Teen Drinking

            Well, we all know what holiday is coming up. Everyone enjoys this time of year, especially teens. Why? You get a lot of time off of school. Less responsibilities, more free time, more sleep, and food. It’s a time when everyone can lighten their moods a little bit.

            However, with this lovely time off of stress from school, kids take advantage and take things a little too far. They think something is a good idea and then end up regretting things in the end. That’s right, I am talking about drinking. According to MassMoms.com a large number, around 1,200 people will die around the holiday season due to alcohol and drug use. How many of those people were of age? Rarely anyone will ever know.

            Why is it so popular? There is a lot of stress around the holidays. Some people relieve it with a hobby, or a vacation. Others, use alcohol and drugs. While yes, it is more common in young adults and people over the drinking age, it is also seen a lot in teens. There is always peer pressure in any relationship. Whether it be to go to a certain event, wear certain clothes, or to even do something you shouldn’t, it tends to be there. When you get into a relationship with negative peer pressure is when you start seeing the problems.

            “Oh it’s just one time!” “Come on don’t be a baby!” “Don’t worry, no one will know, you’ll be fine, trust me!” That’s what it all starts with. And then, maybe you don’t get caught, maybe you didn’t have any consequences. When that happens, people tend to repeat what they did. There is a sense of excitement in what you do when you could get caught. You get an adrenaline rush and it feels fun. With no school during the holiday break, it’s easier for kids to get away with things. Parents still work, parents get lenient. There are so many opportunities for kids to go out and not have to face anything or anyone the next day. This makes kids think that drinking is okay, especially since they can “just sleep it off” the next day. Well what happens when it can affect the things you are involved in?

            Words spread fast. Especially when there are multiple witnesses. With all the new social media websites, and the need to look cool, kids are posting more and more pictures and statuses about what they are doing. Around New Year’s there are a lot of parties, and a lot of access to alcohol. You can just about get anyone to supply you with it at the right cost. So what happens when a picture is put up of you drunk doing something embarrassing or there is a revealing comment? There can be many bad things that come with it. There is a chance you could get kicked out of a club or activity, even fired or demoted from a job! It is not something to kid around with! Nowadays people underage really need to step back and think about what they are really willing to risk to have that thirty minute high from “having fun”.

Sober as always,

-Hangin’ from a clothesline

Body Odor

 

BO, Rankness, reek, stench. Sound familiar? If you are a teenager, it should. Nowadays in high school all over, and even in middle schools now, the smell of body odor is commonly known. Or should I say smelled?

Is there something different going on in the school districts? Are they feeding us something that makes us smell? Not exactly. While the food we eat does sometimes affect the way we smell, the school food is not doing this, unless it’s your breath. I know, you wish it was so that we could blame yet another bad thing on the school, but no. They aren’t completely out to humiliate us.

Truth is, there is a lot more going on in kids’ lives today than there was years ago. We are busier, and have more stress. Stress sweat is known to have the most odor of all sweats. Why is this? Well, it has to do a lot with the chemicals released while stressing over something rather than the regular sweat we perspire while participating in an event.

Sometimes we cannot help the fact that we have sweat through our deodorant. Other times, we can. For example: On a normal school day, why do people smell like a skunk in the hallways? I would like to blame it either on the family of the child not pressuring the child enough to wear deodorant and keep up with their hygiene, or purely on the laziness of current generations.

Let’s be honest. If we lived in a different time period, women wouldn’t be seem without gloves, nor men without their pocket watches. So at what point did we decide that deodorant wasn’t a necessary thing to have when going out in public? Was it when public schools decided it was okay to wear pajama or sweat pants to school? Or maybe when dry shampoo was invented so that we thought it was okay not to shower.

All I know is that I am recently finding more and more people that smell like body odor in the halls of my school. What are some ways to help prevent this smell? Let me help! Make a routine every morning. You could even make a list and post it on something you look at every morning (like a mirror) if you feel you would forget to stick to the routine. Have a check list you go through before you leave the house of all the things you need before you leave. Put deodorant on those lists! It may sound pointless now, but let me tell you, when I first started to smell in middle school that list made my life a whole lot easier, and less embarrassing!

If the list doesn’t prove helpful make an emergency kit to keep in your car or backpack. Some ideas of objects to keep in it are hand sanitizer, breath mints, a comb, deodorant, body spray, pain reliever, and body lotion. Believe it or not, this kit can really be a lifesaver!

Have a buddy you can trust and aren’t embarrassed in front of to be there to remind you or even tell you when you start to smell to other people. It is a fact that some people cannot smell their own body odor. To have someone else there to count on can definitely help you during those times when your nose doesn’t pick it up.

If none of these methods work for you, or you have used them successfully and you still smell you can go to a doctor and talk about a product that can help reduce the intensity of your body odor. There are many things that can be a help, even if you don’t think they would be of use.

For now, just hang in there if your school smells like mine. It should get better with time. There are subtle hints you can use to tell a peer that they need to check up on their deodorant usage. If that doesn’t work there is always the method of using something that smells good to hold by you while you are by the person who smells. This is a savior especially if you do not feel comfortable saying anything or if it is against their religion. Good luck with the lovely body odor of the current generations we live with. May your smell be ever in your favor.

 

-Hangin’ from a clothesline

subpost: Synonyms courtesy of word hippo @ http://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/another-word-for/body_odor.html

Sharkiesha

            If you are a teenager in the lovely US of A then you have probably heard about a nice little lady named Sharkiesha. Keep in mind “lady” is used loosely. She was made famous from a YouTube video of her fighting. What a way to make money! Just about everyone has seen or heard something about Sharkiesha. Each and every time one of us say something about the video, it makes other people watch which makes her even more famous.

            I myself just watched the video for the first time. Let me tell you it is nothing special. In fact, the comments tend to be more amusing than the actual fight. Basically, how it goes down is there are two women standing, talking about God know what. They shuffle around for a little while and then all of a sudden Sharkiesha “sucker punches” the woman she is talking to.

            Due to the fact that the woman was not expecting or prepared to be hit, she falls to the ground and rolls to a nearby fence. Sharkiesha proceeds to hit her and then kick her in the face before one of these women’s friends pull her away. How lovely to know that your “friends” can just watch you sit there getting beat and all they say is “oh my God,” for minutes. However, do not fear! These friends finally come to this poor girl’s recue!

            Yes, they did finally step in and pull Sharkiesha away! Oh so nice of them! Well, that didn’t stop Sharkiesha’s anger. She proceeded to try and go back to keep fighting with this girl. Yet these faithful friends kept her back and the other girl safe! Thank goodness!

            If you are sitting there reading this and thinking that it is pretty childish, that’s because it is. But leave it up to America to get in her business and make everything about the video become popular. She has had interviews with news stations, comments, video views, t-shirts, and even sayings made about her! What does this do but to encourage not only her but the rest of America to keep on doing childish things like get into fights and be made famous by the video of it being posted on YouTube? Absolutely nothing. It does not help us grow as a country what so ever. There is no economical nor educational value to our country by watching this video or making fan wear about it. All it does is make a fight even more popular than it needs to be.

            So before you decide to go around spreading news of the video or even getting fan wear, think about what the honest benefit of it is. That is all.

-Hangin’ from a clothesline

Celebrity Crushes

Who is your celebrity crush? Would you consider yourself a little obsessive over them? I’d say most teenage girls are. What exactly draws you to this crush? Is it their looks, sense of style, or their talent? There are many aspects that draw us to someone. The only problem with celebrities is that they are normally out of our reach.  This of course sucks! But let’s be honest. Sometimes the fact that they aren’t available to us makes us only want them more!

Well that just helps us get rid of the obsession so much! With the obsession often growing day by day, we start to follow what happens to our crush more and more. Then all of a sudden, we see that our crush has gotten a significant other. At first we feel heartbroken. Then we either start to get angry or we feel happy for our crush. What normally determines this? Believe it or not, we want our crush to be with us, someone like us, or someone we also like. When our crushes find someone that follows that, we begin to be happy for them and end up rooting for that celebrity couple.

Then there is the opposite side of things. When our crush gets involved with someone we don’t like we end up becoming mad. This is often what we see on social media sites being expressed through statuses. This is what we see trending lately. That and jealousy.

It happens to the best of us. Jealousy sucks. But at least if you experience it, you know that you are human! This jealousy happens when our crush ends up with someone we know and like, yet our obsession gets in the way of us being happy for the couple. It is all in our heads starting with us thinking that we have a chance with who we think we are in love with. Crazy how our hormones can mess up how we think as well as our common sense.  This is a heads up. Although you may thing that this celebrity is all that and a bag of chips, they have faults just like all the significant others we end up hating after our crushes find them. And yes, while you think that you may have a chance; it is very rare that our celebrity crushes will ever even acknowledge that we exist. Sad but true. So go on ranting about how you are so mad that so and so are together, you will just add to the rest of the social network population.

As always,

-Hangin’ from a clothesline

Facebook to Twitter?

                Nowadays no matter a person’s age or status, a lot tend to have a social media profile of some sort. People of older ages tend to have a Facebook. Younger people have something called a Twitter. People ask, “What’s the difference?” Well, on Facebook a person makes a status. Once that status is made, and of their friends can comment on, like or share it. No one has to see it if they don’t extend the original status. However, on Twitter, in order to “like” or comment on something, you have to “retweet” it or “reply” to the original status maker. Sound similar? Well it isn’t. On Twitter if you reply to someone or retweet it, it is able to be seen by anyone who follows you.

                This also means that everyone who follows you can see what the other person has posted. This may interfere with what the other person may have wanted with their privacy. While some people do not set the option to have requests sent to be followed, others might. They may not allow some people to follow them for specific reasons. Just like you would not accept a friend request on Facebook.

                Another feature similar to Facebook is Twitter’s ability to post pictures. You can add them to an update like any other status. But the same thing follows with pictures as it does regular statuses. You cannot comment on them. If you post something on Twitter and want to “tag” someone in it, then instead of writing the person’s name, you have to hit the at symbol (@) and then proceed to type their username instead of the name that they put in their header. If anyone does mention you in a status, you can go to your activity. This is very similar to Facebook’s notifications. The only feature in the notification portion is that you cannot get or send any of those annoying requests.

                Remember messaging? Twitter has that as well. They call it direct messaging. There really isn’t any difference between that and Facebook’s messaging. They not only serve the same purpose, but they appear in just about the same way. There is, however, a smaller limit on the amount of characters you can use on Twitter than there is on Facebook. This does limit what you can say, but also makes you think harder about revising! Who knew that there was some sort of educational value in Twitter?! Well there ya go, there’s just about everything about the similarities between Twitter and Facebook!

-Hangin’ from a clothesline

Instagram Direct

                I’m sure many of you have heard about snapchat. It is a sort of messaging program that allows you to send a photo or short video to a friend for a set amount of time. After that, the picture or video “disappears”. Well guess what that led to.

            Inappropriate pictures being sent. Everyone thinks you can get around being caught because it is direct and then is gone. The only trouble with this is screenshots. Almost everyone knows how to do one.

            There is a similar problem with instagram. Most parents are worried about their children having an instagram. Until now I haven’t seen why. On instagram you can make settings to that if anyone wants to follow you, they have to have their request approved before they can see any of your information or photos. Any inappropriate comments or photos can be seen by many and can be flagged or the person can be blocked. Now, they have added a new feature much like snapchat to instagram.

            Parents beware: now your children have been introduced to something as dangerous, if not more than snapchat. If you choose to trust your children and let them make mistakes to learn from them if they must, then hey, at least you know there is a new possibility.

            If you monitor your children, I would suggest seeing their direct feed. If there is a constant person or messages at odd hours on the feed, you might want to ask who they are talking to or what about. Make sure they are aware if there are screenshots and all the potential dangers that could come with this feature. You can never be too careful or prepared nowadays.

            Back to the parents who put a lot of trust into their kids. My parents do this and I seem to have come out fine. If your kids are the same way, I congratulate you! Less stress! However, if you are starting to get concerns, there are many approaches you could take.

            If your child is constantly on these sites or programs around you, you might ask them to explain the idea of it while showing you around their profile. It is a way to show interest in the site instead of what they are posting. This will not only give you an idea of what’s going on, but it will help you keep your trust and happiness with your child.

            Another way to see what is going on with your child’s profile without looking snoopy is to get your own and start participating! Once you have your own you can visit their profile all you want and they will never know! Good luck!:)

-Hangin’ from a clothesline

Apocalypse?

You look around. All clear. You run into the grocery store to grab first aid treatment for your family. Next thing you know, there is an undead thing running at you trying to eat your face off.

Possible? Maybe. Probable? Not really. However, movies about this are on the rise! Let’s be honest. The fact that your neighbor could one day try to eat you is kind of creepy. According to some scientists, there is a gene that could possibly create a zombie apocalypse. I’m pretty sure we all remember the man that ate his friend’s face off after doing bath salts. There is proof that this off the wall extremely creepy thing could happen. And that my friends, is why there is such rant and rave about these zombie apocalypse movies!

For a lot of people there is nothing scarier than this rotting human running after you to try and eat you. They often look gross and when they attack it is often gruesome. It’s all part of the act the directors have the actors put on for you. The grosser and scarier these creatures look the more likely the audience will get scared. When they see another movie with the same kind of creatures and scare factor, they will likely come to watch it.

When the movies grow from these slow moving creatures, to running extra strong creatures, like in World War Z, it adds a new thrill factor! Now these things can actually run after you and smash through car windows with their heads to get to your pulsing flesh! What the heck! They get more and more invincible! There is less and less of a chance at our survival! What is there left for us to do!?

These movies have gone through shooting the zombies through the head, to moving to a place where they have heard zombies were nonexistent, to a vaccination so that zombies couldn’t detect you. There have been so many solutions and it seems as if a lot of them never come out too good for us humans.
This also adds to the rave of these movies. People almost always end up dying. If I’m not mistaken, people tend to be pretty afraid of that. If not, then people at least like to go and make fun of all the “dumb” aspects of the movies or make fun of the people that go and jump during an intense part… (cough cough me).

So whether you are the person that is extremely afraid of the possible apocalypse and go to better prepare yourself for what may come to be, or you like to make fun of those afraid, you still go and add to the very popular movie audience

*jumps*
-Hangin’ from a clothesline

Netflix

There is a little thing called Netflix. Boy oh boy is it popular. If for some odd reason you have no clue what Netflix is, then I am here to help. Some people either don’t have the time or are too lazy to go to a video rental store. Netflix is right there for you. You basically pay a monthly membership fee, and then you can either send video requests in to be sent to your home, or you can use the Netflix app on any device with internet connection.

Personally, I find that Netflix has become a minor addiction to teens. What better to do on a day when you are grounded or home alone than to watch some classic movies and television shows? There is a wide variety of flicks on Netflix (quite a suiting name I might add). Whether you are looking for a drama television show to a sci-fi movie, they have you covered.

The only downside, like any other rental store, is that sometimes you have to wait for a movie or series to come out. Newer movies sometimes aren't available for instant play which means you have to order them and wait however many days for the actual disk to come in the mail. Yet it is still better than a hit and miss at the rental store.

Do you like classics? Netflix covers from way back to just last month! There is no way you can go wrong with the genre of movies you like to watch. Don’t like talking to people? No problem! You don’t have to communicate with anyone! Worried about late fees? Use the instant play feature online and you never have a disk to take responsibility over!

There is the argument that this will only add on to the problem that cell phones and social media sites give us. The inability to have face to face interaction. Yes, I do see your point there. Lately, generations have been turning to cellular devices and social media sites to talk to people simply for the reason that it is less pressuring to say something to someone while right in front of them. While yes, it does add on to that, you would still have to have a face to face interaction with someone if you wanted to see the film right when it came out. Or say if you wanted goodies to snack on while watching these flicks. This application does not completely serve all your needs for the cinema life. It does make renting things easier but no, it does not make you a hermit.

There are obviously more upsides than downsides to Netflix. If I changed your mind and you decided to rent from Netflix, go me! If not, that’s alright too.

As always
-Hangin' from a clothesline

Ask.fm

In our current generation, and probably generations before, people find that it is easier to say things when not face to face. For example, the majority of people would agree that they find it easier to ask or tell a person something through social media or texting. They only thing is, the person you ask can find out who you are and the after effects can still be awkward. What could possibly eliminate this possible embarrassment?

 

You guessed it, make the questions anonymous. Ask.fm does exactly that. You can simply “ask” someone a question, get an answer, and no one would ever know that you asked it. For some people who ask regular questions this might be a positive thing. However, there is a dark side as well.

 

Bullying and sexual harassment. Yes, these things really do happen. Over a certain period of time someone thought it would be okay to ask a “dirty” or inappropriate question since after all, it is anonymous. While it is your decision to answer the questions you are “asked”, there really isn’t much of a way to avoid a plain old comment. As if face to face and bullying isn’t hard enough to deal with and eliminate, the genius creator of ask.fm has enabled yet another way to cyber bully.

 

It is already suggested that 3.2 million children are bullied each year. With an anonymous questioner, it is nearly impossible to put a stop to that specific bully, let alone try and cut down on our bullying rates.

 

Schools say that they are a “no bully zone”. But what does that really mean? Have a talk with the bully? Switch a few classes? While that is fine and dandy, it doesn’t completely eliminate the bully. Nor does it affect the way they will act at home. Yes, it is appreciated that schools insist that they won’t put up with it, but there are still a lot of loop holes.

 

I did not mean to turn this topic into bullying, however ask.fm does enable it. While there are some major negatives, there are some positives as well. When you can ask something without any worries or regret you may boost your self-confidence and maybe even the person you are questioning. It is another way to connect to people. You get a rush from the excitement that comes with finding out that someone may think you are cute or funny.

 

Long story short, ask.fm is an option. Use it or not, just be aware of what CAN come with it. It may not be what you expected.

 

-Hangin’ from a clothesline