Embrace today.

Early this morning, Madera South lost one of its first valedictorians. I was never close with Landon Guglielmana, but I was around him a lot, seeing as I was a dancer and he was a football player. When we did "The Wizard of Oz" last year, he was part of the ensemble whenever he could be, and I remember seeing him every morning in Academic A, smiling and wearing his letterman jacket. When I found out about his accident this morning, I was shocked; a lot of us were. The entire school just seemed different. Half the students, mostly underclassmen, didn't know him, but everyone who did was in complete shock. I still am; how could a kid who was voted "Most Likely to Succeed" just suddenly die at eighteen? He was a Christian, an amazing athlete, a fantastic student, and an all-around great guy...

The more I think about the situation, the more it gets to me. I'm having a bit of an existential crisis tonight. They always say the good die young, but it hits you even harder when it's someone you knew. If it could happen to Landon, what about me? There's always a chance that someday in the near future, I could fall asleep at the wheel, too, or someone could hit me, and I'd be dead on impact, just like him, and it terrifies me. Life is incredibly short and incredibly fickle. I know that, but I really only think about it once and a while. I say this all the time, but after today, I really mean it: I'm going to do everything I can to live every day as if it might be my last. I'm done with regrets, I'm done with wishing for more, I'm done with thinking about the past. Whatever happens after tonight, tomorrow, high school, et cetera, I'm going to embrace it and make the best of it. If I never hear from most of my current friends again, I'll just have to be okay with that and move on. If life throws me a curve ball, I'll have to just accept it and make it work. As much as it sucks sometimes, life is precious, and I refuse to waste it, because I have no idea how much time I've got left, and before I die, I want to accomplish everything I can.

All I need to do now is remember to embrace this attitude for the rest of my life. It always seems to come and go, but I can't let that happen anymore. From now on, I'm going to live, really live, until I die, and that's that.

Rest in peace, Landon. I hope you realize just how much you've done for all of us.

SXR

You Need to Know

First off, I'd like to say that anyone who happens to be reading this should purchase a 3SN "Sink With California" tee from me so I can afford to go to college. None of your friends will have one, so you'll seem much more in-the-know. To get one, go to http://3sn.bigcartel.com or http://www.myspace.com/threesecondsnoticeowns. I'd be happy to take your money.

Secondly, I forgot what I had to say, but I believe it had something to do with bands you should check out. Assuming that was what I was, indeed, going to talk about, here are some links to some great bands.

Hallowed Ground- Hardcore/punk from El Paso, Texas and now East Bay, California. These guys are amazing. End of story.

Hudson Criminal- More East Bay hardcore/punk. Ex-members of Scattered Fall.

Wolves and Thieves- Even more East Bay hardcore/punk. Ex-members of Dispute.

SXR

J'ai besoin de plus d'argent.

These are hard economic times, as we all know, and I happen to live in a city where a high school senior has almost no way of getting a job unless they happen to know someone, (and I don't), so if I want to go to college, (and I do), I need to find some sort of creative way to make money. My business has been a dismal failure, so I'm moving on to other aspects of fashion for now heh.

Would anyone happen to need a creative director, wardrobe stylist, et cetera?

SXR

How Not to Get into College.

Step 1: Use a really shitty wifi router.

I'm having an extremely hard time filling out all of my applications, what with my lack of reliable internet. There are so many various, seedy networks in my neighborhood that no matter what I do, I can't stay on my own. It doesn't help that the new router is a piece of shit, but whatever. C'est la vie.

The more I think about it, the more I want to just give up on Berkeley and move to Brooklyn. The Bay Area feels like home to me, but I'm starting to think that in order to really be happy and be my own person without having to deal with anyone else's influence, Oakland may not be far enough from San Francisco or even Madera. Maybe I need to just get the hell out of California altogether, despite the fact that it's been my home all my life. Of course, I'd move back after college, but I think it might be good to get away for a few years. Even if I don't get into Pratt, there are plenty of other schools. Then again, there's the question of whether I'm making this decision based on actually wanting to live over there or just on a desire to get away from people and things that are bringing me down (and believe me, there are plenty of them). Either way, I suppose it's a valid concern.

Reasons to move to New York:

• Pratt Institute
• Blake Schwarzenbach and his various musical endeavors
• New people
• Tons of things to do
• No need to drive
• Closer to England
• No need to deal with Maderans
• More vegan options
• More record enthusiasts
• Different weather

I'm sure I could think of more if I really tried, but I think that's a pretty decent amount. I suppose we'll see what happens. God only knows where I'll be this time next year heh.

Before I go, I'd like to wish Morrissey a speedy, successful recovery. My thoughts are with you, dear Sir.

SXR

Elliott Smith and the Pains of Being Young.

Today marks the sixth anniversary of the death of (absolutely amazing) singer/songwriter, Elliott Smith. If you're unfamiliar with his music, familiarize yourself now; while he didn't have the best singing voice, Elliott certainly did have a voice in that he could write a song, sing it like a guy who'd never learned a thing about singing in his life, and still make an impact.

In other news, applying to colleges is a pain in the ass, being criticized for doing things differently is a major confidence-breaker, and hating your body is perfectly normal as a teenager, but annoying nonetheless.

SXR

Fashion: Rants and Raves for October

Ah, fashion. Some people love it, some people hate it, but those who hate it generally just hate what the mainstream would call "fashion" but enjoy it in their own sense of the word and mock those who have different taste. No matter which way you look at it, I think it's easy to say that fashion plays a very important role in society. Of course, this is all thanks to advertising, the media, tradition, et cetera, but try as we might, we can't escape these things; we can avoid them all we want, but we will always inadvertantly revert back to them one way or another; that's just how we, as humans, are.

So, we've established that fashion is rather important, and we're all aware that it's constantly changing (sometimes for the better, sometimes... well, some things are best left on the runway or the rack), so I've decided to discuss this season's trends and spotlight a few things I'm interested in at the moment, fashion-wise.

Without listing the season's trends, I'll simply make a general statement about them: the look for this season is (to put it broadly) a variation on the goth look. Which goth look exactly? Perhaps all of them? If not, there's certainly a wide range of subcultures being represented. For example:

• Deathrock: black leather, boots, ripped stockings, sheer clothing (mostly tops), and ripped pants.
• Victorian: It's more of a Regency style (close enough, right?), but the "Female Dandy" look is in; jackets, trousers, dress shirts, high collars, et cetera. Think Oscar Wilde meets Ben Sherman meets Chanel.
• Other goth trends: military jackets, capelets and cloaks, batwing sleeves, dark makeup, oversized sweaters, et cetera.

Who's responsible for all of this? I don't claim to be a fashion expert, but it does intrigue me, especially the darker, more avant garde side of fashion, so I have been keeping up with this season's trends a bit more lately. Several brands and designers are putting these trends on the runways and on the shelves, including:

• MAC- MAC recently released a collection called "Style Black," which includes nail polishes, lipsticks, lip glosses, et cetera all in black or black with different colors (fuschia, blue, and silver). I have the black glimmerglass (or whatever they like to call it), and although it isn't totally opaque, it's nice; it gives a nice shine and a subtle grey tint.
• Gareth Pugh- Enough said. Everything he does every season is amazing, and it almost always revolves around leather, jackets, flowing coats, military style, et cetera.
• Balmain- Brought to the mainstream by Rhianna, Balmain often uses leather and lots of interesting angles (although not as epic as the ones Pugh uses). Balmain often uses military-style jackets, which can be used when going for the Female Dandy look, as well.

Forgive me if I seem slightly scattered heh. I've had too much on my mind to write a fully-coherent blog about something I could cover in-depth.

SXR

The Curious Incident of the Teenaged Girl Who Was Finally Assigned Another Book She Enjoys

Up until middle school, I was an avid reader. In fact, my mother would often come into my room late at night and tell me to stop reading and go to bed. Once I hit seventh grade, though, all of that changed thanks to a little thing called Accelerated Reading. Thanks to "AR," reading became nothing more than a task, something I had to do for a grade. It wasn't fun anymore, and I couldn't just read whatever I wanted; I had a 12.9 reading level and wasn't allowed to choose books that were below a 7 or 8, and those were harder to find in the school library than you'd think. (It was comprised largely of picture books.) So, I was left to read books that generally only mildly interested me, and I only read those so I could pass the AR tests we were forced to take for an English grade. The whole system totally destroyed my interest in reading, and it wasn't until high school that I had even a remote interest in it again.

We read some good books in Mr. Klassen's class, although I never quite fell in love with any of them. I do have him to thank, though, for my ability and desire to look deeper within a text and find hidden meanings and subtexts, which likely led to my high AP Language test score. In sophomore year, I was, once again, forced to read books I didn't want to read. Mr. Hardcastle (or as the girls this year call him, "Hotcastle," for some reason) assigned us a different novel every month, and after our three or four weeks of reading were up, we were to write an essay or report on the novel. I, of course, had trouble with this, and, needless to say, I ended up with a terrible grade. However, the last book I read that year was Albert Camus' The Stranger, and it was the first book I'd read that year (excluding the one he'd assigned for the summer, All Quiet on the Western Front) that I actually finished. I suppose it's a good thing, too, because instead of writing a report, we had to talk to him one-on-one about the books we'd read, and if I hadn't read it, I'd have been (for lack of a better word) screwed. For some reason, that was the first book I'd read in a long time that could actually hook me. You'd think it might be the association with The Cure's "Killing an Arab," but surprisingly, it took me a while to figure that one out. I've come to think that maybe, despite the fact that Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray is my favorite book of all time, I enjoy very blunt, thoughtful books with an emphasis on human thoughts and emotions. I guess that could also explain why I like The Picture of Dorian Gray so much, too, but I digress.

I've read plenty of books since then, but none of them have been able to really hold my interest-- until now. This year, one of the first books I was assigned was Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and as soon as I opened it, I was intrigued. I've never read a book that was so clearly well thought-out and carefully-written, and never before has a book inspired me so much to want to write one of my own (which has been a dream of mine ever since I was six or so). It feels good to want to read again! Of course, I've been trained never to read without annotating, so I always read with a pen in hand, but it really is good to finally be interested in an actual book again. As I said, I can only assume that the reason I enjoy this book so much is that it's rather blunt and focuses more on the human thought process and emotions than on flowery language. It's funny, though; in my own writing, I prefer to use more figurative language, and I prefer to write from a third person point-of-view, whereas both of these books are written in first person.

My point? I don't know that I really have one. All I know is that to force a student to read a book he or she has no interest in, and to make them do it solely for a grade and not for their own enjoyment, does more harm than good. For years, I was unable to enjoy something I was once so passionate about, and now, I've finally found another book I'm excited to read, and I hope this isn't the last time it happens.