College is mandatory.

It may just seem like a national fad for jobs now, but eventually, higher education will be forced. Everyone is talking about going to college as one of THE only choices a person has after compulsory K-12 education. This is really annoying, how people are just sitting back and taking all of this. People in the future will be spending just about the first quarter of their lives in schools. How is this good? I mean great, we’ll have more technology to access in schools, but what difference does it make if students don’t care? What happens when students are WAY too extrinsically motivated?

Schools have too heavy of a grip on the lives of EVERYONE. There is too much focus on rewards, responsibility, punishment. What about the inner push to learn?

Since when did education become a business?

An investment?

A global competition?

Something you OWE to the country?

Heh. The last place in the country where pursuing knowledge for knowledge sake was left at that. Ruined.

This sounds like a conspiracy, and this site being a blog doesn’t help my message, but just think about all that you ‘ve been hearing these days about college. Really take it in. Talk to people about what college is all about now. And you’ll see that it’s serious. Just listen to the president. Everyone’s going. Every student in America. That’s horrifying…and wrong.

“You can teach yourself.”

said two of my peers as I lamely held a guitar. They both learned guitar on their own. As did other students. I’m confused by that. For the longest, I have wanted to play an instrument, but for some reason, those resources were not available when I was growing up – not even in schools. It never occurred to my parents that musical education could reap great benefits. In my earlier years, science was the only thing they considered important for me, which is understandable, since they both wished to have been in the medical field. There is no music program at my high school, but I could have taken community college courses in it. Why didn’t I do it? Fear of being at a college. Fear of going off by myself to be amongst adults, who I figured at the time would judge me and make me feel unwelcome. Being tired of schooling, and the fear of more “work” to do, for today’s schooling systems have turned courses into a “career.” I feel that if I can’t learn it for the sake of my love for learning, then there’s no point. I mean, I can just go ahead and teach myself a number of things in addition to attending my core classes at school and preparing for college, but I already feel so bad and confused that I’d end working myself to the bone. And again, those autodidactal lessons will just turn into another part of my schooling career.

There was once a guitar club in my freshman year. I joined quickly, but I soon discovered it was just a gathering of already experienced players who played for events in the [former] school band. I’d always asked if there would ever be a time for lessons, and the teacher/club moderator always lied to me that there would be. I showed up to every meeting and all the members did were practice songs for upcoming events. The teacher said that we could could keep our guitars in her office, so we wouldn’t have to carry them. This gave her an opportunity to use my guitar for the experienced members (I gave her permission, hoping that when they were done, I’d get to learn). By the end of Freshman year she had broken two strings on the guitar. It would be her last year there, and she said she’d have it repaired before she left.

She didn’t. During summer school, I happened to find my guitar in her former office; strings still broken, lying in underneath two heavy keyboards, in a cardboard box. I was devastated.

I have a new guitar now, as the old one was beyond repair. But it just collects dust. I’m afraid to teach myself anything. I’ve stopped drawing and painting. I’ve stopped taking pictures. I’ve stopped recreational reading. I’ve stopped skateboarding and exercising and learning good posture and how to stretch. I’m just so fearful that if I do these things, someone, somewhere is going to turn it into a job or a obligation I must complete in order to gain “success.” It’s like that episode of King of the Hill, “The Bluegrass is Always Greener.”

I’d like to get back to all of the above, and I have a new interest in electronic pianos. I also want to learn 2 or 3 languages, and eco living solutions. But with the career of school constantly interfering, how will I do this. I mean college is great and everything, but why waste thousands of dollars learning things that I can do on my own or with a person or two for less if I have the time.

Time. Money. I’m really starting to doubt that urban life is meant for me. I don’t get it, and rarely am I driven by the things that drive urban dwellers for the most part. I just can’t “buy into” the competition and money obsessions and material accumulation and fast pace ways of the city. I want to slow down. I want to see stars. I want to live in an actual loving and sharing community. I want to learn because I love knowledge.

Previously unreleased: Unlimited rights

June-2009

I’ve been trying to cool down from the pressures of school. I’m actually getting a good 7 to 8 hours of sleep now. For some reason though, on this first week of summer break, I feel like someone is playing a cruel joke on me, and that school will come back to haunt me in the few days. I can’t help feeling that this start up is the last bit of freedom I have. My school district has even decided to start school up early this year, so that scares me even more. What’s going on?

Anywho, I’ve been wondering about what’s really necessary for us to do as humans. Humans aren’t like other creatures in that we have so much diversity and we reason and we create complex rules and structures and we’re subject to change and not do things in the ways typical of our species. What’s the point of our existence though? In the grand scheme of things, we are rather insignificant. As the universe gets bigger and bigger thanks to discovering more of it with time, things really seem minute. Here on earth we are boss, but in the solar system we shrink, and then even more in our galaxy, and even more in our universe. Then there is the multi-verse, where theory has it that a different scenario plays out in each one. So perhaps there is a universe where humans never spawned.

Physicist Michio Kaku said our lifespan is like a click in the fabric of time. And then he snapped his fingers. What does this all mean? Why do we feel we’re so important when there is so much else going on? But anyway, I guess that since we can only live on Earth, the point of a human’s existence is to live do and die. Sounds harsh but it’s true. We are born, we do things that is like a milisecond of the mutliverse’s time, and that’s it. There possibility that the energy withing our bodies is taken somewhere else, but I can’t elaborate on that – I’m not dead – and near death experience doesn’t count even if  I had one.

Summary of things that can Help

Democratic Education And Free Schools

• The personalized and dynamic nature of democratic education makes it difficult to define. There is no “accepted” definition of what exactly democratic education means (and, in our opinion, we hope no authority ever presumes to claim an exact definition). However, it might help to provide a brief description of what it is not as well as varying perspectives on what it is. Democratic education, as we see it and in the context of this directory, does not refer to an authoritarian approach involving a hierarchical structure and pre-determined course-work designed to create “citizens of a democracy.”
• Democratic education is an educational approach grounded in respect for human rights and a broad interpretation of learning, in which young people have the freedom to organize their daily activities, and in which there is equality and democratic decision-making among young people and adults.

- A.E.R.O.

Specialized Schools

• Schools that have their curriculum concentrated into one or a few fields and crafts, such as science or art.

Homeschooling or Unschooling

• Homeschooling is when parents take charge of teaching their children. The trickiness with this type of education is that if the parents have been traditionally schooled, the child will suffer under some rigidity (required textbooks, or even insistence on taking tracking tests). There is also the slight concern that the parents may only be schooling their kids as a means to impose their own ideals and beliefs onto them, which doesn’t really help a child’s intellectual growth or social maturity. If homeschooling is taking liberally, and is not always conducted at home then that’s great. Even the parents can learn at that point.
• Which leads to my next explanation: unschooling. This is “homeschooling” generally, but it is “child-led.” The kids make up their day in terms of what they’d like to discover or learn. Parents and others available, including fellow children then proceed to give the learner guidance. The things unschoolers do are different from person to person, even within the same household. It’s for all ages, and in the end gets counted down as life experience.

Holistic Education

• Holistic education aims to nurture and develop the varied but interrelated capacities of the human being .  Thus while it addresses the intellectual development, it is equally concerned about the child’s development as a physical, emotional, artistic, social, moral, and spiritual being.  It aims to create a person who is well-rounded — in a broad sense — healthy, a human being who has developed each aspect of his or her humanity.  The aim of holistic education is not merely to fill the child with information, to develop academic  and job skills, and to prepare the child to fit into the prevailing economic and social system.  Rather it is to help the young person develop into a free, creative, compassionate being who can participate fully in the life of the community.  — Dr. Ron Miller, Goddard College, VT
• This is why since I am being pressured to go to college right away, Goddard is one of my main choices. They value liberal education and intellectual freedom and diversity.

Liberal Boarding Schools

• The Highland School is the closest I can find to a liberal boarding school. The biggest issue with boarding schools is money. Since we unfortunately live in a world dominated by an infinite and constantly unattainable supply of this inanimate object, life must be a struggle. If boarding schools were free, as all education institutions should be, they would suck, because the government just can take on that much financial responsibility in the realms of education. If they were also tax free, then they’d really suck, because people would not spend their time donating to the point that all boarding schools can be highly sophisticated.
• Secondly, boarding schools have to be strict since, before the student arrived time management and responsibility was handled for them in k-x years of schooling. They wouldn’t know how to handle the freedom.
• Plus sides: You’re more likely to achieve specialization at a boarding school. You eventually gain more maturity once you get used to being away from your parents. The curriculum is more mature. It’s like mini-college (although I detest what colleges have become, I do acknowledge that it’s better than anything traditional k-12 can provide enforce).

Elimination of standardized tests. Intelligence is NOT a sport…unless you’re on a debate team. Trivia retention is, but remembering trivia is not learning, but merely storing. Learning should not be a big competition, because naturally some people will be left out and ultimately deterred from learning and will lose faith in themselves. It’s inevitable that we will have an average person with limited ability or skill, but if testing and competing is eliminated that won’t be of concern. The real deal would thus become a task of working with what you have and accepting differences.

There’s more to think about of course, but I’ll leave my ideas and opinions for another day. Oh by the way, I am now an academic tutor for an elementary school. What a fateful opportunity to go back and see how things are going on the lower levels of traditional education. I’ll be reporting.

I’m not sure what I expect from educational institutions anymore. I know what I like to learn and I’m getting the hang of how I learn, but I’m still confused. We have new Holt books at school. They are very large. Students get a big Literature and Language Arts book, then a slightly larger grammar book, an “Interactive reader” booklet (which is really just a repetition of the literature book, with more assignments), and a writing and speech workbook (that’s the latest addition to the Holt English textbook family). I also have an American government textbook. And a heavy Calculus book. I also borrowed a college psychology textbook, paperback,  and it’s the lightest of them all oddly enough. In AP English, I’m also supposed to read a two novels per month. We do journals as we go along and then we are supposed to write a paper at the end.

In American Govt. the teacher doesn’t really talk about how government works as much as he talks about his political views and semi-conspiracy theories. He’s extremely pro-”Indian” and is always trying to sound inspirational, about where he grew up and how the “white folks” try to keep minorities divided. And he talks about how much racism is going on now that we have a Black president, and how the United states is “our land” (referring to “Indians”). Last class there was just discussion about immigration rights and health care and how that “redneck” guy called Obama a liar. I don’t like hearing that stuff.

Is it possible for a “minority” to be racist? Because I heard about how that white police officer was seen as racist because of how he removed that professor out of his home and the “robbery call” blah blah…isn’t it racist to assume that the police officer was being racist just because he’s white? Anyway, I saw the human genographic project, and even before watching that I never enjoyed race talk. So hearing things like, “these white folks,” and us “brown people,” is aggravating to me.

The college teachers haven’t come to school to start the concurrent enrollment class. So that’s why I borrowed the Psych book. I’m the only one in the class that actually likes psychology. I’m the only one reading on my own since the teachers haven’t shown up. Everyone else just talks really loud about their drama or what movie they saw, and the couple in front of my desk likes to molest one another when they think no one can see them.

Then there is calculus which is a great class despite my mathematical deficiencies. The teacher really tries new way of teaching math. And even if we do get off topic, it’s not political based. There were times when we talked about Astronomy, or how to buy a car so as to not get jipped.

Lastly I’m in Spanish II. I tried hard to get French II, but it would work on my schedule. I…have no comment.

Anyway, I’m really fed up. I mean, I really have no idea what to expect from “places of learning.” I really wished that this year could be a year of some autonomy. I just want to read and draw and work on my basic math skills. I just feel like taking a walk for a few days.

Oh, and although I don’t want to go to college, I have to go. Although some reasons I have for not going are more emotional, most arguments I hear on the pro-college side are weak and don’t help my feelings:

It’ll be fun, and an experience you’ll never have if you don’t go. Sorry, but you can apply that to just about any activity, even something like a key party.

If you take a year off, you’ll never want to go back to school. Even if I’ve deferred enrollment with a college I’m accepted to, the person thinks it won’t work. Why is it that people think that a person can’t learn and explore the world on their own? I can only get an education from a psychical building? (I know using a question to refute an argument is sly, but I really want to know).

If you don’t go you’ll always wonder what it would be like if you had gone. That person was trying to argue that it’s better to go, even if I hate the experience, than to not go and feel regret. This was THE worst argument I’ve heard. Yet again, this can be applicable to anything, including if I WENT to college right away. I could just as easily wonder what life would be like if I had decided to do some world-schooling rather than go to college.The following is more of an appeal to emotion, but honestly, I’m SICK of doing things I hate. I’ve never been able to feel any autonomy, just for even a year. I don’t feel in control of my life because I’m always living by other people’s ideals.

You can earn more money as a college graduate. I don’t care about money. I really don’t. I understand that I need that to “survive” in a place like America and other modern countries, but I could care less about it. I leave money lying around, I hate wallets, I love free things and trading items and sharing. Money is a better argument than the others, but it is still flawed. If i graduate with too much debt then it won’t matter how much money I’d make, the debt will still be a major influence on my life. Second, if the area I studied isn’t even hot in the job market, then there is no surplus of money to be gained.

You can get “better” jobs. Let’s take a look at what is meant by “better”. CNBC gave a slideshow of the “10 best jobs in America”:

1. Mathematician
2. Actuary: person who helps a business stay in good financial standing
3. Statistician
4. Biologist
5. Software engineer
6. Computer systems analyst
7. Historian
8. Sociologist
9. Industrial designer
10. Accountant

Right away you notice that jobs that help us keep nations and businesses financially and industrially sound, are the most valued (with the exception of a some jobs that help us understand human beings). A better job is also defined by salary, and going back to the money argument, it doesn’t make a difference how much money I make if money is the main reason I’m going for the job. Other favorable jobs include work in medicine, law, engineering and education on the college level. Those occupations are great and the modern world needs them but…

My next point is this, what about those who would prefer something else? Like art or dance? Cooking perhaps? Wouldn’t it make more sense for people like that to world-school and get more natural hands on experience at a much cheaper price?

What is world-schooling? It’s a broader version of  “unschooling,” for adults and in the world at large. Well what is unschooling? Unschooling is learning in real time, taking into account that most humans are curious and that curiosity leads them to learn, create and invent on their own. An example of unschooling is this very website. No one told me about alternative education and its branches. I was just curious and over time I have done research and I use this site to express ideals and keep a log of my theories related to the subject.

The bottom line is that youth must go to college, because it has become the thing to do. There are benefits of making friends and growing up and studying what you love after the general ed. But it seems like there’s something else at work here. I suspect that it’s a lot easier to prepare a kid for college than to prepare them for life itself. Rather than go through the trials and tribulations of a young person learning how to live for themselves, just give them the right test and textbooks so that they can go to college. Then the college can college can be the one to make the kid mature. I dislike this process very much.

Mon Frere is learning Italiano

My little brother loves Italian culture. During a discussion one day we concluded that most likely his past life was born in Venice. In just the 5 grade (he’s 8th now) he learned about Venice’s water issues. And he felt SO deeply compelled and didn’t know why. He talks about visiting. And he knows a lot about Ancient Rome.

We went to Borders the other day and finally I bought him “Italian in 10 Minutes a Day.” lately he encourages me to do language sessions (I have the french version of the book). There is no language program at his middle school so he’s lucky and happy to get this head start.

Again – people will learn when they desire to do so.

Update 09/13/09: He now owns two other Italian language books, and he is really dedicating himself to knowing the language, especially after I referred him to some more interactive audio-visual sites online.

College life for me

I’ll tell you why I don’t want to go. Things I want to study and major/minor in if possible:

Metaphysics

Activism

Visual Art

Creative Writing

Transpersonal Psychology

French Culture

Music Theory

Guitar

Piano

You see, these are all non-practical now that university is about getting a hot in demand job so that I can make more money and “be successful.”  And yeah, they say college makes you well rounded or “teaches you how to learn.” But any dedicated autodidact or free schooler community can achieve the same. College is now nothing more than an outrageously expensive vacation and an extension to your normalization. No thanks.

Gosh, I’m such an INFP.

More on that later.

Video of the day!

I think that a serious thing to be considered is how to make schools like this operate on a large scale. Likewise, how do you go about introducing such curricula in urban environments? I definitely notice trends amongst democratic schools:

• Very Small. The buildings are practically houses.
• In the valley or semi rural areas. Understandable. You can get a more nurturing and diverse curriculum in nature. It seems to encourage freedom and comfort.
• In each school, the teen population is small.
• Students at these schools seem to have already been raised by accepting parents.
• These students tend to grow up to be well-adjusted.
• The schools are private or nonprofit institutions, monitored by the local community.

After watching more videos based on Sudbury and Waldorf models I realized that for this type of education to exist, it needs to change it’s methods geographically. I could be wrong. It just doesn’t seem like fast-paced metropolitan areas (or even busy-body suburbs) have the time for this. And how can you help minors in economically down trodden areas – “ghettos.” I notice that many kids in that environment have parents who are either to busy trying to provide financially, or they just aren’t used to being intellectually involved in their kids lives. I kind of sense some conflict would errupt if their children were attending free schools. Same goes for parents still in urban areas and not necessarily ghettos. I’m going to have to continue to dish out stereotypes, but in cases like this, I think they are necessary (as well as somewhat accurate).

1. Industrialized citizens like to know their kids are being practical. Structured time. Grades. Ranking. I doubt that such parents would feel comfy with the thought of their kids directing their own learning at their own pace. It would probably be an issue at home. Urban households operate just like schools do – with scheduling and timing and expected results.
2. Industrial parents don’t understand what involvement means. Being on the PTA doesn’t help you see what the students face (especially in less fortunate places). Parents rarely volunteer because they don’t have time. I conclude that as a result, a free school would not thrive due to lack of interactive support. These parents are used to scheduling, systematizing and letting the schools do the work. While it’s evident that beautiful urban areas have more involvement, it’s for that very same reason. These parents in my opinion are doing it just to keep up with the beautification of the town.
3. You see more public schools in the city. As many radical educators know, the government-run systems are failing and turning kids in to a massive uniformed herd. But the only reason people are attracted to them is because public schools are “free.” You don’t pay upfront – you just do your part at tax time. I see that as putting education on the back-burner. That’s not my point though. Urban parents for the most part are very uneasy about private tuition education.
4. Campus sizes. How do you run free schools for groups as large as 3000? Should these schools be broken up into the “school of such”on the campus? Would it be better to tear them down and build demos by neighborhood? I fear that the nurturing and close-knitness would disappear at a large campus. Then rather than nurturing, people will merely be monitoring and baby sitting, just like at traditional public schools.
5. Public schools don’t have models like the demos do. This may seem nice…but only to those living in affluent neighborhoods. Other areas suffer. If they all went by a variation of a demo model, then that wouldn’t be such an issue. Under it, we know that every child is getting the same freedom and care in their learning.
6. By the time urban the public schooled (and private schooled under the traditional model) kids reach teenhood, they get burnout. The rigidity of public schools causes massive disinterest in education. I’ve heard students at my school say that they don’t like to read. Everyone runs from math. Science is treated nonchalantly through the textbook. All we get are tests and rankings. So to introduce such a radical method would throw things out of sync. Although it would have to happen, it would be chaotic at first as most kids would probably sleep and lounge around the first year to get energized and figure out what they want to do.
7. Troublemakers and kids used to the downtrodden life will have serious issues in the beginning if demos were widespread. They care even less about school for reasons I’m not clear about. There just seems to generally be a lax attitude towards progress, education and life in those places. I do think a demo school will help them find their niche – but would they even be enthused to begin with? I’ve noticed that definitely things such as music and dance are heavily practiced in inner cities, but what about other things. I need more info on these places.

So those are the big issues right now. Still, I find it necessary to adopt this model worldwide. But in addition to that we need specialized schools to go alongside demos and frees. Why? Well, a specialized school can easily be public for those who fear private schools. And let’s face it, everybody’s DIFFERENT. Some children know what they like at a young age and want to pursue that mainly. I think that at a specialized school there would be less focus on grades and more focus on how the child is developing in their craft. In addition to those things, a specialized school allows years and years of time for a person to gain experience in an area before adulthood. I think the demos and frees would more so benefit those who aren’t too concerned or are unsure about what they want.

• Specialized schools
• Demos
• Frees

And the big issue: how do we implement these methods on a scale to which everyone has access?

Why standardized tests are horrifying.

So what does it mean to standardize?
Thefreedictionary states:

1. To cause to conform to a standard.

2. To evaluate by comparing with a standard.

What is a standard? A standard is pretty much the “status quo.” From dictionary.com’s thesaurus you can spot words such as: normalize, institutionalize, make similar, uniform.

So guess what? The government wants institutionalized citizens – “normies.” That statement may sound rebellious, but I’ve had enough. People are being brainwashed right before their eyes and it’s making me very angry. It seems that more and more the point of education is to mass produce homogeneous minded people, used to the same 1 2. Used to the same two parties in government. Used to the same ways to vote. Used to the same creepy news reports of death and destruction. Day by day people lose value skills. Car repair, house maintenance, sewing, cooking. Day by Day we lose creativity. And nowadays whatever creativity that’s left is turned into a national gimmick – printed on a t-shirt.

I don’t know who started this standardized nonsense, but I can tell you one thing – it finally brings the government’s ideals out if the closet. Democracy on the national scale isn’t about free choice or freewill. It’s about creating the ideals to chose and coaxing everyone onto your band wagon through devices such as these tests and standards. Democracy on the national scale is about silent control. Think about it – it wouldn’t exist nationally unless there is brainwashing. There would be millions of people with their own ideas, actually carrying them out by true freewill. That’s practically every-community-with-like-minded-ideas-for-themselves. I doubt the few in government would want that – there would be no real use for them other than to play dog walker as citizens govern themselves.

The way things are going is ridiculous. Since when is learning about filling in circles on trivia-like concepts? Why does learning have to be about evaluation rather than about experience and trial and error? I’m tired of hearing Principals tout test scores. It’s upsetting the you can only get funding through test scores. It’s biased. What if the school doesn’t have enough materials to get students to study for this crap anyway? And California is the worst when it comes to school in my opinion. The CST (California state test) – more like the BRT to me. The Bragging Rights Test.

We NEED to end government control of schooling. Either that, or they need to quit it with the normalizing. It kills the mind. All these years, I wondered why school drained me more and more as time went on. It’s the testing. The boundaries. Aside from the testing there’s lack of freedom in schools even to the point of an English teacher taking books away from students reading in class! I’ve seen this many times before – personally. If you’re reading literature during a lesson, you get a warning. Next – it’s taken. One time, I was playing with a TI-83 while playing a math game in math class. I was waiting in line for my turn, and the teacher asks what I’m doing. I told her I’m just doing a probability game. She got pretty upset and told me to put it away. I reasoned that it was a math class. She got angry. WHAT?! We should encourage things like that. Freewill and exploration.

There was only one class at school that accidentally followed a free mode of education. My engineering tech. class. We first went through the boring lecture. Then afterward we talked about so many things. How to buy a car. Astronomy. Amateur theoretical physics. Dating and relationships. How to get through an interview. Guitar. I once had a funny debate about how my friend is not allergic to tomatoes but rather that there is merely something IN them that she is allergic to, and that if scientists could isolate that item she would no longer be allergic. And it wasn’t until we were free to discuss our ideas and interests that we actually had fun and engaged in educating ourselves.

Please people, if you ever come across this blog I want you to know that traditional education is not about educating and liberating the mind with choices and creativity. It is about control, standards and monotony that leads to the mass production of ignorant citizens. We need to either resort to alternatives, or reform the traditional system. It’s nice to have some sense of order and responsibility as a nation, but T.E. goes to far.

I’m planning to read some books by Alfie Kohn and John Gatto soon.

Airwalk shoes are awesome.

getting more random and off topic before school starts up…in close to a week. ugh.

Anywho, back when I was in middle school, airwalk SUCKED. They had the most flimsy rubbery smelling shoes I’d ever seen. I had to avoid them at all costs (literally). I live in the innercity, and some people (I was one of them) get severely taunted and beat up over shoes.I once made the mistake of buying $10.00 shoes from a warehouse. I really liked them, because I have sensitive feet and comfort is my game. However, when I went to school I got challenged.

“What type of shoes is those?” A girl asked.

“Um…I don’t think it matters what type of shoes I’m wearing.”

“Oh you tryna be smart?!”

“No, I’m being honest.”

“Okay den Ms. honest. You betta watch yo back aftaschoo!”

For a few days after that she and some other girls attempted to follow me home. My mom was scared into tears that her baby would get jumped. So from that point on I did as they did. I loosened my speech, did mediocre in class, followed trends and had my parents waste a lot of money on Vans and Chuck Taylor shoes.

But… I don’t have a job of my own to keep that up now and there’s a recession going on. To my luck and surprise, they very shoes I’ve scorned have come to my rescue. To be honest, students at the school I attend now don’t care what you look like. They give superficial praise when you trend hop, but other than that, I can happily go unnoticed fashion-wise. I can even wear the same jeans every other day and no one cares. The reason why I’m looking for popular styled shoes is that I’m kind of bored with being a plain Jane. I’m not as flamboyant and runway-savvy as my peers, but I just want to spice things up. And look at Airwalk NOW:

Yeah, I know…they are totally copying off of Nike, Vans and Converse. But at $12 to $30 a pop – it’s worth it.

You gotta admit, these are awesome trend wise. And check out this other underground brand, City Sneaks:

Amazing. Payless did a good job by taking these people under their wings. They were pretty lame at first, but I guess they were just late bloomers. Cheap. Comfy. Stylish.

Update Aug. 22, ‘09: The STPL shoes are $40 +tax. Yikes. Sorry. But my dad did buy those gray City Sneaks! And @ payless there is a buy one get one half off! Also, I think I might get made fun of, but since I’ve learned to appreciate being cheap – I don’t mind. =]

The internet is addicting

What am I doing here? Who am I? Even without social networking, it’s still easy to sit here for hours…a full workday…just looking. And if I am not online, I’m watching tv. Even though I enjoy educational programming, I am still just sitting there, eyes and ears strained. I still have to look at all the advertisements pointing out all that is wrong with my life and how their product or program will make it better.

Hours and hours. Wasted. I could clean my room. I could write scholarship essays. But every time I try to look for scholarships I see…the lure of searching and watching and sitting. Indulging on every micro thought in my nano brain. How do hair dryers work? What new bands are out there? What’s the definition of “copulate” [even though there are two dictionaries in my room down the hall]. How much money is left on my Border’s gift card? Maybe I can watch a movie that has made it to youtube in 10 videos or less. Or I can watch someone rant about a topic I agree on. Let me check out those new neon bikes from Urban Outfitters. I need to download music. Let me upload these useless pictures I’ll never print out.

My brother plays online games. Hours and hours. With his clans. He’s hurt when people delete him. And he doesn’t mind sitting there by himself, only a shell of a human because he does have friends. They’re all online, with the exception of one school friend…who is also addicted to games…and can only talk about games. Or anime. He watches anime.

I have no real friends. People at school live online.They all want to text and tweet and makes updates of the intricate and personal details of their lives, emotions, and thoughts. If I want to see them now…all I have to do is go to their profile (if it’s public) and warp into their lives. I’m like a ghost that can watch them at that picnic I was never invited to. I can find out what books they like and what music fills their soul with inspiration. I don’t have to say a word – not one acronym. I can just panel over their lives – and then leave. And when I see them in the real world, we’ll pretend nothing ever happened. It’s the best.

My friends have full conversations in texts. When you meet someone new, you text them and ask what’s up a thousand times. My teachers text…at school…yet they take students’ phones. And they text students. They text at the stop lights. I’ve seen it. My English teacher loves her blackberry and to get in touch with her, I can send her a text.

What’s up?
I’m busy at a workshop talk to me in a week.

Week later: Hey I need help with personal statement.
I’m at a conference, I’ll be busy for 3 weeks.

UGH.

There is still the phone…but it’s immobilizing as well. 5 hours of vocal myspace updates. about what we are watching or doing or did.

And I can go find people who have hurt me in the past, and I can see what they are doing, and re-fuel my anger. I can read an ex crushes blog and I can feel sour and satisfied at the same time.

And my friends…tell me about their iphone apps and pandora lists. And about the latest energy saving device.

Yeah, there is live chat, but c’mon. Who really enjoys wasting their time staring down at someone who is staring down because of the fact that the camera has to be pointed at their forehead?

And I can blog. I almost forgot. Even now, at two in the morning, brain starved of oxygen, I can still be plugged in. My eyes are dry, but I can’t stop. I want to stop, but I have nothing else. No one does, even when they think they do. i have no audience here and no one cares about alternative education. No one cares about what I think. I’m not important. No one even knows who this really is. I’m trying so hard to pack up and live in the real world, but it’s so hard. I’ll be alone. As a teen today, I will be an outcast. A shadow without some type of social networking fix. Modern technology is destroying the human race one brain cell at a time.