Working in high school

Ed from the Good Burger

Recently, I got the chance to land a part time job at a grocery store near my house, to work in the floral department as a florist. Essentially, I sell people flowers, fill out deliveries, make orders, and clean the department. Not only has working given me a good amount of money, but it has also taught me important things that I will carry on for the rest of my life.

Firstly, the application process itself was a new experience for me. Applying everywhere that I was qualified, finally being called back, going in for an interview, and doing orientation were all new things for me and gave me a feel as to what applying, being rejected, being accepted, and being interviewed was like. 

Second, dealing with customers was something else that was new for me. When I first started out, I was incredibly awkward (I still am to an extent, but a lot better than when I started out), I had to answer many questions for them, and learn how to be a helpful and friendly person. I also, unfortunately, got the chance to meet and deal with awful and rude customers. That gave me a chance to learn how to be patient and keep my cool.

Interacting and engaging with co-workers was something that I had to get used to. So far, all of my co-workers have been incredibly lovely and interesting people.

Lastly and most importantly, I have learned how to manage my time and plan ahead. Often, when I work all afternoon from 4-8 I feel I won't have any time for homework. I've slowly yet surely learned how to complete my homework around that. I either try to utilize my time during Smart lunch, get a little done right before I work, and try to finish it after work. This has taught me not to slack off and to manage the time I have. 

I encourage every teenager to get a job. It helps you become independent and make your own money, make valuable experiences, and learn how to communicate and engage with others better. 

Smartphone Apocalypse

Saba's Snapchat selfie, circa February

We have so much to thank for Smartphones. They are incredibly beneficial, convenient, and are essentially a whole world of knowledge in your very own hands. They provide us with current news, important information, and many other tools. Apps such as Facebook, and Skype help us stay updated with friends and family; Instagram and Snapchat let us post and share what's going on in our lives; and Tumblr and Twitter help us learn about the changing world around us.

But with changing technology, our habits, manners, and lifestyles are changing as well: for better or worse. Our lives have begun to revolve around the Smartphone. Let me put this in perspective for you.

Bored? Get on your phone. Can't concentrate in class? Get on your phone. Don't want to do homework yet? Get on your phone. Tired of the conversation? Get on your phone. Want to avoid someone in public? Get on your phone. Don't want to seem like you have no idea what to do? Get on your phone. See this video for more details:

It essentially becomes an endless cycle, where every free minute of our lives are dedicated to our phones because they have become the priority. We are being a lot more more distracted and a lot less productive. Not only that, but we have become so immersed with our phones and technology that we have forgotten to look up and around and enjoy the presence of other physical human beings around us.

I can remember more than one occasion when I am completely ignored by peers, family members, customers, and other people because of their seemingly important encounters going on on their phones. Many times, when my sister is over from college I hope to be able to catch up, discuss, and just hang out together, but more often I notice that my sister is more interested in her phone than her family around her (don't worry-- we've called her out on it multiple times).

And I am not the complete victim in this situation, yes I have been too immersed in my electronic devices to notice the seemingly small yet important encounters around me.

With my electronic devices, I increasingly become more distracted from classwork and homework. Often in class, when I am bored with lectures and schoolwork, I'll get my iPod out and mindlessly scroll through Twitter. When I want to take a 5 minute break from homework, my smartphone makes that 5 minute break a 30 minute break. And I'm suddenly staying up to work on homework that would've otherwise been done a lot earlier.

Last year, because of my lack of motivation, I decided to delete all of my social media apps, and I do confess, my grades got a lot better and I became a lot less distracted. But I cannot lie, I was bored. With everyone around me immersed in their own social media, I didn't really know who to talk to or what to do. Mostly, I just tried to play games to pass the time that would have otherwise been used scrolling through social media.

Now, I'm not saying the smartphone and all the innovations that come with it are bad, because they are not. I am an avid fan of smartphones and social media and I encourage the use of it (for further interest, read my Social Media Empowers Us blog post) and the benefits of smartphones are enormous. But there comes a point where it goes too far, where we forget to appreciate everything that is physically around us, forget how to manage our time, and forget how to just turn the darn thing off.

There is a quote from a great Argentinian movie Sidewalls I watched that said this:

"The internet brings me closer to the world, but further from life."

The quote definitely spoke to me and I did relate to it.

So, I challenge you (and myself) to try to use the smartphone less. Leave it in your bag in class, keep it in a drawer while doing homework, try talking to people more face-to-face or on the phone than through text, and try going out every once in a while without it. Learn to appreciate things around you and then move on to appreciating things in a global context.

On getting my sh*t back together

source: rubyetc

These past few months, it seemed as though I'd lost absolutely all my motivation. It was... a terrifying feeling; my grades were plummeting, I felt incompetently lazy all the time, I was incredibly overwhelmed, and it seemed as though I had so much to do all the time. But no matter what, I just couldn't get out of bed and get my sh*t done. I pushed it all back and told myself I would get it done eventually. 

Well, as most fellow procrastinators know, to "get it done eventually" is synonymous with "to never really get it done." My parents would often ask me how I was doing in school, what my grades were, and the like. And most often I lied to them. 

So many things ran through my head at once; "violin lesson tonight, I work all afternoon tomorrow, eye appointment Wednesday-- speaking of eye appointments, I need to talk to mom about contacts. I'm absolutely sick of these glasses. I should check my email. Oh shoot, ACT's are coming up soon, I need to register for those. Ugh. What if I don't do well? What if no college will accept me? Speaking of which-- which college am I going to? I need to look at scholarships soon. What will I do in college? What kind of job will I have? Where will I live? What if I end up being a completely average and boring human being? But I can't be-- everyone has a place in the universe." These thoughts plagued me to my core. So naturally, instead of going out and confronting these things that I had to do, I hid in my bed and retreated into the wonderful, yet completely distracting world of the internet.

Many high schoolers have probably gone through similar experiences; a flop in the year where no matter what, we just can't pull ourselves out of the gutter and get to work. I can't lie-- I am to be blamed for it. I should've been working harder and putting in all of my effort- I just... didn't want to confront my responsibilities. 

Recently, I've been able to bring my motivation back. Slowly, yet surely. I've been starting my homework earlier, planning ahead, listing out daily to-do's, and making use of my time. Heck, I've even turned off my electronic devices, which as we all know, is always a bitter (but temporary) farewell. 

Truth be told, going through these temporary weird phases is merely a part of being a teenager. We mess up, lie, fail tests, and make bad decisions (it's not our heads making the decisions, it's our outrageous hormones and underdeveloped prefrontal cortex). The important part is that we eventually learn from past experiences, and use them to be better and more responsible people. 

A month without makeup: what I learned

Me with makeup

Me without makeup

From around the end of January to the beginning of March, I decided to go makeup free. It wasn't for any particular reason. I thought to myself "I wonder what it would be like to go without makeup for a good and long amount of time. Would people notice? Would I stop feeling so self conscious? Would it be easier or harder for me?" So eventually I decided to go for it; it was only a month, so I figured I didn't have anything to lose in that time! On my first day of going completely natural, I thought surely people were going to be completely surprised by my natural face, and that at least someone was going to end up saying something. In actuality however, it seemed as though people didn't notice! I can't lie, I was quite surprised. I made the assumption that people would comment on my appearance, ask things like "did you do something different to yourself?" or "what happened to your face?" or even the classic "you look tired." But no, none of that. Everyday life went on, even with my bare and exposed face.
The first few days of going without makeup was a challenge for me. While I wore a minimal amount of makeup in the first place, I felt that I absolutely needed it to feel good and confident. I began to learn how ironic the idea was, since feeling the obligation to wear makeup was what made me feel less confident.
Don't get me wrong, I am a big advocate of makeup, it's a way to express yourself, accentuate your features, and feel good about yourself. I have no problem with people who wear a lot of makeup nor do I have any problems with people who don't wear a drop of makeup. What I'm not a fan of, however, is the idea of needing makeup to feel happy. Many times, especially as a high schooler, I encounter many people who say "I could never go out without makeup" or "I'm too ugly to do that to myself." As if wearing makeup is their default self and anything less is their "ugly self." Even I at one point felt that way as well.
 But eventually I learned that makeup shouldn't reflect on how smart, successful, or hard working you are, and neither should it reflect on your beauty. Going without makeup saved me time, money, and make me feel better about my "bare and exposed" face.
 Ladies and gentlemen, learn to appreciate your natural selves. It may be a long and hard process, but the outcome is worth it. 

When the going gets tough, get going

Inspirational words of wisdom you're welcome

A strange encounter can go a long way

Humans of New York is probably one of the most famous blogs out there. With over 8 million followers, it started with a man named Brandon Stanton, who decided to go around New York and take pictures of 10,000 New Yorkers. Eventually, he was able to collect small quotes from his subjects, that have led to deeply moving personal stories and inspirational pieces of advice.

Last week however, Brandon Stanton came across a young boy in Brownsville, Brooklyn, who changed the reputation of his school and his life. Take a look:

This boy, Vidal, was a student who currently attends Mott Hall Bridges academy. After the photo received so much attention, Stanton decided to visit and interview Ms. Lopez himself.

“This is a neighborhood that doesn't necessarily expect much from our children, so at Mott Hall Bridges Academy we set our expectations very high. We don’t call the children ‘students,’ we call them ‘scholars.’ Our color is purple. Our scholars wear purple and so do our staff. Because purple is the color of royalty. I want my scholars to know that even if they live in a housing project, they are part of a royal lineage going back to great African kings and queens. They belong to a group of individuals who invented astronomy and math. And they belong to a group of individuals who have endured so much history and still overcome. When you tell people you’re from Brownsville, their face cringes up. But there are children here that need to know that they are expected to succeed.”

He learned a lot about the school and how it worked. Mott Hall Bridges was a school in Brownsville, Brooklyn, known to be one of the toughest neighborhoods in Brooklyn. With most people living in housing developments and crime rates in the area high, most students over there weren't expected to make it far by others in that area. However Lopez thought differently. She believed that each student should work to aim high and know that they matter, so she wanted to take her students on a trip to visit Harvard. They decided to create an indiegogo fund to raise 100,000 dollars for the cause. Forty-five minutes after the fundraiser was launched, they met their goal. What started out at 100,000 let to 350,000, to 700,000, and currently 1.1 million dollars that are all going to Mott Hall Bridges Academy. They decided that after they reached 350,000 dollars, the rest would go to a summer camp, so that the kids are still occupied with positive things during the most vulnerable, dangerous time of the year. Then, once they got to 700,000 dollars, they decided the rest of that would go to scholarships for the most hardworking of the kids for college--and the first student to get the scholarship would be Vidal, the boy who started it all. 

If you are interested in contributing to a great cause, you can donate for Mott Hall Bridges here

Conor Oberst

When I think of sad, famous white boys with guitars, the first man that pops into my head is the legendary Conor Oberst. Establishing himself as a musician as a shy, nerdy 13 year old, he released his first album, Water, in 1993, which included 12 tracks. One of those 12 tracks was Ouija, probably the most well known song of that album. 

Throughout Conor's teenage years, he developed many bands, including The Faint (1994-1995), Commander Venus (1994-1998), The Magnetas (1996), and Park Ave. (1996). However his most well known band is Bright Eyes, formed in 1995 and has extended all the way to the present, where they released their last album, the People's Key, in 2011.

Their most well known song by far, is First Day of My Life, probably one of the best and emotional love songs from the 2000's. 

I was introduced to Bright Eyes as an angry pre-teen who was new to being social, interacting with boys, experimenting with music genres, and the like. My sister and I were driving to Iowa City to visit my uncle and she put in a CD with Bright Eyes' At the Bottom of Everything. The song was different from others', starting out with a very odd story of a plane crash, and then transitioning to an angry acoustic song questioning the values of our society (We must memorize nine numbers and deny we have a soul/And in this endless race for property and privilege to be one/we must run we must run we must run). After experiencing the song, I slowly became an avid fan. For a long time, all I listened to was Bright Eyes' 2005 I'm Wide Awake It's Morning album. Conor's breathy and scratchy voice, brilliant lyrics, and sad heart made the teenage "fan girl" inside of me melt. I was harboring a serious rock star crush. In 8th grade, I often watched interviews with Oberst and his band. He was asked many questions about his band, his origins, and his inspirations; but was also asked about God, his spirituality, and his views on the world. 

Oberst was raised in a Catholic family and went to a Catholic school, however as he grew up, his beliefs began to change and through his lyrics it is obvious that he no longer indentifies as a Catholic, and points out the many issues with Jesus and monotheism (See: Four Winds and Shell Games). In an interview, when asked if God was real, he explained that God is not some celestial being in the sky, but rather everything we are surrounded by. God is what we have inside us and what is also around us. Ridiculous as it seems, but those words helped me grasp a greater understanding of my personal faith and spirituality.

In essence, Conor's poetry and lyrics speak to many people on a level many other singers and writers can't portray, and that is why Conor Oberst is a very important and very valued musician in my life, as I've grown up with his lyrics, and his music has certainly helped me get through the many perils of being a middle and high schooler; and his lyrics will continue to speak to me and shape me as a person.