelt on and look as comfortable and cool as is possibly possible. It's simple really, and any moron can do it, which I believe is the group of people this product is targeting. You just velcro it on to your seat belt and slide it up and down until it's at a discomfort part. Voila! That discomfort spot is no longer a discomfort spot. In fact, it's a spot where a bear is lying face down on your shoulder or breast, hence the name Tiddy Bear.

Say goodbye to the seat belt pains that have ever plagued the better part of your car riding life!

Now, if you so didn't quite catch my sarcastic tone of voice as I jokingly made these useless inventions seem somehow practical then you're probably one of the intelligent people yourself who makes "good" use of the Tiddy Bear and a Snuggie and other various products that are really lame and stupid.

Sorry, that was actually really mean. Maybe I'm the moron here, who's missing out. You're probably actually really cool and were bandoozled out of your money. Well, maybe you weren't bandoozled out of your money. Maybe these two examples of odd products actually work. Maybe I'm just being close minded. Maybe I should actually try them before I judge them.

Maybe we should all just stop being judgmental. After all, when you assume you make an ass out of you and me.

"I wish my name was Brian..

because sometimes people would misspell my name and call me Brain. That's like a free compliment and you don't even gotta be smart to notice it."
-Mitch Hedberg

So for my last and final blog for the week I've decided to do something a little different. If you read my last entry, you'll know that I have a super big AP Psyche test that I'm most likely going to, *cough* fail *cough*, do well on.
So to do even better on this test I thought I'd give a little description about our human brain in laymen's terms, so even the simplest of you out there can easily understand it.

Our brain is pretty gosh darn complicated, ya know? It's got a whole lotta whats-its and it can be a real doozy tryin to figure out what each one of 'em does.
So let's start with the basics. The brain is located in our heads. It's gray and wrinkly, and contrary to what CSI has led you to believe it is NOT firm, it's actually real mushy and if you were to cut our head open and try to take it out it would just ooze right outta your hands, and yeah...
Now, let's get a little more in depth. So we've got this little trinket that's called the pons. It controls arousal (hehehehehe). It's location is smack dab at the top of the brain stem. Our brain stem is kinda like a stem for flowers such as the genies species, "Daisy". When we drink and eat our food and drink goes to our stomach, which then travels up the spinal cord (which is like the roots of the flower), and it is carried by our brain stem to our brain, and the nutrients of whatever you just ate are then absorbed into the brain to make us smarter.
The vitamins and minerals from carrots go to our occipital lobe, which controls SIGHT, so we can have better eye sight. You'd think that it'd be at the front of the brain, since our eyes aren't in the backs of our heads (except if you're a teacher, but they're not like the rest of us humans), but I think our biology teachers just wanted to confuse us even furthur and stuck 'em in the back.

I think that brief overview has now familarized you with the going ons of our brain, the control port for our body. And I think I shall now march into Melone's class tomorrow with the termination and swagger of somebody who knows their going to get at least an A+, if not better.

"Love is as much an object as an obsession...

everybody wants it, everybody seeks it, but few ever achieve it."

-Curtis Judalet

Tomorrow, I have a big, no ENOURMOUS AP Psyche test that I absolutely have to study for. So I was sitting here at my desk working on our objectives that are due alongside the test. I had my psyche book layed across my lap, and I had turned back to the index to look up "limbic system" because I had no idea what it was, even though it's something we should probably be very familiar with by now, considering the test is tomorrow (I gotta keep reminding myself in the hopes that I'll actually study). My eyes were raking the list of "L" words and I stopped for a moment. I had found love.

No, I hadn't really found love. I just found the pages that held a description and analysis of love.

Now, I was curious. What would a psychology book have to say about love? I flipped to the pages referenced, and began to read. It stated exactly what I thought. That humans yearn for love, but more often than less, love is not the key to a surviving relationship.

Love is an obsession, and like any obsession, it'll most likely end. Whether it's passionate or spiritual, love is not a fool proof concept to believe whole heartedly in. You'll find that people in Western countries are more apt to believe in marrying for love, yet they have the highest divorce rates. In America one in every two couples divorce. Not that great of odds, I'd say.

In Eastern countries, people marry more based on practical notions, like provisions. Will the husband or the wife be able to provide economically and emotionally for eachother and for a family. Beliefs that are scoffed at here, yet, those kinds of marriages seem to be the most successful.

These things, in my opinion, are what everyone should look for in a life long companion. Love is for fun, not for life.

Of course, though, I'm like any other silly girl. I, too, would love to have somebody that I can connect with spiritually and physically. I'd love to find somebody "whose heart beats to the rhythm of mine" (gotta love them corny chick flicks). I know very well though, that my chances are nearly 0. And that's disappointing, I'll admit, but practical.

"It is with true love as it is with ghosts; everyone talks about it, but few have seen it."

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld

I do believe in love. Like the man who remembers nothing, not the names of foods, not his children, not his parents. He only remembers his wife.

I feel like The Beatles song All You Need Is Love, released in 1967, is probably one of the most popular quotes about love. That's all anybody ever says. All you need is love, but I don't think that's very true.

If we were to live a bohemian lifestyle and leave all our necessities behind, I don't know how well we'd actually make it. In fact, I doubt we'd make it. Love can't move mountains, and whoever said that it could is a jackass because it puts hope into our hearts that maybe some sort of an emotion that powerful exists.

This is such a mess of a ramble.

ANYWAYS...

Like I said, I totally believe in love. Just not the kind that Celine Dion sings about. Just the ordinary kind of love that can be acquired after years with a devoted partner. Or the kind that a mother and father gives their child. Or the kind that can come from a friendship. I'll stop overcomplicating things now, and start studying for my Ap Psyche test.

"Time is free...

...but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it...

Think of a super power. Any kind. Which one would you have?
Well, just in case you want to know (and even if you don't really care), I would want the power to travel through space and time.
Let's look at our other options for a super cool super power. What if you could pull an Edward and read minds.
Cool.
Except what's that going to do except break your heart and make you lose faith in humanity (people have mean thoughts)? While taking a test you could peer into the mind of the genius sitting in the second row from the front to find the answers.
BUT, if you had the power to time travel, you could just travel to the past, look up the answers while you've got 'em, and then travel back to the time of your test.

Okay, so you wanna fly. Wellll, why exactly do you want to fly? 'Cause it'd be awesome? Believe me, it's probably not. It's cold up there and it's pee-your-pants scary being so high. Plus, I'm sure it would take a lot of effort. Although, if you had the power to space, you could just time travel right to the place you'd want to go.
You know when your alarm goes off at six in the morning, and you're literally dragging yourself out of bed? Welllll, the power to travel through time means that you could also pause it. Pause it for an hour or two to catch up on sleep.
Have you ever really wanted to tell somebody off, but have been too scared to actually do it? Well if it does turn out as badly as you think. Zip! Just think yourself back to the past, and problem's solved.
Have you ever heard a really good song or idea or invention and just wished that you could come up with something like that? Wellllllll, you could if you had this time traveling power we're talking about.

I could time travel back to the sixties and get my favorite foursome to sign their White Album.

Think about it, every mistake you've ever made, you could unmake, while still learning from that mistake. Every glass of milk you've ever spilt, you could unspill. Every feeling you've unintentionally hurt, you could heal. Every secret you've mistakenly told you could take back. If life came with a rewind button I think we'd all be so much happier.

But it doesn't, and that's what makes life life. That's what makes us wise. The times when we've been hurt, the people who we've hurt. If you knew, while making a choice, that you'd have the power to undo it, would that choice you'd have to make still be as crucial?

It's weird, I know, but I've thought about this a lot. I've thought about all the flaws to this plan, and why it's impossible. Let's say you went back in time to your tenth birthday, would it still be you? Would your mind travel or would your whole body go? Well, how could there be two of you? When you stop time, would your heart still be beating? If it is, that must mean you'd be aging. So every time you'd stop time, you wouldn't really. You'd just stop the world. You'd stop movement, you'd stop gravity and thought.
Earlier I said you could catch up on a couple hours of sleep if you stopped time. Isn't two hours an amount of time, though? Doesn't that mean time would still ticking. It's hard to wrap your mind around.

I play with the idea over and over and over again. So many things, if I could, I'd take back. So many stupid things I've said and done. So many regrets, mistakes, and tears that I could fix.

But I can't, and it's stupid that I've just wasted all this time talking about the impossible. Comparing the preferred impossibility to all those other lame possibilities.

...Once you've lost it, you can never get it back."

"The best substitute for experience is being sixteen."

-Raymond Duncan

Why do adults always complain that they have such complicated lives? You know what I think? I think it's because they're the ones that overcomplicate them. Let's give an example of an average adult, and then an average teenager, and then compare the two.

Fred is a 44 year-old male working from 8-4 at his job at Aegon. He's a computer programmer. His job outside of work is to make sure the yard work's all up to par and every once in a while he likes to go to the Y to keep himself in shape. His wife stays at home to take care of their kids, nine year old Sally and 17 year old Fred Jr.

Now let's look at the life of their teenage son. Fred Jr. is a junior in high school. Being an active kid, he's got a lot on his plate. Fred goes to school every day at 5:45 in the morning and doesn't get home until about 5. He's taking 7 classes, three of which are AP and two are advanced. He's got sports going on before and after school, show choir in the winter, clubs that he participates in, and a part time job.

That, unfortunately, is not at all an unusual schedule for a kid my age. We have a full time job, like all of you adults, which is school. We've got part time after school jobs. We've got sports and other after school activities, and it's almost mandatory in our very social atmosphere that we keep up our social life. Don't forget about the relationships we've got going on. Then the six or seven teachers most of us have don't hesitate to pile our work load. Sometimes, I get at least an hour of homework per class, so I'm at home doing work from 4 to 11, pausing only to eat, and occasionally to check my Twitter and Facebook. It's not like our parents give us a break, either. We're at the time of our lives where we feel most independent, and yet, we've still got to bow down to the dictatorship in our own homes. We've got so much authority that we can't help but try to rebel. Our bosses, our teachers, our parents, and then not to mention the pressure we've got to fit in at school, are all contributing stress factors. It's hard to find a person who'll cut a teenager some slack. After all, we're in the prime of our youth and our life is so easy and later on when our brain's more devoloped and our hormones have settled down we'll see that you were right all along and blah blah blah.

No, we don't have bills to pay (except for car payments, insurance, and gas), we don't have to bring in an income (but if we don't who's going to pay for that car?), we don't have wives and husbands (except for our boyfriends and girlfriends), we don't have children to take care of (but we do have our annoying siblings who we have to watch when parents aren't home), but we're still stretched. Generally adults have more respect for their fellow colleagues at their own age, then they do for the 16 year-olds they see sometimes at the red light, windows down, and music blasting, with their passenger seats full on a Friday night.

Some may shake their heads and smile, and remember their own Friday nights 20-30 years ago. Some may narrow their eyes and look at that car full of fun and youth as a road accident waiting to happen. And then there are some, who'll look at our carefree faces and think that we have it so easy, being so young. Really, though, I think a life for a teenager is hard, we're just better at making it seem easy.

*Nancy, Fred, Fred Jr. and Jasmine are made up characters. They're not based on any family I know.

No Surprises Here

If you look closely into our social society, well my social society, the groups of teenagers I see daily, at school, on the weekends, all the time. We all have one thing about us that's the same. We all want to be different. We all try so hard to be unique, to be original, to stand out. Really though, what's the point? What difference does it make whether or not we're special? Well, I think, although I'm certainly no expert, that we all want to be remembered. We all want people to notice us. We want to be seen as leaders, not followers.

We fill our Myspace "about me's" with meaningful passages of how special life is, and how we're not your average 16 year old kid. You know? We're more than that. We're all amazingly special, insightful children. We make sure to regularly update our Twitters and Facebook statuses with quotes on love and happiness, like we know shit about either.

So, basically we want to be original and we want to shine. Keep in mind, though, we can't be too different. If you're too different you're a freak. If you wear clothes that are too original, they might just be weird. There's unique and then there's weird. Nobody wants to be weird. We all say we're weird, but do any of us want to be that freaky chick with the crazy looking bright purple hair with the green streak through the middle? Like a friend of mine used to and still says, "There's weird, and then there's weird."

At Kennedy, I'd say we have a problem. It's this clique we call "the dirties". Naming a group of people something that derogatory is almost kind of shocking, but not really. We've all just gotten used to it. Most of those people aren't even actually dirty. For example, a boy walked by my friend and I. "He's a dirty," she said.

"His hair's wet, he showered this morning, so he's obviously not."

To that she said, "He just is."

I'm not saying that I'm just so saintly about all that. I call them dirties, too. But really, all they are are people who dress however they want to, wear their hair the way they like, and listen to nobody but themselves when they decide what's cool. They choose for themselves. While us, we all spend many a minute every morning trying to figure out what we should wear.

As I write, I may be making it sound like I'm exempt to all of this, but really, I'm just like everybody else. I stress over how to look good, I worry about fitting in, but then I also want to make my mark, and not be forgotten.

Fitting in and standing out, funny how we stress over the most trivial things. Things that won't even matter once high school's through. But it's the way things have been for probably the last century or millennium. Whichever. The point is, it's not going to change anytime soon.

The other Saturday I was sitting home, bored and alone with absolutely nothing to do. So, I do what any other girl would do (well, at least i think it'd be what any other girl would do), and start making potential outfits out of the clothes in my closet. Occasionally glancing at the pile of unfinished homework on my bed, I decided to try and remember how much I bought each item for.

Then my mind started to wander, as it often does, and I decided to surf the inter web. I found myself, with clothing and fashion still at the back of my mind, at the Dior website. The models, about the size of my good arm, were wearing, well, to put it bluntly, WEIRD stuff. I could never ever imagine anybody in their right mind wearing any of that stuff to school. Then, though, I remembered what my friends at project runway always say, fashion, just like painting and drawing, is an art. It did look pretty...kind of, but still, it was nothing I or anyone I know would ever wear.

But, I thought, they must sell wearable clothes. I then proceeded to the Saks fifth avenue website, where I was even more shocked. It's funny how they can up a price tag for a dress by $1,185 more than it's actually worth just because of the name on that tag.

A flannel bag of a dress, an Yves Saint Laurent original, would empty my bank account of 1,250 USD. Well, if my bank account had that much in it to be emptied of. Seriously, though, it looked as if somebody cut holes for the arms and a hole where they expected the head to go. And I'm not at all exaggerating. Well, I might be a little, but still.

The thing that shocked me the most is that there are people who actually do buy dresses, shirts, pants, shoes for that much. It seems so wasteful and trivial. With all the money that goes to high end fashions, we could rid the world of poverty and make peace amongst all nations.

Although, it would be such a shame to have people go without their Coach bags, or Jimmy Choo pumps. Let's just leave things the way they are, as to not cause any unnecessary trouble.

So I'm sitting here in AP Lang, the keyboard at my fingertips and Mr. Ayers's voice shouting out instructions at us obnoxiously (just kidding). I'm not quite sure what to blog about, so I'll do something completely cliche and sit here and blog about how I can't think of anything to blog about. I sincerely hope that this won't be like every other blog I write this year. Blah blah blah blah. You probably don't care, but that's okay. It's my blog and my chance to be cocky and think that everyone wants to hear, or rather read, what I want to blog about. Hopefully, somebody might get a little enjoyment out of mine. I have a feeling that this year's blog page is going to be chock full of I's. I think I'm right.

I think. I think. Who cares what I think? Who says that what I have to say is something that'll be beneficial to society. Well, I say that it is. You know what else I say? I say that I should stop asking myself questions and answering them. Somebody might think that's borderline crazy, and that some one might actually be right. After all, though, we've all got a little bit of crazy in us.

This blog is going nowhere, and I hope it doesn't end up somewhere stupid, which is the direction in which it seems to be heading. Kudos to those who actually read through this entire thing.