Chopin's Revolutionary Etude

K, so i'm starting a new piano piece which I absolutely LOVE!!! It's the famous revolutionary etude by Chopin. If you haven't heard it, follow this url, it is so pretty and complex!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-VjFKLCKwM&feature=related

I have the first page down (a little slower, of course :P) and have only had it since tuesday. SO pretty!

Joseppi

ACT scores

Hey, a short post today, but I just opened our mail and got my ACT score: 34! Love you all!

Joseppi

I made the National Newspaper!

Hey, just letting ya'll know that my article I wrote about the Placer County Peer Court has been published in the National Scholastic Newspaper for journalism! check it out at

http://my.hsj.org/Schools/Newspaper/tabid/100/view/frontpage/newspaperid/856/Default.aspx

my story is the "Peer court loses funds" one. So cool!

Expectations are overrated

For months before my family’s summer Europe trip, my mom did obscene amounts of research and planning to make this trip the best it could be. Countless hours of online planning ruled out any and all possibility in our minds of anything going wrong.
This was going to be the trip of a lifetime.
The day after we arrived in Paris, my mom was pickpocketed in the subway system. I didn’t see it happen: the girl just got on the train, unzipped my mom’s purse, slyly swiped her wallet and was gone.
We were duped by a professional thief, and as a result my mother had to spend the next two hours and $200 to cancel all of her credit cards.
A few days later we took a ferry across the English Channel to Portsmouth. My brother and his wife had been sick for the whole trip, and it was only getting worse; their coughing and hacking was keeping them up all night.
So we decided to get some help for them. We went to a medical dispensary in Portsmouth and asked if we could get some medicine for them.
But what we got was more than we bargained for.
Suspecting they had swine flu, the doctors and nurses quarantined all of us in a hospital room for the next six hours, only paying occasional visits while covered from head to toe in blue aprons and face masks like some sort of hazmat team coming to eradicate radioactive material.
The mood was just a little awkward in that hospital room.
It turned out that this was just the beginning: after we were kicked out of our own pre-paid hotel room, cheated out of our pre-paid car and missed half of our $500 tour, I finally dubbed the vacation the “trip of plan B.”
I thought to myself, ‘Why was everything going wrong? What happened to our picture perfect trip?’
Well, after some inward Zen-like contemplation, I came to the conclusion that nothing went wrong – I was just looking for the wrong things.
It’s like the time I chomped down on what looked like an M&M and surprisingly got the fruity, chewy taste of a Skittle instead of the crunch of candy-coated chocolate; it doesn’t taste bad, it just isn’t what I expected.
The problem with my Europe trip was I expected everything to go as planned, and as such, I expected too much.
I wanted the trip of a lifetime, and I got it – just in a little different way than I expected.
See, for the most part, I think expectations are overrated, in more ways than one. I have always been told to “reach for the stars” and “shoot the moon.” But why can’t I just be content with “reaching” for my daily bowl of cereal, or “shooting the moon” in a game of Hearts with my friends?
Because, as I’ve discovered the hard way, shooting the moon isn’t always in the cards.
Some expectations are unrealistic and lower our appreciation of what is going on around us every moment of every day.
So now, I don’t expect my group members to get their work done, don’t expect my friend who is always late to get to a place on time, don’t expect myself to get an 8 or 9 on my first English essay of the year.
And do you know what the result is?
Now in everything I do, I always either meet or exceed my expectations.
And I love it.
So as I go into this year, I expect there to be mistakes in this newspaper: I expect there to be some biased stories, expect there to be spelling errors, expect there to be flaws. But I also expect everything will work itself out.
What I can promise you is that I and the entire Gazette staff will do all we can to make this a first-class newspaper.
Life happens, mistakes happen; we might as well enjoy them.

The Tomato Cannery of Heck

So yesterday I went to the tomato cannery to do 5 hours of service. The Sacramento cannery now provides ALL the tomatoes for the entire church, and I needed the community service hours anyway for school.

It took a little while to get there, and after we arrived and got all prettied up with our plastic garb and mesh hairnets, we were ready to start. A bunch of people stood in front of the door to the inspection line, where we would work, and I swear it looked like the Gates of Heck were before me. Now, I love tomatoes. But the smell was a bit much...ok, it was a LOT much. The overwhelming stench, combined with the heat and red color everywhere really brought to my mind's eye images of Heck. But, I knew it was the Lord's tomato cannery, so I toughed it out and went in.

After the first 2 hours of peeling and sorting tomatoes, I started to bore. So my friend and I entertained ourselves with a "friendly" tomato fight. It was so much fun, and provided some much needed tension release. Squishing tomatoes is very therapudic. Try it sometime.

Anyway, we were there from 5:00 to 10:00, and I came to a very important conclusion. I want to get a VERY good education, so I never have to do assembly line work for the rest of my life.

That really would be heck.

Thoughts on my covered piano

We're painting my house right now, and it stinks. Literally, figuratively, it all stinks.

I went to play my piano – Poulenc's improvisation "Hommage a Schubert" was running through my mind. I needed to get the music out of my head and channel it through the ivory keys, but the stupid canvas painting sheets were covering it up. They're those ugly ones, that are all scratchy from the sandy paint and blotched with the colors from the past 10 houses they invaded. It doesn't seem right, that beautiful hand-carved piano being covered up just like the couches and chairs, masked as a simple piece of furniture. It's so much more than simple.

I guess it's for the best – I wouldn't want paint to mar the beautiful perfection of that piano; but it at least deserves a nicer cover. Maybe a new paint sheet would set it apart from the rest of our covered up furnature. But I digress – as I sit here writing, the music is still running through my head. Then again, I guess it isn't that bad I didn't play today – I played it a million times over in my mind, and it sounds better in my head than I can play it anyway.

A humorous take on Swine Flu

When we say “swine,” what first comes to your mind?

Images of Hawaiian Luaus, portly pigs or the casting out of Biblical devils may pop into your head.

But how about images of a potentially deadly and highly contagious virus?

If not, then those images (hopefully not too graphic) should.

Yes, this whole “swine flu thing” that everybody keeps talking about and you see on those little Yahoo! news snippits is more than just the common cold. In fact, it has caused enough a scare that America has declared a national health emergency.

What we need to do is not be ignorant, but not freak out either – we need to take the approach which is not too hot, not too cold, but just right.

Let’s be honest – as of now, senioritis is much more rampant a disease at GBHS than swine flu is and probably ever will be. The common flu kills way more people every year than swine flu will – this warning for Influenza A does not merit locking yourself in the house for paranoia of having your immune system invaded by viral pigs.

The second bubonic plague is not upon us.

But this fact does not justify unawareness to the issue at hand. Swine flu has caused fatalities in the past and may cause more in the future. But such a fatality can easily be prevented by you, needle free.

Most cases can be avoided by simply washing your hands…yes, with soap. For those of you who don’t know what actually washing your hands entails, you need to wash them for at least 20 seconds (Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star is about 20 seconds long).

As long as you generally take good care of your body, use common sense and don’t perform CPR on sick, diseased pigs, you’ll be fine.

The symptoms of Swine flu are vague at best and very closely resemble the common flu. It’s hard even for doctors to tell when a person’s infected, as an official diagnosis can only be given after test verification at a lab. We aren’t facing some ordinary viral pigs – we’re up against ninja viral pigs who will do anything to not be found until they strike the deadly blow.

So be smart, be sensible, but don’t be paranoid.

Just take our advice – wash your hands and become an official ninja viral pig killer.

Existence vs living – a vital difference

It was the night of my church’s annual Fathers and Sons Campout. My dad regrettably could not come because he was sick with a throbbing headache.

So I went alone.

I really didn’t think much of it. What was the worst thing that could happen? I would just come home the next morning, take a long shower to clean my dirt-caked skin, give my mom and dad a hug and a kiss, then life would resume as normal.

How naïve I was.

I was at the campfire, just outside the glowing light of the fervent flame, when the call came. It was my sweet mother, informing me that a good family friend would be coming to pick me up immediately, and that Christopher, my brother, just flew in from Utah.

Something was wrong.

My mind was racing, my pulse quickening, the gears of my consciousness attempting to comprehend what was going on.

What could be so urgent as to merit my mother to fly my brother home in the year of his grueling junior core accounting program?

I wanted answers.

I needed answers.

And I found them… at the Sutter Roseville Intensive Care Unit.

As I entered that stuffy, small room, I saw my dad lying on an uncomfortable hospital bed. My world came crashing down around me.

There were tubes in his mouth, foreign machines were beeping that were connected to my father at various places up and down his arms and legs. My skin tone faded to match his – pale and cold.

Tears rolled down my face that matched the ones on my mother’s and brother’s. It occurred to me that this story might not have a happy ending, that not everything would turn out perfect.

One-and-a-half months in the ICU, two intra-venal brain surgeries, several near-fatal allergic reactions, abounding MRAs and CAT scans, a month of rehabilitation – and countless tears – later, my dad was sent home, having miraculously survived a diagnosis of “Dural Sinus Thrombosis in the presence of Inter-Cranial Hypotension.” (Only two other people in medical history have had this diagnosis.)

Yet I will always remember how at that campfire, my biggest worry was that my marshmallow wouldn’t be that perfect shade of golden brown, or that the bothersome kid on the trip might interrupt the important game of Egyptian Rat-Slap I was playing with my friends.

Nothing could happen, right? I was invincible. My dad was invincible.

I realized that I had, throughout my 16 years of existence, slowly and gradually lost perspective on life. I was so sure that life was a concrete block, an absolute that may get a chip in it every once in a while, but would never crumble.

Life is anything but concrete.

It is a glass sculpture – beautiful, precious, yet extremely fragile. I have seen it shatter, then piece itself together again.

No longer will I take anything for granted. I have learned the hard way to appreciate life to its fullest, and by appreciating it, I have learned to live it to its fullest.

Before…I existed.

Now…I live.

Stupidity of Social Hierarchy

This world in which we as teenagers live today for the most part does not care what portion of wisdom we as “immature kids” attain.

After all, there’s always time for that later, right? We just need to wait until we’re a little bit older, then the wisdom will just pour into our minds, enlightening us and bringing us to the light of truth.

Wouldn’t that be nice.

As the world is now, which I don’t think will change in the next four years, nothing worth having or learning comes without work.

The teenage feudal hierarchy we have set up in our generation puts at the top not the wise, but the wild.

If you get an A on a test you worked hard on, you are a thoughtless jerk who ruined the curve; if you courteously bring a teacher who has really helped you a Christmas gift, you’re a kiss-up and if you do bad on an assignment, your failure is met with much rejoicing and jubilation from the class.

Yet somehow people can instantly earn prestige among their peers by cross-dressing in front of the school, or flaunting the facetious and flirtatious side of you by wearing as low-cut a top and high-cut a miniskirt as possible, miraculously getting through the day without a dress code violation.

And it is most times these same people who turn right around and mock other kids’ clothes, accent, physique, or appearance, just to attempt to further augment and retain their social status.

A friend once told me that there are two types of grass in the world – the grass that uses its energy to grow and achieve the height it wants, and the grass that waits for the lawn mower to cut all the other grass around him down so he appears taller.

To those who either wait for the lawnmower, or even those who cut the grass around you yourself, enjoy sitting on the top of the social food-chain while you can.

Popularity is temporary.

Eventually the dress you “gentlemen” wore that got so many laughs from your peers will have to be replaced by a suit and tie, the f-bomb will be substituted out for an obedient “Yes, sir” or “Yes, ma’am,” the mini-skirt and tank top retired for a more appropriate and elegant wardrobe.

My words are for the so labeled “nerds”, “geeks”, and “goody-goodies.” Your time of prestige will come, but just probably not in the classroom; no, your time will come in the office space, when you get the job your former peers or tormenters are all striving for.

Many of you have something more than popularity and social praise – what you have attained and rightfully earned from me and hopefully many others is respect.

And respect lasts so much longer than four years.

You see, those kids who are so frequently labeled as socially awkward or geeks are simply, like their grades, ahead of the curve.

Cesspools of a Suffering Society

It’s a shame, really.

There was a time in history when people genuinely cared for each other; they mutually cared more about the person standing next to them than themselves.

Unfortunately, those times are, well, history

As our cultural way of thinking gradually degenerates, the norms of a civil and mutually respectful society fade to a cesspool of selfish desires and appalling arrogance.

It is unfortunate that I am near-extolled for being such a “great kid” for doing something that ought to be what everybody should do as second nature. Although the compliment is much appreciated, it saddens me that telling my parents that I love them in public is such an unusual act these days that it merits special notice and praise.

The truth is most people of our generation need to grow up.

I’m tired of watching students give up their chance at a bright future just because they don’t take the two seconds in class to turn in the homework they already did, just because it is too daunting a task to look through their inexcusably messy backpack (which they never take the initiative or care to organize, having their Constitution test notes from eighth grade bent and folded in among all the other detritus and useless junk hidden inside).

Why don’t we exercise a scrap of self-motivation and pull it together?

I’m tired of having every other word that comes out of mouths of a prevalent preponderance of the GBHS student body be a swear word.

People swear at their friends.

They swear at themselves.

They swear at their parents.

They also swear at their dirty shoes, their slow computer, their broken pencil, their cold lunch, their bad grade, and any other number of inanimate objects. All of them are cussed out.

Swearing is no longer looked upon as the depraved and barbaric habit it truly is – it is normal.

In fact, if you don’t swear, you’re considered a one-in-a-million freak of nature who is so uptight and austere that they must have no fun or excitement in their life.

We need to grow up; learn another way to express your feelings, expand your vocabulary, and start respecting yourself, those who take care of you and everybody around you. The first step toward reforming our self-centered society is to develop an air of mutual respect and dignity.

I’m tired of a large majority of us being so narcissistic and selfish. Right now, we live in nothing less than a dog-eat-dog world. People are so obsessed with their own “pursuit of happiness” that they won’t give the light of day to anybody but themselves.

And, if they have to step on a few toes to attain their own “happiness,” so be it. Kids will cheat on a test, get caught, then end up not only punishing themselves but also the person they cheated off of. People want so much to advance their own position that any thing or person that gets in their way is merely an obstacle that must be crushed.

Society does not have to be this way.

Think about it – if everybody in the world cared about others more than themselves, couldn’t everybody still succeed and attain full happiness? We need full participation to make this work; but is this unrealistic? Am I nothing but a wisher, hoping that society might change one day?

In the immortal words of John Lennon, “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one, I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as one.”

GBHS, it is time to grow up.

Not next year; not in ten years.

Now.

That's What She Said Jokes

You know, I am really mad at She right now.

Why? Because She is stealing everything I want to say.

If I say anything that even remotely sounds like there could be a possible sexual innuendo contrived from it, nobody pays attention to what I say anymore.

Because they don’t care what I say. They’re too busy laughing at what She said, even though I said the exact same thing.

Then come the high fives and the silly giggling as She, desperate for more attention and chuckles from the crowd, disrupts the laughter with another stupid sexual remark, further fueling the brainless guffaws of those within earshot.

Most kids like it when She butts her way into their conversation, as they invite her to cut short whatever their friend or themselves were saying to appeal to their most barbaric sense of humor.

Some people find She funny, turning into a hysterical barrel of laughs whenever She so rudely takes the words out of my mouth, interrupting what was once an intellectual conversation.

But frankly, I don’t find it amusing, and I’m tired of She stealing the attention away from me and what I’m trying to say.

You see, She is an unintelligent, dim-witted girl who doesn’t understand why anybody would want to say something productive or scholarly.

As such, She decides to conquer the minds of even the brightest and most brilliant students, which they ironically surrender without a struggle, mindlessly listening and laughing at what She has to say.

Eventually She is going to get so good at barge in on conversations that nobody will be able to say anything at all without interruption. What kind of campus would Granite Bay High be if She spoke for all of us?

Many kids would argue a funny and happy campus.

But I contend that the presence of She across the school not only demeans the respect we should have for each other, but also degenerates the high caliber minds that we are trying to educate while in our high school years.

She should just shut up and let us talk.

My Pointy Black Shoes

I have a pair of pointy black shoes.

They’re a little different than most other pairs of shoes, so let me describe them to you.

My pointy black shoes are long and slender and made from perfectly imperfect crinkled leather. The soles are faux wood, which make a sharp clickity-clack sound on hard floors.

But the most domineering quality of my pointy black shoes is, obviously, their pointy toes. The length of the shoes goes above and beyond the end of my big toe, not ending until about two or so inches past where other shoes stop and curling irresistibly upward so the pointy end never touches the ground.

When I go to a dance, my pointy black shoes always come with me, guiding my feet through the Charleston, chicken walk and two-step with flair and ease. I love doing those moves to draw attention to my pointy black shoes.

When I found my pointy black shoes, they were not on display at the front of the store, encouraging every teenager to buy them as other shoes do. No, I had to search for my pointy black shoes among the forgotten “for sale” pile, doomed to collect dust for eternity.

Luckily for those pointy black shoes, I came along.

My pointy black shoes have seen many good days of my life. Through several interviews, my brother’s college graduation and my first prom, my pointy black shoes were there.

I like to wear my pointy black shoes everywhere. But some people have a problem with them.

They think they’re too pointy. But I don’t think so.

Everybody else’s shoes are just too blunt.

What makes me love my pointy black shoes so much is that they are me. My personality is in the faded leather creases, my soul in the soles, my character captured in the pointy tips.

For me, life’s too short to wear boring shoes. I like to stand out, defy the norms and define myself in any way I can.

Life’s too short to try to be somebody else. Besides, everybody else’s personalities are taken.

Just be yourself. Find what your pointy black shoes are. And if you see someone who looks or dresses differently than you, don’t criticize them because they aren’t “fashionable”, “cool” or “pretty” by your standards.

Congratulate them for what they are: themselves.