Chapter Closed:First Year Of High School

As another school year comes to a close I am proud to announce I have survived my first year of high school and the hellish exams (French was out of 172.. why?!). I can't say high school was the best adjustment I've ever made  but, it certainly was achievable and  I tried to do it with as much positive vibes as possible. Between lazy/slacking teachers and the endless assignments ( it seemed that way), lessons I probably will never use in the future... I mean god forbid I needed to pay rent or do my own taxes or take out a credit card..I would be absolutely clueless. But! Pythagorean theorem to the rescue! Oh! and  I know how many cells are in a full grown leaf (50,000,000). All jokes aside though, I am grateful everyday for the privilege to learn from my peers as well from my insightful educators.

I am even more grateful that I ultimately survived! The halls,the classes,the homework, the expectations (my own..I'm my own worst critic),all the works! I've made many memories and look forward to my upcoming sophomore year..yay! BTW I think saying "I'm a sophomore in high school" sounds way cooler. I magically didn't fail any courses so I happily have all my first 8 credits. I kicked French in the butt and never have to face it again on necessary means. So I am a very happy smiley camper for the summer.



Crossings my fingers for a fun year in Grade 10!

African American Labels

In light of  a recent interview with Raven Symone this past October (http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/06/showbiz/raven-symone-gay-labels/index.html) ,Raven dismissed the use of the label, African-American. Stating  " I know where my roots go to; I don't know how far back they go. I don't know what country in Africa I'm from. But I do know that my roots are in Louisiana. I'm an American, and that's a colorless person, because we're all people. I have lots of things running through my veins." this in itself raised a question in my head,Who exactly are the "African American" people?  and When is it necessary to categorize blacks using that particular label? Here's my opinion...


Refusing to identity with societal terms is completely and respectfully the  individual's choice. Society should not and will dictate to how Black people navigate themselves. It is like telling a person who is from Greece or Poland that they cannot present themselves as White. It is utterly their choice.

Raven is a mixed race women and evidently so.Should we be calling mixed race people that have a connection to black culture through ancestry and genetics, African American/Canadian? Well.. we certainly don't call them African-Mexican-Italian, it simply isn't a norm in the way we refer to mixed race people. Sticking to one category of being is contradicting to everything else that runs through their blood and going by African-American or even considering yourself a Black individual completely (in my opinion) is choosing to ignore the other if not many other cultures and genetics that you've been blessed with.

What gets really complicated is regardless of whether you identity with Mixed Race, in society eyes you are still and always will be black. If you have the curls, the light skin, or even a round nose and big lips and what are considered "black features" (because we suddenly all look the same) you are, black or if you wish African-American. Society ignores the secrets we hide in our skin...they are overlooked..blatantly ignored. What of a black women who (as Raven implies herself) doesn't even know what part of Africa she is really from? Is she still considered an African? Do" white" people in South Africa have the privilege of calling themselves African-American? Why does it matter because we're coloured?

These questions will probably never be answered truthfully and probably not without bias and stereotype but let me you know what you think about Racial Labels.

First Week...Complete!

My first week of high school is done! I survived!

For the most part I found my way around school,emphasis on most part. The hallways are so confusing and there is way to many exits and staircases. I walked up one staircase on the first day of school on the venture to find my assigned locker, and I turned into a hallway and walked downstairs and found myself in another dimension of the school... Eventually after many questions and awkward run-ins with seniors, I found my first class which I had yet to figure out was directly to my left as you enter the school. No need for the major detour.

Walking into my classroom I was scarcely 4 minutes late (thanks to the hallways of hell) and soon enough I was introduced to my teacher,Mr. M. Mr.M is actually pretty laid-back (for now) and helpful, despite the continuous rants on how he hates modern technology and Facebook even though is a technology teacher.

My next couple of teachers are pretty much the cliche,  "you won't get away with being lazy"one,"as long as you do your homework we won't have any problems"one and "I love learning! let's learn about our wonderful,beautiful world,everything in life is bright" one. All of them I can tolerate for the next 4 months so I'm pretty happy with the outcome.

As for the students,well, they're a different story altogether. I wasn't aware that eating in a big group in the "hallways of hell" was acceptable. Teachers just walked past and I was actually amazed. The freedom given to you in high school is quite cool. The fact that I can just leave school property at lunch without a hassle from an outdoor supervisor or go to my locker in between classes is FREEDOM  in my opinion. Thank you Stephen Leacock. Seniors usually mind their own business but there is a few  that will "whisper" things like "OMG NINERs!" "eww niners"... at that point I laugh because it's funny that just a few years ago they were in our positions. But, the really nice ones will guide you to your classroom or in my case show you where the gym is (down a million "hallways of hell").

I made a couple friends and have a class with at least one or two of them in each period which is awesome and I'm excited to meet more people and hopefully make life-long friendships! As I continue on I hope I found my way around effortlessly (I found a shortcut to my locker and science class!) and wish everyone luck for next week regardless if your a new high school or not. :)

Birthday Cake!!

So yesterday was my birthday...

I can officially call myself a teenager and 4 years from now an adult (weird!). This year for my birthday it was a little different and by different I mean this awesome birthday cake. It was literally the most amazing cake I've ever seen in all my decade and then some years...


So this is the  Eleanor & Park cake! This is one of my all time favourite books and I was surprised that the baker managed to get the cover on this ( Ignore the fail that is the one "number 1" candle and 4 extra purple candles on the side).

CAKE!

ORIGINAL COVER

Ripley's Aquarium Adventure

Yesterday was probably one of the most educational, astonishing and summer-boredom buster day I'v ever experienced.

 Since I've spent a total of 18 days of my summer so far living in my couch, my sister and I took it upon ourselves to change this daily routine and set out on a downtown adventure... to the Ripley's aquarium.

At the aquarium everything in the sea was fully exposed. There are so many creatures that dwell just at the bottom of the ocean and at Ripley's they gave you the full exclusive outlook on sea life at its best. I can't lie. We got there at a time (5pm to 6pm) when most of the fishes and sea creatures were taking their afternoon nap...But, we were lucky to catch some of  sharks, yellow-tail snappers and jellyfish .etc  in action. We got to touch a crab, a shark fish and a stingray! and all of it took about an 1 and a half to plow through children (there was a lot!) and fully absorb
it all thoroughly. It was a very fun trip and I would definitely go again.

Maybe in the night next time...

The following are some photos I took of the trip. I wish I remembered the names of the all the animals so I could caption them but I completely forgot.

Moon Jellyfish!

Spotted Stingray

 It's poisonous...

Shark!

Seahorses!

Dory and Friend!

Starfish!

Can you spot Dory?

Sleeping Lobster

These eels were sleeping... 

Blue Lobster!

A huge family of fish

Boy-Crazed Generation

Status 1:" Why play me if your not interested"
Status 2: "I can't stand guys who play mind games"
Status 3: "I need you back"

So today I had a skim through my Facebook page.I haven't done this in a while so obviously my timeline/news feed  was filled with endless posts and statuses both ridiculous and "life informing". When it came to such posts from my friends (mostly the female ones) I noticed something that each had in common... they were all about boys. Its always about boys and I feel the girls of my generation center their lives around "not being single" or racing to change that one status to "In a Relationship". Slow down.Thinking that we need a man to be happy, to make us feel valuable is such a fallacious mentality and I don't understand why us girls buy into it.

Now I'm not saying boys are not interesting, mysterious creatures, they are,( I've had my fair share of liking them) and I'm not an expert on this topic because I don't know everything but what I do know is that a 13,14 or 15 year old does not need to be stressing about boys. Girls my age do not need to grow up so fast and rush to get into relationships.They're hard. I've had multiple conversations with people who have or are in relationships and even longer conversations with my friends over a guy dumping them or liking another girl more than her and how "I'm so depressed", "What's wrong with me?", What does she have that I don't".First of all, you shouldn't have to change yourself for a guy to like you and until you understand that, relationships are not something us young teenagers are ready for. Not yet. We shouldn't  feel as if guys are needed and that you have to have one in order to be happy.

 I don't think we understand that guys are young.They want to "hit and run" and have fun with their friends.So we can't cry and get upset over Facebook when he leaves you pregnant or dumps you for some other girl. It's simply the mind of a teenage boy. There so many things we could be doing with our time like going to the movies with our friends,sleepovers,prank calling, shopping around in the mall, instead of sweating over a boy. Thousands, exactly 43% of women, both in their high school and college years drive themselves to suicide over something so simple as just a breakup. It's stress,and as a young female trying to find her place in this world it worries me to think that people, my friends and Is age are going to the ultimate low for something so stupid.

We should all just have fun and stay young as long as possible. It's what I try to reinforce myself to do everyday instead of worrying over the small things. It's really not worth it when you could be working on trying to make yourself happy,with your own fun (and without a male specimen no matter how fine and attractive he may be).

We have so much time to experience love and all the perks that come with it. There is no hurry. When it happens you'll know and I'm sure it will me magical but we can't possibly think we're going to find it at 13.


  Take life a little steadier instead.

*Photo Creds to Tumblr*

Goals For The Summer

                                                                                   Well,school's out...

But that doesn't mean I don't have plans for myself. This summer I want to make every single 62 days that  I have before school count. Meaning, I have 10 goals that I want to accomplish before the summer just dissipates and fades into the August air and through the fast approaching September chill ( which I am not looking forward too).  

I want these goals to be fun,meaningful and of course achievable. These past couple of weeks of June have been hectic and have completely vanished through this small limited amount of time. It felt as if I just walked into middle school  the other day and was adjusting to this ( what I thought was) a new "life" and now I've graduated and am moving on to high school. I have to start all over again... from square one. It's almost as if these memories I saved of my friends and close classmates and  have accumulated and treasured so very close to my heart these past 3 years had never happened. Time flew by. I feel as if it took something I should been more protective over. Which is why the first goal on my list is to use it (time)wisely. Whether that be finish the book I'm writing  in 62 days or read more or spend more time with my family or even something simple as just to catch up on beauty sleep. Whatever I feel in that moment of my day is a wise spending of time... I'll spend it away. Of course wisely and followed by these others.  ;)

1. Use time wisely
2. Write a book ( short stories...anything)
3. Take 20 photographs
4. Read 30 books
5. Ride my bike around the park
6. Go to the movies by myself
7. Turn my phone off for an entire week ( yikes!)
8. Watch movies for an entire day
9. Write on my blog!!
10. Eat 5 new foods

For today I'll leave you with a saying I came up with... "Write Till you mentally can't breath the words your feeling". ( Trying to put this is in a banner but it won't fit)

*Photo Creds to Tumblr*