I've Missed You!

I apologize for being away! Final exams descended upon me in June, and now I'm free (kind of). I still have a summer assignment to do, and I'm taking Health as a summer class instead of the mandatory elective next year. So I go to summer school every weekday. The good news is that I've met some really nice people from this!

The weather's been mostly thunder-ish for the past few days, unfortunately. I do love lightning, but the dark clouds that are always looming make me miss the sun!

Let's see, what's happened in the last month or so:

• I've received an A in all classes and on my finals!
• I'm reading some awesome books, including Persepolis, which is really good.
• I've been chillin and not doing to much, but I will be working on an "alternative paper" with a friend. I'll give the website link as soon as I have it! Also, I'm going to be in a concert, commissioning a new musical piece! That's pretty exciting, too.

Ooh. It looks like a storm's coming right now, as I type! Excitement.

I've also been into some photography lately. Here's some photos, and a link to more here.






















Here's a really serious article about a teen who was "bullied to death". It's so awful that things like this even happen. I wish that adults who saw this happening would do more about it.

This is an amazing story of Daivd Ashby, someone my age, who's walking along the east coast from Orlando, Florida to Washington, D.C. all by foot! He's trying to raise awareness and money for homelessness, and I think it's a wonderful cause! Check it out!

I contribute to mylife24-7.org often as well. I'm a student ambassador for them, and I really love their message. Go to the site and take a look around!

Recently, I joined a few college/scholarship search sites that I really love: zinch.com, fastweb.com, and cappex.com. All three have helped me find really good scholarships and contests, along with schools that I may be interested in. Some are really fun to use, and not that different from social networking sites!

See you soon!

-Brianna

More thoughts...

Here's some great essays about teenage inauguration attendees - definitely worth reading!

Midterms are over! I did fairly well on all. They were not as bad as I expected, although I still don't understand the necessity of them only in certain classes.

I'm working on making the blog more interesting without clogging it up, so thoughts would be great. I've added a music player, so comment about that... It was surprisingly easier than I'd planned for.

I'm dreading actually having to go to classes tomorrow - even though there were exams, I enjoyed having half days today and yesterday! I definitely enjoy school, but of course with high school comes the typical social awkwardness(although I still feel like I have some good friends), and the high stakes for grades - that's pressure, haha. I do cause some of it, considering the fact that I'm the freshman that's concerned with college.

Also, I finished a very peculiar book review from the New York Times: it chronicled a woman's experience in a mental hospital. The catch was, she feigned being mentally ill to experience firsthand patient conditions, so that she could write about them. Being in these facilities, she relapsed into depression, and truly needed treatment. A similar idea was done by Nellie Bly, the famous journalist, during the Industrial Revolution. Here are the two links:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/health/27book.html?ref=health
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bly/madhouse/madhouse.html

Another hot topic: teens and sex. It's being discussed on nytimes.com, which says that despite rumors of teens being wildly promiscuous, the percentage of sexually active teens has gone down. It appears that teens today are more careful about sex, but that ideals behind relationships have changed. There are "hook-ups" more often, where teens are physically intimate without having a long-term relationship. This is where "friends with benefits" falls. Those that are unwilling to commit but are interested in a physical relationship become "friends with benefits" or "hook-up". So, what do I, a real live teen, have to say about all this? Well...

It's clear that sex is on teens' minds; anyone could see that. At my school, teens have been "going out" and having relationships since 5th grade. The "popular" teens constantly switch boyfriends and girlfriends, and by this point, certain students have gone out with almost all of their friends of the opposite sex. What I don't understand is, how does one "go out" without having a car? Your parents have to give you rides, so it's technically not "going out". But that's not the point. As I was saying, teens do think constantly about sex and relationships, and some adults have caught on to this. They attempt to talk to us about this, which is extremely awkward, and they do excercises about this type of thing. My classmates and I were "polled" by our guidance counselors, to discover that we perceived the senior class as wild, party-loving, substance-abusing, non-virgins. In actuality, I know many upperclassmen that I know are not sexually active. Yes, there is a percentage of students in each grade, but for the most part, teens may talk, but do they actually do it? My guess is no.

Well, that's all for now. Ta ta!