Me sitting, of course in the midst. (My salted caramel mocha latte and double espresso in hand.)

Rather presumptive, stereotypical, harsh of me to be writing here, and writing as I am. They say that our observations say more about us than the observations say more about us than those we are observing. Who says that? Just me, I suppose. But if you get a citation for that phrase, do let me know.

girl who couldn’t be bothered to change out of her yoga pants

older man now attempting to plug in his laptop with some difficulty

I am not making judgments, I am calling it as I see it. My sight may be more biased than yours–I know. It’s how all our sight is.

The coffeehouse culture has sadly been liquidated. Good, say the “liberals” (and here I mean those who believe everyone should have access to everything all the time; not the political side of things).

business woman in button down and gray dress pants–rephrase: intern

And not that I stand for inherent inequality. Not at all. I just wish I had a community to go to–not a disjointed representation of modernity.

girl who can’t change out of yoga pants, take two

We all sit in this little cafe and no one says a word to the other. I am furtively writing, the older man got his computer running, and where the hell did the man in the boots go?

enter frat stars

followed by a tall blond intern

I forgot to ask for my salted caramel mocha over ice. I will have the grainy coffee taste forever.

enter older gentlemen who were probably drinking their black coffee every morning before my parents were born

Ah, how the demographic has changed. Or demolished. Destroyed, I suppose. Coffeehouses are no longer a writer’s center of community. Just another facsimile of the feel of togetherness. Old people, young people, we all drink coffee. But none of us can speak to each other.

exit hipster girls

I came to college to figure out what I was going to do with my career, to be a serious journalist, to use my talent for writing to do good. Information dispersion is important, right? But, if anything, I’m more confused about what I want to do because I have so many options. I came to college to figure out who I was and what I wanted.

I’ve found love, acceptance, and knowledge that no classroom that could teach me. I went from near engagement to being unable to hold it together. I went from dependent to independent.

I’ve found the information that the classroom provides me with to be interesting, all of the classes I’m taking have really enriched me. When thinking about college, I don’t think it’s the information you retain, but how quickly you learn, and how you interact with the people around you.

College isn’t about memorization. It isn’t about getting out with as much information stashed in your brain as possible. It’s about experiences. College is a place where everyone experiences life–what most people perceive to be life–so when we get out, we’re adults. We have gotten through college. We’re not only graduating from the university based on our academics, but graduating into a new part of life where we are finally seen as legitimate, seen as having survived all the trials we’ve been through.

My expectations were blown away. College is proving to be the best time of my life, even though it has probably been the most difficult with everything I’ve had to juggle and solve and move on from. But everything worthwhile isn’t free.

I have never been bullied. Sure, insulted, but there wasn’t a time when I wasn’t on my feet ready to end a fight. My brother was bullied, and always had been. He didn’t inherit as much of my dad as I did. I was always confronting people for him, telling them to back the hell off, because no one messes with my family. And they did. I guess it was a case of big bad senior against kids younger than her. So I understand bullying from a standpoint that isn’t in the situation. But I have my opinion on the Rutgers case, and bullying in general.

Show me world peace, I’ll show the end of bullying. We can talk about it, try to start squelching the epidemic. But it won’t ever be fixed. It won’t bring the kid back from the dead. What will help, is charging that boy and girl with murder and seeing how they like it then. At the very least charge them with manslaughter, and then slap them with prison time. Is it too harsh? Is it too harsh to punish them for costing a kid his life, and his parents their son, and his friends their friend? What that kid did (in civilly asking his roommate to leave for a bit) was totally normal. This kid overreacted by videotaping a very personal moment. While the kid’s sexuality was a factor, I think that even a heterosexual couple could have had problems. Not all parents are aware of their kids’ sex life, and it could cause some serious problems, as it has in my life. A girl from a Catholic family could have been taped having protected, premarital sex, and she could have just as easily committed suicide. By all means, still charge them with a hate crime, but I believe that it detracts from the real fact: that he was bullied by two kids whose humor really wasn’t all that funny.

I do not look at this from the standpoint of a parent, or a friend, but someone who has an understanding of legal procedures. Slap them with committing a hate crime and manslaughter and see what reaction you get. Those kids will understand the depths of their actions, and the boy they bullied will be avenged.

Ireland’s lingering woes offer a cautionary tale of how difficult it will be for Europe’s weaker economies to cut their debts while coping with economic stagnation and high unemployment. Following weeks of relative calm in Europe, the flaring of Ireland’s crisis has put European officials back on the defensive, renewing questions about the long-term viability of the 16-nation euro zone.

Europe is finding it harder and harder to cope with the economic statuses of the individual countries. This may or may not be a direct result of the transfer to the Euro. It could hurt students that are wanting to study abroad, not just to Ireland, but to other places as well: Greece, Spain, etc. We are really starting to see just how “global” the economy is, which in effect makes it like dominoes. Slowly countries have been falling, and few are able to right themselves. Ireland seems to be one of the few that has so much in reserves that they don’t need to tap into the EU reserves.

The US’s failing economy roughly two years ago seemed to start a string of events, as our shares in other nations, and their shares in us, were affected. Americans were hit hard for a period of time, but now things have “bottomed out” according to economists. Things have not, however, bottomed out for Europe. The same spiral of events that happened here are beginning in Europe.

Source:

Blackstone, Brian. “Irish Crisis Shakes Europe – WSJ.com.” Business News & Financial News – The Wall Street Journal – WSJ.com. 01 Oct. 2010. Web. 02 Oct. 2010. <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704116004575523121071932284.html>.

Things are so different now, and it’s come to the point where I can’t really take it all. How did we all end up like this? How did I end up defying my parents for him,when all we’ve had is hard times? I tell myself things will get better. They have to. How did my best friend end up with someone who hurts her more than he makes her happy, in the long run, someone who has taken her away from me? How are we old enough to be moving in with our boyfriends? How are we old enough to be knocking back drinks like we don’t really care? I feel like we’ve forgotten who we are, and ultimately, it will hurt us in the end.

A song comes up on my playlist, a song I haven’t heard since my freshman year, when we would sing it in the hallways. When she would get it stuck in my head, when I would forget the lyrics halfway through and we would just laugh. We were such good friends before life hit us like a semi-truck, leaving us both jaded and angry, sometimes with each other.

Some days, I wish I could go back. We could go back to high school, before we fought with our parents, before we had to go to college, before we fought with each other. Before we met boys and those boys ripped our friendship apart, popping one seam at a time.

Some days, I wish I had never grown up.

I find it hard to believe the statistics from CNN’s article on cheating, and how 75% of the population of students engages in it seriously. I’ve never cheated. In any way. I am able to admit that pretty easily, because it isn’t something I’ve ever thought about doing. If I can’t do something myself, and through my own efforts, then it’s my fault, and I should have done something else. Cheating is dishonorable and disgusting to me. I probably have such a problem with it considering members of the top 12 of my class were notorious cheaters, and had been caught several times. But they still went to college. The school didn’t offer harsh penalties. So is this why kids think it is okay to cheat? Because no one has thus far enacted a punishment? Of course. And their parents don’t care so long as they get through high school.

Plagiarism is also a touchy subject for me. I have never committed it, and I have actually been pretty conscious about not doing it. I have teachers read over my papers beforehand to tell me what sounds like plagiarism. I’m a good writer. I know this, I have been told this, and before someone calls me out for being cocky and self-assured, I’ll hand them the stack of papers I’ve accumulated since ninth grade, all of them having received an A. There is nothing more insulting than for a writer to be accused of plagiarism, essentially not being able to come up with an idea of their own that is good enough.

Watching the video about the students that surveyed themselves was a little discomfiting. Not that any of the statistics really bother me. I knew some of them. My issue with the statistics was how taken out of context they were. Sure, people Facebook through class, I do sometimes as well, that doesn’t mean we’re failing. That doesn’t mean that we’re not going to be good people. I just think that some of the most inane, irrelevant things are chosen to be put in the facts. They don’t really reflect the parts of college that really annoy students. Not that I have the definite list either.

I look at my past for a second. Great childhood, new people all the time, a tight family unit. I worked to get here, and here is the only place I want to be. I don’t want to explain my life, dredge up the past and the pain that comes with it, two things so tightly knotted you cannot part them, like trying to work the knot from your favorite necklace.

College is the beginning of my life. I’m sure of it. Everything before led to this point. This is what all that was for. Now I can learn about life and find my own way. I think that college is my rebirth, an emergence from a mold I fell into (somewhat reluctantly and ungracefully) during my late years of high school. Time to brush the dust off, and to step from the wreckage into the light shining on the path that takes me into the rest of my life.

The soundtrack I arranged is running in the background as I write this. It’s like listening to someone else’s life. These songs don’t tell me anything. The notes are flat in my ears–new. I want new. I need new. Everything new. This is all about experience. College, I mean. And here, I can be whoever I want.

They never told me this was the time I could make myself. I could make myself with the framework they gave me. Now, I can flesh out the metal wire frame that my past has constructed for me, and I can be new.

I can be whoever I want.

Well, wasn’t that thoughtful of her?

I’m seriously not looking forward to one of the dumbest ceremonies. The people on stage don’t know WTF is going on, because their heads are so big they can’t see the rest of us. They don’t know what the real high school experience has been for us. Friends dying, sisters dying, car wrecks, and getting drunk, and being so drugged up we can barely see straight. They don’t know what it’s like to be an ordinary kid, because they’ve been so sheltered by their parents, because God forbid reality touch their straight A student. I’m a straight A student, and I can give the top twenty in our class a lesson on real life, and what it feels like to not get what you want.

At graduation, we are all gathered for the last time as a class. Isn’t that the point? Well, sad to say, we don’t give a crap. None of us are going to keep in touch, unless we are meant to, because who the hell wants to remember the morons from high school?

I don’t.

My point is, we’ll remember the teachers we liked and the friends we had. None of us is going to remember graduation. Because we don’t care. It’s a load of pomp and circumstance, and crap, considering some of the lightbulbs that they let graduate, regardless of their brightness.

So, here’s to you, High School! I’m done.

I don’t want to sound arrogant, or condescending, or anything negative. I have always written for teachers, so when I moved my writing to the internet, I was faced with the problem of writing for kids my age. Because I’m going  to be honest, I have a very large vocabulary. All I do is read, and anyone who knows me can testify to that. So when I found this nifty little thing called a Tumblr, I was excited and started posting and having fun. I had to severely decrease not only the size of my posts, but the actual content. And once I did, I got more followers.

I have become aware of how I want to be taken when I tweet, blog, or just write. I don’t want to be too outward about my opinion, but sometimes, you have to be, otherwise people walk all over you.

I’m sad that I have to dumb down and be concerned about things that don’t matter when I’m writing for my Tumblr, or other such sites, because I don’t normally have to do so. This is why this blog needs to be revived so I will feel better about myself and feel less like I’m trying to satisfy other people.

The writer in me is tired of satisfying other people. “This plot will be good,” I say to myself, “because it’s easy to swallow.” But the writer squelches that and says, “But that’s now how it would really happen, now is it?”

That is what writing, what literature, teaches you. It teaches you life, and the things that do matter, that should be examined. I’m still waiting for my generation to catch up with that.

I should come up with a New Year’s resolution, but I can’t seem to figure out just one. I have a whole list in my head, and most of them are pretty important. I have been so lost in work that I haven’t really had time to sit down and use this blog as it was intended–therapy. Introduced by a teacher of mine a long time ago–in teenage terms.

I have been accepted to college. I am six months away from graduating. My whole life is going to change.

Of course I’m scared. Don’t think I’m not. But I take change as it comes, because I have become so used to it in the way my family lives. Change is needed. We are restless, having been in one spot for so long. My parents are considering another move once I am settled in Columbia. Good for them. Mom hates being in one place for too long, so she deserves the move.

This year was…another year. It wasn’t a horrible year, but it certainly had low points that my life has never experienced before. I hope 2010 is nicer to me–I’m sure it will be, I’m graduating from Hell High School, where idiocy and cheating are rewarded, and the people who trudge quietly from class to class.

For now, I will say good-bye, and I hope to post more. I hope to. But life seems to keep me away.