This Responsible to Ride

Every middle school within reasonable driving distance has a long standing tradition of taking the graduating class to Lagoon, what Utah has instead of a Six Flags. My school does the ninth graders. Schools who didn't have an overpopulation crisis decades ago and changed the grades around as a result take the eighth graders.
We rode this:

And this:

And these:

This one made my face hurt.

This one apparently goes backwards. Didn't see that coming.

"Who wants to sit in front?" "Oh, I'll do it." Not the smartest thing I've ever done with friends.

Not us-we stashed our bags in the bushes on most of the rides, so I only took one picture and I'm not sure how to upload it. Anyways, you wouldn't think it was possible for me to sit in front again. I am, of course, a reasonably intelligent person. Never mind that it's a round thing in a river, so clearly it turns around a lot.
One of the best parts was getting to see my friend ride her very first roller coaster.

Now, if only I had a picture of the face she made. Her second roller coaster ever was the creatively named "Roller Coaster". It was built in 1921 and burned down sometime in the fifties. They didn't  get any creative ideas when they were rebuilding it, like using metal. And sometime in the sixty years since then, they stopped painting it. People call it "the white roller coaster" to distinguish it from the others. It does look white in pictures, but up close it's mostly brown. You can see the little metal plates holding it together. They're the same color as duct tape, which seems a little suspicious to me.


And we didn't die.

Ah, the Wild Mouse. Tell me, if the corners of the track are rounded, why does it make sharp turns? There's nothing like dangling off the edge while being slammed into your friend as you're shouting your wills to each other. The part that makes it relevant to this blog happened while we were standing in line.
1. I found out who's been leaving those mean 'anonymous' comments because she's too lazy to sign in. And no, Esme, you can't leave another mean retort because I paid back the money I owed you for lunch, ice cream, and admittance into the park in less than twelve hours-plus 9% interest you didn't even ask for.
And now I'm doing math in the summer. Curse you, Ms. Oberg! Actually, I learned how to do proportions in seventh grade from my nice math teacher. Why didn't I just say 'plus $2'? Alright, Esme, you are the smart one. Don't read that.
2. I saw the You Must be This Tall to Ride sign. It brings back the dark days when I was under 46 inches. I feel sorry for all the dwarfs/midgets/pygmies/whatever the polite term is who have to ride the kiddie rides their whole lives.
Height restrictions are one of the most common and sensible forms of ageism. Little kids are so cute. It's less of a tragedy when an adult takes a turn over the edge. But here's what I don't understand. The sign said persons under 46 inches (117 centimeters) were not permitted to ride and persons under 50 inches (127 centimeters) were not permitted to ride unless accompanied by a responsible person. Not a responsible adult, a responsible person. That's a first one. I like it, but it doesn't really make sense if you think about it. At 46 inches, your life is in danger if you ride this roller coaster. Come back next year and you're fine, so long as a responsible person is next to you the whole time. Maybe 50 inchers are still tall enough to be thrown from the cart, but any responsible person would reach out and grab hold of a leg and keep hold throughout the whole jarring, dipping ride.
I'd certainly hope most people would try, regardless of age.

I Got My Learner's Permit!

Now why don't I hear you clapping?
A bit of advice if you're planning to get yours: don't wait six months like I did. Make an appointment, get it the day you're old enough. 

Hard Working 11th Grader Jailed for Absence

Diane Tran is exhausted. She works full time at a dry cleaners, part time at a wedding venue, and squeezes in homework-dual credit U.S. history, dual credit English literature, college algebra, and AP Spanish-during the late hours of night. Sometimes she falls asleep in class after staying up until seven in the morning.
Her family is everywhere. Her parents divorced and left. She lives with her employer's family. The money she earns goes to an older brother at Texas A&M and a younger sister living with relatives in Houston.
"I always thought my family was happy," she told the press.
And why are the press caring about a girl beaten down into the dust by life? They wouldn't, nearly all these storie are trapped and unspoken. But Tran caught their attention after spending the night in the county jail.
She's seventeen.
Too young to be out of high school already, too young to vote and pour out her voice into our elective system. Too young for many jobs that might pay better. But old enough, apparently, to be arrested.
What did she do, rob a Swiss bank to support her family? No. Truancy. She drags herself to school when she can, but there are days she can't pull herself out of bed.
State and local laws don't tolerate a student missing ten unexcused days in six months, or three days for one month.
Parents whose children miss excessive amounts of school may also be prosecuted.
May? Okay, what is wrong with this situation?

The judge ordered her to spend twenty-four hours in jail and pay a $100 fine, $100 you know she needs.
His justification?
"If you let one run loose, what are you gonna do with the rest of 'em? Let them go too?"

Judge Lanny Moriarty caught with a stupid expression on his face.

First of all, isn't Lanny a girl's name?
She's supposed to be an example to any other would-be truants. A theory under the stereotype that all teenagers are bratty layabouts.
I'm only two years younger than Ms. Tran. I know what it's like to take tough classes. I can't help but wonder how I would feel if this happened to me.
Even worse than the fine and jail time is the mark on her record that will show whenever she applies for college or a job. She aspires to be a doctor.
But there's still hope. Her story has caught the internet's attention and has been featured in both the US and UK news. There's a possibility the judge could be pressured into clearing it if enough people rally for her on blogs, facebook, twitter, and official news sites.
What can you do to help?

Nine-year-old takes a stab at Cafeteria Lunches

Martha "VEG" Payne of Argyll, Scotland eats the same way millions of school children do around the world.  Hold out the tray, have the lunch lady plop something on, shove what part of it you like into your mouth, and hand it back. Here's her typical meal.

I can see how you'd get sick of that. Anybody can complain, but Martha decided to do something about it. With the help of her dad, she created a blog (neverseconds.blogspot.com, check it out) to critique her school's meals.

Sample rating: (Not plagarrism, you know exactly where I got it)

If soup is on and some sort of cake and you are having some sort of roll, wrap or sandwich you are allowed to have soup and a cake. The soup today was potato and leek. I really like all the school's soups. My roll was white bread with butter and grated cheese. I am not sure what cheese it is. I had cucumber and lettuce with it. Normally all the cakes are iced but today we had a choice of iced or not. I chose iced!

Food-o-meter- 9/10
Mouthfuls- 29
Courses- starter/main/dessert
Health Rating- 7/10
Price- £2
Pieces of hair- 0

She's been blogging for less than a month, but already her site has gathered 675,00 hits, growing by the second. (Excuse me, what do I have? About 1/300,000th of that? I've been at it for over a year. Jealousy is oozing from my pores right now. How exactly does one go viral?) But what's more-the school council has now granted Martha's school unlimited bread, fruit, and salads.

That's about the level my elementary school lunches were on, only I remember mine being a little bit bigger. But I do live in America, land of mass produced edible factory sludge. At least it comes in large quantities.

Speaking of which, some people are drawing comparisons between Martha and Michelle Obama.

I think I'll draw my own.

Martha: Has to live off this stuff every day, unless she packs a home lunch.

Michelle: Dines at the White House nearly every evening, unless it's ones of those days when she banquets with foreign dignitaries.

Martha:  Wants better, healthier food that will leave her feeling less hungry.

Michelle: Wants everybody else to munch on organic vegetables followed by a round of rigorous jumping jacks. After all, exercise can be fun.

Martha: Takes a picture and jots down some numbers.

Michelle: Shows up at some random cafeteria to smile, wave carrot sticks at the media people, remind the young people of America to take care of their bodies so we don't become fat and useless, and then leaves.

And what's that statistic I keep hearing about how one in every three American teenagers is overweight? It usually comes on over Channel One News, which we watch in homeroom four days a week. Each time I hear that, I glance at my two friends, then at my body, and try to figure out which one of is supposed to be fat. 

I'm five foot one, weighing in at 106 pounds. Scrawny. Tell me it must be my friends, I'll put all of that behind a fist and introduce it to your face. How would you like to be called fat in the name of education?

Lots of girls are small and slim, or tall and slim. But there are nearly as many with rectangular bodies and stomachs that naturally stick out, that's the way they were born. I know very few teenagers I'd consider overweight, and those are the girls who inherited big torsos and more than substantial arms, the ones who have already tried diets, the ones who already tried exercise plans, the ones who refuse class treats. 

The ones eating the exact same lunches as the slim girls.

And what about guys? Guys are supposed to carry around extra weight. If a grown man sees a hefty boy walking around the grocery store, he'll walk up and ask, "You play football, son?"

I don't know how the White House determines fatness, but I suggest they check their scale.

Okay, rant over. Back to Martha, person this post is about. It's nice to see somebody taking a stand. Keep up the good work!

Death by Sticky Notes

Remember last year when James Tate was suspended and banned from prom after spelling out a prom invite in letters taped to the side of the school? Dangerous as that is, five students from Cascade High in Clayton, Indiana have him beat. Personally, I don't think their senior prank was all that clever. 11,000 sticky notes decking every imaginable surface in the school building. Doors, windows, offices. They got permission and coordinated times with the custodian.
She was later fired. All five students were suspended.



And what does the school superintendent have to say about this? "It had to do with accessing the building after hours without permission et cetera. It was just Post It notes; no damage, thank goodness, occurred. Nobody was injured, thank goodness. It's the unintended stuff that sometimes causes issues and so we're fortunate there was no damage but again, they didn't have permission to be on the premises and there were consequences for that."
Damage? The glue is pathetic. It's designed that way. They don't even leave a sticky strip after you peel it off.
And injuries? Really?
Ways to Be Injured With Post-It Notes:
1: Develop an allergy to paper.
2: Tape them to your eyes and stroll along the rim of a shark tank.
3: See how many you can fit in your mouth at once.
4: See how many you can fit in a shark's mouth at once.
5: See how many you can fit in the superintendent's mouth at once.

After some protests, which led to the suspensions of sixty or so more students, the punishments have been lifted.
But seriously, how could this be considered a disturbance in the first place?

Donuts and Discrimination

Today is the day I've been dreading, looking forward to, anxiously awaiting, frantically preparing for, and complaining about for the past several months.
AP geography test.
And now it's OVER!!!!!!OVE

That's a pixel party.

R!!!!!!!!
The test consisted of long, boring questions held in a long, boring room at our local high school. Kids from farther middle schools had their parents chaffuer them back, but ours is just down the street. My friends and I decided to walk back, even though it was cold, wet, and I was wearing my nice sandals. We weren't in any particular hurry to get back.
I jokingly suggested we stop at the bakery for donuts. It's a plan we've brought up again and again over the past three years, never actually intending to carry it out.
To my surprise, my friends began discussing how much money we had between us (four dollars total) and how long we were excused for. We were farther behind than most of the other groups, but we weren't actually required to be back until sixth period. This was about halfway through fourth.
So we took a slight detour. When we were entering the store, a large group of people who had taken the test with us were leaving. Pity. We thought we were being terribly original.
Let me explain this bakery. It's a tiny outlet place with three cases of donuts, a soda machine, and a few racks of bread and chips. Everything's cheap. I've come actually seen teenagers working there before, a rare thing in this fabulous economy. But this was 11:00 a.m., so two middle aged women were stationed at the checkout counter.
"Are you all from the high school?" one of them asked as we came in. She probably assumed we were sluffing, a logical conclusions given the time of day and our ages.
We all spoke over each other, eager to tell her how The Test was over.
"We're from-"
"-the middle school-"
"-geography-"
"-donuts."
"Put your backpacks down," she said.
 I was slightly taken aback. I've heard about this sort of thing before, signs restricting youths to so many at a time and banning hoodies. They're not worn universally by young people, but somehow they're seen as a sign of youth and having something to hide. That and Trayvon Martin.


But it's never happened in my town, not to me.
We set them on the floor.
"Don't block the door," she said.
We moved them and wandered to the donut cases. So many choices. Chocolate, yes, I like chocolate. Glazed isn't bad either, but I'm not going to spend eighty-nice cents on a plain donut, even if it is my friend's eighty-nine cents. Did they have the cream filled ones?
A woman pushed open the door with absolutely no difficulty, thanks to our correctly placed backpacks. The women at the counter greeted her.
Yes, there they are. Fat, round, and chocolatey with a small mound of cream rising up through the center. I set my sight on the biggest 89 cent one of all. Then again, I might not be able to eat all of it before we got back to school. I selected a slightly smaller one.
We grabbed our treats and took them up to the register. The other woman strode past us, a large blue hangbag over one shoulder.
I didn't say anything at the time. The right words are never there when you need them. I tend to plan out whole conversations, insults, discussions, debates, and counter-arguments in advance. If I ever happen to meet Barack Obama, I know over thirty ways to politely and tactfully insult him.
I know now what I should of asked the cashier when she told me us to put our bags down and step away.
"Why?"
"It's just a rule."
"To prevent shoplifting?"
"We don't want anybody bringing in weapons or stealing the merchandise."
"That makes sent. I looked up shoplifting statistics awhile back for a project. Did you know 25% of shoplifters are under the age of eighteen?"
"Yeah, most teenagers aren't up to anything good."
"Do the math. How many shoplifters are adults?"
They've got us outnumbered three to one. It's not polite, appropriate, or even logical to require one regulation of minor customers and not demand the same standard from the majority. This is discrimination, a type nobody cares to protest.
At least the donuts were good.

If You Have Absolutely Nothing Better to Do...

Everybody's heard of planking. It's a fun, relatively stupid worldwide trend. All you need is the internet and something to lie on top of.




Now that takes some serious skill.
Some Russian teenagers have come up with their own pastime. Equally ridiculed. More purpose, more adrenaline. Less known and widespread.

Not suicide. Skywalking. The idea is to climb onto peripice of building or other large structure, take a moment to feel free, and snap a picture.

I could never do that.

He looks peaceful. The human guy, not the metal head. That one looks fierce.

I do not own these photos or the copyright, some guy names Marat Dupri in Russia risked his life to get them. Enjoy.