Don't do this! Stay above that! This WILL screw up your life!

So I've been home sick for the last two days. Which translates into way too much t.v., an awful lot of water and some really bad commercials. I've seen some so many anti-drug, alcohol, and teen pregnancy ads, it's absolutely crazy! And they got me thinking.. what's the point? Because here's the thing. I don't drink, I don't smoke, I've no intention of getting pregnant. And all of that has nothing to do with any of those ads. Because they tell me what, exactly? That smoking isn't good for you? That you'll behave differently? But I already knew that! What else? Surprise! Having a baby at sixteen will mess up your life. Well, I think I speak for most teenagers when I say, well, that much has always been clear to us.

And what could they say? Well, I'm not quite sure. They could say, how to avoid becoming pregnant and what to do if you end up in that particular situation. They could, instead of being all cutesy about it, show us what drugs will do to your body when your on them, not what they'll do to your actions. And maybe they could tell you how to be safe, no matter what you doing. I'm not really sure what they say. But what I do know is that the anti-risky behavior X ads may not be doing their jobs.

To be perfectly honest, I think that you can't stop all teens from doing risky things. Physically, it is wired into our brains to have a bad sense of risks and consequences. Yes, we can try to prevent things. But I think it's just as important to help people deal with the consequences of their actions. An ad warning against getting pregnant at age fifteen isn't going to help her figure what to do if she is already pregnant. Prevention is fine, but it has to be tampered with some kind of coping mechanism.

Une Petite Poem

Poem I used for an audition piece:

I can't be this happy...
It really isn't fair.

And because it isn't fair...
I know it can't last.

And because I know it can't last...
I constantly look ahead-
- to find the end of the road ?
- a mountain to climb?
- a bend at least!

And because I constantly look ahead...
I forget to enjoy the view right here.

Sweet Sixteen

So as you all learned from my last post, I was in a play that was competing in the High School Drama Guild Festival. Last week was tech week and yesterday was the actual competition. Before I went all the actors/techies who'd gone before told me that this would be one of the best days of my life. And despite how much fun I'd been having I really didn't believe them. I was so wrong. From when we got on the bus at six-thirty yesterday morning to when I finally arrived home at ten-thirty, it was one of the best craziest most exciting days of my life. We competed against seven other schools, and while it was a competition there was so much camaraderie between schools. We all decided to be super friendly and ended up challenging another school is a dance off! It was an amazing mix of Irish step, backstreet boys, flamenco and hip-hop! It was the best performance we've ever had! Plus, the techies managed to set up the entire set (which is huge complex and breathtaking) in under the required five minutes- cutting about 45 seconds off there time!

Then came the awards ceremony which was an hour long affair with lots of screaming, clapping standing and jumping up and down. I've never been so proud of so many people in my life. We won multiple acting awards and awards of set, makeup and music and (a huge honor) the stage managers! It was absolutely incredible because we all had this shared joy! The judge couldn't say the name of our play which is Sakuntala and the Ring of Recollection, it was great! (Interesting play by the way check it out) And yes, we did move on! (One of only three schools to do so!).

What does this all mean? Why is this post called "Sweet Sixteen"? Well what this means is that we move on the to semi-final round. Which happens to be March 14. Which happens to be pi day (3.14). And Albert Einstein's birthday. And my sixteenth birthday.

Before going to festival, I really wanted to move on. But I won't lie, I wasn't amped about spending my sixteenth birthday in this competition. Now, I've done a complete three-sixty! I am incredibly glad that we have an opportunity to compete again - a chance at John Hancock! And it's a pretty amazing way to spend your sixteenth birthday, with people you love, watching good theater, doing something you love!

Longest Best Most Intense Week Ever

So this week is tech week for the festival play. Fondly referred to as H E double hockey sticks (pardon if I've offended everyone), it is the biggest rehearsal week right before the first show. I'm talking at school until ten o'clock, I never seen the sun, and all I can talk about is theater. Sound horrible?

On some level it is horrible, I'm up late every night doing my homework (witness the time of this post) and I don't do any socializing outside of rehearsal...

But at the same time this is the most fun I've ever had! We are a super tight cast, I honestly love everyone! It's fun and exciting and scary and overwhelming all at the same time. Rather than school being the main event of the day, school is that place you go before the real day begins. And it is a long day. But we laugh, we act, we cry, we ice my knees, I get picked up put down, kissed, spun around, laughed at, hugged, sad, happy, excited, scared out of my mind...

So yes, I'm tired, I can't remember the last time I was out of the school before it was dark, and I'd really like to see my friends... but it is so worth it.

Random Musings of a Blocked Writer

The last couple of weeks I've had writer's block. Maybe it's because I've been so busy or because It's not so much that I can't write, as it is that while I can, I just don't feel like it as much. I hate this feeling. But I also know not to push it. It'll come back when it comes back and until then I can write little filler pieces and I can get through my lit homework (wow, that's the second time in two posts I've mentioned lit homework). So enjoy another random compilation, this time of the time-wasters I've been filling my time with!

Facebook... the biggest time waster of 'em all.
Pride and Prejudice... A wonderful book!
Rehearsing... Technically not a time waster- but very intense!
Rereading... All those books you read when you're little are better the second time around.
Bad tv... It's just relaxing at the end of the day.
Thinking... Not doing anything is sometimes the most productive of all.
Doodling... I can't draw, but I wish I could. So I doodle to make up for it.

Thanks for the reminder....

Thank you for reminding me to post here!
I've been crazy busy with this drama festival play (does anyone else make a competition of a high school?) and then I got sick (which I still am) and something just always comes up... But I can delay the lit homework for a little bit to give an update... (these are some general thank yous)
Thank you for change!
I know I already talked about the inauguration but it warms my heart to see some of the changes
President (so great to finally say that) Obama has been making. A couple of days into his presidency my mum was near tears at breakfast because he ordered Guantanamo Bay to be closed
Thank you for reminding me that somethings really do happen like the movies... sort of.
Have you seen Madeline? The live-action version is absolutely adorable. Remember how she has to get her appendix out? Well, today the same thing happened to my friend. Get well soon!
Thank you for reminding me how much I love it here!
A certain homophobic church group is coming to protest my school's Gay-Straight Alliance, Project 10 East. So the student body is holding an anti-protest protest, which the city is completely supportive of!
Thank you for all the spectacular people in my life!
Not a day goes by that I'm not glad to know the people I do!

A Rose By Any Other... hmm.

When my parents lived in NYC before I was born, they read this comic strip by the very funny Lynda Barry. It was called Marlys and centered around a girl named Marlys (mar-LISS) and her friends and family. My dad read it MAR-lees (pronounced as though Marly had a a dog; Marly's dog) and fell in love with the character and the [mispronounced] name. Marlys herself is a spitfire of a girl; she's obnoxious and bossy and eccentric and kind of gets on everyone's nerves. What more could a parent want, right? So when I was born, they decided to name me after that comic strip character but change the spelling to match what my dad thought the name was. Thus, my name was born, and so started a life time of explaining how to pronounce it.
Both my siblings also have out of the ordinary names with more normal middle names. These, my mom says, were given to us so that just in case we wanted something less... weird. While my name is kind of a pain, because about 1 in 10 people say it right the first time (One of my best friends spent a year avoiding saying it because she was scared she'd get it wrong), I would never in a million years think of changing it, not even dropping the s! And if I were to alter something, it would be to give myself a more unique middle name, just so everything would match! My name is a huge part of who I am, it's a story to tell, even when the explanations get tiresome. I always find the "how I got my name" stories interesting. People can shape how I feel about a name too, so names I love simply because of who I associate them with. A rose by any other name would only smell as sweet if we never knew that it had been called a rose!