The Week of May 28th Awards:
Best Song: “Brainless” by Sunny Day Sets Fire. It’s a great song, despite the fact that every repetition of the word “brainless” jettisons me into a mild anxiety about next week’s final exams.

Best Project: My history group’s 1950s sitcom, complete with retro Rice Krispies commercial and Elvis Presley performance.

Best Feeling: Sitting in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and being able to pick up on all the historical context clues from the 50s, from “I Like Ike” to an “anti-red” rally to Mutt’s greaser get-up.

Funniest Movie: My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I’ve seen it enough times to memorize most of the Greek spoken in it, but it never loses its originality. It’s one of those movies that doesn’t stop being funny over time, and with each viewing there’s some new detail that makes me burst with laughter.

Best Number: 5. As in days of school left until summer break!

A couple of days ago, an article I wrote for the paper went to print, talking about my life without a MySpace, Facebook, or cell phone (click here to read the story). It got my family and I thinking, how many people actually text other people just to look busy in an awkward situation? Furthermore, how many people would be willing to give up these technological conveniences and little luxuries? Would you ever give up your Facebook or your cell phone? What incentive would provoke you to do it? Share your thoughts.

I used to just be interested in the 1950s. But now I’m pretty much obsessed, at least with the music. In one of the first projects I’m genuinely excited about this year, my history group and I decided to make our own 20-minute sitcom to show the culture of the “Fabulous 50’s”. In my ‘grueling’ research, I uncovered a bunch of songs that make me itch to get out my fourth-grade Halloween poodle skirt and start embarrassing myself by trying to swing.

1. Yakety Yak- by The Coasters. If you’ve ever heard this song before, you’ll for sure recognize it from the distinctive title (or from October Sky perhaps).

2. Hound Dog- by Elvis (Presley, for those who have never heard of rock ‘n’ roll, fried squirrels, or Vegas). It seems pretty obvious to choose an Elvis song, but he’s a legend for a reason, and this song proves it.

3. Catch a Falling Star- by Perry Como. I’ve found the tune catchy since I first saw The Princess Diaries, but luckily now that I’ve tracked down the original version, I don’t have to deal with squeaky, high-pitched adolescent voices singing it.

4. That’s Amore- by Dean Martin. Who doesn’t want to be musically transported to a summer in Italy?

5. Que Sera, Sera- by Doris Day. Another one of those songs that could have outlived the 50s based on starpower alone.

6. Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine)- The Penguins. One of the first noteworthy crooner songs, a staple of the 50s, as cheesy as it is.
Click this link to hear this song on-line.

“No offense, but your hair looks awful today.” “No offense, but that skirt is really out of style.” “No offense, but your boyfriend is ugly.” Let’s face it: When girls say “no offense” before a statement, they are usually saying something offensive. Some girls are mean. It is a fact. Some girls chose to intentionally hurt other girls.

For me, this meanness goes back to when I was five years old. I was in kindergarten and I had Cinderella valentines. I was really excited, so I told the girl next to me. She gave me a repulsed look and said, “I hate Cinderella.” I was a crushed little kindergartner. When I was in about 5th grade, a girl in the clique I was in said in front of me, “Danielle just hangs out with us because she has no one else to hang out with …” In junior high, I ran into one of the supposed “popular” girls in the hallway (I always wondered why everyone thought she was so popular because she only would speak with a small number of people that were the only people worthy of her presence. I thought popular meant that you had a lot of friends)? She said insolently, “Move.” I timidly ran away. I wish I would have had the guts to stand up to her. What makes her any better than I am? When a girl says to you, “Ooh, I like your dress, where did you get it …” What the girl really wants to know is “How much did you spend on it. Did you get it at an ‘in’ store or just Target?” I have been asked that question a multitude of times.

The truth is that we girls act exactly like the girls in Mean Girls. In the movie, Regina says to Cady, “You are really pretty.” “Thanks,” Cady says. “So you agree, you think you are really pretty.” Regina concludes. This dialogue seems like an overstatement, but in reality is not.

I think every girl has experienced how it feels when some girl is having a huge party and leaves you out. My friend Sophie felt this way when one girl on her softball team had a sleepover party inviting the whole team except for a couple girls. The girls came to the game the next day wearing make-up from their party, huddled together talking loudly about their fantastic get-together. The few uninvited girls felt separate from the team and hurt. Girls should not have to invite everyone to their parties; however, they should try to have them surreptitiously without hurting feelings. Mail your invitations instead of handing them out at school. Girls who give their invitations out at school almost desire to make people hurt or jealous.

So how do you deal with the mean girls in high school? Avoid them. Find friends you can rely on. Do not let the girls that think the world revolves around them affect your high school years. Stay confident and true to who you are. Think about it, if the only way they can feel good about themselves is making fun of you, their self esteem must be extremely low. It hurts when mean girls treat you this way, but you may not be the only one who is hurting; in fact, they are hurting more than you are.

If you are upset, control your emotions and do not take them out on an innocent bystander in your life like mean girls do. Displacement is a defense mechanism that teenage girls use frequently. Displacement is the redirection of an emotion or impulse from its original object to another. For example, a mean girl may be angry that her parents are going through a divorce and take that anger out on you.

Boys make great friends because they do not play girl games. Some of my best friends are guys. If my friends Bradley and Andrew think I am in an obnoxious mood, they will just be blunt and tell me. Boys sometimes make more loyal friends than girls do. My brother Taylor says that when he gets into arguments with his friends, they wrestle a bit, and they end up being friends afterwards. No gossip, no talking about each other behind each others’ backs … boys are like an entirely different species that all of us girls could learn from!

Today was the AP english exam, so three essays later, I’m not exactly feeling the whole coherent writing piece thing. so here’s a random round-up of the movies that I watched in the past week.

1. Iron Man- I’m a sucker for all of these new superhero-redone movies, and so it didn’t surprise me that I ended up in an Iron Man theater. But even those who aren’t as fanatic about the opening Marvel montages as I am should still go. Essentially, it’s still a superhero flick, but so many of the now-cliche details have been reworked that it’s pretty refreshing. There’s rock music instead of the overdone tension-building choral numbers, there’s humor from time to time (and it actually works, unlike Spider-Man 3), and the main character really wants to be a hero, rather than the self-victimizing Spider-Man and Batmans of the world who start off moaning about being burdened with greatness. Verdict: go see it, unless you’re being stingy with your movie money, in which case I say make The Dark Knight your summertime hero movie.

2. Paris Je T’Aime- I love love love this movie. It’s made up of 18 short films by famous directors ranging from Gerard Depardieu to Wes Craven, all of which tell a story about love in the city of lights. Some are in English, some are in French, but none are boring or dull. My favorite segments are one about a middle-age American post-woman speaking in heavily Americanized French, and one about a young woman tripping and finding love on the way to evening prayers at her mosque. But if you’re quirky and into mimes or vampires, there’s also something for you in this movie, which really is, as my French teacher said, “a love letter to Paris.”

3. Dead Man Walking- I missed the middle, and potentially pivotal, segment of this movie when I was out of class for the AP US History exam, but what I saw was powerful. It accompanied my religion class’s current discussion on capital punishment, so maybe it was made a little more intense by the buildup. However, it really does put a human face on one of the country’s cruellest practices that’s still in place, as Sr. Helen Prajeen, played by Susan Sarandon, shows her faith through her devotion to helping convicted felon Matthew Poncelet, played by Sean Penn, work through his last days before being lethally injected by the state of Louisiana. Give it a shot, but at your own risk; you really have to be up to seeing this type of movie to not just break down.

4. 8 Femmes- Another French movie, this time about eight women in a house who all mutually suspect each other after the death of the man of the house. It’s almost reminiscent of the movie Clue, but with a more suspenseful and intricate plot, as well as classic French songs worked into the scenes. Oddly enough, it finds humor as well, but not at the expense of the reality of its characters. This one’s good if you’re craving an old-school murder mystery.

When I used to hear the words “country music”, images of a cowboy-hat-wearing, middle-aged man singing about how much he loves the good old red, white, and blue would pop up in my mind. Back in April, however, my friend brought me to the Rascal Flat’s concert. I was very reluctant to go but I ended up enjoying myself more than I ever thought I would. Now I am proud to say that I am addicted to this genre of music. Despite the stereotypes country music seems to have, a lot of the songs and artists do not seem to fall under these generalizations. One thing that I like about country music is that each song seems to tell a meaningful story. In my opinion, this is one of the things that rap music, which is very popular with a lot of teenagers, seems to lack. Listening to country music has made me realize that my ears deserve better than the “went to a club, danced with fine girls, got drunk off Patron” message of a lot of rap music. If you are a newcomer to the county music genre, I would recommend giving Rascal Flatts and Taylor Swift a listen. They are both amazing and their music is more country-pop, which might make the transition a little bit easier.

1. “No One’s Gonna Love You” by Band of Horses: This one makes me yearn for next fall’s new season of “Chuck” on NBC.

2. “Rain” by Bishop Allen: Bishop Allen’s currently in a throw-down with Born Ruffians for the title of my new unexpected favorite. They both highlight my quirky affinity for alternative bands with bizarre lead voices.

3. “clickclickclickclick” by Bishop Allen

4. “Foxes Mate for Life” by Born Ruffians

5. “I Need a Life (Four Tet Remix)” by Born Ruffians

6. “Let Her Know” by Estate

7. “My Moon My Man” by Feist: This song’s sort of a relief by showing that Feist has a shot of surpassing the tradition of one-hit wonders after “1234.”

8. “Falling Slowly” by Glen Hansart and Market Irglova: Definitely deserved the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

9. “What’s the Matter” by Hot Silk Pockets

10. “Loose Lips” by Kimya Dawson: Makes me smile the instant it starts. And don’t tell me that the Juno soundtrack is so five months ago.

11. “Bleeding Love” by Leona Lewis: It’s called a guilty pleasure.

12. “ The Special Two” by Missy Higgins

13. “You Were Too Old for Me” by Pas/Cal

14. “Beat (Health, Life, and Fire)” by Thao & The Get Down, Stay Down

15. “Madly” by Tristan Prettyman : Who doesn’t love a good iTunes free download?

16. “I Can’t Tell In His Eyes” by Wildbirds & Peacedrums : The lead singer’s voice is beautiful, and it’s such a peaceful song. It’s akin to a four-minute meditation, only with a beat.

Today was the unofficial senior “ditch day” at my school. Like the wonderful student I am (that was sarcasm), I dutifully attended school and ignored my friends’ requests to take a day trip to the Boardwalk at Santa Cruz. I will admit, however, that I probably would have skipped school like most of the other seniors if I hadn’t had my AP Government exam this morning. Looking back on it though, I’m glad that I did attend my classes today. With my graduation 20 days from now, my time is high school is coming to an end very quickly and, as cliché, as it sounds, I should strive to live my few remaining high school days to the fullest. I will try my best to keep this pleasant thought in my head and try to refrain from asking myself “when’s summer”.

Is there some scientific study that shows that workloads can never really be balanced, but have to be broken up into periods of nothing happening followed by periods of chaos? Or am I just seeing it that way, because in relation to the easy weeks, anything else seems insurmountable?

It’s almost a joke how much I have going on this week. A math test, a chem test, two in-class essays in a row for English, then another two for History, an upcoming French test, and three SAT subject tests on Saturday. And this, naturally, would be the week that my immune system goes on strike, forcing me to decide whether I should practically hook myself up to an IV of herbal teas and suck it up, or stay home to recuperate but face the wrath of making up tests, assignments, lectures, and classwork.

It’s just strange, because the two weeks previous to this weren’t all that bad. There was, of course, the stressful test or two (this is junior year after all), but this week seemed to fall out of the sky and land on my daily planner as if all of my teachers had a conference with the College Board and decided that this was the week to hold a mandatory, mental Iron Man competition for the student body of Carondelet. I know that everything will work itself out soon, but for now it just seems crazy that none of this stuff could have happened last week, to spread out the stress instead of leaving it bunched into five days.