Today during track I was having a conversation about music with a fellow trackmate.  She was describing how good the song “Pictures of You” by The Last Goodnight is.  I replied that I do enjoy pop, but that I find that particular song to be incredibly formulaic and, quite honestly, boooorrrriiinnng.  Her haughty response was that The Last Goodnight aren’t pop, they’re ‘alternative’.  (Apparently the iTunes store is the last word in this matter.)  I’ve heard the same label tacked on to every ‘punk’ band that has come along in the last 20 years, as well as everything else under the sun, and I’ve begun to believe that the word has lost all meaning.

In the past ‘alternative’ was applied to music culture that was ‘below the radar’ so to speak: bands that were either too brash, too wierd, or too complex for the general masses to appreciate.  But ever since Nirvana made the jump from lo-fi grunge to platinum chart sales the definition of ‘alternative’ has become a hipster ploy.  All of the sudden everyone wearing Hot Topic and some kind of attitude is ‘alternative.’

I personally do not advocate this bandwagoneering and abuse of culture for t-shirt sales.  The same thing happened with hippie culture in the early 70s.  Corporate bigwigs caught on to the hippie craze and began marketing hippie culture to the masses all over the world (I personally believe that screen-printing tie-dies is one of the bigger travesties capitalism has yet produced.  If you can’t make it, don’t friggin’ wear it!).  And do you know what the response to this was?  The last true flower children in San Francisco went to a cemetery and held a funeral for the hippie movement.  Hippie culture is legally deceased with a gravestone and a death certificate, which means that the people living on the streets along Telegraph aren’t veteran hippies, they’re just professionally homeless.  (The truth hurts, doesn’t it?)

You may claim that you can’t kill an idea, which is absolutely true.  But you can stop advocating it when it becomes perverted (just look at Communism).  That is exactly what the SF hippies did, and although I don’t particularly like hippie ideology, I have immense respect for their decision.  So I have a request.  Do the truly ‘alternative’ bands a favor and start calling Fall Out Boy what it is: pop-inflected angst mongering.

Oh, and if you want to hear a truly ‘alternative’ album, check out Mourner by Caina on iTunes.  For those who understand his message, you will revel in the incredible and awe-inspiring beauty of his work.  If you don’t understand, listening to the whole album will probably make you cry for days and then check into an insane asylum to prevent suicide.  The same goes for anything composed by Frank Zappa, who hid seminally genius musical arrangements beneath deranged lyrics about schizophrenic muffin men.  Now THAT is ‘alternative,’ my friends.

-Craig Dathe

When you travel places with friends and stay about a week, don’t you feel like you become instantly more intimate with them? I just came back from my very first ASB retreat with my school, Valley Christian High School. My journey started when we began a long three hour drive to Santa Cruz. I became better friends with my fellow ASB members while we played interesting, somewhat immature, car games because of our boredom. These games included “slug bug” to see who could spot a Volkswagon Beetle car first. We also picked a random letter from the alphabet and discovered who could come up with the most first names with that letter.

When we got there, we attended inspirational seminars for most of our retreat. They were great, but very long. We passed notes during the lectures while receiving glares from various faculties. Sometimes we had six hours worth of lectures for the day! The other part of the day we discussed leadership in our schools with the other schools that attended. Then later, we discussed our school events and how we can bring improvement in our school spirit.

By rooming with all ten girls we found that we all straighten our hair every morning, and we all enjoy the same music. One girl I met on the trip has the same interest in books as I do. While closing one day, our entire ASB discussed what people sometimes think us to be like as a person, when in reality we are nothing like that. For example, one girl said that sometimes people think she is snobby or rude, when in reality she may seem to be this way because she is shy, and she gets really nervous meeting or talking to people she does not know very well.

During High School in particular, first impressions permanently affect student friendship. I learned on this trip to disregard first impressions. I really felt like I got to know my peers’ true characters that day in our cabin. Later we discussed the peaks and valleys of our personal lives. Before this, I felt like there were a few people in ASB that I did not know very well because I am a junior, and it is my first year in ASB, but after our discussion, I felt like these people were now my best friends! Even the people in ASB that are my good friends revealed something interesting or tragic that I never knew.

If there is a trip such as a Spain or a Washington D.C. trip at your school, I would really encourage you to go because you will make friends with people that you would have never thought to be like you.

- Danielle Douvikas

I hope it rains a lot over winter break so that I have a good excuse to spend some time in the theaters watching the many movies on my list—Charlie Wilson’s War, Golden Compass, Walk Hard, PS I Love You, There Will Be Blood, Atonement, it goes on and on. Also, I’m definitely going to see Kite Runner a second time. If you’ve already read the bestselling book by Khaled Hosseini (do that first), it’s time to head out to Pleasant Hill to catch the screen adaptation. Though the movie can’t necessarily compare to the original book, it’s still  a must-see for everyone. The portrayal of Kabul is vivid, the storyline gut-wrenching yet inspiring, and the global significance apparent. Although the movie fails in capturing the many subtle layers and textures of human emotion, viewers are guaranteed to walk away heartwarmed. So give yourself an early gift with tickets to Kite Runner—you’ll love it.  Happy Holidays everyone.

~ Sarah Henningsen 

This past Tuesday, my father and older sister left for Europe, eagerly anticipating four days in London and six days in northeastern Italy to attend my father’s friends wedding.  They return on December 28th, just in time to ring in the New Year, if not for Christmas.

Their departure opened a can of worms for me.  Although we’ve had the occasional birthday and other minor holiday apart–I celebrated one birthday in Washington, D.C., with my dad one year, and my sister’s 19th birthday was spent alone in college–Christmas has always been a true family experience.  Our family may not subscribe to any religious faith, but Christmas is the time of presents and dreams coming true.  I’ll receive a few practical, educational gifts on my birthday; Christmas is when “Santa Claus” brings CD’s, books, and movies.  It’s a guaranteed week off for everyone in my family, to celebrate and enjoy the season of giving.

So the question is: why leave me behind?  The answers of school, homework, and SAT prep are obvious, but they don’t make my feelings any easier to bear.  Because although I still have my mom to share the holiday season, I can’t help but think that with only half of my family, Christmas can only be half of what it used to be.

-Aliya

I just watched Atonement and it was brilliant. The movie itself jumped back and forth in time and followed different characters points of views, the way it was done was beautiful. Plus, it was like a period piece and everything was amazing. There was this once part, I won’t ruin the movie don’t worry, on the  beach at Dunkirk and it was so cool how the camera moved around the scene. I highly recommend  this movie for everyone to see.

-Sean Krimmel

I’m always stunned by how my classes seem to get more difficult and easier almost in synchrony, as if teachers were all hardwired to pick the same test days, essay days, and nights of heavy homework.

For example, the past two weeks have been fairly relaxed for me. A quiz here, a vocab test there, a number of short reading assignments and worksheets. But this week exploded with what seemed to be at least 2 or 3 tests every day, with major assignments due in almost every class.

I’m over-exaggerating, I’ll admit. But I took a test in virtually every subject this week, the homework load definitely increased, and the part of my day devoted to sleeping was nonexistent.

I’ve heard a myth around school that there’s a district-ordained schedule that requires certain subjects to pick certain weeks and days to have tests and major assignments due. Although I definitely accept that it may be a little difficult for teachers to modify their schedules, I really wish that the schedule was followed a little more. It would certainly allow students to spread out the studying, homeworking, and sleeping and achieve a happy medium that, so far, I’ve never experienced.

-Aliya Deri

Last week, Dr. Riley, the principal of Northgate High School, informed the student body that as soon as she became aware of the staph infection’s presence at Northgate, an emergency message was sent out to households of Northgate students via the phone tree.

However, many households, including mine, did not receive this message. Students came to school the following morning sans the knowledge that staph had been running rampant throughout the school just hours before.

Now, the staph infection fiasco is old news. High schoolers have short attention spans; nothing can keep our interest for very long. Staph was a big deal for the first few days, but now no one really mentions it. Aside from a renewed effort to wash hands vigorously, life is proceeding as usual at Northgate High School.

- Natalie Eidbo

While we don’t “knock back limoncello and champagne” like Serena does, we all like to have a little fun. It’s how we function. Most adults think that teenagers are living the golden years of life, where we frolic at the mall and gossip about what happened at homecoming. Seriously, we’ve got a lot more problems than they’d think. We’re continually pressured by the high academic standards that colleges hold against us.

Our parents are constantly nagging about our future careers as doctors or lawyers or whatever jobs that makes a lot of money. Our friends always have problems with their boyfriends or girlfriends and we always have to offer a shoulder to cry on. We have to work a ton of hours so we can help pay for college. And then we have homework that we have to ace, so we can go to college. We know our futures look pretty grim sometimes, and we know that we’ve got to grow up soon. All of this makes life pretty unbearable at times, so yeah, we like to party hard while we can.

It’s not like every teenager who drinks gets wasted and ends up in front of the toilet. Most of us don’t smoke pot and suddenly neglect every responsibility we have. Not every single one of us drops ecstasy until we’ve got holes in our brains. And the majority of us don’t do PCP and kill small animals. We just like to have the little bit of fun we deserve in our high-strung lives. It’s pretty understandable when we’ve got so much responsibility, yet we garner no respect or trust from adults.

“Gossip Girl” isn’t a show that preaches morals to impressionable children. It’s about the glamorous lifestyle of fictitious Upper East Side teenagers who have as much money as they do problems. They’re not portrayed as angelic role models, they’re portrayed as kids plagued with more issues than most adults have to deal with. If parents are panicking about what kids are absorbing from “Gossip Girl”, they should really stop.

We’re not going to start partying because of how glamorous Serena looks holding a martini glass. We know we’re not like her at all. We drink because we are sick of our daily routines. We’re sick of the nagging and the talks about the future. We drink because we’re bored. But most of all, we drink because we work hard, and we party harder.
–Veronica

55-51 Bishop O’Dowd

Last night, I had a great dinner at Tokyo Lobby in Walnut Creek for $10… If anyone is into raw fish, check it out… just stay away from the salmon skin roll.