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Human connection dies with online shopping
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As I walk the desolate beige alleyways on my way to my job at the Janss Mall with jazz music softly floating around me, I cannot help but feel melancholy for the empty stores and days of customerless stretches for a mall I frequently shopped at growing up. Restaurants and stores are struggling to…
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Proximity does not equate to closeness
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When my brother, Duncan, left home for UCLA, many cautioned me with horrified expressions and a constant echo of comments like “just wait for how lonely you’ll be” or “I can’t believe you’re an only child now.” Initially, these remarks scared me into thinking that I would suddenly become an isolated, sibling-less individual. But…
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Slice of Life: Hiking provides the cheapest form of therapy
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Growing up in Newbury Park for most of my life, I can say with a full chest that I do not take advantage of it enough. In addition to In-N-Out and Potrero Road late at night, there are miles and miles of trails that curve and switchback like our own patchwork. I have attempted…
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New valedictorian policy removes prestige
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While the typical valedictorian definition acknowledges the single highest achieving student, the Conejo Valley Unified School District [CVUSD] has strayed away from this normality, and has once again proposed a new policy: the Latin Honors system. After 18 years of the current policy, Board Policy 5127, in place, where students are recognized for their…
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Episodes of overstimulation flood kids media
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Next to candy or dessert, TV was always a special treat for me as a child, and I found myself glued to the screen whenever I had the rare opportunity to watch a show or movie. Today, it shocks me when kids can barely sit through a 20 minute episode of “Cocomelon”– although I…
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Copy-paste culture has taken over cinema
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All too often, I find myself turning on the TV to the same movie. Except it’s not. The plot is practically identical, the characters are the same cliche archetypes and I still find myself on my phone halfway through. Cinema’s level of apathy when it comes to plot and the only clear motive being…
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My identity is in my name
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As summer came to an end, the inevitable ring of the first school bell brought a new year of teachers inquiring about my name. While my name is definitely not unique, it is slightly long and has a variety of nicknames. “Elizabeth,” they call, followed by “any nicknames?” Every year, my response is the…
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Driving courtesy continues to decrease
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Daily patterns of traffic show how driving courtesy has shifted into a mindset where many motorists focus on just themselves. Driving etiquette is essential in making roads safe and pleasant to use, yet so many people rarely feel this. The need for safer drivers is not a matter of blaming individual people; rather, it…
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How to prove to yourself that you are not a failure at seventeen
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“Your teenage years are the best of your life,” is a commonly regurgitated cliche that has infiltrated my perception of adolescence, since my earliest cognisant memory. My thirteenth birthday was a pivotal moment in my upbringing. As I entered the elusive world of being a teenage girl, I felt exhilarated but simultaneously frightened. On…
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Dystopian literature should be your wake up call
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I have spent many mornings drifting away into faraway lands of audiobook narrations in my English classes, occasionally getting lost in my winter fatigue as I cling to a coffee and try to stay awake. But there are moments within these stories that revive my attention as I remember the power of keeping literature…