Curfews

It's 11:51 on a Friday night when I think to text my Mom and tell her what I'm doing.
>We're watching Once Upon a Time.
A few minutes later, I get a reply.
>Which episode? Is it okay with them if u stay later?
I smile and put my phone away. She knows exactly where I am-indoors, just down the street at my friend's house. She dropped me off herself because I didn't feel like walking. Besides, it's entirely possible an ax murderer could have been lurking behind mailboxes, waiting for the perfect opportunity.
He'd have to be a short ax murderer.
My four friends and I sat around, talked about everything, and painted our nails. When we discovered one of our number had not yet been introduced to the wonderful world of ABC'S Once Upon a Time, we were forced to take drastic measures.

No, no, we did not dress up in pretty wedding gowns and stab her. That would have ruined the fabric. We sat her down in front of the TV and had her watch professional actors dress up in pretty costumes and stab people. They're adults, so it's perfectly safe.
The episodes are around forty-five minutes long, and we couldn't watch just one. So that's how I came to be sitting on the couch, eating skittles, so very late at night.
I'm one of the lucky ones-I don't have a curfew. The subject hasn't come up yet (and hopefully never will). My average Friday night is spent in front of the computer, toiling away on the latest portion of my acursed science fair project. Which I happen to be procrastinating right now. Last Friday night was practically an adventure.
I can see how parental curfews could be necessary. Some teenagers like to play with sharp objects (while not wearing protective wedding dresses) or participate in other such activities. Legal curfews make sense as well-if you happen to live in one of those big cities populated by conveniently sized ax murderers. My life, not so much.

A Few Words for Teenage Guys

Do these gentlemen look happy? Yes they do.

      So I went to a dance tonight and couldn't help but notice that some of the guys were being very...how do I put this gently? Pathetic. Being a girl, I have secret insider information on how you guys can avoid being lame, have a good time, and even impress a girl.
One: Leave your manga sketchbook at home. I actually saw this tonight. It's a dance, not a cartoon convention. Fifteen years from now, do you want to live in your parents basement, sit in the corner, and doodle monkeys every Friday night? Please don't say yes, because I like to think positive thoughts about mankind.
Two: Brush your teeth. Did you think ladies like stale breath? No. Especially when we happen to be standing six inches away from your mouth.
Three: Don't say "No.". Or "Sort of." What kind of answer is that? This also happened to me tonight. Our society is male-dominated in many ways. If a girl works up the courage to ask you, that means she likes you. To some extent. Or maybe she just wants to have fun, and you happen to be the least ugliest guy in the room. Either way, good for you.
If you deny her, she will instruct your friend to tell you how pathetic you are, turn on her heel, and tell this amusing little story to five of her friends, three of her friend's friends, two of her cousins, her parents, her friend's parents, her church youth leaders, and that random guy who sits behind her in geography class.
At least, that's what I plan on doing over the next few weeks, unless I come up with a better Guy Story.
Four: Be a Man. Ask a girl to dance yourself. Why do you think we have dances in the first place? Centuries ago, a bunch of guys sat around and came up with a decent way to hold girls' hands. It's alright if you're nervous-that can be cute in guys. It makes us feel special. And powerful.
And don't worry about what she'll think-you aren't that ugly.
Five: Be Awesome. A tall, mysterious stranger steps into the center of the circle. All eyes are on him. Without warning, he does sort of flip with a scary twist in the middle and lands on his feet. Feminine screams fill the room.
If you're the type of guy who has reoccuring nightmares about crashig headfirst into hardwood floors, you can still show off. I mean, impress people. Instead of doing that boring step from left to right to left to right routine, get on youtube and learn something simple, like the box step. If she doen't know how to do it, you can teach her in all of fifteen seconds. Now you appear to be an experienced, talented dancer.
There are other ways to be awesome. A few months ago, I was at a dance at happened to meet up with my friend who was paralyzed over the summer and now uses a wheelchair. It was her first dance. Not one but two older guys asked her to dance.
We let them have their space, but as soon as the dance was over we crowded around her. Who was this sweet boy, we wanted to know, and how old was he? Where did he go to school?
Now that you have discovered these little tidbits of wisdom, your mission, and you had better choose to accept it, is to find a dance, something decent to wear, and a pretty girl. Or at least a nice looking girl. Or a girl with a pretty personality.
If you don't, I will bash my head into the keyboard, mutter a few choice words about the lack of chivalry these days, and blame you for the resulting headache.

Snobby vs. Obnoxious

Last night, my friend Esme and I went to the Jazz vs. Grizzlies basketball game. It was a pretty good game, the Jazz were losing at a steady pace until the second half, when they pulled ahead by eighteen points. However, we were sitting in front of two obnoxious guys. They were in their fourties or late thirties and had piercings and weird goatees. They enjoyed loudly dissing both teams, talking about the advantages of having older players, beer, the cheerleaders' outfits and adjustments they thought should be made, the best places to smoke something I think might be another name for marijuana, and how weird and quick the season was going. Yeah, it's called a lockout. Have you looked at the news in the past few months?
Generally, they were being annoying and I wanted them to shut up. So when one of them swore again, I told him, "Watch it, there are children in this audience."
Unfortunatley, they both developed hearing problems and short term memory loss at that moment. They were unable to hear me and didn't know what they'd just said. They apologized condensendingly "if we said something that offended you" and asked if I was underage. I didn't know what age they were refering to. Twenty-one? Eighteen? Sixteen?
They left too quickly for me to take a picture of them and post it for their wives or mothers to find. As they were leaving, one of them had a beer chugging contest with himself and the other one talked on his phone. It went like this: "Yeah, we were like, sitting behind these, like, snobby teenagers who were like, all offended by the way I like, speak."
Snobby? I can see where he's coming from, but at least we know the basics of grammar and the like.
So if any of you readers have ugly and obnoxious sons or husbands who went to the game last night and sat in row 15 of section 123, ask them just what they said about the cheerleaders.

Teen Stereotypes

I was at a neighborhood Christmas party with about twenty people whose ages ranged from ten to seventy-three. My friend and I were sitting at a table with two adults. She was talking about all the car crash  videos she watched in her drivers ed class and how most of them involved texting. For some reason, everybody associated teenagers with car crashes. That is logical-a 16 year old has less driving experience than a 56 year old. While I was on this train of thought, I  said, "Adults have so many stereotpyes about teenagers."
The adults looked surprised. One woman said, "Do we?"
Hmm...let's see. According to stereotype, all teenagers are about sixeteen years old. Go to google images. How many of those kids look thirteen? All of us have about fifty piercings and tattoos on our faces alone. All of us. That's because all of us are gangsters. We all use drink, smoke, use drugs, text, and crash cars. At the same time, because we are a generation of multitaskers.  That's just how we live. All we do is go to school and then go home to singlehandedly support the video game industry.
Oh, and most importantly, we're always wrong. The exact same words that would be a joke from a child, a casual statement from another adult, and astoundingly clever if you said it, are sarcasm when we talk.
I think there's a little more to teenagers. Stories about teenaged gangsters crashing cars are usually the only ones that make headlines next to adult politicians and adult criminals. Most people who aren't directly involveved with teenagers on a regular basis don't bother to look beyond the bad and into the realm of normality.

Teens of the Year

If you've rallied against the government in the Arab Spring or occupied Wall Street (or Tokyo, or Oakland, or London) you have something in common with JFK, Queen Elizabeth II, and Mark Zuckerburg.
Congratulations. You are Time Magazine's Person of the Year. You (and your buddies) have played a greater roll in shaping 2011 than any human being on the planet. At least according to Time.
Let's take a look at some of the teenage protesters who share this honor.
Hamza Ali al-Kahteeb (13) and Tamer Mohammed al-Sharei (15)

This is Hamza. He and Tamer were tortured and killed in seperate incidents after they protested against inhumane conditions in Syria and the reign of President Assad. He's obviously going to pushed out eventually. I just wish Assad would hurry up so we can stop the shed of innocent blood and check off Syria on the same list as Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. If anybody deserves this recognition, they do. Thank you for your sacrifice.


Alec Loorz, 16
 
An old Dutch proverb says, "We don't inherit the world from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children."
Alec Loorz is passionate about both saving the environment and empowering youth. Everybody knows they're supposed to care for the world, but Alec is taking it far beyond recycling and carpooling. He's suing the government-not for money-but to reduce CO2 emission 6% every year until it disappears entirely. He believes they are responsible for overpollution and overdevelloping the planet that rightfully belongs to our generations and those to follow.  Loorz says:
"I believe this revolution needs to be led by youth. It’s our future we’re fighting for, and we are some of the most creative, dedicated, and passionate people on the planet. We have the moral authority to look into our parents and leaders eyes and ask them, “Do I matter to you?”
Also, as youth, we are the last group of people in the United States who don’t have any official political rights. We can’t vote, and we certainly can’t compete with rich corporate lobbyists, so we are forced to simply trust our government to make good decisions on our behalf.
The time has come for the youngest generation to hold our leaders accountable for their actions."

Teenager Escapes Terrorists

Kevin (left) and a friend try on interesting coats prior to his kidnapping.

Kevin should have spent the summer wandering around the mall with friends. He should have started school in August and suffered through the same boring classes as everybody else. But this July, Kevin was vacationing with relatives in the Phillipines. He was probably looking forward to sunshine and a vacation he could brag about to his friends at home. Not terrorists for sure.
On July 12, Kevin and his relatives were kidnapped by terrorists with connections to al-Qaida. His captors called their family in Virginia to demand a ransom. When paid, only his mother was released. She stayed in the Phillipines to help free her son. His cousin escaped last month with help from the Filipino military. And so Kevin was left alone.
Not knowing if he would ever be released, he took matters into his own hands. He convinced four armed captors he was going down to the river to bathe. Kevin ran for his life-alone, hungry, exhausted, and shoeless in a foreign jungle-until he came upon a village. Unsure if the villagers were friendly, he ran from them to before they were able to convince him they didn't want to hurt him. They got him to officials, who helped him contact his parents and friends.







Kevin discusses his escape with Filipino soldiers.

When asked if a ransom had been paid, which would violate Filipino policy, Kevin said, "No, I really did it myself." The boy's father says, "I only know he is a hero and I'm so happy he escaped.
Alec Dement, Kevin's best friend, says "I’ve just been basically depressed every day,” he said. “I didn’t really talk to anybody for like three weeks." He can't wait for him to come home. “I just want to give him a hug and hang out with him for a couple of days straight."
After his dramatic escape from terrorists, Kevin will be home for Christmas.

Rules Are Changing

Everybody knows the internet rules. Don't mention where you live. Don't tell anybody your last name. While you're at it, don't even give them your real first name. Don't talk to people online if you've never met them in reality. Never, ever, meet an online friend in reality.
But the rules are changing. When you think about it, those rules came into existence when online communication meant chatrooms and, for the kiddies, virtual worlds like Club Penguin. Does anybody really use chatrooms anymore? They've given away to social networking sites. Chatting is fun, but it's more fun when you can add pictures and search for long-lost friends. With facebook, you have to put your full name on your page, otherwise nobody knows who the heck you are.
As for meeting in person, a survey of 10,000 couples taken back in 2008 reported that 14% of married couples surveyed met online. That isn't to say you should meet any random internet friend in person and then get in a car with them. Lots of these couples probably met on safe dating networks.
Personally, I think it's okay to use your real name when you're leaving a comment on  an online article or facebook page. All the kidnapping stories I've heard happened after a predator took several months to build up a relationship online. None of them snatched some random girl who put her first and last name on her facebook page which  they used to track her down.
There's no doubt the internet has changed in the past five or so years. The rules have evolved along with them.