Carrers, Chai, and Chipotle

My parents over winter break forced me to go to a three hour career testing session to help get an idea of what jobs might best fit my personality. I was pretty skeptical about the whole thing. I mean, how can paper tests help determine what jobs I would like? Well, I suppose if my parents wanted to waste their money, then they could, but I wasn't so lenient with my time. It didn't help that it was in Glen Ellyn which is three hours away, meaning that I would have to get up early to go to this testing that I wasn't so crazy about in the first place.


The day of the career session came and me, my dad, and my sister (who was only coming along because she wanted to visit a friend in Glen Ellyn) got up at 6 am and piled into the car. The ride itself wasn't such a waste, I merely watched Arrested Development on my portable DVD player and slept, which is what I probably would've been doing anyway. When we arrived in Glen Ellyn we still had fifteen minutes to spare, so we hit up Starbucks, which was a nice treat. Non-fat chai latte in hand, I headed over to the career center on the second floor of a small business building. They took me into a room with computers and two other kids who looked like they were about my age were already there. I took my seat and began the testing.

There were a lot of tests. I had to go through a list of about 150 careers and rank whether or not I would like to do that job. Then I did typing tests, which I accidentally cheated on one since we were only supposed to use one hand, but whatever,  it won't change my life. I went through and did a bunch of other tests on the computer and after about 2 hours we were given a lunch break. This other girl who was also testing and I went to Chipotle. We chatted for a bit about college, our school, and the career testing over our burritos then we headed back to the career center. We got back a little early so we decided to start testing right away (might as well get it over with, right?). The next tests were a little more fun; there was shape assembly, grip strength, and dexterity testing with putting little rods into holes and seeing how many you could do in one minute. Right after dexterity testing she mysteriously handed us each a piece of candy then walked out of the room. I eyed it suspiciously. Was this another test? I glanced over at the other girl, she shrugged back at me, so we ate our candy.

It was soon four o'clock and time to go. I waited in the lobby for my dad, who ended up being 20 minutes late. He asked how I did, as though it were an ACT or something. I merely said "it was fine" and proceeded to pop in my ipod ear buds. It occurred to me that I would have to come back later for the three hour analysis of my results, but oh well, maybe I'd get another burrito out of it.  I suppose the testing wasn't a complete waste, but I'll remain a skeptic until I see their results.

I'm a Belieber

I used to mock all victims of Bieber Fever. I even used make fun of his hair, but I didn't know any better then. I had a change of opinion when I saw the movie Never Say Never, a true masterpiece. I went in thinking it would be a fun movie and I might even get a few laughs out of it. I tend to go into movies with low expectations, that way I never feel as though  I've wasted my time. But this was no waste. First of all, he can actually sing. Not like all those people whose voices are all auto tuned. His singing is all him. The way he became famous was pretty cool too, he wasn't just a rich little brat who wanted an album. He actually had to work a lot to get his music out there.

He honestly seemed like a real person in the movie, and he was pretty cool and funny. I think one of his concerts would be really cool to go to. Especially if I was chosen as the "one less lonely girl" for the song. Holy shit that would be crazy. Besides a charming personality and dynamite hair, his songs are pretty good too. I must say his first hit "One Time" may be my fave, though "Never Say Never might have trumped it. I think people when they learn that a sixteen year old boy wrote a song, people try to pretend like they don't like it or it's "stupid". Yeah, okay, whatever you say guy-who-has-"Baby"-on-his-ipod. People just hate on him because he's rich, talented, and girls love him. YEAH THAT'S RIGHT NICK CHO.


I happened to have a dream last night involving Justin Bieber. In my dream, I went to one of his concerts in this small, flowery-patterned (I don't really know why) arena and it was packed. I don't remember much from this concert, but apparently we went the next day again and there weren't very many people, so me and my cousin got to go on stage. It was super great, but the best part was I  got to hang out with him after the concert (I distinctly remember a part walking in the grass across from near a Steak N' Shake and hoping we wouldn't go in since I had recently sworn off Steak N' Shake food due to its high calorie count), and I invited, and slightly begged,  him to come over for dinner and he, amazingly, agreed. So we went to my house, and I swear during all of this I was convinced it wasn't a dream, so I went upstairs to get my camera to get pictures with him. Then I woke up. I was quite upset. Not only did I not get to eat dinner with him, but I also didn't get pictures with him.


I mean, honestly, just look at what I missed out on.

A Week Down Yonder

While contemplating what to write for my next blog post, I happened to grab the school laptop labeled "Mississippi". How convenient. I recently spent a week down south in the Mississippi Delta area in Clarksdale, Mississippi on a habitat trip, so I'm going to accept this little prompt from the universe and take this opportunity to tell you about it.

I initially thought it was going to be pretty straightforward: go down to a really poor town in Mississippi and do some good and help build a house. It turned out to be so much more. Yes, we did help to build a house and got pretty far considering we only were there for a week, but we also got to experience a whole different side of how people live. The first thing that really struck me was how welcoming and nice everyone was to us. When a couple friends and I spent a morning volunteering at the Care Station, a soup kitchen, the head of the kitchen, a woman named Vern, hugged us all and told us she loved us when we were about to leave. That was so crazy and cool to me; she had only known us for four hours yet she treated us like we were practically family. It was hard not to be sucked into it all and start returning all the love you received to other people you would meet.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was playing with the neighborhood kids that would hang around the house. Even after we were all tired from working hard at the work site or just spent our entire day around kids while helping out at the school, we would still go out and play with them and let them climb on our backs and try to run as fast as we could around the house however many times they begged us. They were all too sweet and adorable to say no to. This one girl that came out to play with us on the third day we were there was my absolute favorite. Her name was Nateria, but she wanted to be called Coco (they all had their little nicknames), she was five and was the cutest of them all. During hide and seek games she would run up to me and grab my hand and say "Come hide with meee!", then we would run off to her favorite hiding spot behind the abandoned semi truck. She was so sweet and affectionate and wanted to be with us all and liked to do our hair and never got tired of riding on our backs. I kept asking her if she would remember me when I came back next year, and she invited me to her Justin Bieber themed birthday party. Though she probably won't remember me, I know I'll remember her.

Though we went to give, we inevitably took a lot away with us as well. Seeing all the poverty and the conditions of some of the houses that people actually live in really convicted me and made me feel grateful for what I have and where I live. Even the poorest neighborhood in Champaign is in better condition than  alot of the houses in Clarksdale. I felt really complete and happy in Clarksdale. They really let us into their community and treated us as their own and were so thankful to us even though we were only down there for a week before we went back into our own rich town, nice school, and luxurious homes. I was really sad to leave, but I know I'll be back. I can't wait to be back.

                                                  Nateria (aka Coco)

Call of Duty

It was a last minute choice as we were leaving the Family video. I had $20 to spend on food and entertainment for the night from my parents (a rare gift) and we had only found one movie to watch for the night. “How about we get a video game?” my friend suggested as we passed the video game alcove. Sure, what the hell. “Which one?” I asked. “Let’s get Call of Duty. The new one” she said as she grabbed Call of duty: Black Ops off of the shelf. Well this should be interesting. We grabbed it, paid the ridiculously high $20 deposit and left to get our snacks for the night.

We decided to watch the movie first and popped in Takers, a non-quite original but still very entertaining film, especially due to the appearances of T.I. and Chris Brown, including a chase scene where Chris Brown gets to show off his crazy acrobatics. After the movie ended, we decided to put in Call of Duty and play a few rounds. It really helped that the movie we had just watched had lots of intense shooting scenes. We were all ridiculously, almost frighteningly, pumped to gun each other down in a game that we all barely knew how to play.

It took a little while to figure out how to get started, but once we did, that was all that mattered for the next hour. It consisted of us all running around a level checking our radars to try and find the little red dots that represented our enemy’s (aka each other), and once we finally ran into each other we would start screaming and shooting wildly then yelling out expletives when we accidentally killed ourselves with our own grenades, or when couldn’t figure out how to aim so we would repeatedly shoot at the persons feet. One of my friends who wasn’t playing decided to take a video of us with her phone at one point during our gaming session. When we watched it back, it was a little embarrassing how into it we were. It consisted of periods of intense silence which would be suddenly broken by rounds of gunfire, which were soon drowned out by us all yelling. This cycle repeated several times.

After a while we became mentally exhausted from playing and opted to put the game away for the night. As I recall this incident, it becomes even more ridiculous to me. We aren’t gamers by any means, and yet all of our energy and focus was centered on the TV screen and all that mattered was that I got more lucky kills than anyone else, and when I didn’t, I was furious and resorted to yelling and rocking back and forth in my chair violently. It’s probably a good thing I don’t play video games more often.

Mom please....We're in public

I always thought when I was younger how great it would be to just stay at home forever living off of my parents, getting an allowance and all that and doing whatever I wanted without having to worry about bills, food , or any other expenses. Of course, as I get older, that doesn't sound as appealing. Granted I'd still love to lounge around all day and mooch off of my parents as long as possible, but only if it was like off of a large inheritance or something. Just as long as they aren't directly in the picture.

When it comes to difficult, my parents definitely top my list. And I know it's kind of cliché, "oh, a teenager bitching about her parents, how original"; but honestly they're our biggest problem in life for the most part. Since we live with them, we have no exterior expenses to worry about, and we’re set on living conditions.  School, homework, sports, friends is all I really have that could be causing me problems or stress, but all of that I can handle on my own just fine. My parents, however, are another issue. They stress me out WAY more than any assignment ever could. I tend to like to handle my schoolwork on my own, and I think I do a pretty damn good job of staying organized and on top of things. It’s only when my parents try to get involved that we have a problem.

Thankfully, for the most part they leave things alone. It’s only when they see a “B” on the report card that they start nagging me about getting on my work in that class and want to “make sure I’m handling things”. It’s utterly ridiculous how quickly my parents can jump into action and start interrogating me on how every little quiz in that class went and asking me about homework in that class every day. Honestly, if you’re going to do that then the assignment book was a waste of money. Multiple  times my parents have tried to suggest a tutor for me (like I have time for that) or tell me I should skip my first period class the next day so that I can stay up and study for physics after hockey practice, which is something I’d  never be allowed to do for something like Japanese. Like seriously, mom and dad, I’ve got it.

When’s it’s not school they’re bothering me with, it’s just them. They’re personality, cluelessness, and annoying ass quirks they possess. It's kind of unbelievable how two people can encompass all of my pet peeves without fail. And for some reason, coming from them makes it all the more annoying.  Making noises while you eat is inherently annoying on its own, but when my dad does it, I can’t take it; it’s incredibly difficult to resist the urge to slap him. Normally I’m fine with people playing the piano, but when it’s my mom pounding away at 8 in the morning on my day to sleep in, that crosses the line.  Personal boundaries are also a concept that for some reason eludes my parents. They don’t understand why how trying to go on my Facebook and friend themselves when I’ve already rejected they’re friend request like five times crosses a line. No, mom, it’s not okay to put my dog on my bed with me and take pictures of the two of us while I’m asleep. I’m sure it makes cute pictures for your scrapbook, but it’s still UNACCEPTABLE. Sometimes I think they intentionally try to piss me off.  I mean, how in the world can someone act like that all the damn time?

Someday I’ll get over this, I know. I’ll realize that I was also a pain to live with and will be grateful to my parents for not putting me on the streets. I’m sure I’ll reach a point where I look back on my life with my parents fondly.

It'll be a while, though.

Country Strong ≠ "weak"

I happened to be glancing through the newspaper a few Sunday's ago and noticed there was an insert that had reviewed Country Strong, a movie I had seen a few days before. I decided to flip to the page and see how the critics were raving.

 "Two out of four stars?? ‘Country Strong is weak’? What the hell!” 

An overreaction? Perhaps. A faulty review? I would argue most definitely.

It wasn't like I was waiting for Country Strong to come out for months and memorized all the songs from it. Oh no. I leave that to others. Truthfully, I had pretty low expectations going into it. Gwyneth Paltrow and Leighton Meester singing country doesn't sound like the kind of movie that could blow someone’s mind. Plus, I heard the song “Country Strong" by Gwyneth Paltrow before I ever heard they were doing a movie and thought the Country Strong was going to be a movie about Gwyneth Paltrow as a singer like Justin Bieber and his Never Say Never movie, which would just be really pathetic. I went anyway, with one such Country Strong savant (who really did know all the songs and sang along with them, I kid you not), paid the $6 fee, smuggled some sour patch kids in, and grabbed some front row seats.

 I was really surprised; I wasn’t expecting to enjoy the movie as much as I did. For one thing, the fact that Gwyneth Paltrow really can sing and have a believable, and not overdone, country accent I found to be pretty impressive.  Even Leighton Meester played a country singer quite well,  and as the movie went on I stopped thinking of her as Blair from Gossip Girl and more as Chiles Stanton, the rising country star.  I thought the whole story line was original and the way they presented it by giving little bits of information about Kelly’s (Gwneth Paltrow’s character) past and problems here and there really kept me intrigued, and they made all the breakdown scenes really believable and real. I must say, Gwyneth Paltrow can play a drunk person quite well. I also really liked the fact that they didn’t use too many big name actors (other than Paltrow and Meester of course) and instead let us see the actors as the characters they portray.

One main problem I had with the review was that it claimed that "Country strong was weak“ and "my God was the script predictable”. I mean, I thought it was pretty damn original. I’m sure for someone whose job it is to watch thousands of movies and analyze them, it might be a little easier to call things that are going to happen. I only called one thing: the whole Kelly’s husband punching Beau for admitting that he was more than just her sponsor and hinting at them having an affair; but really, what else is he supposed to do when someone just admits that they’ve been sleeping with his wife? Give him his blessing?  I personally found the movie refreshing and genuine.

And for the record, I’m giving Country Strong four stars.