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Hollywood drama distracts us from reality
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As a teenage girl living on the outskirts of L.A., I have always had a front row seat to the shimmering bubble of Hollywood. Universal Studios was my go-to summer amusement park and I grew up in awe of the art of film and movie sets. Behind the scenes glimpses of my favorite childhood…
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The weight of tomorrow is heavy today
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I have spent my entire life waiting to go to college, a place where I will have more freedom than ever before. As a junior, I have about a year left to decide where I want to apply. I never understood how someone was able to narrow 6,000 colleges to only 10, from 50…
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Generation Alpha is unwilling to read
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When I think back to my childhood, some of my fondest memories involve reading. Whether I remember calm afternoons spent at the Barnes and Noble café or going to “Read to a Dog” events at the library with my mom, I can recall the immense joy I felt over all things reading and writing.…
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Distance makes the heart grow fonder
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Since my closest friend moved away, I finally understand what the phrase “distance makes the heart grow fonder” truly means. This past June, my best friend, Eloise Etheridge, moved from California to Berlin, Germany. I met Eloise in middle school at a mutual friend’s birthday party, and we have been inseparable ever since. Honestly,…
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Celebrities do not owe anything to their fans
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Ever since the rise of music artists, there have been many cases of harassing, stalking, entitled and incessant superfans. Celebrities constantly speak up about these creepy fans, asking them to stop this inappropriate behavior. But fans ignore the asks of these artists, claiming that they should not be criticized, as they are the reason…
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The war in Gaza is not complex
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I have always been proud to be Jewish. But at the age of 14, I had to reckon with the fact that my Jewishness could be stripped away from me if I announced an opinion deemed wrong by other Jewish people. In 2021, I learned about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the first time. I…
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Books to read this summer
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With lab reports, essays and exams lurking around every corner, the last thing many of us want to do is go home and crack open an extremely long book. Who could be blamed? You have just spent an entire day memorizing facts and analyzing data. Nothing sounds less appealing than opening page one of…
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The goodbye that I never thought would come
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From the age of two to the age of six, I shared a room with my sister. We lived at my grandparents’ house for the first three years, and she had the top bunk. Most of our nights were spent in my mom’s room with the pink walls. My grandma and grandpa would tell…
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Spring renews body and soul
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Out in nature, spring is a time of birth. Animals take their first wobbly steps and plants blossom with brightly pigmented flowers. It has been regarded as a season of renewal since the ages of Greek mythology, when Persephone, goddess of spring, emerges from a long winter in the underworld. Spring is the season…
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Meta pays lobbyists for a possible TikTok ban
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It seems that every time a new “it-girl” app comes around, older generations and politicians become overly skeptical. Teenagers spend too much time on their phones, their attention spans are getting shorter, and you need to care about this. But the truth is, everyone has a much higher screen time than they should. Since…