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Madelyn Chen: 'The Bridge Of High School Leads To A Great Unknown'

2013-05-25T18:52:18Z

With the bite marks of middle school and childhood still hot on its heels, and teetering on the brink before college and adulthood, high school and adolescence is the awkward, acne-ridden bridge between the sunshine and rainbows of childhood and the glamour and gravity of adulthood. It's neither here nor there, but some gray spot in between, in the middle of after and before, with no definite starting point or finish line. High school is a rickety bridge missing a few planks and swinging over the edge of a deep crevice, leaving those who cross uncertain if they will fall to their doom, or survive to reach the other side.

Dragons and monsters dot the sides of the bridge of high school, breathing fire and throwing boulders in the form of mountains of homework, stressful exams, a balancing act of extracurricular activities, unfair teachers, and backstabbing cliques. It takes the courage of a hero to even want to venture into high school -- and many of the unfortunates on the bridge have been pushed there, from the snug nest of junior high straight into the lion's den, unarmed and unprepared for the horrors ahead.

The constant bombardment from all sides of the bridge and the struggle to survive are second, however, to the confused mist that overcomes adolescents. The bridge of high school is your initiation to the world, the first step and transition into adulthood, which has no training wheels or stair handles. In those three years between emerging from the innocence of middle school and preparing for the maturity of college, teenagers who are not quite children and not yet adults are caught in a limbo of choices that will set the foundation of their identities in the years to come. The burdensome work, social and peer pressures, and sleepless nights that characterize the surface of high school are only tissues before the core, gravy before the meat, wrapping that covers the box. The real heart of high school lies in the atmosphere itself, in the experiences and the lessons learned, not inside a classroom, but in the spirit of adolescence that high school embodies and exemplifies, a rocky stage in the travels of young heroes.

As with any hero's journey, sidekicks and random bits of assistance provide encouragement for the main character, playing a supporting role as the hero ventures along a quest. There will be dragons in the sky and monsters in the dark of high school, but there will also be knights in shining armor and friends who make the journey bearable. Beyond the dark clouds and wobbly planks of high school lie grassy meadows and rays of sunshine that touch your life and become permanent memories in turbulent times. A world of experiences, of experiments, of old and new, of firsts and lasts.

With the first steps into high school, a new door in life opens, revealing a greater window of the world. At the tip of the cliff of high school, there are endings-as youth and innocence slowly fade into a conscious awareness of something greater, something better, but something still unknown and waiting to be discovered. A slew of beginnings await as well-the cusp of adulthood, of a new adventure, a fresh chapter in the book of life, waiting to be written. There is no predetermined destiny, no inevitable future measured by the thread of fate-the pages of the book are blank, and whatever lies ahead is a clean slate, an uncertain unknown.

But there, in that limbo of uncertainty and absence of fate, lays the true beauty of high school, the light shining above the bridge. In those three years after childhood and before adulthood, standing on that awkward bridge, knowing everything you're not and not knowing anything you are, you have one of the rarest commodities in life.

You have time.

Time to afford to stop, pause for a moment and think, really consider, your goals in life, comparing your choices and directions. Time to experiment, to hypothesize and test, to try, to attempt, to stick your head out of your shell and take a sample of the world around you, from a relatively safe vantage point. As a child, you have time to spare, but you throw away years to faint memories and passing comfort. As an adult, time is money, and not a second can be spared. But an adolescent is neither wasteful nor thrifty, and that break between two opposing spectrums is a pause in the overall path of life, a bridge more like a bench. The future is a foggy question mark, and the past is a trove of memories, but the present, the high school years, is a special time of transition, to learn and use, to wave good-bye to the past and march towards the future, collecting pieces to create a portrait of yourself in between. As in the beginning of life, high school is a time of creation, despite demolition and destruction. With every step you take along the bridge, you add another aspect to your own self.

There is no such thing as finding yourself every minute, every moment, every day, you are creating yourself, adding pieces to the puzzle of your identity. There is no set road paved in stone for you to follow in search of your destiny -- the bridge of high school leads to a great unknown, and each step is a choice for you, and only you, to make. Some will fall off the bridge into the darkness below, and others might stumble, or become tired, but it is the ones who persevere, the ones who trudge on despite the odds stacked against them, the ones who take step after step and make choice after choice-those ones will arrive on the other side, and venture into the great unknown, the hopeful future beyond the murky bridge.

A Musical Wake-Up Call For High School Seniors

2013-05-25T18:33:50Z

High school seniors, you may think that things are going to be smooth sailing from here. College, dorm rooms, hot pockets, adulthood... what is there not to be psyched about? And you might be right. But you also might be completely, and utterly misinformed about what your future holds.

Don't worry, YouTubers Rhett & Link have written a song all about what post-teenage life is really going to be like. Watch above and brace yourselves -- your days of eating waffles and having self-washing laundry might be officially behind you.

(But really, clean clothes are overrated anyway, right?)

I Didn't Hate My Mole, Just The Attention It Got

2013-05-25T17:47:49Z

I'm spotty, like a leopard.

Murray Rosenbaum: Why Learning Chinese Was Harder Than I Thought

2013-05-25T17:19:49Z

When I sat down at Starbucks with Andy I only knew one thing for sure about him: he spoke fluent Chinese. We'd met on Craigslist so he could improve his English, and I my Mandarin. I had been learning Chinese for many years, but I still felt like I was totally not ready to speak to a native speaker in an out of school fashion.

I have found that languages are not only some of the most confusing subjects to learn, but they are also the hardest. Language is something that ancient civilizations created almost the moment they could talk, because language allowed information to be passed along faster along with being able to solve issues faster. Language is specific to the human species because we have a part of our brain that many animals don't, which is the frontal lobe.

The frontal lobe is right where your forehead is, and it controls all the key functions that make us different from the chimpanzees. The frontal lobe is the key reason why you can look at this mish-mash of letters on a screen and understand what it means as your reading it.

If the frontal lobe is so great, then how come learning a language from scrap is so difficult? As people grow older, their frontal lobes begin to mature and finish maturing at about the age of 21. What this means is that the years leading up to and after the maturing of your frontal lobe are the years in which most of your brain have been put "in place." Learning a language when one is a child seems fairly easy because they grew up in an environment where everyone spoke the language constantly and also they learned by real world practice, not in a classroom along with their brains acting as "sponges" of information. Because a child is more exposed to a language on a day-to-day basis, they learn that exponentially faster than I am learning Chinese now in a classroom.

I have been taking Chinese for about six years at this point, and I'm still at a beginners level. I have a very limited vocabulary and trying to talk to a native speaker is nearly impossible except for maybe catching a few words I understand here and there. While my class is moving at a reasonable pace, I still thought that there must be a faster way for me to learn Chinese without moving to China. Then my dad suggested a very interesting idea to me.

My dad suggested that I go on Craigslist, and look for a man who could speak Chinese and would be willing to either come to my house or Skype with me for about one hour a week to practice speaking. So I went on Craigslist, and typed in the search bar "Chinese language." The first result was by far the best. It showed a picture of the man, along with a description of what he wanted to do. He wanted to do something that I had never heard of called a language exchange.

A language exchange is when two fluent speakers of different languages help each other learn that language. I didn't understand the idea of a language exchange at first because this man seemed to get by with English fairly well, so was he going to make me pay for extra help in Chinese? He didn't even suggest money because he saw that I was an individual who understands the English language well enough to teach him a little.

Nothing made me realize how difficult the English language is more than trying to explain what the word "physically" meant in a sentence he had written down from an email. I tripped and stuttered for a while, saying sentences that made sense to me, but were too confusing for him. Finally, I decided to try to give him an example sentence so that he would understand it through the context of his everyday life. He gave that understanding "ohhhhhh" and then moved on to the next set of words that he had trouble with.

What really blew my mind about the difficulty of the English language is how "ghoti" sounds exactly like "fish" if the correct letters/phrases from different words are used. The "gh" makes the "f" sound from the word "rouGH." The "o" makes the "i" sound from "wOmen." And the "ti" makes the "sh" sound as in "naTIon." When these individual sounds are put together, the word sounds like "fish." If this blows my mind, a native English speaker, I can't even begin to imagine how confused my language exchange partner would be if I ever showed this to him.

Even though Chinese seems extremely difficult at time to learn, I still push to learn it because the idea of being able to speak and understand two languages entirely is an amazing thought to me. I have always found it shocking that people learn seven languages, considering the fact that I'm still learning English every day. I also know that being able to speak Chinese will be beneficial in the future because Chinese is known to be one of the most difficult languages to learn considering that there is a character (the symbols if you don't know what a character is) for every word in their dictionary. Being able to "master" Chinese would be a constant reminder to myself that if I can learn an entire dictionary of words in Chinese, my other work seems insignificant.

'I Never Give Advice Unless Someone Asks Me For It'

2013-05-25T16:28:01Z

In terms of age and stature, Taylor Swift is sandwiched somewhere between Selena Gomez and Madonna -- at least according to last weekend's Billboard Music Awards, where Gomez represented the show's youngest performers and Madonna its most seasoned.

In a new interview with Billboard, Swift reflects on that position, saying she looks up to the 54-year-old Madonna, who took home Top Touring Artist honors, and avoids doling out advice to younger stars like Gomez.

"I never give advice unless someone asks me for it," she said when asked what lessons she would pass on to the 20-year-old Gomez and 19-year-old Ariana Grande. "One thing I've learned, and possibly the only advice I have to give, is to not be that person giving out unsolicited advice based on your own personal experience. I've always had a lot of older people giving me advice because I'm young, and in the end, it all comes down to who you want to be remembered as. Just be that."

Swift also seems to acknowledge that her career is not identical to Madonna's early days. Swift has developed a clear identity, whereas Madonna quickly became known for constantly reinventing herself.

"One element of Madonna's career that really takes center stage is how many times she's reinvented herself," Swift said when asked what she's learned from the original Material Girl's legacy. "It's easier to stay in one look, one comfort zone, one musical style. It's inspiring to see someone whose only predictable quality is being unpredictable."

Read Swift's entire Q&A with Billboard here.

PHOTOS: The Most Perfect Picnic Baskets Ever

2013-05-25T13:01:54Z

We've got outdoor entertaining on our minds, which means we're searching for the perfect picnic basket. Naturally, we headed to Etsy and found seven adorable carriers that will make toting your favorite foods and beverages super convenient and stylish.

Scroll through our picks and be sure to let us know which ones are your favorites.

1. Jumbo Patriot Basket

Photo by: Whitney Ferrell/Etsy

2. Hand-Woven Lunch Basket

Photo by: Cathy Kobrick/Etsy

3. Vintage Yellow And Black Plaid Lined Picnic Basket

Photo by: Jodi Mills/Etsy

4. Patriotic Red, White And Blue Upscaled Picnic Basket

Photo by: Linda Holloway/Etsy

5. Colorful Funky Upscaled Heart Picnic Basket

Photo by: Linda Holloway/Etsy

6. Country Road Heart Shaped Picnic Basket Set

Photo by: Linda Mills/Etsy

7. Personalized Custom Made Picnic Basket

Photo by: Anita Norberg/Etsy

You can also put your pet in a basket, ya know.

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Tyler Perry Makes BIG Donation

2013-05-25T12:44:44Z

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Filmmaker and actor Tyler Perry has surprised middle school students in Ohio by showing up at a musical concert and donating $100,000 to help student athletes in the city's South-Western schools.

The Columbus Dispatch ( ) reports that Perry was drawn to Finland Middle School on Friday after seeing a TV report about teacher Mary Mulvany starting a foundation to raise scholarship money to cover fees. http://bit.ly/13Qe0uR

South-Western schools earned national attention when athletics and extra-curricular activities were eliminated after a failed levy in 2009. The ballot request was later approved by voters, and sports, clubs and other activities were resurrected for a fee.

Perry says he wants to sponsor as many children as possible and wants part of the money to go toward Finland and some to the foundation.

Class Project Sparks Gun Scare, Evacuation At Colo. High School

2013-05-25T01:29:41Z

THORNTON, Colo. -- A high school student whose class project included a soldier memorial display with a replica AK-47 was carrying it to his mom in the parking lot Friday around the time another student and a teacher said they saw someone outside with what looked like a rifle, police said.

Their report of a possible gunman near campus drew armed officers and worried parents to Thornton High School, as several students hunkered down in classrooms and closets. Other students left the school in single file, holding hands and led by police to buses taking them away from campus. An officer was posted in each bus.

Police later found no gunman or weapons and said everyone was safe.

"We've pretty much searched the building," Thornton police spokesman Matt Barnes said outside the school in the northern Denver suburbs. "We've not located anything."

Police said Friday evening that the investigation remains active, but no one has been arrested.

Around 11:40 a.m. on what was the last day of class before summer vacation, a student told a teacher he had seen someone carrying what appeared to be an assault rifle outside, police said. The teacher looked outside and saw the same thing. A school resources officer was notified, and the school went into lockdown mode.

About an hour later, a parent told police she had picked up a school project with a replica rifle from her son earlier in the day. The student told police his history class project involved a replica rifle, helmet and boots typical of a "Fallen Soldier Battle Cross" sometimes seen at soldiers' memorial services.

There were some tense moments, though, while officers investigated the potential threat.

Amy Irsik said she sped to the school, crying all the way, after her 17-year-old son David sent her a text saying the school was on lockdown after the report of an armed man. "I love you," the text ended.

Student Ezequiel Cordova said he left the building at the order of police as an automated message came over the public address system announcing a security problem.

Freshman Haley Johnson, 14, said she spent about 90 minutes in a supply closet that wasn't air conditioned, texting her mother and trying to go online to find out if there was a shooter.

Meanwhile, sophomore Jesse Desourdy's history class locked the door, turned off the lights and gathered against a wall for about an hour.

"I was going to ditch, too," he said. "I should have, but it was a pretty epic last day of school."

The school has 2,000 students and 130 staff members.

The incident rattled Thornton, a city of 122,000 about 20 miles north of Columbine High School in the southwest Denver suburbs. Law enforcement was criticized for not moving quickly enough after the 1999 attack at Columbine, in which two teenagers killed 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves.

After the Columbine shooting, police across the country developed tactics for responding officers to aggressively rush onto scenes to stop any suspected gunman.

___

Associated Press writers Steven K. Paulson and Catherine Tsai in Denver contributed to this report.

'You Won't Find What You Love By Padding Your GPA'

2013-05-24T22:52:11Z

Every week, HuffPost Teen editors round up 5 things they're excited about -- from new video games, to books, to viral videos, to entertainment news. Check out this week's picks in the slideshow below, and email or tweet @HuffPostTeen with your suggestions!

This week, Michelle Obama gave an AWESOME high school graduation speech where she stressed that school is about much more than just grades (if the First Lady is saying it, it might be worth listening to her!). T-Swift also made a hilariously epic face backstage at the Billboard Music Awards last weekend, which has now swept the Internet in GIF-form.

Honorable mention goes to students at East Carter High School in Grayson, Ky. who attempted a crazy senior prank by releasing 10,000 crickets into the school hallways. Unfortunately, their principal was not amused, and as a result, seven seniors were told they couldn't participate in graduation. Sorry, guys.

Student Shot At Middle School

2013-05-24T22:39:25Z

A teenage student was shot in the leg at a middle school south of Miami Friday afternoon, sending the campus into lockdown.

Miami-Dade Police said investigators were questioning a classmate who allegedly brought the firearm inside a backpack to Redland Middle School in Homestead.

Miami-Dade County Public Schools spokesman John Schuster said he believes the gun was fired accidentally, striking a boy in the leg.

The victim, who was not identified, was airlifted to Miami Children's Hospital where he is reportedly in stable condition.

Witness Pablo Sanchez, 12, told NBC6 the gun fired when a student in history class dropped his bookbag:

The victim was shot in his calf and couldn't walk, and he was gushing blood as he lay on the floor, Sanchez said.
"And so then, what I’ve seen most of the time is that when you’re bleeding a lot you have to put pressure on it, so I took off my shirt, and some girl, she put pressure on it,” he said.

He said he learned to wrap his shirt around his classmate's calf by watching television.

The school was placed on a "code red" lockdown, with children kept inside until about half an hour after normal dismissal.

"It's not pretty to know that's happening here," a mother who arrived on scene after a text from her son told WSVN.

The Redland incident is not Homestead's first student shooting this year. In November, 13-year-old Lourdes Guzman was fatally shot in front of her little sister on board a school bus after a classmate carried a handgun on board.

Teens Build Car Fueled By Social Media (VIDEO)

2013-05-24T22:24:58Z

A group of high schoolers from Kansas City, Mo. are about to embark on a very special road trip, using a car fueled entirely by social media. (Yes, you heard that right.)

According to WKMG Local 6, teens involved in an after-school program called Minddrive -- a non-profit that inspires at-risk teens by focusing on electric car design -- took a Volkswagen Karmann Ghia from 1967 and made it into a car of the future.

After students restored the car and converted it to electric, Wired reports they used an Arduino -- a microcontroller device that makes it easier to program and automate interactive projects -- on the electric drivetrain of the car.

Learn more about their "social media car" in the the video above.

This allowed students to program the vehicle to their specific needs, and in this case, they engineered the car to be powered by social media interactions like hashtagging #MindDrive on Twitter and Instagram, liking their Facebook page and watching the video on YouTube. The car has essentially been programmed to move forward when this device recognizes any of these social media connections.

Now that they're done building the vehicle, the students are planning on testing out the car themselves by road tripping to Washington, D.C., and relying on social fuel to get there.

Once they arrive in D.C., students will meet with elected officials and hold a press conference to raise awareness about the benefits of this innovative kind of education.

"Now, I decided I want to be an engineer," one student explained in the video. "This opens a lot of doors for my future."

When it comes to cars and technology, teens have been making especially groundbreaking discoveries recently. Ionut Budisteanu, a 19-year-old student from Romania, won first place at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair on May 17 for inventing a self-driving car that is much less expensive than other existing models. The teen used artificial intelligence as a way to decrease self-driving car's technology cost.

"This is the purpose of mankind," Ionut said. "To create some inventions and to create some projects in order to help the entire population and the entire world."

Eesha Khare, an 18-year-old student from California, was also a finalist at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for creating a device that can charge a cell phone between 20 and 30 seconds.

The teen explained that since her phone battery always dies, so she wanted to invent a supercapacitor that acts as a energy storage device and can hold a great amount energy in a small amount of space. Eesha is using her $50,000 prize from the science fair toward her education at Harvard in the fall.

“I will be setting the world on fire,” she told CBS San Francisco.

Do these teens inspire you? Tell us in the comments or tweet at @HuffPostTeen.

The 13 Best TV Episodes To Celebrate Summer

2013-05-24T22:15:22Z

Does peeing on a jellyfish sting really work to soothe the burn? And if you're drinking in the sun all day, can you really call it heatstroke? These are the questions that some of our favorite TV characters have left us with after they've taken vacations.

As the weather heats up and you're dreaming of your own sunny summer getaway, don't forget that TV shows like to vacation, too -- some sitcoms never miss the chance to jet off to someplace exotic, and a few dramatic jaunts have happened on the small screen as well.

From "Seinfeld" and "Friends" and their now-infamous sabbaticals on the shore to "Mad Men's" Palm Springs reverie, we've rounded up our favorite TV vacation episodes, just in time for the long Memorial Day weekend.

Tell us: What are your favorite summer-themed television episodes?

A Perfect, Touching Tribute To Zach Sobiech

2013-05-24T22:00:37Z

We can't think of a more perfect way to showcase Zach Sobiech's beautiful song, "Clouds," than this YouTube tribute. Uploaded by author Amy Krouse Rosenthal, the video combines clips from Pixar's 2009 movie "Up" with the 18-year-old's viral song that touched the lives of millions. Sobiech passed away on Monday from a rare form of bone cancer.

Rainn Wilson's YouTube channel, SoulPancake, made a short film about the teen's life, "My Last Days: Meet Zach Sobiech," which has been widely shared this week. If you haven't had the chance to watch the heartbreaking and incredibly moving documentary, you can do so here.

Zach Sobiech left the world an unforgettable legacy. You can watch more of his videos in the slideshow below.

The Most Important Race Of My Life

2013-05-24T21:10:24Z

This is a regular column featuring original poetry and fiction by and for teens, provided by Figment, the online community writing site for young readers and writers.

By Mackenzie Levy

I paced behind the line, taking deep breaths and muttering under my breath.

"Twelve-point-oh-one. Eleven-point-nine-two. Eleven-point-eight-nine. Eleven-point-eight-five."

"Tanya, you'll do fine," Sarah murmered. I glared at her, but she just put her hand on my shoulder and glared back.

"You made it this far. You can do anything." She smiled, and I tried to smile back.

"Eleven-seven," she reminded me, in the same soothing voice. As if I could forget. "Go get 'em."

I still didn't say anything, just grabbed the water bottle from her hand, and took a swig. After seven years of running together, she knew better than to get offended. We would go out for pizza after this, celebrate my last track season, and laugh about my nervous antics. But right now all I could manage was a curt nod of thanks. I handed the bottle back to her and she opened her mouth, as if to utter more words of encouragement, then closed it. The scout. I knew she wanted to say something, but the state meet was so much pressure anyway. I resumed my pacing, and thought of other things. Fast start. Eyes up, chin up, knees up. Good cadence. Don't turn your head. Lean.

“Runners, on your mark!”

So soon? I glanced at Sarah, eyes wide with panic, and she glared at me again. You knew this would happen. Relax.

I re-checked my starting block, trying not to think about the man with the Oregon jacket in the bleachers. Then the silence fell. My shoulders were up by my ears, my knees locked straight. Relax!

I hopped twice in my lane. Exhale. Feet in place.

"Set!"

Inhale. Stomach clenched, adrenaline rush. Hands on the line, butt up, poised. Ready.

The pause seemed to stretch on forever. Wasn't there something I had to worry about?

Bam!

The gun sounded and I was out, feet acting instinctively, my brain still stuck at the blocks.

Lungs burning, arms pumping, head up, eyes ahead, big strides, fast turnover. A blur in my far left peripheral vision.

Faster! Legs tiring, lungs gasping, almost there -- lean!

Stumbling to the grass, I fell to the ground at Sarah's feet. She offered me water again, but I batted her away. Fighting unconsciousness, I could think of nothing but oxygen. That is, until the man entered the blurred edges of my vision.

“Congratulations,” he said. "Eleven-point-seven-four, that's very impressive. Have you considered running for Oregon?”

Behind me, Sarah let out a little gasp and grabbed my wrist, trying to pull me to my feet. I nodded, breathless all over again.

"Oh, she won't stop talking about it!" Sarah exclaimed. God bless her. "Tanya's an incredibly hard worker, she gets good grades, she's in student council, and obviously she's a great runner, she'd love to go to Oregon, it's her number one choice -- "

The man -- Mr. Scott Wilkinson is his name, though I'm not sure if I should know that -- cut her off with a laugh. "Well, that's great to hear. I'm sure Miss Richards will be hearing from us very soon."

Finally able to stand up straight, I shook the scout's hand and smiled at him, then he turned away and walked back to the bleachers. Sarah started squealing behind me, but I just grabbed my water bottle from her and sat back down.

"Eleven-point-seven-four," I whispered to myself. "The University of Oregon. Eleven-seven-four." Shaking my head in wonder, I took a sip of water and waited for my breath to return.

How To Get Rid Of The 6 Most Annoying Memorial Day Stains

2013-05-24T20:37:38Z

There are few things that go together better than Memorial Day and a barbecue, as long as you can survive the day without getting ketchup stains and other spots on your favorite patriotic outfit.

But if you do have an unfortunate accident with one of these stubborn messes, don't fret. We've got a how-to guide on removing the most common party stains. So, click through and don't worry about getting a little sloppy this weekend.

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