The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Dear friend,

"And in that moment, I swear we were infinite."

Have you ever had one of those moments? When you're with your friends and all of a sudden you have this weird almost out of body experience and you're looking down on yourself thinking, "I'm going to remember this for as long as I live." It's the ultimate feeling of being young and free, having no responsibilities, and for just one moment in time feeling  like you could live forever.

That's why I love this book.

I've heard so many people critisize The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Mostly, they talk about how Charlie was such a wimp because he cried all the time and he never knew what was going on in the world and how could he possibly be so naive and childish and so unprepared for the world?

That's what makes it so realistic.

I'll admit, most 16 year old guys aren't going to go around crying about every little thing that goes wrong, but cut Charlie some slack. He obviously has some deep rooted emotional issues that come from some things that happened to him as a kid. Thankfully, not all of us have gone through anything similar to what Charlie went through, but then again, some of us have had it much worse than he did. Which is why the brilliant author, Stephen Chbosky, wrote this:

"I think that if I ever have kids, and they are upset, I wont tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it wouldn't change the fact that they were upset. And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have."

He knew there would be people out there that would say, "Well Charlie is such a wimpy unrealistic guy character," and then when they find out that he had some bad things happen to him they would say, "Well Charlie is a character with big problems. I can't relate to that." Bullcrap. We ALL have some kind of problem, big or small. We've all felt upset, sad, lonely, we've all had those days when we've wanted to just cry about everything, but maybe we're just better at holding it in than Charlie. The point is, it doesn't matter. We all have what we have. Good or bad.

The most realistic part comes from Charlie's naivety. Entering high school and throughout high school, we're all pretty darn stupid. We talk about things we don't know about and we say things we don't mean. Just because we might know a term does not mean we know what it means. That's the thing. Everyone thinks they're so darn cool that they wont admit that they're just as lost and confused as Charlie. Charlie doesn't think he's cool so he doesn't have that problem. He actually has something most of us lack, complete honesty.

The second reason why people are so critical of this book is because of its subject matter. No, you wouldn't want your ten year old sister to read it. But for the age group it's targeted at (which is uh, by the way, adults) it's not inappropriate. Because the subject matter deals with teenagers, they're the ones who have been reading it the most. Still, the subjects it deals with is nothing we haven't seen on the most recent season of Degrassi. Of course, it was on the list of books that should be banned a few years back for anti-family, drugs, homosexuality, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, suicide, unsuited to age group

Okay there. Anti-family? Um, no Charlie's family isn't perfect. But he loves his family. And his family sticks together through all of their difficult situations. And ultimately, that's what helps them all keep going. Drugs? So what Charlie smokes cigarettes and pot and takes LSD and has hallucinations. I was aware of all of that before I read this book. Like I said, Degrassi. Or that little thing called the real world that we all live in. Homosexuality? So his friend is gay and has a gay relationship. YES GAY PEOPLE EXIST. They explore homosexuality and the confusion that many high school kids feel about that topic. I don't see the problem. Offensive language? Are they for real? Most kids probably hear that same language in their own houses and if not there at school every day. Or even walking down an aisle in WalMart for heaven's sake. I'm not even going to get into religious viewpoint because the book didn't, it was not sexually explicit, and suicide is not a new concept to me.

My point is, this book covers just about every thing you struggle with as a young adult. We see it through the eyes of Charlie, who is just trying to figure it all out like the rest of us. That's why it gets through to us. Because we all feel like Charlie sometimes. Lost. Friendless. Alone. Sad. Confused. In love. Stupid. When I was reading, all I did was feel and understand. I cried and laughed and cried again. And felt some more.

Especially when it came to Charlie's love for Sam. He says over and over how he didn't want to love her like he did. He tried not to love her. But he just couldn't help what he felt. And that poem he read for Patrick at the Secret Santa Party. And his friend Michael committing suicide. And his sister having so many bad boyfriends all the time. And Charlie kissing Sam instead of Mary Elizabeth. And his recounting of when his family watched the last episode of MASH together. Oh my goodness, it's too much.

If you haven't read this book yet, you should. Just so you can feel and understand like I did and like so many other people did. I was going to end this blog post with my favorite quotes/thoughts/paragraphs from the book, but the list got too long and I've decided to make another post entirely devoted to that because it's just that good.

Now if only the movie was coming to a select theater near me. *sigh* That's what I get for living in the South.

Love always,
Leah

Back to School: So Much To Do, So Little Time

So I took a summertime blogging hiatus. I just, ya know, wanted to become one with nature and spend more time outdoors and away from screens. And I personally felt like this blog was something I needed to reflect on for a while and...

JK. It was totally not intentional. My goal was to write at least one blog post a month for a year. AT LEAST! And here I am in September, three months since the last time I wrote anything for my blog. It's not entirely my fault though! A million amazing things have happened this summer (choir tour with Crossflame, vacationing at Tybee Island, visiting my best friend Beca in Virginia among them) and I didn't seem to have any time to do anything else.

Alright, that's another lie. I had pleeeenty of time for Facebook and YouTube and all day marathons of Gossip Girl and Lost. And then when a blog idea popped into my mind I was too tired or on to something else or going to see a movie or working. Time just flew by this past summer and I did NOT have a very good handle on it.

But now, as school has been in session for about 3 weeks now, and the rest of the normal public schoolers starter this week after Labor Day, everyone has one thing on their minds: time management. Calendars, schedule books, alarms, spreadsheets, whatever it takes for you to get done what you need to get done when it needs to get done. And it's just September. This crazy scheduling will continue until May or June, depending on your school.  So here's five tips on how to efficiently manage your time this school year, without going completely insane.

1. Get a house calendar in a central location.
This is especially important if you don't have your license yet. Have all of your activities and the activities of everyone in the house up on the calendar with times and locations. Doctor's appointments, work schedules, sports practice, choir rehearsals, birthday parties, important school events, etc. This way, at any given time, you can glance at the a calendar and know who's doing what/where/and when. If you can drive yourself places, it's still a good idea just to know where the rest of your family's going to be. If you don't have a car, it's a necessity to have the family calendar so you can plan your stuff around other people's availability.

2. Create a homework schedule.
Write down homework due dates, exam dates, and project dates. Try to plan out on a day to day basis when you're going to work on each one of these things. For example, my CIS homework is due tomorrow, so I'm going to finish that today rather than work on Western Civ. which is due on Sunday. I'll work on that, as well as my literature reaction papers, tomorrow and Saturday. MAKE SURE if you have a project due, you're making time to work on it a little bit every day. One of the worst things to do is to see a due date that's a month off and say, "I've got plenty of time!" And then have to write a 15 page research paper and a 30 slide PowerPoint presentation in one day. For exams, study the way that works best for you. But make sure you study! If studying for you is cramming the night before, then go for it! But you have to do something. Not going over the material at all before a big test is a huge mistake.

3. Go to sleep and get up at regular times every night and morning. 
This is the hardest one for me. Teenagers actually require MORE sleep than old people: 8 to 9 hours per night! So with me having to get up at 6:30 on school days, that would mean I SHOULD go to bed around 10 o' clock every night! Now you and me both know that's not going to happen (getting a TV in my room was probably the worst thing that ever happened to my sleep patterns.) BUT, I've been forcing myself to have the TV off by 12 on school nights, even if that means I can only watch one episode of Supernatural...

My nightly argument with myself:
"But Dean is so cute!"
"You'll regret it in the morning!"
"How could I ever regret watching THAT FACE?!"

Also, do NOT hit snooze on your alarm and fall asleep again! I put my alarm all the way across the room so I'm forced to get up and turn it off, and then by that time I've seen the light and I'm starting to morph back into my awake, conscious self.

4. Prioritize. 
My mom's always saying that school is more important than my job. And it is, it is... It's just that, if it came down to it I would hate having to give up making money. But on the other hand, it's a fast food job. I'm taking college courses. If I fail all of those, I might never make it any farther than a cashier, which is NOT where I want to  spend the rest of my working life. Same things go for friends. I know socializing and parties and movies and hanging out is fun, but if you're not getting school work done, that has to go too! It makes it so much easier if you just prioritize to begin with, then you'll probably never have the problem of having to give up your job or your friend time.

5. Make time for relaxation. 
Stress isn't gonna help you get anything done. So if that means taking a break from the books to go get a cup of coffee and a doughnut, do it. If that means reading a book you want to read instead of re-reading the same pages of The Iguana Tree and comprehending none of it, do it. If that means watching Charlieissocoollike and his adorable antics on YouTube for a while, do it! Take a hot shower, sing, play the piano, do yoga, whatever you like to do and whatever calms you down, do it.

And maybe when you're meditating in the lotus position, you'll realize there are enough hours in the day after all.

The SAT: A Student is Not a Test Score

Imagine that you’ve gotten pretty good grades all through high school, you know what you’d like to do as a career, and you know what college you want to attend. Then you go take the SAT. You don’t do all that well on it; in fact your score is just about average. The college you had been planning on attending wants to see your score, so you send it to them. That test score is going to be considered alongside or possibly before all your high school grades, community service hours, and admissions essays.
Suddenly, that one test score could determine whether or not you get into the school of your dreams. This is the reality for many young adults just coming out of high school. It is a ridiculous amount of significance to put on one test, especially considering the scores that you make on a test can differ from day to day. Test scores are not completely accurate for many reasons, and that is why SAT scores should not be the deciding factor when it comes to college admissions.

What is the SAT?

The SAT is something any high school senior knows about well. During your sophomore or junior year, you’ve probably taken the PSAT (the preparatory version of the SAT) at least once, looking over all the study guides and practice tests you can get your hands on, and researching all the tips and tricks for playing the odds right when it comes to the multiple choice questions. All of this is to prepare for that 3 hour and 45 minute monster of a test most everyone takes right before they graduate.
The SAT covers the following main subjects: critical reading, mathematics, and writing. The test presents three types of questions: fill-in, multiple choice, and essay.  What’s the point exactly?  According to the College Board, “The SAT has helped millions of students connect with college success and today remains the most reliable, effective measure of a student's college readiness.” If you score well on the SAT, chances are colleges will come back to your application before they’ll take another look at the student who performed a bit lower. SAT scores are also looked at when determining whether a student should receive an academic scholarship. 

The Case for Considering SAT Scores

As with all “high stakes” tests, there is considerable controversy around whether or not the SAT should be important when applying to schools. Most colleges in the United States and all Ivy League schools make it a requirement to take the SAT or a test like it. Basically, schools like to see it because it’s considered an un-biased way to compare one student to another, and a way to predict whether or not a student will succeed in college. As stated on the SAT Scores website, “Such test scores are valuable to universities as they provide an unbiased way of ranking a student’s performance compared to other applicants. Unlike your GPA, which may depend on the difficulty of your course load or the standards of your high school, SAT scores are directly comparable across students from different parts of the country.”
David Z. Hambrick, an associate professor of psychology at Michigan State University, considers the SAT a good measure of general intelligence, especially since the average gains that come from SAT preparation courses are minimal. Hambrick’s answer to the SAT validity question was straight to the point. “This debate is ultimately about intelligence and its modifiability — and the question of whether it is fair to use people’s scores on what is essentially an intelligence test to make decisions that profoundly affect their lives. If that makes us all uncomfortable, that’s just too bad.”

Why SAT Scores Are Faulty

Realistically though, we all know what goes on when some people go to take a test. Your heart is pounding, your palms are sweaty, you’ve developed a nervous tic, and your head is swimming with all the information you’ve tried cramming into it over the past 24 hours. When you sit down at that table and the timer starts, it’s safe to say that most of us are not exactly at our most intelligent. That is why the SAT is not a good judge of intelligence or preparedness for college. There are so many reasons why a test could go wrong. Maybe you’ve got a lot on your mind, you’re tired, you’re hungry, you’re extremely stressed out, or you’re just not a good test taker.
John Katzman, president and founder of the Princeton Review (an SAT prep course company), supports this view. “The SAT is a scam. It has been around for 50 years. It has never measured anything. And it continues to measure nothing. Does it measure intelligence? No. Does it predict college grades? No. Does it tell you how much you learned in high school? No. Does it predict life happiness or life success in any measure? No.”
He goes on to explain that he has found that it comes down to test taking strategies, and whether or not you test well. “There's a certain idiom to the test. There's a certain way they ask questions. There's a certain way to create wrong answers. And if you're good at that idiom, then you're going to do well on testing in general. Some people can't take tests, because they don't speak that language.”
The kids who don’t speak the test-taking language can spend the majority of their high school years fretting so much over acing the SAT that they let their school grades slip. Instead of studying for Math or English, they pour over test-taking booklets trying to learn ways to score high even when they don’t know the answers.
Some kids get so distressed that they turn to cheating. Recently, Sam Eshaghoff, a college student with the amazing talent to consistently score high on the SAT, was arrested for taking the test for other people. People were willing to pay him thousands of dollars for, as Eshaghoff put it, “saving their lives.”  In a 60 Minutes segment that aired this past January, one of the correspondents, Allison Stewart, asked what he meant by that. “I mean a kid who…no matter how much he studies is gonna totally bomb this test, by giving him an amazing score, I totally give him this like, a new lease on life. He's gonna go to a totally new college, he's gonna be bound for a totally new career and a totally new path in life.”

One Score Should Not Decide Your Future

Standardized tests like the SAT may have been created for a noble purpose, to make admissions to colleges more fair, equal, and objective, but they are not living up to what they were intended to be. Admissions boards often turn away low-scoring students full of potential while they admit high-scoring student who are completely uninitiated. More often than not, kids are being kept and discouraged from pursuing their college and career dreams because of one bad score on one test, and that should not be the case. All colleges should make tests like the SAT optional for admission, and look more at a student’s previous coursework, extracurricular activities, volunteer time, and other accomplishments when determining whether or not a student should be admitted into the university. Colleges should look at the SAT scores, and then throw them away because when it comes to the big picture, they mean next to nothing.

Life Comes At You Fast

The past month has been a whirlwind of one thing after another.

First of all, I got a job. After months and months of searching, I got one call back from...McDonald's. I was a little skeptical at first because I had heard so many bad things about working there from so many people but once I got started, I realized it wasn't so bad. There are busy times, there are slow times. There are rude customers, there are nice customers. There are good days, and there are bad days. All I've done so far is the register. It's not hard, I know the layout of the menu now and I'm pretty fast at making change if I do say so myself. Oh, and I know how to make ice cream cones and McFlurry's and milkshakes and etc. The best day had to be when I got my first paycheck. I really don't think I stopped smiling from McDonald's to the bank and then all the way home again. In fact, the very next day I went shopping and splurged waaay more than I ever have before. Having money is a nice feeling.

Secondly, my bestest friend in the world Beca came to visit me. She stayed for an entire week and we did a bunch of stuff. We went to Elevation, out to eat, to the movies (OCTOBER BABY!!!!!!!!), to the mall, to Newton for a photoshoot, not to mention the 6 billion romantic comedies we watched at home and the large amounts of junk food we consumed. She also came to school and work we me (told you she was a good friend.) The week she stayed for felt like two seconds. One second she was here, and the next she was back on the train to Virginia and we probably wont see each other again until the summer. But that's okay, it's not like we've ever gone TWO YEARS without seeing each other before or anything...It's great that our parents finally consider us old enough to travel alone and stay at other people's houses.

And lastly, SCHOOL IS ALMOST OVER!!! It almost feels like yesterday that I started the semester at CVCC and now final exams are next week. I'll finally be able to read books just for fun again!!! Apparently though, someone decided we couldn't end the school year without one final campus evacuation. The second one this year! The first time was January 18th, my first week at school. Someone was spotted on the east campus with a gun (supposedly) and both campuses were put on lockdown. Which means huddling in the corner with the lights off and the door locked for 3 hours as you hear sirens, helicopters, and police officers running by in the hallway. Eventually the SWAT teams burst in with their enormous guns and escorted us to the activity buses which then evacuated us to Skateland (our super secret safe location right down the street which everyone knows about.) So yeah, that was the first incident which made national news! They never caught the "gunman." Better safe than sorry I guess. Now today, about 3 months later, I was just sitting in the west wing when a lady came and alerted everyone that we were having a mandatory campus-wide evacuation, and classes were cancelled for the rest of the day. Since I didn't have a car to evacuate with, I followed the high school students to the east wing where we were locked in classrooms and (quickly this time) taken in the activity buses to Skateland. No SWAT teams or huddling in the dark, but that's ok with me! Still, it's funny that there were two incidents this semester, both on days I happened to be on campus. That's just my luck...I wonder how many more there will be next year! CVCC seems like quite a dangerous place! I mean I never hear about this happening at other community colleges!

I guess my whole point here is...time flies whether or not you're really having fun. I mean, look how different things are now than a month ago. Or two months ago. Or a year ago! So far 2012 seems to be the year of change for me. I can't wait to see what the summer will bring. ^_^

Happy Hunger Games!

To begin with, I'd like to point out that I read The Hunger Games BEFORE it was cool. Like so early on that I had to wait for Catching Fire and Mockingjay to be published before I could read them. Alas, this happens to most good books right before they become movies. They hype gets so freakishly insane that people don't even know what they're so hyped about. Look at everyone who has been screaming and camping out and buying all the movie tickets. I guarantee you half of them (if not more) have never read the books, have no idea what the story is (beside the little bits and pieces you see on the commercials), but are so caught up by how excited everyone is they spend their money anyway. But I am not like most of the original Hunger Games fans. I'm really glad that this has become a sensation because the story is GREAT. If this is what it takes for most people to hear it, then so be it.

Now...I'm going to gush about the movie. I just got home from the theater and I need to talk about this somewhere. If you haven't read the books or seen the movie yet, you may not want to read any further.

Let me start by simply saying, it was INCREDIBLE. Never have I seen a recent movie so brilliantly acted, directed, filmed, scripted, everything was amazing. (And it was kinda cool you could recognize that it was filmed in NC.) So much work was put into making this perfect. No offense to Twilight and Harry Potter fans out there but those movies don't even compare in my mind. Sure, those were epic, this...this was in a category all of it's own. I hear Jennifer Lawrence is being praised like crazy for her performance and that this is gonna break all kinds of pre-sale and box office records!! And for good reason!

From the beginning of the movie, I was crying my eyes out. The reaping scene has been played so many times on TV already that I thought it would have lost its effect, but it didn't. Not at all. I cried when Gale took Prim away, when Katniss volunteered, when they called Peeta's name, and when Gale and her mom visited her before they took her to the Capitol. I was worried before I saw the movie that all of the pre-game stuff in the Capitol would be sacrificed to make the time spent in the arena longer, but I shouldn't have been. They showed the interviews, her fire costume, Cinna, Effie, Haymitch, and just enough back story to keep those who hadn't read the books in the loop still. There's nothing I hate more than a movie that doesn't stand on its own.

For all those adults out there blabbing on and on about how violent it is: get over it. We've ALL seen much more violent movies than this already. It's not even close to a horror or a slasher film in terms of blood and gore. And yeah, it's a violent story! 24 kids are thrown into an arena together and told that only one can come out alive! What do you expect? But don't worry, they show just enough violence for you to grit your teeth and jump a few times and get how crazy it is that these kids have to really kill each other.

The most emotionally draining part of the movie and the book for me was the scene where Rue dies. It really is a beautiful scene. Katniss sings to her just like she sang to Prim as Rue slowly drifts off peacefully in Katniss' arms. Then she surrounds Rue's body with flowers and salutes the camera, and riots start in District 11. I was sobbing the whole time, and I absolutely HATED the Capitol and President Snow and the Gamemakers. It's moments like that that bring you into the movie and make you capable of understanding the emotions that you're seeing on the screen.

Surprisingly, I am now an even stronger more fangirlish member of Team Peeta then ever before! I assumed that because Liam Hemsworth is gorgeous I would prefer Gale, but Josh Hutcherson's portrayal of Peeta made my love for Peeta and Josh grow in extreme amounts. Katniss and Peeta only got ONE KISS!!!!!! One kiss in the entire movie!!!!!!! I felt cheated. But maybe this way their scenes together in the next movie will be even more intense and amazing and romantic. (I need to brush up on my Catching Fire...is there a lot of Peeta/Katniss togetherness? I don't remember...)

The one thing that did disappoint me was the finale of The Games when the muttations came out. In the books, they were supposed to pretty much be the Tributes who had died in animal form. Like Katniss could recognize Rue and all the rest in the faces of the mutts. But for some reason, they decided to make them look like big dogs. That was all. It made that last part so much less horrible then it was in the book. But hey, I can't complain. They could've completely butchered the movie as they so often do. So one little disappointment is nothing. I am completely satisfied.

Now enough of this ridiculousness that the next movie's not coming out for over a year! At least if you're gonna make us wait that long, bring this one to DVD sooner! I feel like going out, buying all the Hunger Games merchandise I can find, scoring a bootleg copy of the movie, and kidnapping Josh Hutcherson, then staying in my room until Catching Fire comes out. Actually, I could do without all of it except the Josh part. I would like him very much. ^_^

Anyway, now that I've seen it, who else has? Did you go to the midnight premiere? Were you disappointed by anything at all? Is there a part that you absolutely adored?

And for the rest of you who are trying desperately to find out if there are any showings left tonight that haven't sold out yet..."May the odds be ever in your favor."

Generation Lost: So Original It's Mainstream

                
  (Because having a HOW TO GUIDE to something doesn't make it mainstream at all...)

What original is: Preceding all others in time; first. or, not derived from something else; fresh and unusual. aka being your individual unique self.

What original is not: wearing two different earrings, thick dorky looking glasses, and bright colored clothing that does not match for the sole purpose of looking "different."

What that is: STUPID.

If every person waking up in the morning knew this and dressed accordingly, the world would be a better place.

It seems to me that nowadays everyone has this crazy need to be "original." Especially in the way you dress. They want to look exactly the opposite of what mainstream society looks like. They're the cool kids, the rebels, the hipsters, whatever the heck you want to call them. They're "Above the Influence" and all that. They're supposedly independent thinkers who go against our cultures norms and expectations.

Now in theory, that sounds great! These are the kind of people who are helping this lost generation find its way right? Wrong. These are the people that are taking this generation deeper and deeper into the dark forest of confusion from which it may never return.

I have to admit though, the hipsters entertain me. I looked up the definition of the word on Urban Dictionary and found a lengthy one, probably written by a self-proclaimed hipster.

"Although "hipsterism" is really a state of mind,it is also often intertwined with distinct fashion sensibilities. Hipsters reject the culturally-ignorant attitudes of mainstream consumers, and are often be seen wearing vintage and thrift store inspired fashions, tight-fitting jeans, old-school sneakers, and sometimes thick rimmed glasses."

Ok, so the first step to becoming a hipster is simply declaring yourself a hipster. And then comes their "distinct" fashion sense which I see has been summed up nicely in one sentence. Most hipsters dress exactly the same. Seems very fresh, unusual, and DIFFERENT.

"The "effortless cool" urban bohemian look of a hipster is exemplified in Urban Outfitters and American Apparel ads which cater towards the hipster demographic."

Wow. You mean you can dress like a hipster by shopping in two extremely mainstream stores? That's so very original! Because what I buy at Urban Outfitters is going against mainstream society! Who are they kidding? Hipsters are NOT a counterculture. They are a very BIG part of our culture! Looking like a hipster is so IN! But somehow, all the stores that sell this clothing manage to convince the stupid teenagers of the world that by shopping at American Apparel you're being original! Oh and who could forget all those attitudes and accessories you need to have that are listed up at the time in the how to be hipster guide! By acting the same as about a million other homeless looking "individuals" you're really sticking it to the man!

And then there are those who try so hard to be original that they throw together these strange outfits that look like they belong in some kind of circus act and call that "cool." Wearing one pink sock, one green sock, a skirt, a strangely patterned shirt, a scarf, and a pair of old ballet shoes, doesn't make you cool. It makes you look like a 3 year old playing dress up.

It drives. me. crazy. Everyone is so busy trying to be original, that they become mainstream. Once again, society has managed to get to us through advertisements and TV shows with an even more clever than usual way for us to become all alike. And we're so darn lost about everything that we don't even notice it! They could tell us never brushing your hair was crazy and original, we'd all stop doing it, all become the same, not see it, and look like a bunch of crazy idiotic savages. (...apparently grungy looking hair IS a part of the hipster look. I rest my case...)

Here's a thought: wear what you like. Who cares if it's something that's high fashion in Hollywood right now, who cares if it's not! Don't be influenced by what's going on around you. Be yourself. That's what being original really is. Looking how you want to look despite what others think. Not dressing in a certain way because you're trying to prove something.

Generation Lost: The Sex Obsession

Ahh...the high school years. The time of your life when you're supposed to make tons of friends and have the best of times doing fun things you'll remember for the rest of your life. Somehow, it's not exactly everything I dreamed it would be. On TV, teenagers always go on these wild adventures with their friends that in the end, bring them into adulthood and full on maturity (and funnily enough never have any real consequences or negative repercussions.) In real life, it's not anything close. It seems like the only thing kids my age do these days is talk about having/actually have sex with their "boyfriends" or "girlfriends." And I'm tired of it!

I don't want to sit down with a group of friends (Gosh...ever since Facebook we use that term really loosely don't we?) and have a conversation about sex! #1: Most of us have never even had sex...so what are you talking about?! #2: Even if you have, it's pretty clear you weren't mature enough or you wouldn't be telling the whole world. #3: I simply don't see the need to talk about it...what exactly is so interesting? We all know that it exists. Why must we make stupid perverse jokes about something none of us should be doing?

And why is it so uncool to be a virgin? I've seen guys who shook their heads vehemently and denied it over and over and over again, when they were asked. Then their guy friends slap them on the back and congratulate them and ask them questions like, "How was it?" Same thing with girls. I heard a bunch of them sitting around a table once asking one another, "Are you a virgin?" One raised her eyebrows and winked, "Well I'd say I'm half a virgin." Giggles all around. "Oooh what does that mean?" She winked again. "Sorry, I don't kiss and tell." Then some other girl who had been quiet this whole time worked up the nerve to say, "Well, if you're half then I must only be 1/4 a virgin." And suddenly all the attention was on her whatever knowledge she must have in store. One-quarter virgin? What the heck does that mean? You either are or you aren't!

I guess at one time, it would have been horrible for people to find out that you fooled around with a member of the opposite sex without being married to them. But now, everyone wears their fornication like a badge of honor. Guys AND girls. Of course, guys still throw around the words "slut" and "whore" but not for the type of girls who actually deserve those names. No, that's reserved for the nice girls out there who won't give it up so easily. They see it as, "What? You won't have sex with me even though every single other girl I know has?  Whore..." 

It makes sense though. Everywhere we look we're bombarded with sex. Watching a PG-13 movie? There's a sex scene. Watching a network TV show? There's a slightly less explicit sex scene. Watching commercials? Well there's plenty of those for lingerie and perfumes/colognes that somehow always end up with men and women in suggestive poses. Just glancing at the cover of Seventeen Magazine? Sex advice from real teens! It's all so glamorized. Even 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom shows what will happen if you're not careful. They don't try to send the message of abstinence, they just say don't make the same mistakes as these girls and use protection. They also call that "respecting yourself." It's ridiculous. But like I said, it makes sense. After going through your whole life with sex thrown at you every second of the day, of course you end up talking about it with your friends. It just seems like the thing to do.

But it doesn't have to be! There are so many other things to talk about, so many other things to be doing besides sex. Especially as teens, we have no real responsibilities so why do we try to change that? We'll be adults soon enough, then we'll do whatever we want and deal with the consequences. But why now would we risk pregnancy and STDs and emotional scarring. Every single consequence of sex is something you will carry with you for the rest of your life. Why not wait until you're ready? Until you're married?

Peer pressure is a very real thing, I know. However, it can be overcome! Start with ending those conversations about sex, even if that means hanging around with different people. Don't pretend like you understand or agree with something you don't. Tell people when you're uncomfortable and ask them to stop! Make sure people know your stance on the issue, because believe it or not, everyone's NOT doing it! And then simply talk about something else. If we who believe this way try harder to stop this problem, maybe obsession with sex wont have to be yet another bad thing our generation is known for. 

Ahh the high school years...the time of your life when you're constantly around people you don't like in places you don't want to be getting involved in things you're not ready for and don't understand...