The Most Common Cause of Teen Death - The Common App

I think that on August 1st, everyone cries a little bit. Summer is in its last streach, the weather is about to get humid and disgusting (#DClife), and all around, the world feels against you. Just me? Ok. But on August 1st rising seniors do not just shed a tear, they weep and wail and pull out their hair because - yes, you guessed it - it's time for the common app.

For those of you who aren't American/have been living under a damn rock, the Common Application (the common app) is an online application for college. Yes, college. It opens every year on August 1st and though some schools include additional essays to apply, all, if not most, will accept the common app. Except for maybe some California schools but they're f*cking weird.

I'm not going to go into what the common app includes but it basically means that your childhood is officially over and you are about to go into the deep, dark realm of college applications. Some of us may not survive.

Warning: EXAGGERATION ALERT

Sorry. I am a drama queen and definitely not excited to start applying to colleges (class of 2015 doe) but we, as a collective senior class, are going to be fine. I know firsthand that there's a lot of stress and uncertainty when it comes to applying for colleges and the whole process feels exhausting and unfair. And guess what? It is. But that doesn't mean that we're not going to be okay. College applications are scary and maybe you feel like you have nothing to write about but it doesn't matter because take a breath and remember that everything is going to be okay. There are other options if all else fails, which, to be realistic, it probably won't.

But I know it's hard to remember sometimes that it's all going to be alright in the end so I'm going to make a little list about the common app now and just how to navigate it's deep waters with only a few stress attacks. Ready? No you're not. Let's go.

1. Don't do what I do and exaggerate everything. Colleges are not looking to fail you and flat out reject you, go in with the thinking that they are going to look at you as a whole person. Is this always the case? No, not really. But if it happens that a college doesn't look at the whole you, your extracurriculars as well as test scores and essays as well as grades, then they're not right for you. The place that you will thrive at will be looking to support you and you'll know them when you find them. Admissions officers are not going into this thinking "Oh, how many students can I reject today?" Don't over play this in your head, remember that you have to have a positive attitude or it's going to show. Stay calm and just remember that you've worked hard to get to senior year and that's an accomplishment in and of itself. Don't exaggerate everything. Harvard is not the only Mecca of intellectuals and that little college in New Hampshire is not just for "hicks". Give everyone a chance and they'll give you one.

2. You are not your grades. The system of grades was created to chart progress in a high school environment and I am 100% positive that college will be absolutely different from high school (it had better damn be... ) This means that your high school grades do not at all reflect how you'll perform in college. Yes, a 4.0 GPA looks good, but it does not guarantee you'll get into Yale and neither does a 2400 on the SATs. It might look good, but more and more, colleges today are looking at the people behind the application, not just the grades. Yes, a 4.0 can't hurt but it doesn't mean you're guaranteed a spot anywhere. This means that people who have a 4.0 - you still need to work hard and get those extracurriculars to make yourself stand out and people below a 4.0 - you're still in the running as long as you keep up the hard work! Nothing is determined yet. Your grades do not reflect your character and colleges want you, they don't want a grade. Also, there's little we as seniors can do about past grades now but try to continue to improve this year and not have a mental breakdown. Look to the future in which you can do better, and not to the past.

3. Name isn't everything and don't get caught up in sweating over a college just because it sounds prestigious! I, personally, know I'd be miserable at Princeton or Stanford and no, that's not just a lie I tell myself to make myself feel better about my not-so-shiny grades. Look at a college for where it would make you happy - not how many people would be impressed by its prestige. That's a sh*tty way to live your life and you will never really be happy. College is not for your parents or future boss, it's for you. Make sure you are comfortable in the environment and that you could be happy because you're the one spending 2/3/4 years there. Name can be impressive but what's even more impressive is someone who loves where they are and has eyes that light up when they talk about their classes, their roommate, everything. You want to be that person, not the person who's constantly stressed because they pushed themselves to be in an environment where they constantly feel rundown or unhappy. Make yourself happy with your decision!

4. No, your parents actually don't get it. Even if your parents are your literal best friends, you're going to have fights with them about college and grades and that won't be fun but it's natural. The thing I'd though, no, your parents don't know what it's like. Yes, they went to college but it was a whole different experience where it wasn't so competitive and the application process was not nearly as hard. Chances are that if our parents were to apply for college now none of them would get into where they went just because back then things were just totally different where this is concerned. Now, that doesn't mean disregard all advice they give you, but just remember that things are different and it's harder now so it's okay to think that they don't understand what it's like.

5. This is going to be fun! College is supposed to be the best years of your life and no matter where you end up, you can make it work. Staring at the common app might seem daunting yet exciting and it is! You just have to remember all throughout it that you can make this work and the only person holding you back is yourself. I don't want to sound too cheesy with this one, but just remember that everything is going to be alright in the end. It might not seem like it just yet but if you just hang on and wait, something will crop up and everything will turn out fine. Make the best of everything and even with the f*cking internationals trying to steal our spots, we're all going to be okay. Just hang in there and try to make the best of it.

The bottom line is that I know this is all very scary - I'm living it with you right now! All this advice isn't from someone who's done this before - I'm looking at the future with you and I'm scared sh*tless too. But we're going to make it and then we're going to have to find jobs and pay off the country's debt and get beer bellies - okay, you know what, let's just not think about that right now. The point is that the universe is going to make this work out for you somehow and you are going to have a chance to be happy - and also it's just August. Unless you're pressed as hell about one college, there's no need to turn anything in just yet. Take a breath, write those essays, get your application in on time, and remember we're almost done and high school is almost behind us (which we all know is the real prize!).

Have a Brettastic Day!

(Image credit: http://eplcr.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/kgpic.jpg)

Fashion Friday #1

Hey everyone! So before you say anything, yes I am very aware that it's not a Friday. I did make this collage in preparation for this Friday but didn't manage to get it off the ground. Because of my horrible timing (whoops) the very first Fashion Friday will be on a Saturday. However, that is kind of accurate to my life. I promise I'll be better in the future.

Basically, before I get into it, I wanted to start a sort of series of blog posts every Friday to talk about fashion. I am not a lifestyle blogger or anything of the sort but seeing as I do find myself quite facinating (sorry) I thought maybe you guys would like tips, tricks, ideas and the like to spice up your wardrobe, makeup collection, and accessory bin. Hopefully this will be of some use to someone.

[Note that most of these might be made on Polyvore at the beginning but I might start doing pictures of my own wardrobe if it becomes requested/I possibly get sued by polyvore. But who's counting?]

So instead of starting off with a look at some of the lip products I've been loving recently, I decided to take the fact that it is now August and summer is almost over (NOOOOOOO!) to talk about some summer styles that I don't want you to leave in the closet.

I know that summer is when you bring out the light colours that may have seemed out of place during the colder months and white is one of them. I am currently ALL for white nail polish but other than that, I think white comes second to one colour for the end of summer - peach. As you can see in the above photo, I've tried to go very peach with the cartigan, backpack, sunglasses, phone case...you get the picture. Peach can be so flattering with most skin tones and it doesn't always drain the same way white does. I think peach as a colour can make skin look very vibrant in most instances. As you can also see, I kept the makeup colours very naturale and it wasn't just for the colour scheme. Heavy makeup can be such a burden in the heat and using a light pink/peach pallette can really do wonders. I think you should keep it light and breezy but that doesn't mean you have to wear cool colours - a light pink can be the perfect inbetween. 

As I'm sure I've complained about multiple times, Washington DC is a literal sauna in August and it is pretty much the most unpleasant place to be. However, recently the weather has been almost...managable and even comfortable at timrs. Because of this, i dont know where you guys are, but I definitely recommend investing in a light, easy cardigan that will look cute and still keep you comfortable if you go out at night and it gets a bit breezy. And again I recommend peach because it will probably go with most of your summer wardrobe.

The last item on my hit list for Fashion Friday is exemplified in the beauty of the shirt in the above picture - floral patterns. If there is a floral pattern you love, now is the time to rock it before summer ends and we're all back to the drudgery of school. I think the nice thing about floral patterns is that with the large range of colour, there's so much that can go with it! Experiment, try pairing new items of clothes together and see what comes out! Cause I mean, who's really going to be around to see?

And so I think that is it for this week's Fashion Friday (technically Saturday but minor details, guys, minor) and I hope you enjoyed it! I had a really fun time writing this and definitely want to continue doing stuff like this in the future so if you want to see more, please let me know. And stay tuned for another post on Monday!

Have a Brettastic day!

Why Writers Will NEVER Let You Read Unifinished Work

This is it. You've asked a million times before and you're about to ask again. I mean, they're your best friend and they're good at telling stories. They won't shut up about this "secret" book they've been working on but they won't show it to you either. You want to know what it is, to tell them what you think. You open your mouth and those dreaded words "Can I read it?" are about to escape, you feel the wind coming up your throat...

NO!

I will stop you right there, you suck back in those words, you hold that air, you leave them alone, and you sit back and relax as I explain to you why, as a writer, you will NEVER get to see our unfinished work. I don't care if you're a sister, brother, mother, father, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, I don't care if you're Jesus, the odds of me showing you my unfinished stories are still in the negative range and that's where they'll remain. Just like artists don't like hearing "Oh, will you draw me?" the dreaded words to a writer are always "Oh, can you send me your story?"

I mean don't get me wrong. We are generally amiable people aside from living in our own world half the time and maybe we'll nod. "Oh, yeah, totally! I'll send it to you, tell me what you think!" ERRRR. Wrong. You're not getting that story no matter what they said (If you do get the story, you'd better understand that you are one of the most important people in their life and appreciate that). These kinds of promises, for me, are like boxes of chocolates; the minute I remember they're there, they're empty in an instant.

You might ask, why don't writers show unfinished work? That's kind of like saying why is the sky blue? You could get a long, complicated answer or you could just accept the simple fact that it is. However, to shed some light on this situation from a personal standpoint, I will make you, a genuinely interested friend, a list explaining why no matter how many BFF heart necklaces you buy, you're never getting that goddamn story.

1. Unfinished business
Having a story that is unfinished yet in the hands of another human being is like having an itch you can't scratch. I mean, any self respecting reader would want to breathe fire down on an author who published an unfinished book and as writers, well, it's kind of our entire existence to understand the reader. So, basically, willingly giving someone an unfinished story is like having peanut butter without the jelly. Or an ocean without the salt. Or a British person without the accent. It just feels wrong. And as the reader of an unfinished story, no matter how breathtaking the plot might be, there's always the undercurrent of knowledge that you're reading a rough draft. And nobody likes that. Especially the author because, believe me, revisions are a writer's best friend and having to constantly update someone to revisions made to early-on events is just not fun. You feel like because this person read a crappy version already, they won't want to give you feedback on the finished version. It's overall, just a bad experience for everyone.

2. Extra pressures
There is always the hope among authors that people will enjoy their story and want more - but when you're writing and suffering from writer's block (as always seems to be the case) or just busy all the time, it can be so stressful to have someone enjoy your book and not have anything else to give them. You can't fangirl about characters together if you have to explain an unfinished plot to them - that's just a horrible idea from the get go. Again, it's like an itch you can't scratch but when you have a friend or reader breathing down on your neck, it feels like someone's going "FINISH FINISH FINISH" in your ear and, surprisingly, this makes me want to actually finish about 0%. It's a cruel cycle, I know, but nobody ever said life was fair. Do artists and musicians have this problem also? I wouldn't know. But what I do know is that this extra pressure is a big no-no if you want to even contemplate ever having a finished product.

3. No one means it
I get it. You're excited, your best friend said they would love to read your story so the first thing you do when you get home is email them the document and eagerly refresh Facebook to see when they'll message you telling you what they thought. Newsflash: they probably won't. Not that night, not ever. People rarely mean what they say when they go "Oh, can you send it to me? It sounds really cool!" They. Will. Not. Read. It. It's easier to just say yes and then "keep forgetting." All that happens if you cave and believe these liars people is you will end up regretting the fact that another person now has a copy of your unfinished work. And believe me, that's much more stressful than some people might assume. There is nothing worse than knowing that at any moment your work could not be your work anymore and maybe that's an exaggeration but better safe than sorry. Also, again, they're not going to read it anyway.

4. Over excitement
Every young writer wants to be told that their book is good enough to be published, that they'll be the next J.K. Rowling and actually, I think it's great if you have people who encourage you like that in your life. But...chances are they're just being nice. I mean, we all want to be the next big writer. And maybe you have the potential. Maybe you don't. But the most important thing a writer can do is not forget that if you go into any project with the attitude that your first draft is your last draft, you're setting yourself up for failure. Even if your friend absolutely loves this part, if you think it needs to go, it needs to go. It doesn't matter if your friends are the "target" audience or if they make you feel good about it. As the writer, we need to make impartial decisions about what stays and what goes. That's not to say that after completion your friends and family aren't an extremely valuable source of revisions. But with an unfinished product? That's just a recipe for bad luck.

5. More fans!
For the love of god, understand that if you, as a friend ask for a story, everyone will suddenly think they care. And as writers, we know that they don't. Also, we know that you probably won't even read our 50k+ word story even though you think you will. But attention to an unfinished story is SCARY. It can feel very intimidating to have people constantly asking you about something that was previously at least somewhat private. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing bad about asking after a project if your friend talks about it all the time but unless you have been hired as a personal marketing consultant, keep your trap shut where an unfinished story is concerned. Considering all the past points, it's enough to have one person asking after an unfinished story but more than one makes a writer feel like they're swimming in a sea of thumbtacks. Maybe that's over dramatic. But it's not fun. So maybe just don't ask in the first place?

In conclusion, asking a writer for an unfinished story is basically like asking Satan to drive you. You're both not going to enjoy it as much as you might think. Wait...anyway, you get the point. Let this be a lesson to everyone who asks for an unfinished story and ESPECIALLY let these reasons be a lesson to any writer who thinks it's a good idea to give your bestest friend ever your unfinished story - IT'S NOT. You will inevitably make this mistake and it's okay. You'll recover, you'll learn. And if not then that's your fault, honey, don't blame me if your writing career ends up being like the bad parts of this list in a drier on permanent spin.

Have a Brettastic Day!

(Image credit: http://weheartit.com/entry/130652259/in-set/25608967-journals?context_user=kimberly64&page=2)

Generation Y Do you Insult Us?

It starts off with a vague sense of discomfort. Then, you start evaluating your life. Then, you start thinking about the future. You wonder; am I happy? Will I ever be happy? Even with racism, disease, opression, was life really purer in the past? And the most important one; how can I fix myself?

The good news is that chances are, there's only about a half chance you're having an existential crisis. What you could be reacting to, in fact, is what I like to call the conversation.

We've all had it. Whether it's in a classroom where a teacher asks you to discuss your thoughts on social media, or it's with friends and everyone's glued to their phones, or it's just you thinking about how you see more of your 'friends' through Facebook than you do in real life. The question everyone's asking:

What is wrong with this generation?

Now, before I go into this, I'd just like to back up and explain myself a little. For example; what is "Generation Y"? Why do people think our generation is messed up in particular? What can we do to fix it?

And I hear you. So before I continue, let me break it down for you. Generation Y is the term used to describe the young generation of today, the children of the mid to late '90s and early 2000s (even though the non-'90s kids are all, like, 14. Gross). And as for the next question, come on. Even if you're about to hate on old people like me, you've got to admit that there are some general major issues with this generation. We text instead of call. We tweet instead of talk. We spend time on our phones when we're with our friends, we are more connected to the world and less connected to our lives in general, WE'VE HEARD IT ALL. Technology is ruining the world, life is not what it used to be, kids have shorter attention spans, always connected to a virtual word, blah, blah, blah.

STOP WORRYING

Seriously. That's my response. Whenever something comes up in conversation where people are talking about how messed up this generation is (usually right after they're done refreshing their instagram feed and losing to flappy bird) it always just (to put it nicely) annoys the shit out of me! Yes, our generation has problems but - wake up call - the world wasn't so flipping great in the past either. Maybe you're intrigued by the idea of old-school romance or the fact that somehow life was better  in our parents' or grandparents' time, but the fact is that it's time to open your eyes and look around you. This is what we have, yes it is technology centered, and no, that's not always a bad thing! (Also something I've learned about the past is that it's like having a non-American watch High School Musical. Glammed up, made for TV, and very different from reality. Just think about that.)

Now, if you are one of those people who goes into panic mode when their phone dies or is forgotten at home...I might not be on the same page with you here. The point of this post is to address the fact that for some reason adults seem to think that Generation Y is the biggest failure generation because of our technological addictions. I say that in many instances this may be the case. But humankind has always been advancing and people have always viewed change in some negative way! When the typewriter was invented, a lot of people thought that it was the end of the written word, that literature would be so much less good without it being handwritten and I think it turned out just fine. That's not to say that the typewriter and all the 4G and Google we have today are the same thing. But it's the same basic principle. New thing? Scary! I get it.

And it's especially hard with the technological revolution that has taken place. Parents watch as their children grow up in completely different ways from what they did. It's hard. I know. But newsflash; this has literally happened with every single generation since the dawn of time (well, maybe not the dawn. More like midmorning). Parents watch as the world changes around them and, due to preconceived notions or just unchanged views about the world, they may unwelcome some parts of it. But their children, growing up and appreciating the only life they've ever known, that can be scary. It makes sense that the unknown would frighten people who grew up in a totally different way. I bet we will be the same as parents when we welcome Generation Z or whatever into the world.

But down to the nitty gritty of this post - just because you may not approve of how some teenagers and young adults use technology does not give you the right to insult us because of it. My biggest pet peeve is when people act like the world is ending because some study says children have a shorter attention span. Well, I believe that technology will ruin tomorrow's youth about as much as I believe that vaccinations cause autism. And for those of you who don't know me, I think that is bullsh*t.

That is to say, everything in moderation. But I think one of the main reasons I get defensive about Gen Y and our technology craze is the fact that we are going to be the ones using this technology to fix (or destroy) the world that our parents are leaving for us. We are in no way inferior because we grew up with a computer screen, in fact we may be better because of it! That's not to say that texting > talking but the point is that I get mad when people talk about technology, social media, and things of the like, with the kind of contempt Americans reserve for the topic of communism. Have you ever heard an American talk about communism? You'll know the tone.

And in many ways, your entire hipster approach "oh life was so much better in the 50s" bullsh*t kind of reminds me of communism. Great in theory, not so much in practice. You go ahead and glorify racism, sexism, and the like and I'll sit here reading modern news and exchanging study notes with my friend on facebook as we laugh together about Orange is the New Black on the phone.

I don't want to hear about how inferior Gen Y is because of how connected we are, I want you to save it for when that girl who was always posting on Instagram is a model or even a computer hacker and is protecting your job by creating security programs. When that boy making youtube videos is the next Morgan Freedman or he's making documentaries with millions of views, I don't care what the example is. The point is that do not insult my generation by saying that technology makes us weaker. Maybe things aren't exactly like they were in the past. Well, that's kind of the point of evolution, that's kind of the point of humanity in general. 

Yes, social media and technology has it's drawbacks and they can be major. But humanity will change as it always has and society will change as it always has and there's no way to know if it's good or bad until we see what happens. And I don't know about you, but I'll have my smartphone on hand regardless so I can tweet about it as it does.

Have a Brettastic day

(Image credit: http://oh-cool-transparents.tumblr.com/post/93982658283)