High School says I'm stupid

Only high school can make you feel like an idiot. Even when you're taking almost all honors and AP classes, getting great SAT scores, being well-known among adults as an intelligent and capable teenager, and making pretty good decisions in your life.

"Nope," high school says, "you're stupid."

"You're supposed to write this type of essay for your college applications: Make it a fun story, but not a generic story like service trips and sports. Make sure its lighthearted, unless you're a serious person. But don't be too serious, the readers get really bored with serious essays and they won't like you if they read something like that. You have to fit exactly who you are as a person, and it has to be a good person, in five hundred words, and it has to be better than anyone else in the country's. Make sure you start months in advance, doing a draft every night, and having everyone you know and love on planet Earth read and check it for you and make sure it's adequate.
Then submit it. Maybe. If the school is looking for that sort of thing.
And remember: College is all about your decisions, not theirs."

.......

"But high school," I say, "nobody's perfect. I wrote my fourth version of a college essay, and it wasn't too hilarious, but it did explain to colleges the quirks I have, and what I think about them. I told them about my determination and ambition, and how I'm excited for the college experience. Is that good enough?"

......
.....
.....
"High school?..... Youu still there?"
......
.....
.....
"Ooook.... I definitely feel done with this essay. It's good enough, and I don't want to work on it anymore. I've only got a certain amount of time left anyways. So... here goes," and I submit the essay.

"WAAIIITTT!!!" Here comes High School, careening out of its nap, "Did you talk to a counselor first?!?!"

....."Damnit High School!!!! Why didn't you wake up and tell me that earlier!!!"

"I did. I told you to show it to everyone you know on Planet Earth."

"YOU COULD HAVE BEEN MORE SPECIFIC!!!"

"Oh... well.... sorry. But you'd better hope and pray that your essay's going to beat everyone else's in the country now. It's probably not good enough. You don't work well under all this pressure. Poor thing. Have some more homework."

"Thanks for the extra pressure of the homework and the... the... college...pressure....added..."

"You aren't very eloquent, are you? Tsk tsk tsk. I hope the colleges didn't notice."

At this point, I'm boiling mad, but maybe High School is right. Maybe I didn't actually do well enough... What if I was supposed to send it to more people than just my parents and my friends who know me well in order to look it over... I mean, my mom only graduated with a communications degree... and all four of them know me well...

But it was too serious. It wasn't stand-outish enough. Or was it?

And what about this supplement essay I'm wanting to send? It's about a service trip... does it answer the prompt well enough? Should I rewrite it all over again even though I had to sacrifice doing nearly all my homework just to get it done? There's no one around to check it either, and I don't have English class tomorrow.... I ought to just rewrite it....

But I can't rewrite what I've already submitted....

"It's not too late! Have people check it again," High School chimes in above my thoughts.

"It's too late, dingbat. I already submitted it. I can't make any changes anymore."

"Well, you're screwed then. Have fun while I go favorite all of these other students who are better than you... No offense. You're great the way you are."

"....Sure. I believe you.... have fun while I wallow in self-doubt and denial"

The problem is, I believe every word he says. High School taught me how to read Shakespeare, how to do Algebra... He's been by my side for four years now. I've got to trust he knows what he's talking about, right??

....My essay should've been perfect. Now I fail at life and I'm never going to college.

Isn't that ironic? There's nothing like High School to make you feel like you're not ready for college....
maybe I'm not as clever as I thought I was...

I guess High School didn't teach me enough about doing everything I'm supposed to do....

~Rachel~

Jump on the wagon...

GO GIANTS!!!

World Series sweep? I think yes. In between doing college apps, hating college apps, and eating too much, I caught bits and pieces of the game. It was pretty intense! I'm just glad it all turned out well at the end :)

Still, it would've been nice if they had won at home... Spectacular, nonetheless. I'm proud to be from nearby their town.

Woo Hoo!!!

.....Ok. Can I stop pretending I know anything about baseball teams now?

Yes? You sure? Ok, good....

Whenever I talk about sports, I feel like this:

...."Is everybody gone?"..... That's from Toy Story 2 by the way.

See, I'm what they call a Bandwagon fan. Whoever's the most popular, awesome! I'm all for them! Go Giants! Go Sharks! Go Yankees! Go 49ers! Go __insert popular team here__.

Because of where I'm from, the Giants and the Sharks are the biggies. Because they're so popular, I like them now too. I'm not sure why, but I just do.

Now, there is one BIG exception: The Super Bowl. I never have certain, favorite football teams, but when the Super Bowl comes around, I always make my own prediction on who will win, and I stick with it. I've been right the past 3 years, so I like to continue my streak. If you're planning to bet this year, check back: hopefully I'll be right again.

By the way, while I was trying to find that Barbie video, I came across this:

How ADORABLE is that?!?! It may be one of my new favorite Youtube videos.

So, readers, Are you a legitimate sports fan? Or do you jump on bandwagons like me? Either way, what teams do you support?

Or, what's your favorite song from The Little Mermaid? I love "Poor Unfortunate Souls" and the reprise of "Part of Your World."

~Rachel~

"Be Our guest, be our guest....."

I swear I have every single song from Beauty and the Beast stuck in my head right now, all at the same time.

Namely, "Be Our Guest."

There's additional lyrics in the musical that aren't in the movie too. Namely, "It's a treat for any diner. Don't believe me? Ask the china!"

OK. OK. I'll be your guest!!! Sheesh. I'm not even Belle!!

I do adore Disney, but any song stuck in my head this long is gonna drive me nuts.

Singing, Costumes, and Peanuts

You know that awesome moment when you've learned the harmony to a song, and someone else has learned the other part of the song, and then you sing it together somewhat unplanned and it sounds AWESOME?

That happened today. It looked like this:

Except I'm not a cat. And neither is my friend Charles, who I sang with. But the expression is basically the same.
We also started singing random stuff from The Phantom of the Opera, and he told me about a time in South Africa when he got to see the show with an amazing view, flawless talent, stunning special effects, and for only $40.
I melted of jealousy.

Speaking of jealousy though, Halloween is coming up, and so are Costume Parties! Yay! I went to one tonight that my entire class was invited to. I showed up late (rehearsal), but in the time I was there I saw some pretty incredible costumes. I am so jealous of the creativity of these people!!! Not to mention some of the costume pieces themselves were pretty amazing.
They included...
-A legittimate Princess Peach dress with Mario
-Sushi
-The Blue Fairy
-Mulan
-The Firefox logo
-Alvin and the Chipmunks
-A traditional Indian outfit
-TinTin
-Popeye
-Captain Jack Sparrow
And many, many more.

The costumes that I envy most are usually those with the long, flowing, royal-looking dresses. Those types of outfits are just so much fun to wear! Sometimes I wish that women still wore things like that as part of the fashion. Wouldn't it be amazing to go to every party in a full-on ball gown? *sigh*

Also, you know when you've already picked out a costume, and you're at a party, but seeing everyone else suddenly gives you tons of much better costume ideas??? Next year, I'm going to get a group of friends of mine to be Peanuts characters with me. I think I can pull off Sally Brown.

Isn't she cute?

I went to this party in a make-shift Princess Jasmine outfit. The tiger that I carried with me helped people figure it out. :)

For actual Halloween though, I've been scheming with one of my friends, and we've got an even better idea.... Stay tuned!

In the meantime though, who's your favorite Peanuts character? I'm torn between Linus and Snoopy.

~Rachel~

Weather and Fair Trade

I swear today we had the most beautiful weather yet this year.

It was the chilly type of weather that makes you wear a jacket all day, but the sky was blue, and the air was crisp and rich. The surroundings were orange and brown and blue and the breeze just yearns for a cup of hot something-or-other. To top it all off, the leaves on the ground were perfectly crunchy.

Honestly though, there's not much else to write about for today.

Oh! Just kidding.

A speaker came to our school today (during chapel) to talk about how so many of our products and food and other things we take for granted have stories behind them. With each fruit we bite into, coffee we drink, and shirt we put on, we share a connection with the person who picked that fruit, picked and/or ground those coffee beans, or sewed that shirt. However, most of these people are being horribly treated for the work that they do. In an effort for companies to make the biggest profit, people who are just trying to get by on the bare minimum are being completely shortchanged to the point where normal life is not possible.

She then talked about a group that is working to find the companies and products that do allow their workers to get a fair price. These products are a little more expensive for consumers, but they allow each worker to have the very, very bare minimum wage that at least allows them to feed their families and gain some sort of shelter over their heads. One family that is paid fair prices, she told us, could finally afford a tiny cardboard shack. Cardboard. Think about it: if one family could finally afford cardboard walls with fair wages, how badly off must all those other workers be?

She encouraged us to make a small difference in order to look out for our brothers and sisters all over the world: Find those products. There is a label on products that says "Fair for Life" (see links below). It costs a bit more, but it's only fair: there are people who worked hard for our simple and trivial pleasures, and they deserve something more than a couple cents per shirt or pound of chocolate. Little by little, by showing our support for fair treatment, maybe we can send a message to the companies who's workers can barely survive: It's time for a fair price.

The organization that's helped spear-head the whole operation, and a label to look for

Interested?  here's a link.

And another, more coffee specific

I personally hope to adopt these standards into my own life. I'm not sure how to start, but I'm going to really, really try. I can't stand the thought of taking advantage of somebody else who I don't even know who doesn't deserve anything of the sort.

I hope this was inspiring to you too! Enjoy your autumn weather!

~Rachel~

Stress Poem: "The Wiser Path"

Let's start our first blog with something exciting, shall we? Have a poem:

The Wiser Path

It seems I'm going down the road less traveled:

Untrodden with intelligence behind.

For life around me's dead, the path is graveled,

Uncertainty is all I'm sure to find.

The signs scream "No!" in perfect harmony

With battered, toothless rouges who have returned.

The innocent are each advised to flee

Before they face a lesson hardly learned.

Am I included in this cautioned call?

A treasure there is pulling me to steal

All it away: A wonder in the fall

Like Beauty's tempting orb above the wheel.

Those that advise: few see with open eyes.

Does dreaming make ignoring wisdom wise?

College. This poem is about college.

I've had a lot of people tell me lately that being a theater major is not a wise choice, with reasons varying from how unlikely I'm going to get a job, to all kinds of crap I'm going to be expected to do onstage as an actress, to my likelihood to impress a college by auditions (because let's face it: I'm not Broadway material and I'm horrid at auditioning), to my talent in general, to the method I should pursue theater, to what part of theater I should pursue... the list goes on.

I think I've got what it takes to try, and that I'm prepared for rejection if that's what needs to happen. My list of colleges I'm applying to includes places both where I can get in, and where I might not. I don't have a top favorite. My expectations are low. If I go out there and try my best, how hard can it be? 

.....Right?

Am I being unwise by following my dream? Or am I just being bold and naive?

~Rachel~

(poem copyrighted by this blogger on October 23 2012. No reproductions allowed without proper citation.)

(In other words: Say that you wrote this and I will be mad, cause I wrote it. Harumph. Make your own ideas, stealers!)

(Just kidding, I love you <3)

(but seriously...)

Well... I haven't done this in a while

Blogging. I've flirted with the idea for a while now, but it's the temptation to post stupid stuff on Facebook that I'll likely forget later that's actually motivated me to put this plan into action (Politics, complaints about college apps, random poetry, religion, obsessing over Disney, random tangents of fantasy, etc.).

By the way, if you're a college admissions officer reading this from the future, a girl's got to express herself somehow, right? I can assure you I have a lot to offer your campus through my creative expression and bright ideas. :D

Phew, dodged that bullet... I hope... (please accept me into your school........)

Although speaking of false first impressions, I intend the name of this blog to be an oxymoron. I come from what they call a first-world country, hence, I constantly run into those petty, every-day issues that someone starving in Africa would like to shoot me for.
For example:

Tragic, isn't it?

It took me way too long to find this picture....

On the flip side of the title, I'm a theater chic. Or, Theater nerd. Theater geek? Thesbian? Disney Princess? Drama Queen? Imaginatively advantaged person? Whatever you want to call it, I've got that optimistic edge about me to know when one of my first world problems actually is a first-world problem. I pride myself in being perceptive (some of the time), thoughtful, imaginative, creative, caring, loyal, and outgoing; I'm not trying to just be impressive here. 

Long story short: You never know what you're going to find here. I intend these posts to reflect my life in a way: Interesting, spontaneous, and completely unpredictable. That's what life is in general, isn't it? If not interesting, there's no telling the future, and I enjoy not knowing what's around the riverbend.

I share my thoughts under the assumption that there's someone out there who's reading this and saying to his or herself, "Yeah... I know what you mean! I feel the same way! I thought I was the only one," or "Wow... I never thought about it that way before," or maybe just "Haha!!" No matter which response might be you, I hope this form of indirect communication can brighten your day, make you smile, make you think in a new way, or just plain amuse you. Besides, we're all in this life together, aren't we? Sometimes it's fun to get someone else's perspective.

Here's mine.

~Rachel~