Southern California

On the road again. Yes, that is correct. Another trip has thrown itself my way. My dad had a tradeshow in Longbeach this weekend so I decided I would go with him. We drove down the coast to get there and made many stops along the way. This is my third trip within a one year period to the L.A. area, and many times before in my life but I had never journeyed down the coast. It's such a beautiful way to get to the city! Along the way we stopped at 6 colleges...CSU Monterey Bay, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, UC Santa Barbara, CSU Channel Islands, Pepperdine, and CSU Long Beach. The only one that I took an official tour on was UC Santa Barbara, the others I just looked around and got a feel for and went to the book stores. Out of the six my favorite was probably UC Santa Barbara. My plan is to major in a science and minor in journalism...sadly that is not an option at Santa Barbara; however there is a newspaper. One of my favorite stops of the trip was at Hearst Castle. Yes, the home of William Hearst the one you learn about in Newsies. It was very inspirational to see. Although it wasn't a scheduled stop and I didn't have time to tour the castle itself, I did look through the museum and it was very inspiring! Journalism field trip perhaps? haha Two nights, three days later and I'm in Burbank at my uncle's house. I'm going to Venice beach tomorrow. I'm excited! :) It's such a great place to observe and people watch. Well I should probably go to sleep soon it's been such a busy couple of days, and more to come. Bring it on!

Think Before You Speak

It's not unusual for some of my friends to snarl a derogatory comment such as "that's so gay" or "that's so retarded."

Truth being, it's not right to say things that insult a group of people. I mean, as Doctor Seuss said "A person is a person". If something bothers me, I say "That's so irrational" or "That's weird" or "That doesn't make sense" because it's so much better than targeting a specific group. Yet some people still can't grasp the same concept. It doesn't necessarily mean people are mean, but it shows their ignorance.

I was interviewing someone for my last story when someone said "...it was gay...". At that point, I stopped to think: As journalists, where do we draw the line? Yes, we quote people word for word, but are there any restrictions, technically speaking?

Food for thought. In general, it's really not a terrible idea to think before you speak-about anything.

Camping con Paige

It feels like I haven't blogged in so long! In my mind I thought that this summer would be more relaxing than it has been in the past because I didn't have as many trips planned...on the contrary. After getting back from Pennsylvania I was home for a few weeks and then my dad asked me to go camping with the family. The night before my dad said that I could take a friend. So I text Paige (yes the Paige that is on staff with all of us :)) and she said that she would go with me :) so the next day we left...headed for Lake Siskiyou. Yes that is indeed a real place, Lake Siskiyou. The camp ground was a lot bigger than we expected and arrived on a Friday night. On saturday we went to a nearby fish hatchery to watch my little cousins Jersey and Sierra fish. Later in the day we went to the lake itself. Our first adventure out on the water was in a little blow up raft with my cousin Sierra, Paige, and I. We were rowing back towards the shore and the end of Paige's oar floated away!!!! Then we tanned on the beach a little bit. Went out on the water, this time just Paige and I, attatched ourselves to a rope and just sat out on the water for a bit. Apparently the sunscreen we had put on earlier in the day had gone away and by the time we walked back up onto the beach we were as red as strawberries! By far we recieved the worst sunburns of our lives...not fun. I really liked the camp ground though. We spent the rest of that day and the days to come in agony, even after we got home. Then we peeled. My advice from that experience...wear sunscreen especially when you are around water. We got home and within a week my grandpa planned our trip there for next summer.

Change in plans. Again.

Well, as some of you know, I have a history of knee problems. For the past few years, my knees have been so much better! Like basically healed except for a few random things like squatting and kneeling. But they are now at the point where I can totally live life normally.

Last spring, I realized that I didn't really want to play water polo again this fall. Kinda sad since it will be my senior year. But for various reasons, I just decided not to, but I decided do cross country instead. And I was pretty excited about cross country. I had been running a lot ever since swim team ended. But after Breakaway (the insane kids camp at my church), of all things, my knees got the worst they've been in a long time-like years. After taking a few weeks off running they still weren't as good as before. So, now I'm not doing cross country. A few years ago, this probably would have been really hard on me. But I am definitely over allowing my knees to disappoint me. So, I'm not doing a fall sport this year, but I'll probably be swimming at Cal Fit a lot and doing some running too.

Spanish

I'm taking AP Spanish this school year. Hmmm. I'm probably like one of 10 students from RHS doing it. Yep. I'm pretty excited but a bit nervous about it. I was just reading a book in Spanish (it's part of the summer homework) and it took me forever to finish chapter 1. But I understood most of it. So that's good. I will be really excited if in June I can remember reading this book and laugh at how hard it was. Yeah, that would be pretty cool. I'm excited to take AP Spanish because I think I will learn a ton! I love learning about and experiencing other cultures. Because I live in CA and because of my interest in other cultures it seems like this class will be pretty useful for me.

Can we really trust?

There are people out there that are worthy to be called decent. The realism of this though is that there is a small percentage of those decent people. It is so hard to find a true friend out here in this crazy world. You never know what type of people you are dealing with. Finding that right person to build a relationship with takes a long time. Believe me. People can be fake and trick you into thinking that they are good. Thank God that this isn't true for everyone, but to find the diamond you have to dig deep in the earth, you know what I'm saying?

I am fortunate that I have 2 really great friends that will always be there for me and I can go to them when I need help. Friends these days can end up either not for real or can change into people that you didn't become friends with at first. It does take an effort to find and keep that true friendship. Sometimes it's not so hard. Maybe you and one person just click and BOOM!, you are best friends! That is the best in the world! Seriously! You got lucky, but that doesn't happen for everyone.

All I'm saying is to take your time and don't rush into things with another person. Sit back and obverse and you will find out if you really feel like making a relationship with the individual.

Old Soul.

I am a lover of all things French--lucky to claim it as my last name as well--and always have been. All the fiction stories I've written since I was about seven years old have a contingency to be set in pre-revolutionary France (the epicenter of the world before Robespierre and the Reign of Terror came in and mucked everything up), and post-WWI-Belle-Epoque Paris.

Maybe that is why I am so drawn to the work of Brassai and Atget... there's something so beautiful and human in all of their photographs. Look at the post below for my personal favorite.

A piece of Atget's--"Boulevard de Strasbourg, c. 1912"

and another-- "Organ Grinder, c.1898"