“Mom, you just don’t understand- People DO care”

It’s hard for parents to get their head around the fact that yes, we are in high school and yes, we care how we look and yes, it is a big damn deal!

High school is enough stress with all the work and trying to keep up good grades for university. When you throw looks and little high school dramas into the picture it gets a WHOLE lot worse. Teenage girls, we stress on things, and we often find a way to hate every single part of our body for one reason or another. When we finally avoid the problem of our looks, something else happens based on a social group or what not. Any given situation regarding anything in high school, even the little things, makes us feel like absolute crap. Then we go home and are all moody and pissed off because of all the stuff that happened at school. When we explain it to our parents, it never has the same impact on them.

A typical situation would involve this:
“What is wrong?” “Nothing” “How was your day at school?” “Awful.” “How come?” “Mom, I had the worst day ever at school. The group of people who I normally sit with at lunch, decided that they were gonna go out for lunch and then there wasn’t enough room in the car, so I had to sit with these other people and they were just talking bad about all these other people. Then when I got up to leave I tripped and fell and they all laughed at me.” “What’s so bad about that? It’s fine. I’m sure they will all forget about it by tomorrow morning.”

WRONG! IT’S HIGH SCHOOL NO ONE FORGETS ABOUT ANYTHING.

I can still recall things that happened in grade 9 that I thought were hilarious at someone else’s expense. Everything matters, even the little things: from what kind of nail polish you wear, lip gloss colour, hair cut, shoes, how you wear the uniform or what you eat for lunch.

EVERYTHING MATTERS. EVERYTHING IS A BIG DEAL. EVERYONE CARES.

Hey, they are my friends- not yours

Parents sometime have a tendency to guilt their children, like me, into spending a night in with their friends. The way I am easily manipulated into inviting friends over is in this manner: “..but, we don’t know where you are when you go out. We don’t know who you are with or what you are doing. It would make me feel a lot better if I knew you were home, here, in the backyard instead of in some crazy public place. Invite your friends over, you guys can all stay here.” Parents make it seem like they are doing us a favour, when all they want to do is be able to hear your screams, watch through the back door and talk to your friends!

This is wrong, so wrong.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my parents, but I doubt that my friends do too. My friends come over to spend time with me, not my parents. I don’t think they care about how my mother’s day went at work, or how they are so proud of me for going off to university. If I wanted my friends to engage in conversation I would have invited them over for a nice family dinner- but I didn’t.

Friendship Shouldn’t Be A Punishment

“Hey where are you going?” “To get a coffee.” “Can I come?” “Where were you on Friday?” “I was out with Mario.” “Why didn’t you call me?!” “Because it didn’t involve you.” “You wanna go to wasaga this weekend?” “I already have plans.” “With who? Why wasn’t I invited? I’m your friend I should be invited to do these things, you would know if you were a good friend.”

Do you constantly go through the same conversations with a crazy friend who lingers around the whole time? If you do, then I hope that you feel my pain. It’s the most annoying thing in the whole wide world. Not only are you friends with an annoying person, but they direct all of their annoyingness on you!

Is it such a crime to have other friends? It shouldn’t be. I’m sorry for not wanting to hang out with the same person who always complains about not knowing when things are going on. I just want some peace and quiet sometimes. What’s even worse, is when you aren’t with them, they text you like crazy or keep messaging you through every single form of communication; facebook, blackberry messenger, msn, email.. Whatever it takes- they do.

Friendship is a choice, but in some situations, you have known the person so long that you can’t leave them this far into the game; friendship should be a choice, but instead it seems more like a jail sentence or a form of community service.

The advice which I give someone who is experiencing the same problems with a lingering, demanding psycho friend is:

CUT THEM LOOSE WHILE YOU HAVE THE CHANCE, OR YOU WILL BE STUCK BEING MISERABLE YOUR WHOLE SENIOR YEAR!

Parents or Police??

As we get older, we gain more responsibility. We grow as individuals. We find ourselves and learn to act mature and take a step back from the drama of high school; but this is only what we see when we look in the mirror.


To a parent, when they look at us walking through the door at 2:00 in the morning these are the thoughts they are thinking: What were they doing? Who were they with? Were they having sex? Do I smell smoke? What’s in that bag? How many kilometres were put on the car? I should definitely be worried and make assumptions about my child and not trust them what so ever.


Believe it or not, teens, we can actually control ourselves in situations. Most often in times, we know when something is going to go wrong and we get the hell outta there. But our parents still think they need to baby us and make sure we are holding Mommy’s hand while walking to school.


Sure there is bad in the world, but last time I checked, I have a mind that makes decisions and I have a conscience to tell the devil on my shoulder to go back to hell. How are we ever supposed to learn from our mistakes if we aren’t allowed to make any? What kind of teen can live life wrapped in bubble wrap making sure they don’t get hurt or get exposed to problems of high school? Life is a learning process and not everyone is perfect- we all fumble but we get ourselves back on track and that is the beauty of growing up and dealing with the cards we are dealt.


I get it though, parents are here to help us and they want us to do our best. They want us to be that straight A student who goes to the library on weekends who always has a nose in a book. But on a logical scale, how many teens actually do such things? I don’t and that’s for sure. I’m lucky that my parents are lenient with me and let me learn from my mistakes. My parents give me the freedom to experience life because we all know; you never know when our time is up.


But I feel really bad for my friends who have to worry every minute of their day because they are constantly trying to live up to the standards their parents have set for them. I feel like some of my friends don’t have parents, but live with police, who interrogate them every time they walk through the door of their home. I would go crazy living in a house like that- but I know that they exist. That’s the sad part.


No Living= No Learning

Overprotective= Not good

Parents should leave the policing to the actual police!

The bubble should be popped.

Please inform me on 'your' definition of: DEADLINE

There is nothing worse when a student has the most insane assignment due on a Monday morning and they have totally forgot because they spent the whole ENTIRE weekend partying it up with friends.

Let’s take a stroll down memory lane and I will tell you a situation from my personal experience:
I admit it, I was out the whole entire weekend without the thought of school crossing my mind at any point of the day. I had just gotten home Sunday night and saw my backpack in the corner of my room- and yeah you better believe it had been there since 3:00pm Friday. I thought What the hell, let’s just take a look at my agenda. I opened my agenda to find out that I had a whole entire rough draft of my religion CPT movie notes due the next morning and it was about 10:30pm Sunday night. These notes were due MONDAY at the beginning of Period 2 (9:20am). I freaked out, I panicked and watched that damn movie on my laptop into the wee hours of the night making 10 full pages of hand written notes on everything in the movie. I was pausing and writing down quotes, analysing the scenes and so far as finding the significance of the weird shirt the main guy was wearing. I needed a good mark- It’s religion class- I get a good mark, it’s easy, it will boost up my average for university. I was literally up until about 3:30 am doing these damn notes- I like my sleep too. I’m usually passed out by 11:30 on a school night. As soon as I finished those notes, I passed out. The next morning I woke up after about 3 hours of sleep and went to school. By the time period 2 came I was so stoked to hand in those notes and just get them away from me! Wouldn’t you guess- my teacher extends the damn notes to WEDNESDAY! WEDNESDAY! That’s 2 more nights! WTF?!


I don’t get it, teachers make deadlines and put so much emphasis on it being done that morning then they go and pull a stunt like that. SURE it’s great for the people who didn’t do the assignment but I am not one of those people.

Sometimes, teachers should make up their mind on a deadline before a chick stays up until 3:30am working her ass off to get a good mark.

Aren’t high school teachers supposed to prepare us for the future?
How are we ‘preparing’ for the future if we are babied and given so many chances?

Doing work for nothing= Not impressed.

IS THE WORD “THIEF” PLASTERED ON MY FOREHEAD?

I love to shop- I’m a girl- it’s just what we do. I can spend hours in a mall just buying everything from the bottom up; shoes to hats, everything and anything imaginable. I like my alone time when I’m shopping. I feel rushed when I’m with people and feel like I’m taking up their time by making them wait for me to try on these shoes, or that shirt. When I’m shopping alone I can work at my own pace and take the time to think through every purchase without worrying about my bored friend standing off to the corner.

Yet again, sometimes the most fun shopping is when you’re with your friends, laughing it up, trying on ridiculous outfits just for shits and giggles. But shopping with a group of friends can come with a price- DIRTY LOOKS FROM STORE OWNERS AND EMPLOYEES.

Just because I am a teenager doesn’t mean I am going to steal everything I can get my hands on, I have money, I will buy it. Often times when you’re in a store as soon as you walk two feet near a rack of jewellery an employee comes so close to you, you can feel their breath on your neck; “Can I help you out with anything, hun?” “No thanks, I’m just looking.” “Okay, well just let me know.” THEN conveniently, the lady decides that the rack of jewellery right beside you is messy and she must fix it up right at that moment. She has nothing to do- she is just moving rings from the bottom to the top while keeping one hell of a close eye on you the whole entire time.
What’s worse than being watched an entire time in a store, is being talked badly or mocked by employees. Yea, so what, I’m a teen in an expensive store, you think I can’t buy anything? Half of the time when a teen goes into an expensive store the manager doesn’t even ask if they need any help or asks if they need a shoe size for the pair of amazingly gorgeous four inch heels they’ve been staring at for the past 7 minutes. They may just buy something, but because the employees are too snobby because they work in a store on the third level of the Eaton Center teens are just simply not good enough to wear such a shoe. How rude.

Who made up the stereotype that all teenagers are thieves when shopping or not good enough?

Can this be considered racism? Because I would sure like to point it out to someone how obvious this age discrimination is.

Who's Really The Bad Driver

At driving school, students learn that "Driving is a privilege- not a right" (yes, i actually remember a little bit from the seven horrific hours for five days). If new drivers need to learn this, what do the old drivers learn? I'll answer that- They learn ABSOLUTELY NOTHING good, in fact i actually think that drivers get worse over time!

I like to think I am a good driver, but according to everyone over the age of 25 all teenagers are careless & reckless drivers and speed freaks who don't take the road seriously because we are too busy laughing with our friends, dancing, drinking while driving and running over innocent pedestrians. Surprisingly, teenage drivers can actually be the better drivers on the road because they are new to the road and are cautious and have the rules fresh in our mind; As opposed to the business man who has been driving for decades who feels confident enough in their driving to make business calls, schedule meetings, email the monthly budget plan and go so far as to sign contracts while driving on a 4 lane highway.

So Who Really Is The Better Driver?

Let's not even get started on the old people who let alone can't see over the wheel but they have the nerve to yell at the "hooligans" who drive too fast because they are too oblivious to realize they are doing 40 km/h in an 80 km/h zone. Hmmm.. yet we are speed freaks not capable of driving BECAUSE we are too immature to realize the serious consequences which can take place on the road. The "Old Folks" feel that we need to wait until we are 18 to get our learners permit because we will be mature enough to handle such a large responsibility.

Yet Again, according to the non-teenage population, we teenagers, don't have the mental capacity to handle the task of driving on a road with other civilization. Instead we should remain little kids and have our parents drive us everywhere.

So, FACT or MYTH:
Teenagers are the worst drivers on the road & the cause for all driving incidents.
MYTH!
Teenagers= Good Drivers