Ramblings

First off, California was a blast :D San Francisco was definitely my favourite city...the atmosphere is just so great. The downtown is mostly residential, they have a separate area for all of their huge office buildings. And the houses are so pretty! They're all pastel coloured, with fancy detailing...gorgeous. LA was WAY to busy for my liking...but you tend to get that when a CITY has a population of 2/3 of our entire country lol. Also, as a general observation; when a city with a population of a little over 100 000 has a 3 lane highway, a 5 lane highway for a population of 20 000 000 is just not going to do the trick. I wasn't even the one driving and the traffic drove me insane. Stop and go or realllllllly slow driving, no matter what time of day we drove on it. I have to say I love the excess of Starbucks in California :D They're almost as common as Timmie's here at home! mmm as many caramel frappucinos as my heart desires....And anywhere that isn't a Starbucks still serves Starbucks coffee lol. Highlight of the trip was definately walking around Stars Hollow on the Gilmore Girls set :P They were filming earlier in the day, but not when we went :( too bad, that would have been awesome :D Getting my picture taken in front of Luke's Diner was monumental :D :D :D

OK so onto the ramblings. Our school newspaper absolutely positively sucks. It wasn't always like this, either. It used to be good, have a wide range of age groups of articles and journalists...and I do believe we won an award or two for it. We got the latest edition today...gah. Half of the articles were by grade 12s, leaving 1/6 for each of the other grades, that's pretty sad. Also, all of the grade 12 articles were about the same group of so called "popular people", you know the type.
The article that pissed me off the most was the anti-Facebook article (written by someone who has clearly never experienced Facebook, way to be non-biased), but no so much because the person was anti-Facebook but more the ...content of the article. I mean, if you don't like Facebook, whatever, that's your opinion...but like, for example, anyone she quoted was her friend, and in grade 12. Yeah, that'll get you MORE unbiased opinions *rolls eyes* ...The first line definitely has a gooooood point to it, "Facebook is not a blog, it's not a profile or a space- it is merely nothing." (actual punctuation included, good use of a HYPHEN)...um. could you ...perhaps be a little more precise? ok, she tries, with "At most, it is a figment of interaction." A figment? So when i leave a wall post and someone else posts back on my wall, we aren't actually talking? We're just pretending to talk? Hm. Creepy.
According to one of the writer's friends, Facebook is "a stalker's paradise". RIIIIIGHT. which is why you can set your profile and location to private so that only your friends can see it, right? mmhmm. Also, the writer says "ask yourself why you are supporting something that rakes in one million dollars a week" ...um. someone created a business venture that's doing well, so I'm not allowed to support them? Shoot. OH, so I guess I shouldn't wear American Eagle shirts either, right? Oh, no, I'm allowed to wear those, since the writer wears those and other brand name clothes as well. Ok so now I'm confused, what am I allowed to support and what am I not?? Also, she tells us to "pick up the phone" instead of using Facebook or Msn, since those are the "route to ultimately no interaction" and "due to convenience"...but a phone isn't??? ... "What could be better?" she continues, "No confrontation and most importantly no movement." ...ok so now I'm REALLY confused, because picking up the phone and calling someone is just as lazy and real-interaction-less as Msn or Facebook. Plus calling someone costs a helluva lot more than emailing or Msn-ing. Then she continues saying "The most predominant explanation for Facebook taking over the lives of students globally is that it's cool. And cool is an addiction." ...right, cuz she's not the sort who wants to be cool, wearing brand name clothes or so called "cool" clothes. yup. And she closes her article with a beautiful "just pick up the phone." wow. what a piece of beautiful literature. *shakes head* what a sad sad state our paper has come too. The same wonderful person is working on my grade 12 yearbook, EXCELLENT.

Also wonderful in the paper is the article about the same author of the Facebook article and some other girl who are going to South Africa this summer. But failing to mention my good friend who is also going. Actually, they aren't doing anything to help my friend get there. She asked, before anyone else, at the start of the year if they could do a SOCK (students on a caring kick) collection for her this year, to help her fundraise for her trip. Teacher said sure, not a problem. She goes back a month or 2 later to see when it's going to be, the teacher says "oh, we're already full with people, tough luck." right. that's completely fair. Also, my friend was going to do a fundraising thing with these 2 girls mentioned in the paper, but suddenly the 2 girls are just doing it for themselves, can't be bothered to let my friend help them and thus get some money for her fundraising. SO FRUSTRATING.

That's all for now...