The Missing Socks

Once it's here, it's never lost.

[themissingsocks-blog]

The Media Milennial

Every day for the past two weeks I’ve approached my parents and asked them if they got a letter from Berkeley in the mail. Ten years ago, this would have made sense; a student anxiously awaiting her admissions decision was normal. Today, though, it seems arbitrary. I already know I’ve been accepted. I’m forced to admit that my primary motivation for the constant badgering and snail mail investigation is aimed not at personal achievement but at social sharing-- I’d rather Instagram a paper letter than a screenshot off of my gmail account.

We are the children of the social media generation. While I like to think that I’m above the influence of lowly popularity monitors like Facebook, Twitter, and instagram, I know I’m not. I spend much of my day refreshing three different news feeds, checking for activity, likes, follows. I know it’s trivial, but I often drain my phone’s battery by the time the bell rings at 2:50 to signify the end of my school day. While that may send a strong message about my dedication to my academics, it also indicates to me that I’ve been swallowed up by the social media monster, and once you’re inside, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to escape.

While many writers, looking at the two paragraphs above, may continue this post in criticism of our technological Millennium, I don’t think there’s any use in combatting progress. Rather, I’d like to focus on a small detail of our transition into fabricated narcissism: it’s impact on our lives and, specifically, its impact on our abilities to communicate.

I’ll begin with an example. In the past few months since I’ve adopted an active twitter account, I’ve been spectator to countless “twit-fights,” quick-witted 160 character insults that often result in more harm than drawn-out in-person speeches. These twit-fights, which are captured in a moment by a screenshot, may seem trivial; however, Twitter is a networking site that bridges generations, people, and places. Principals on campus have tracked students on twitter and held them accountable for things said online. People in another country have felt offended by an off-handed comment a SoCal kid posted on his feed. Ironically, while ink on paper is much more permanent, the dots on a screen, easily deleted or restructured, are often more indelible.

The consequences of words written in pixels on a screen aren’t temporary or immediate, as they used to be when conflict arose. Instead, they ripple out like waves across a current of negativity, rumors, confusion, and mistrust. We never used to believe what we saw online; when I was younger, my parents told me the internet wasn’t a resource I could depend on for hard facts. Nowadays, though, the internet is the basis for our facts, our perceptions, and our understandings of human nature. We’ve converted a ramshackle compilation of homemade recipes into a dictionary for human discovery, and we’re heading down a path from which there is no return.

[themissingsocks-blog]

In the Limelight

This year I’ve decided to try something new in my life; I joined the after-school musical theater program for a two-month long experience of Young Frankenstein. When I joined, I had no idea how theater would open my eyes to things around me.

Of course, theater’s not necessarily something brand new to me; I’ve been attending plays bimonthly for as long as I can remember at the local playhouse, and I’ve taken classes, acted in “Junior” performances, and worked as a crew member on numerous productions in the past. I had never, however, considered joining my high school’s theater program as a viable option. I regret not realizing earlier how impactful the theater experience could be on my worldview for other things.

The most significant thing that’s stood out to me throughout this artistic experiment has been the variety of people I’ve met as a result of my participation. Although I tend to stick to my own very small clique at practices and performances, interacting with other characters on and off stage has forced me to engage with new people and personalities I otherwise wouldn’t have even recognized, and I’ve grown as a result.

Another interesting variant between theater and other activities (like one I’m most familiar with- ASB), is that theater’s final project isn’t simply a “one and done” event. I’m used to pouring hours into planning assemblies and events that have one shot at success. In theater, however, each performance is a new beginning, and both actors, crew members, and directors get not only a second chance to succeed, but a third, and a fourth, and a fifth. While the audience may change, it remains our goal to put on the best production possible, knowing that if anything goes wrong we can always recover it in the next performance.

I’ve overcome incredible timidity and insecurity through my participation and I’m grateful for everything theater has contributed to my life over the past few months. My only regret is not engaging in it until the end of my senior year; I can only imagine the memories I would have made.

[themissingsocks-blog]

It's All Means to the Same End

High school achievements are a paradox. I’ve found that the harder I work and the closer I get to touching my goals the farther I get from actually achieving them.

In high school, we have a four year window. We enter as freshmen, and work hard at school itself, trying to establish academic prowess before we expand our interests. We need to prove to ourselves we can handle the basics of high school before we try to upgrade the experience to the one we see in all the movies - for some it takes a month, for others it may take years. Once we establish comfort, we begin to participate in activities, dedicating time, money, and effort to things about which we feel “passionate,” things we cannot begin to imagine our lives without. We work hard in those areas and eventually attain positions of leadership, demonstrating and spreading our knowledge to our peers and preparing them to take on the torch next year. And before the blink of an eye, we’re out again, pushed into a new environment and asked to try it again, to repeat the process. Assimilation, participation, administration, separation.

As a second semester senior, it’s not simply a battle with “senioritis” -- I don’t find myself relaxing or shirking responsibilities because I know in the end it won’t matter for my future. Instead, I’m often perplexed what the effort I put into certain events will ultimately yield. I recognize that within five months, there will be a completely new board of people in charge of doing the exact same things I’ve been doing for the past seven. They’ll have a new spin on things, produce assemblies and rallies that will thrill audiences, and put their own spin on everything that’s been built before them. And then, they’ll graduate and someone else will do it. No one ever truly fails; no one ever truly succeeds. Time just keeps passing and events continue to happen and no one is the wiser afterwards. Assimilation, participation, administration, separation.

In the end, all we can do is work hard for instantaneous satisfaction. I remember in middle school, my English teacher was adamant about the benefits of delayed gratification, about how much better something feels when you’ve have to wait for it. This year, though, I’ve only found solace in instant gratification; the feeling I receive when an event occurs is the only silver lining I’ve found on the work, time, effort, and stress spent over one production. There’s no point in delaying the satisfaction; I know I won’t be around long enough to see it.

[themissingsocks-blog]

Act your Age

I’m often mistaken for an adult. I don’t mean to be complimenting myself, if it can even be considered a good attribute, but it’s a small detail that’s been affecting my everyday life more and more the older I get. When I go into the supervision office at school to ask a question, the lady behind the desk doesn’t ask for my ID number or how she can help me, but what classroom I teach in and how long I’ve been working here. When I attend a meeting at the school district as a student representative of my school, the superintendent of the district approaches me and asks what subject I teach. It’s ordinary to me now, I suppose, and you would think I would enjoy it-- every child dreams of being older than their years. For some odd reason, I don’t.

Ever since I was little, I aspired to be like the “older kids.” While I recognize now that I might’ve been better off just acting my age (as opposed to my shoe size), I could never peel my eyes away from the glamour of the older girls, from their independent high-school lives, their brilliant minds taking classes I only dreamt of, their night spent out late doing who knows what. For me, as for many others, growing up couldn’t come soon enough. The years I lost pretending to be older hurt the memories I have of being younger. Ironically, now that I’m older and I can see that, now that I spend all my days trying to live “in the moment,” others seem to prohibit me from finally appreciating the best parts of being 18.

In literature, characters rarely behave true to their age. To lead a complex novel, especially one that would eventually be read in an Advanced Placement literature novel, the character must have wisdom beyond their years. Never has a child protagonist indulged to spend the course of the novel playing in the hot sand or building a dollhouse on the beach. Or, if they get the rare chance to demonstrate immaturity, it’s overshadowed by complex internal thoughts that pour through the narration, limiting the strength of the naivete (which can often be one of the strongest elements of any modern novel; we do all think we know everything sometimes).

In the media, however, people are encouraged to be even younger than they appear. We often see a twenty-something year old girl portraying a teenager, likely because of the realities she can bring to that role that a younger girl couldn’t. However, as audience we’re asked to forego our perceptions at least for that two hours and envision a eighteen-year-old, sophisticated, experienced Abigail Breslin as a fourteen-year-old, Oklahoma girl.

Age toys with our imaginations; it’s a social taboo for adults and a source of pride for children. I’ve never really been satisfied with where I am, always looking forward to what was to come, to the things I could do when I’m older. I regret that now, though, and wish I’d been aware enough of the present to understand the importance of that time as I am now. I’m disappointed when a parent approaches me at a school event and thanks me for “putting this night on for the kids;” it proves to me that I’m still failing at appreciating my youth, at being completely myself.

[themissingsocks-blog]

Breaking the Routine

When was the last time you made an instantaneous decision? When was the last time you threw caution to the window and took a risk? When was the last time you spent a limitless day separate from your agenda, your calendar, your responsibilities, your routine? In modern day America, especially deep within the suburbs, we live almost like robots, carrying out our days as they’ve been pencilled into our minds with soft lead that draws our lives in words and numbers. “4 PM Doctor’s appointment.” “6 PM Family dinner.” We don’t always do things because we want to anymore; we do them because we feel like we have to.

My schedule looks something like this: each morning, I wake up at 6:20, throw on clothes and run downstairs to drive my sister to school by 6:30, sleep 10 minutes in the car before I go into school to Baron Banner, where I attempt to do all of my homework. I go through every school day the same, attending classes as my mind drifts to other things, other plans, other responsibilities. Immediately after sixth period I attend a meeting, either for the TEDx expo I’m working to organize, for the board of a club I’m a part of, or for something else we just decided needed to get done. After school, I waste an hour to go out and eat, usually my first meal of the day; my body’s used to that by now. Then I’ve either got another meeting, a theater rehearsal, tutoring, or dance class. I often don’t get home until after 9 in the evening. Rinse and repeat.

As varied as my life is and as diverse as my schedule seems, I often find myself frustrated with my routine. I’m someone who thrives on spontaneity, on making in-the-moment decisions and taking risks. I’ve built myself a life that depends on structure, on following the schedule that’s been laid out for me weeks in advance. There’s no continuity between what I want from life and what my life needs from me; it’s difficult to change that.

Weekdays are the least inspiring. While they flash by without a moment to rest, they’re each the same; I can predict with 97% confidence the sequence of next Monday based on what I’ve done on the last four, because they mimic each other like some sick sort of pattern, torturing my imagination with harsh ritualistic reality. I often imagine a world where school wasn’t predictable, where each day and each class was different and exciting featuring new technology and innovative ideas that inspire me to engage in the material more than a Powerpoint presentation, the only recurring technological curricular incorporation any class seems capable of attaining.

I’ve learned through the years, though, to experiment with my weekends as an escape from the rut in which I seem to spend 5/7 of my life. While my family spends every Saturday morning playing tennis on the same court and eating the same flavored bagels at about the same time in the same shop, I try to diversity my life with spontaneous adventures and spur-of-the-moment choices. It helps to alleviate some of the boredom of the everyday and I’m glad I’ve found a way to balance my need for experiences with the responsibilities I need to fulfill.

On the weekends, I do a few things to ensure that I can maximize my freedom. I try to put my phone away, or at least ignore messages or events from school or school activities that aren’t urgent until late at night when there’s really nothing better to do. I try to go out and be with people to lift my spirits, because relaxing alone just isn’t inspiring for me. It’s all about finding something you like that lets you have fun - and it’s not the same for everyone. Spontaneity is a key ingredient to satisfaction; ironically, the thing you didn’t know you were expecting is often the one you were looking forward to the most.

I know that lessons like this one don’t apply to just me. This kind of problem is common among many people, especially teens in my age group, and we all struggle to reconcile the challenges of modern academic rigor with the need to experiment and have fun.

How do you take risks in your everyday life? How do you balance what you need to do with what you want to do? Feel free to comment!

[themissingsocks-blog]

America's Irony

Students, more than anyone, are constantly fighting labels. If I work too hard, I’ll be labeled a “try-hard.” If I bring in food to the class, they’ll call me a “kiss-up.” If a girl cares too much about how she looks, she won’t get complimented on her outfits; instead, people will criticize her for wearing too much makeup or for buying too expensive clothes, classifying her as a materialistic “showoff” instead of someone who’s purely invested in her self esteem.

Beyond the surface level comments, though, through the nicknames or the insults, students classify themselves on a deeper level. Through the classes we take, the friends we make, the activities we join, the way we spend our weekends, we build up different sub-circles that encapsulate our previously varied personalities until they morph to fit the stereotype we’ve chosen.

Even though we know he has his own personality, and so does each of the friends he’s chosen to hang out with. His activity and his location determined his group social status, not his personality or his talents. Other students judge Joe without getting to know him, assuming he’s just another clone of that geek straight out of Mean Girls. It’s a frustrating cycle over which Joe had no control, and even if, at this point, he wanted to break out of it, he probably couldn’t. And almost every organization on our campus has a stigma like that of the band; the theater kids are quirky, and the ASB kids are bossy and spoiled. They’re preconceptions developed long before I attended FVHS that aren’t looking to change; we just need to find a way to change what they mean on our campus.

However, there’s a bigger problem than simply how other people view you based on your friends and on your activities; the comments and stereotypes shape your own personality. Picture Julie, a timid, white freshman coming from a private school. When Julie first attended FVHS, she didn’t know her place. She came in without a built-in anything. She didn’t have a talent she’d been perfecting since birth in sync with an activity offered here, and she didn’t have friends she’d jived with since middle school, since she came from a local private school. Only one other student from her eighth grade class was a freshman at FVHS at the time. She felt alone.

Over time, she found extracurriculars that worked with her personality and her schedule. She joined tennis and made great friends there, using it as her social outlet to the school she couldn’t access on her own. From tennis, she branched out to join a few clubs, all similarly connected to the friends she had made in tennis. From those clubs, she gained confidence. She worked hard in school and in sports. Her peers respected her for her dedication to her academics, and her teammates appreciated her loyalty to her sport. She felt she had found the perfect niche for herself within that team. From the outside, though, she heard differently.

The friends she had made in class couldn’t understand her connection to tennis. She was the only white girl on her team and in her group of friends; she didn’t mind. Her white friends from class, however, noticed and commented pointedly, without making insults but similarly avoiding encouraging the behavior. They put down the clubs she was in and the way she spent her time. Over the year, she became more intensely connected to the personality she took on as a tennis player, and more broken off from her own.

Julie isn’t a specific person, but rather a compilation of the stories of countless teenage girls attending my school and schools across the country. We all face the same challenges - realizing that, while it may be true that we can choose whatever path we want in high school (and life), our choice will have consequences beyond our control. It doesn’t matter how charismatic you are, joining the chess club will have you labeled a geek. And it’s hard to break the jock persona as a football player, even if you’re a straight-A student in AP classes. We all have something we struggle to break away from, to build ourselves up as unique individuals.

It’s America’s irony - we value the individual, but tear them down at the same time. We encourage everyone to join something, to pick a passion, and to stick to it. And then we encourage that same person to excel in that passion. The philosophy is fine, but in practice it doesn’t work out. The lead string violinist is still an orchestra snob. And the president of the bowling club isn’t any less a nerd, he’s the biggest. Students who follow society’s advice help themselves fit in and create a personality in each stage of their lives, but they get pushed down by the same advice that built them up. With every great advance, we have to recognize we’ll have to take a step back. It’s not something we can change. It’s an inherent flaw in the clique system. But it works. So learn to play the system.

[themissingsocks-blog]

I Love Group Projects!

Said no one, ever.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve worked on my first truly successful group project. Nobody slacked off, and nobody took over the project; we shared equal control. It was a beautiful partnership. Unfortunately, this was the first project I’ve done in my entire educational career thus far that worked out that way. Group projects have fundamental flaws that make it statistically unlikely any group will have all members satisfied at the conclusion of the work. Here’s an exploration of the Group Project syndrome, from a student’s perspective.

Inevitably, students in a group are either leaders or followers. The only time a project can be successful is when the leadership ingredient is perfectly integrated into a team’s inclination to follow that leadership. Usually, however, this doesn’t happen. We usually see one of three scenarios.

Scenario One: One person takes over the project willingly, boxing out other interested team members, either earning a fantastic grade for members who didn’t have the chance to participate or earning a poor grade for members who weren’t allowed to right the sinking ship.

Scenario Two: One person reluctantly takes over the project in the interest of their personal grade, and other team members end up with a grade they didn’t work for.

Scenario Three: All members are actively interested in planning the project, and disagreements and fighting ensue, ultimately hurting the project.

Although it’s easy to recognize these three situations, they’re almost impossible to solve. To many students, the only feasible solution to the power struggle within a group project is to simply keep work individual and to avoid collaboration. However, collaboration is an essential ingredient in any workplace relationship, so we can’t completely throw it out. In the end, we’re left with an apparently unanswerable question: How can a teacher plan a group project that successfully enforces collaboration but still lets all students earn their own grades?

My teacher solved a portion of the problem. By assigning an accompanying research paper to the project and “monitoring” the work done by each individual via the revision history feature of Google Docs, he forced every group member to write at least one paragraph of the essay. In addition, he let us work in class frequently, which minimized individual work done on the side, which usually results in singular control of a previously cooperative project.

As a student, I enjoy group projects. I’m usually one of the kids who takes over everything, my way or the highway. But, recently, as I’ve tried to loosen up the reigns and relax, I’ve seen the spirit behind the seemingly useless assignments. And, having recently discovered the perfect group setting, I know that projects can turn out right. With the right degree of creative freedom and the appropriate amount of control a group has over their medium of expression, anyone can create a masterpiece, no matter who her or she happens to be working with.

[themissingsocks-blog]

Reflection on Innovation

Success is a revolutionary emotion. The moment when something you imagine finally comes to life, not in some sort of twisted Frankensteinish way but in a beautiful Disney "dreams come true" sort of way, affects a person differently than any other feeling. For me, my dream was an apt mixture of academia and entertainment, a merging of two worlds resulting in the forgery of a beautiful recreation - a TED expo.

While its genesis wasn’t my sole idea, I’m proud to call myself one of the three founders of my community’s first ever TEDx, coordinated entirely by students. I was tasked with the event itself - how it would run, how students would buy tickets and attend, its location, its set-up, all down to the most minute, easy-to-miss details. But this wasn’t my first rodeo; I’d been planning large-scale events since middle school, and it just turned out this was the first one I would get 100% right.

Over several months, I worked tirelessly to stitch the pieces of the event together. I contacted the community papers to spread the word, helped construct a website, publicized the event, maintained the Facebook page, and completed countless other menial tasks to build the big picture. I wanted to use the event to spread knowledge. As a kid, I always loved learning new things; although I had a short attention span, the ten minutes I spent each day listening to adult conversation motivated me to learn about things I wouldn't have otherwise been exposed. My goal with the TED project was to spread awareness about our bodies, our minds, and our futures. I focused our speakers on our ourselves; attendees would how their bodies worked, how their minds process, how the social drive works.

When the day finally came, with 5 speakers on an array of topics and 100 students anxiously awaiting the presentation, my breath clutched in my throat. I stepped out on stage to announce our first speaker, and I knew the hours I had spent toiling over the seating arrangements, the speakers, the design of the programs, the refreshments, were all worth it. Two local papers even covered the event, spreading the word to even more of the community. We succeeded: we spread new knowledge and ideas to our community through innovation.

Reflecting, as our team analyzes the successes and failures of our first venture into the world of TED, I can see clearly the mistakes we made along the way. We spent a lot of time early on fighting amongst ourselves in power struggles. It’s only now, though, that I realize that a “power struggle,” especially in the case of our event, is really the most incredible waste of time. Attempting to restrict someone else to devoting time and attention to a project only hurts the end goal; in the future, I know I’ll try to be more amiable with my fellow event planners. In addition, we struggled to come up with a variety of speakers. We’re reacting to this by planning speakers even earlier, reaching out to them now rather than a month before the event.

In the end, though, it’s easy to recognize that nothing’s ever perfect. We can only plan for the best and deal with the worst. Our first TED event was an amazing feat; if only we can repeat it.

[themissingsocks-blog]

Letter to the Moderator

It’s easy to come up with little quips when considering the differences between good teachers and great teachers. “Good teachers teach, great teachers learn,” quoted one teacher last night on the #CAedchat on Twitter. And maybe that’s a cute (and let’s face it, rather trite) way to say it, but it doesn’t really dig deep enough into the question. What really does make the difference between a good teacher and a great one? From the eyes of most students, whether they’re sitting in the back of the class falling asleep during a lecture or anxiously asking questions in a discussion, teachers can make or break a classroom setting. The teacher’s attitude, both toward the students in class and the material they’re teaching, dynamically affects the way a class absorbs information and gets involved.

This past Sunday night, I decided to lurk on the #CAEdchat Twitter chat to see what teachers had to say when they gathered together on the online forum. The topic, the differences between good teachers and bad ones, peaked my interest, because I wanted to hear what the teachers thought of themselves-- how they viewed their teaching and how they valued different methods. The participation online surprised me. There were hundreds of teachers all discussing and responding to questions, really interacting and forming a community; however, I found the reflections less impressive when I considered at whom the criticisms were generally directed. If a response was negative, most teachers aimed their criticisms at “other teachers,” an ambiguous group of adults made scapegoats by all of the teachers participating, and whose dedication to a Twitter chat supposedly proved their educational savvy.

Despite my opinion on the teachers’ comments, though, I want to offer a student perspective on the topic. The chat consisted of a series of questions, 9 total. The questions were released periodically over the hour from 7-8 PM last Sunday. What follows are my responses to several of the questions presented on Sunday, each contained within 140 characters.

Q2: What are some qualities of teachers in your past that made them a great teacher in your eyes?

A2: Great teachers get their hands dirty and escape the teacher jail, letting students mean more than a name on a roll sheet.

Q4: Good teachers _______, Great teachers _________.

A4 (1): Good teachers care what students know. Great teachers care what students think.

A4 (2): Good teachers keep me interested once I’m in class. Great teachers make me want to be there in the 1st place.

Q5: Sometimes it is intangible, but what are qualities of a great teacher?

A5: Passion, patience, quirkiness, time, and big dreams. Don’t let a classroom close you in; you hurt students by hurting yourself.

In my eyes, a great teacher is someone who can peak my interest, and keep me engaged, however they achieve it. Whether it’s through an exciting lecture or a fascinating activity, I want my classes to be full of new information, and I want to be able to explore that information on my own. Sometimes students need handholding, but often it’s a little offensive, and makes us feel patronized. And sometimes students need a steady hand, but often we also need a lesson sprinkled with humor and personality. It’s hard to be a great teacher, but every student has one or two they look up to. It’s not an impossible feat.

I find that teachers often struggle to identify their own faults. Staff development is only an excuse to waste a day, overloaded with meetings and motivational speakers who often fail to instill their message in the school’s staff. If the end goal is to improve student achievement and participation, teachers should ask students more often how to improve. We know what makes us tune in, and what makes us tune out.

[themissingsocks-blog]

Seven Steps to a Successful Event

Planning an event is exhausting but rewarding; it’s a challenge because often you never know how things are going to work out. After successfully hosting our first TED Expo this past friday, my team and I completed our innovation project and, more importantly, relaxed for the first time since the project had begun. A lot of planning went into the execution of such a project, and here's an inside look at how we built our event, from the ground up, in seven simple steps.

Step One: Have an idea. At first, our team consisted of only three dedicated individuals. We wanted to bring a TED event to our high school, something that had never been done before. We wanted to breed intellectual engagement and bring the community together to celebrate TED's three main pillars: technology, entertainment, and design. We did some preliminary research and obtained a permit from TED, licensing us to hold an event titled TEDxFountainValleyHighSchool on a predetermined date for a limiting audince in accordance with many other little rules and regulations.

Step Two: Build your team. Although it's possible, I never recommend "going it alone." When you want to plan a large-scale event, it's important to pick people you can depend on to work with you. Our team for TEDx expanded to seven individuals. I personally was originally worried about the team's size; I had never worked with most of our new team members, I hadn't been a part of selecting them, and I'm particularly wary of "dead weight" on any team. After a few minor disagreements to begin with, however, I learned I couldn't criticize my team without acknowledging the flaws in my own leadership. The team we ended up with was the most effective and efficient group of people I've ever worked with; mixing old and new students together worked in our favor by giving us a fresh perspective. So, in conclusion, pick a team you can trust.

Step Three: Cut the red tape. Wherever you're holding your event, especially if it's on a school campus, you'll enevitably have to combat "red tape," rules that inhibit you from carrying out your idea as you originally intended or tedious procedures you must follow to get anything done. In the case of TEDx, I realized early on that we wouldn't be able to put on the best event possible without allying ourselves with an on-campus organization; there simply would have been too many factors in our way from completing our event successfully. I decided to coordinate with Senior Commission. It's a curricular club, so we can advertise in the announcements and reserve campus space without conflict, and another team member and I were acting presidents, so we would avoid communication issues while gaining an army of helpers. We passed the appropriate paperwork to reserve the date and location, talked to those necessary to develop our plans further, and asked for permission at almost every step along the way. We worked within the "red tape." Although I may not have liked it, I know there are certain things any group has to do to get the job accomplished. You just can't get around it without compromising your results. So here's a straw, suck it up.

Step Four: Plan it. This is where the going gets tough, and the tough get going. We had to look at every little detail and coordinate the smallest pieces. For our event, we had to select speakers, identify videos to play, organize concessions, create a stage design, sell tickets, all the while adhering to strict guidelines laid out by the TED organization. We spent two months in this stage, meeting weekly to discuss progress and delegate tasks. Although this stage is the most boring, it's also the most essential to a successful event.

Step Five: Damage control. About a week before the event, consider anything that may go wrong with your project. Recognize the flaws you might experience, the potential hindrances to your success. Think about what you want the audience to experience. As silly as it sounds, the “vibe” you create matters because it’s usually what the audience remembers. Also, try to add a “wow factor.” For us, that was Nathalie Huynh’s spoken word performance, something people can remember for days afterward that they’ll identify when they hear the name of your event.

Step Six: Do it. You’re finally ready to hold your event! Make sure you’re allotted enough time to practicing and planning, but when the big day comes, go for it! And remember, you can never give yourself too much time to prepare/set up. Problems always come up, and sometimes the only thing that can rectify these errors is time.

Step Seven: Rinse and repeat. Enjoy the event! Afterwards, clean up and get some rest. If you did anything like we did, I know you deserve it. For TED, we’re regrouping and having a debrief meeting this week (the week after the event). It’s important to review with your team what you did right and wrong, especially if you’re considering working with these people again on any future projects. And consider repeating it-- it’s always nice to make something annual or semiannual; it leaves a more lasting impression, and things may go even better the second time around.

That’s it! The seven steps I’ve outlined to creating a successful event. They work with almost anything; of all the events I’ve put together, I have consistently stuck to this general outline. Take control of your ideas, and take charge of what’s going on on your campus. Anyone can do something like this. We made a TED event and impacted the lives of over 100 people; who knows what you could do.

[themissingsocks-blog]

Which came first, revenge or karma?

What’s the difference between revenge and karma? When their definitions are so similar, why does one get such a bad reputation, and the other such a good connotation?

Revenge is defined per Webster’s Dictionary as the action of inflicting hurt or harm on someone for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands. The words “inflicting,” “hurt,” and “suffered” create negative mental images, associating revenge with an act of thoughtless evil, committed either mindlessly in an instant or systematically over time.

Karma, however, is defined as the sum of a person's actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences. When people hear this definition, their mind drifts to something almost spiritual in nature, perhaps a kingdom among the clouds or a healthy journey through life.

While the two concepts are defined so differently, we use them almost interchangeably, or in a cause and effect relationship. When a person has been wronged, perhaps that was karma for a wrong he or she had committed in the past. However, when the wronger is then wronged by the original victim, we call that revenge, when it could simply be the wronger’s karma for the malicious act he or she committed in the past.

On the plane to New York this weekend, my friend showed me one of his favorite movies, Kill Bill, which sparked this internal conversation determining the finite difference between one’s revenge and one’s karma. Based on The Flying Guillotine, a Chinese film I’ve been watching in my English class, Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill (graphically) tells the story of a woman who has been deeply wronged and her pursuit of complete revenge upon her attackers. As a viewer, I found my eyes glued to the screen, rooting for the Bride. I justified her horrid acts of violence in my head, considering them “karma” for the people who had wronged her first. But, and the movie doesn’t reveal this, what did the Bride do to be tortured so in the first place? Had I seen the “prequel” of the film, would I be instead rooting for the assassins, based on their story and their reasons?

Pondering this issue, the subjectivity of the matter astonished me. It’s become clear, in fact, that it doesn’t even matter who you may favor in any situation; rather, one’s point-of-view depends on the facts provided and the skew from which they are presented.

Personally, I have reconciled the problem by equating karma with good things, and revenge with bad. I am a strong believer in good karma-- I have faith that good acts come back in later years, and that showing kindness now will encourage good fortune to shine on you in the future. But, in terms of revenge and bad karma, evil is nothing more than a vicious cycle; what’s enacted on one person is in turn acted on another. Hammurabi’s Code can’t solve everything. In fact, it can’t really solve anything. Kill Bill at least taught me that.

[themissingsocks-blog]

Alert: Cynicism Ahead

College really messes with your head, and it messes with it for almost four years. That’s the worst part. 

As students, we spend four years of our life preparing ourselves for college. In class, we work hard to earn near-perfect grades, doing whatever it takes to earn the grade we think we need to succeed, sometimes even pushing ourselves or the situation too far. Outside of class, we over-involve ourselves in extracurricular activities; we know the Common Application has ten slots they expect us to fill, and we intend to have a presidency to fill each text box. At home, for the few hours we spend with our families each day, we rush from room to room, trying to find something we misplaced in the previous night’s hurry or finish a homework assignment so we can plan something else. From Day 1 of high school, most of us never stop. So why does college deserve all this dedication from us? What does it give us back, for the four years we lost trying to get there?

When application season hits, seniors across the country sit down at their computers to type out their entire lives, all in less than 500 words of course. All the preparation, the work, the steps we’ve taken to reach this point are summed up in one short essay, answering a vague prompt or a quirky question that in no way could sum up the effort it took to get us here and the people we’ve become as a result.

After January 1, when virtually all of the applications are completed and submitted, those seniors are sent off to an uncomfortable version of purgatory, in which they continue about their normal lives aptly ignoring the people hundreds of miles away holding folders and red sharpies slowly determining their fates. All those activities we joined simply to dot the is on our applications continue to take up our free time, but as we realize our ulterior motives their personal importance fades into the background. We become about that envelope, unable to plan for our futures until April.

I faced a similar situation this past year. Although it was not a verdict so serious as a college admission, in November I applied for a study-abroad program in China. From then until April, I was forced to put my life on hold until I received a decision from the program, unable to pursue many things that peaked my interest for fear of having to quit them once the summer started, while simultaneously fearing that upon reception of the rejection letter I would discover that I had let all of the opportunities for my summer pass me by as I focused on this one scholarship. I had a glimpse of what acceptance season looks like from that experience; I’m dreading what it will bring this year.

And then, after we all decide which school we’ll be attending in the fall, we settle in for a long, last summer with our families, enjoying our friends and our homes before we move away to start a new life. We leave all those activities behind; our high school grades and test scores fade into the background, unimportant. As we arrive in college, we realize the process is nothing more than a simple rinse and repeat, if we have any hopes of attending grad school. Education, after all, is nothing more than a vicious cycle.

[themissingsocks-blog]

Shakespeare's Journey to Infinity and Beyond

Hamlet’s been a recurring factor in my life for a few years now. It’s one of Shakespeare’s plays that seems to come up everywhere, and has even managed to weave its way into my life on more than one occasion. Reading it for the third time, then, this year in English, I’m reflecting on how often I’ve reflected on it.

This weekend, for example, my family took an overnight trip to Joshua Tree National Park. Ever since I can remember, we’ve trekked out there one weekend, our car stuffed to the brim with camping supplies, food, and other essentials, and spent all day climbing the rocks, cooking food over an open fire, and sleeping (somewhat) under the stars. This year, on the car ride out, my dad and I were discussing Disney movies, and the reason they’re so universal. I argued that Disney’s movies captivate all audiences, old and young, therefore making them the most captivating, because every story is a double entendre of sorts, always with a fun meaning for the young ones and a political message for those old enough to go better. To defend my argument, I cited The Lion King, my favorite childhood movie, and its similarities to Hamlet.

This attraction, if you will, to Hamlet actually emerged well before this year though, even before high school. In middle school, as part of the english curriculum, every student was required each semester to write a 6-8 page (double-spaced) research paper either defending a position or arguing a point. By the time I graduated from eighth grade, I had written essays on a variety of topics, from the effects of the Apartheid on modern South Africa to the influence of dance in modern media. One of the papers I wrote, not surprisingly, was on Shakespeare’s legacy in the present day. Although the writing was not exactly reflective of too much higher-level thinking, and I would probably be ashamed of it if I looked back on it today, it sparked an interest in Shakespeare I’ve never really lost. The way his sentences became turns of phrase in everyday speech, to where people may use the phrase without even knowing its origin, is remarkable. And the way most modern stories echo a plot he designed, maybe even without intention, demonstrates the universal nature of Shakespeare’s writing.

And so, I’m forced to admit that Hamlet is my favorite of his plays. It may be cliche to pick one of his most popular works as my favorite, and many true Shakespeareans would likely view this as a cop-out, but the story polarizes me each time I hear it. I love to dissect it, discuss it, define it in new ways, both inside and outside of class.

I’m not ashamed to say it; it looks like Hamlet may be one of my favorite types of “fun.”

[themissingsocks-blog]

A Peculiar Beast

Innovation is a peculiar beast. It doesn’t lend itself to the process we all learned in elementary school. Simply “trying” over and over again isn’t going to suddenly make it happen, make it work. More often than not, it’s like taking a shot in the dark, trying to find that legendary needle and pull it out of the ten-foot haystack, reaching for a dream you’ll probably never achieve. But you need those lofty goals in order to do anything.

At Fountain Valley High School, we have a different approach to school spirit. We don’t evaluate our school based solely on academic records or sports championships; we’ve worked hard to innovate our own school culture, to cultivate and build it step by step, crafting our own perfect school from solid foundations. The trouble with this approach, though, is that at some point, we can’t build anymore. When you’re standing at the top, you can only look down. I learned that innovation has a cap — it isn’t infinite. But if we keep working hard and pushing ourselves, maybe we can lift the ceiling up a little higher.

I spent the last week ardently planning our school’s second annual Glow Show. This was the hardest thing I’ve ever undertaken; I wasn’t prepared for the challenges I would face. I thought I knew how to innovate.

For those of you who have never heard of the Glow Show, I’ll shed a little light on the event’s history. For decades, Fountain Valley High School has engaged in one of the most impressive high school rivalries on the West Coast. Barons versus Chargers, blue versus green, FV versus Edison — it’s one of the most impressive displays of school spirit in any high school nationwide. I’m proud to be a part of it, and I’m proud to help organize it. Last year, we hosted our first-ever nighttime rally, called the Glow Show, the night before the big game to boost school spirit to a new level. The show was amazing.

The trouble with Glow, however, grew over time. While it had its flaws, they faded into the background, and the assembly grew into a superhuman feat. People remembered the colors, the visual displays larger than life. The awkward moments disappeared from memory as if we had all turned off that part of our brains. We could only see the glow. I think it’s called “changed blindness”— our minds see what we think our eyes did.

This year, however, ASB fought an uphill battle. We lost our star assistant principal over the summer to Westminster, and his replacement is new to the position of Activities Director, an overwhelming position with too many responsibilities to count. As has always happened when we inaugurate a new activities director, this year is a "rebuilding year," until he has the experience required to build anything new. Thus, for our ASB, it became about maintenance, not improvement. Our football season suffered accordingly, and our school spirit began to die out. The remnants of the previous year persist, but only in small facets of the campus.

As an ASB member, I watched the changes. Our freshman didn’t seem connected to the heart of our school, and our seniors complained about the ironic silence of our Loud Crowd at games. We needed something to kick the year back into high gear. So when administration cancelled the Glow Show, we fought back. Eventually, with great assistance from our football coach, we “won.” I choose to put quotations around this because although it seemed like a victory from the outside, as one of two main organizers, I could see the holes from the inside. There was no way we could pull this off.

As discouraged as I felt by the shortcomings of the situation, I knew I had to make the best of it. While I struggled through long nights at school, staying until 7:30 working on the script or editing videos, I envisioned the smiles on the faces of the students attending, and the spirit it would generate if I succeeded. I worked my hardest. I suppose I could say it turned out better than expected.

So, innovation is a peculiar beast. Whether incredible success or dismal failure, any attempt to innovate inspires a population to do better, to be better. You can never predict how things are going to turn out. And who knows; despite the flaws I see in the assembly I created, the phenomenon may recur — the way people choose to see what they wanted to see, even amidst a hot mess of small trip-ups and disappointing letdowns. Maybe we didn’t feature five pre-pubescent middle school drummers hitting their sticks against a minivan; it could’ve been our award-winning percussion team playing dramatics riffs against a beat-up fifties sedan, rusted and wrecked like the Charger team would’ve been. Innovation is in the eye of the beholder. It’s all about how you see it.

(Flyer credits: Beverly Pham)

[themissingsocks-blog]

My Six Weeks in China

Last summer, I was given an opportunity that few Americans receive. The US Department of State had selected me as one of its Civilian Ambassadors to embark on a journey across the globe for the summer. My six week experience in China changed my worldview forever.

For the short seventeen years of my life, I have lived in sheltered, privileged Orange County; where poverty, slums, and disease are virtually nonexistent, where each person generally lives well and eats well. I recall when I was younger, I simply loved blowing bubbles. I would stand still, blowing steadily, trying to craft the biggest bubble ever; but as it grew larger, it grew weaker. And I remember the split second it took each time to pop. My American bubble grew so big it rivaled any bubble any six-year-old girl has ever blown; and yet, it popped just the same.

Stepping out of the Shanghai airport, I felt the air dripping off my skin, coating my lungs. Riding the bus through the countryside to Hangzhou, the city where we stayed, I observed ramshackle houses, with clothes hung out on dilapidated porches, crops poisoned by manmade rain, and wet, soggy streets riddled with trash. This way of life was also a bubble to me, but one I felt immediately urged to pop. Only its walls were thick, opaque, and infallible. And so, I chose to submerge my mind deeper within the bubble, for it was nothing more than a ticking time bomb. In six weeks, the buzzer would sound, and I would return home—it was up to me, however, if I would ever let my old bubble engulf me once more.

Throughout the program, I took every opportunity to explore the scenery and to interact with the people around me. More than happy to oblige, each individual with whom I spoke learned a piece about America as I learned a piece about China. And each piece I obtained fit into a complex puzzle I built in my brain, because as I learned about these other people, I learned more about myself.

Upon departure from Hangzhou, one of the most beautiful cities in China, I recognized all I would miss. Everything the city gave me, everything its people offered, helped me learn, grow, and mature. I felt like a poor visitor, taking without consideration for returning the favors. Now, though, I recognize our relationship was very much two-sided. As I grew, so did the city, so did the people of Hangzhou—their conceptions of America morphed simultaneously with mine of China.

When I got on the plane back to Chicago, the thought of never returning broke my heart. My mind separated each experience into categories and relived the months in living color. I realized I never really could leave Hangzhou, because I was taking a piece of it home with me in my heart.

[themissingsocks-blog]

Control Issues

In my mind, there’s no such thing as doing too much. I like to spread myself thin — reaching out to different facets of my personality and testing my own limits.

I’ve always been raised this way. As a child, my family established routine. We were a typical suburban white family, just like in the movies. All through school, we ate dinner together every night, played tennis Saturday mornings, made pancakes together on Sundays, and centered our lives around the family dynamic. We supported one another without fail in every endeavor, and the simple foundation of my childhood left plenty of room for extracurricular diversity. I took lessons in everything, from piano to martial arts to tap dancing. Some of it stuck and some of it faded away, but through it all, my parents pushed me to try new things and take risks. So the identity I’ve developed in high school doesn’t surprise me. The effect it’s had on my overall life, however, does.

I never considered the implicit effects of success. My actions, despite how they may appear, have never been motivated by a desire to pad my resume or to gain control over others. I simply operate how I’ve been raised — to maximize the community around me, to let no stone go unturned. Over the years, I’ve played a varsity sport, joined the student government, started my own club, and dipped my toes into almost every corner of the FVHS campus. Along the way, I’ve adopted a take-no-prisoners attitude in order to manage my hectic lifestyle; stepping on toes is simply part of the job.

As an introvert, I thrive alone or in small groups. While I’ve trained myself to command a room when necessary, I prefer to work behind the scenes and out of the spotlight with a few trusted students I can rely on. I have my own vision in mind as I work, and I admit, I don’t often take well to criticism. While my work ethic is an asset in my academic and extracurricular life, it has also hindered me in social circles and created a ripple effect I can’t control. My life has been working in a vicious cycle; I learned in my AP Environmental Science class I could call it “positive feedback.”

Luckily for me, however, I don’t face this predicament alone. As I’ve drifted away from my family, separated from their deep-seated traditions by my unquenchable desire to try new things, I’ve been forced to look elsewhere for support, and I have finally found it. My squad is my family now. We look after each other. We spend long nights together editing essays, “hangout” on Google to discuss the latest gossip, work together seamlessly on some of the most stressful projects, and find solace in our communal desire to leap out of the box. We even planned our own five-day trip to NYC. We all  have that unique energy that drives us to push onward and upward each day, never pausing to look at the rubble we leave behind.

I like to do everything possible, I love to push myself to my very outer limits, and I’ll never stop stretching my boundaries. I know now, though, that I am not alone, and I like living that way.