Future Shmuture

     Today as I was answering questions in a packet that will go to my advisor and college counselor, I stumbled upon a question that caught me by surprise. The question was this: What tentative areas of study or preprofessional directions have you considered for the future? Now this question doesn't seem to be particularly puzzling, but I have to say that it kind of scared me. However, I answered the question right away. But after I looked it over, my response scared me even more than the question. I had written down about four or five areas of study that I have considered. I know this packet isn't a final decision on my life, but it sure feels like it. Depending on how I answer these questions, it could alter my life significantly. It's almost like a sliding doors situation in a way. If I put down one area of study that I'm interested in and not the other, it could factor in to which college I will attend in the future. What if I say this and not that? How will that affect my life? It's starting to seem like this a life-changing questionnaire when it really shouldn't be. I'm only 17! Most days I can't even decide what I want for breakfast let alone the rest of my life.
     These days I'm feeling pressured to know exactly what I want to do and how exactly I'm going to do it. Every single person I interact with has some question or another about college. When are you visiting colleges? When are you taking the ACT? What do you want to study? Have you started to think about where you want to go? And the only answer I have to all of these questions is a big fat I DON'T KNOW! But you know what? I've decided that that's ok. After consulting the expert (my mom, of course) who told me that she didn't know what she wanted to do even after she had graduated college, I realized that's it's ok not to know. I don't have to decide right now. Even if I am getting pressured from every angle to know all the details of my future life, at least I know that it's perfectly fine to just admit that I honestly don't know yet.

The End

     The other day as my cousin and I browsed the shelves of Blockbuster, we were in search of a good scary movie. Picking up every movie that had a scary name or a creepy picture, we finally stumbled across a seemingly perfect movie. It was called "Shuttle". A quick synopsis: Two girls coming home from a weekend in Mexico find themselves stranded at the airport with no ride home. A shuttle pulls up next to them saying he will give them a ride for a cheap price. There is only one other passenger on the shuttle, and the driver says there can only be a maximum of three passengers on his shuttle. Sketchy? You betcha. But they get on anyway. A lot happens in between, but when the movie comes to an end, one of the girls has been killed, and the other is packed into a box and being shipped off to East Asia to become a sex slave. Needless to say, this is not the ending I had imagined.

     There is one scene in particular that really got to me: It's down to one girl and it's the final fight scene between her and her kidnapper. She steals his gun and shoots him. And this is after she has already knifed him and crashed the shuttle in an attempt to kill him. You'd think he'd be dead after all this. But no. He is still alive, and ends up winning. I thought this movie was going to be about women empowerment. The girls get kidnapped and they fight like hell and end up beating the bad guy. I didn't expect her to fight to the end and then not win.

     But more importantly, what is the director trying to say about women? That no matter how hard they try, they will never beat men? I mean this girl was fierce. She managed to do everything possible in order to save her and her friend, but it couldn't ultimately save her. And I'm not saying that the woman always has to win. But to me, this movie in particular was about man vs. woman. And with the ending that it had, it gave me the message that men will always be superior to woman, which is completely false.

     Here is an excerpt from the full summary of the movie from imdb.com. It's of the scene described above.

          "He finds Mel, who threatens to cut herself with a shard of glass, and she stabs him in the arm with it. He attempts to disarm her, but she stabs it into his thigh before hitting him in the face with the light fittings. She finds the gun and shoots him, before attempting to escape in the bus. The Driver arrives and attacks her again, and they grapple before he forces her into a crate with the supplies she bought earlier."
     This is just absolutely ridiculous. She stabs him and shoots hims, but he still gets what he wants. I can't change the ending of the movie, but I can voice my opinion and that's what I hoped to achieve here. I know that the underdog doesn't always win in real life, but I thought this ending was just disgraceful and rude and hopefully other women will be able to see this too. 

Addicted To Technology?

     My night was ruined. Not because of anything that someone said to me or because of that physics test I have to study for tomorrow, but because my DVR did not record my scheduled recording of "Vampire Diaries". I have to say, when I saw that the newest episode was not in the "My Recordings" section, I was pissed and I took some of my anger out on my dad (Sorry, Dad!) After I cooled down a little I realized how absolutely pathetic this was. But it made me realize how technology has taken over my life. I don't watch live television anymore, just the shows I record. Not a single day goes by where I don't go on the computer or use my cell phone to send a text. I haven't used a land line in ages. And going back to the DVR, my mom once said that it "changed her life".
     What happened to the days before cell phones, where you would go out with friends and your parents would never know where you were unless you were near a land line that they could call? My mom would have panic attack if she couldn't call my cell phone to see where I was. And instead of telling war stories like my grandparents, my parents tell me stories of their childhood without cell phones or color television. The times are changing.
     The DVR fiasco of tonight showed me how much we depend on technology. One DVR glitch and my show is gone forever. The Internet is down, entire class periods are lost. No juice left in the cell phone battery and suddenly people don't know what to do with their life. Yes, technology makes our lives easier. But when it doesn't work, it sends us into a panicked frenzy and makes our lives much harder than necessary because of everyone's depedency on it.
     So what do you do when your DVR doesn't work? That, my friends, is why they created hulu.com. But what if that doesn't work? Well, then, you're just screwed.

What IS The Definition of Success?

     Three times a week I have 4th period free and I always go the the second floor rotunda to sit with my friends. While I was there today, Mr. Sally, who is apparently the assistant superintendent, came around  asking people if they would like to be filmed for a video that would be shown during the teacher's institute day. He said that in the clip, you would describe your definition of success, how you thought New Trier defined success, and if you thought they were defining it right. No one accepted for obvious reasons, but it really got me thinking. It seems like a very simple question, but I could not give an answer. Dictionary.com defines success as "a person or thing that is successful"(which is not helpful at all). But what did I define as success? Getting a B+ in physics? Moving up a level in French? I didn't know. And I still don't know. Maybe no one wanted to be in the movie because no one actually knew what success meant for them. To be honest, I don't know what success means for me. I never really feel successful. Even if I get straight A's one quarter, I don't feel like I've accomplished anything. My parents will tell me good job, and sometimes even my grandparents will call to congratulate me, but I don't understand why. I don't feel like I really did anything that amazing. I guess you could say that I succeeded, but aren't you supposed to feel something more than indifference?

     Then I tried to think about what New Trier defined as success. And I came up with two definitions, one that they tell parents and students, and one that isn't necessarily said, but everyone pretty much knows. The first and what the school would say is: getting good grades, getting into college, and having good morals, (hence the ECGC that no advisory actually does). And now the underlying definition, which is just an extension from the first: getting good grades in all 4 levels, getting into an ivy league school, participating in extracurriculars, sports, and social service, and having good morals. I think New Trier students set unrealistic goals for themselves that no one would be able to accomplish. It astonishes me that people can be in two AP classes and three other level 4 classes, all while managing a social life. In the words of my history teacher last year, "If you want to have a life next year, don't take AP history". Needless to say, I followed her advice.

     I guess what I'm trying to say is that New Trier pushes its students to the limit. They know that the students who go here will be the next generation of great lawyers, doctors, politicians, and businessmen. They push us and push us and load us with work until we crack or have a mental breakdown. And I can say from personal experience that it can definitely happen more than once a year. For me, I work so hard during the year that by the time summer comes around, I can't see my success because all the work and suffering blinded me to it during the year. But maybe that's just me.

And The Winner Is..... New Trier! Duh.

     Everyday I take my dog out for a walk, and this usually becomes my thinking time. On this particular walk I was thinking about why New Trier wins every sports event, and why the theater program is so amazing and why it pretty much kicks every other school's butts. In everything.
     I came up with what I thought is a reasonable explanation. And this is it: First of all, many people in the North Shore can afford private coaches, travel teams, and club sports. Some kids have had a private coach since they were ten. So if someone has been playing soccer since they were eight, got a private coach and joined a travel team when they were eleven, they're most likely bound to pretty good. Secondly, it's the sheer number of students. There are about 5,000 people who go to New Trier. Let's say that roughly half the school is boys and half the school is girls. So in theory, all boys' teams have the choice between 2,500 boys to put on their team, and same with all the girls' teams. Compared to Highland Park High School which has around 2,000 students, they only have 1,000 boys and girls to choose from for their teams. That is almost half the amount of people to choose from than New Trier. So it's not that many Highland Park residents can't afford private coaches either, it's just that they physically don't have as many people to choose from. So each team at New Trier is literally composed of the best of the best. In the wikipedia article of New Trier, it states that "with more than 120 state championships, New Trier High School currently has more than any other high school in Illinois. Wow.
     The same goes for the theater program. At a very young age, people in the North Shore have the resources and the money to be in plays, to take acting, dancing, and singing lesson, as well as hire an agent. Many people outside of the North Shore are equally as talented, but they won't get the job because they don't have the money to hire an agent, who will make them known in the acting community. Like sports, it's also the sheer number of students interested in theater that makes the program so amazing. New Trier simply has more people to choose from.
     Like I said, this is just a theory. But this conclusion of mine forced me to think about something very important. It goes along with the question of whether money can buy happiness. Can money buy you success? Is there any such thing as being naturally talented these days, or do you have to buy your way to the top?