The other day during school, I went up to my friends and exclaimed, “Yu-Na Kim was pretty awesome last night!”  I was met with an awkward silence and a timid, “What?”

How do kids my age feel about the Olympics?  Personally, I love watching them.  They inspire me to work hard for the things I really want, and are just fun to watch.  But as I asked around, I found that some of my friends didn’t even watch the Winter Olympics.  Curious, I began asking other Olympic-related questions:

Do you watch the Olympics?

“Of course, I do.  The Olympics give me such a sense of hope and love.  Watching them always makes my day.”

Why?

“Well, the things the athletes do sometimes give me the feeling that they’re superhuman.  It’s like watching stunts in a movie.  I mean, Sean White was AMAZING!!!  His half pipe tricks are just mind blowing!  And to top it off, he is beauuutiful.”

What is your favorite thing about the Olympics?

“The fact that the world can put aside all of its troubles, and just have some fun.  I believe that the Olympics help to establish peace.  You get to see the best of the best performing.  You’re able to watch the limits the human body be pushed to a point no one has ever gone before.  And I get to see it on my TV for free!”

What’s you’re least favorite thing about the Olympics?

“What I don’t like about the Olympic Games is the fact that there’s only one “winner.”  Every time a skater falls, every time a skier wipes out, I feel their pain.  That’s why I don’t like watching the games.  Even though one person’s Olympic dream comes true, everyone else, who has worked just as hard for just as long, will not be rewarded.  I guess that’s what games are made of, a winner and a loser.  But I wish the other athletes would get some kind of recognition as well.”

Do the Olympics inspire you?

“Most definitely.  To me the Olympics exemplify the rewards of following your dreams.  These people have worked their butts off to get to this point, and are now finally getting what they worked for.  This makes me realize that I can do anything if I really work for it.

If I want it bad enough, I can get an A+ in Geometry, I can get on the soccer team, I can marry Hugh Jackman!”

YES!!!!!!

Is this the right thing to do?   Is charging 12 and 13-year-olds with sexual offenses the solution to the laws that are supposed to protect them? Teenagers have been and always will be making stupid mistakes.  But now, the consequences are life changing.  Instead of being lectured and grounded, kids could be convicted as criminals.  I don’t believe this is fair.  Why should one blunder, a moment of frivolous bad judgment where no one was hurt or killed, affect the child’s whole life?

According to the Chicago Tribune report on the incident, four percent of cell phone-owning 12 to 17 years old admit to having sent nude or nearly nude images of themselves via text, and 15 percent say they’ve received such images.  If all of these kids were convicted for child pornography and exploitation, there would be hundreds of thousands of “sex offenders”.

True, many teenagers don’t realize the severity and consequences of their actions.  But isn’t that part of growing up?   Instead of prosecuting teenagers, authorities should focus on educating us.  Educate us first and give us the opportunity to make better decisions for ourselves.   If we were sufficiently warned about the consequences for doing such things, the number of young people sexting should decline.

These laws are here to protect teenagers like myself and should not punish us for being naive.

Many people enjoy sports as a recreation. They join activities just to get out there, get some exercise and have some fun. My favorite recreational sport is volleyball. I started playing in sixth grade when the school I just transferred to decided to start a volleyball team. This team was purely recreational. Everyone that wanted to join got on the team. We only practiced for two hours once a week and had simple matches with

other schools every Friday. The team wasn’t that amazing (we got 5^th place out of five teams), but everyone was able to play and we always enjoyed the sport. Also, the coaching staff consisted of a few high school students, my dad, and the school’s gym teacher. The team and the staff knew each other very well, and we even had a few dinners together to celebrate our rare wins.

I had such a good experience that I decided that I’d do volleyball for freshman year in high school. Before I could even play though, I had to try out. So during summer vacation, I trudged over to school and tried to impress the coaches. I got in, and along with the team began a practice

regimen five times a week for two hours each, and had multiple matches every Saturday. These matches were a very different from my first games. We played to win. Not everyone would be able to play in a game, and if we lost, we’d have to run suicides. Winning became a much bigger priority.

The first season ended reasonably well, I had made some good friends and was planning on doing it again next year. I then started to focus on track. However, I discovered that in order to play as a sophomore, I had to do a volleyball club during the off season and summer. This club has about 200 girls, and around twelve coaches all saying, “Game is your life.” The practices are fun, but considerably late, and the three hours of straight volleyball are quite draining.

I still enjoy playing volleyball immensely, but this experience is showing me that the older you get, the more serious school sports get. Whatever happened to just playing for fun? This need for so much commitment is growing so much, that I barely have any time for other activities, and have much less time for my family. So as a heads up to those soon-to-be freshmen, some sports can be serious business and require a lot of time.

During winter break, my family and I usually catch up with my cousins out in California. In the course of our conversations, it never fails to come up that “Chicago is nice, but the winters are freeeezing” and “Chicago is no fun in the winters.”  I can understand how the single-digit temperatures may be daunting, but instead of letting winter get you down, I think one should embrace it. Once you do, you can see that winter is the best environment for many great pastimes.

My utmost beloved winter activity is sledding. There’s a big hill next to Soldier Field along the lake where my family goes to sled every year. We are usually joined by other kids, and we all race each other down the hill. This activity is simple, fun and free, and I look forward to it every year.

Skiing is also a great winter sport in Chicago. Many people think that Illinois is all cornfields (in fact most of it is), but just an hour’s drive north, there are pretty big hills that serve as a decent skiing course. The hills aren’t that challenging, but they’re a great deal of fun, and an enjoyable way to hang out with my family.

Another fond pastime for family and friends is ice skating. The Millennium Park ice rink is right down town and is beautiful, free, and has a movie-like background. Whenever I go there, I imagine myself gracefully gliding across the ice, with the sparkling city glimmering behind me. Now, in reality, I’m constantly falling and knocking into rails but my clumsiness doesn’t diminish the amount of fun I have.

There are also other things, also, like spontaneous snowball fights and winter walks. So, you see, Chicago’s winters aren’t that bad after all. The temperature might be freezing, and there might be gazillions of inches of snow outside, but this weather holds its own little ways to have fun, and makes Chicago’s winters exceptionally awesome.

The other day, I was reading Chicago Magazine when I came upon an article talking about what adults believe it takes in order to be considered a Chicagoan.  It stated that one had to know what all four stars on the Chicago flag meant, have pride in the grid system, and live here for at least ten years.  Although I have complete pride in the adult Chicagoans who came up with these standards, I couldn’t help but wonder, “What about us, kids?  What do we need in order to be allowed to declare, ‘I’m a local’?”  I decided to walk around and ask friends and relatives what they believed it took for one to be a true Chicagoan.  It surprised me.  I noticed there were four main criteria that people had in common for being considered a Chicagoan:

1)      A good taste in real hot dogs. Almost everyone I surveyed accentuated the importance of appreciating a good-tasting, high-quality hot dog.  So what is a good-tasting, high-quality hot dog?  “It has to be longer than the width of your face,” states one of my friends, adding “It has to be big enough to keep you full for two meals, AND has to have pickles, relish, onions, tomato, jalapeños, and mustard.  Maybe some ketchup.”  Wow.

2)      Be proud of your sports team…kinda. “One must worship their sports team,” a boy in my class declares.  “They have to root for them all the way and watch at least 20% of their games.”  Another friend of mine claims, “You have to talk about your team all the time.  You have to constantly be saying, ‘The Sox rule!’ or ‘The Cubs rule!’ or something of that sort.”  I laugh and ask him, “So, just to clarify, do you ever think that our sports teams will win?”  He scoffs and replies, “Psh. Of course not.”

3)     At least 7 years in Chicago. “I know I’m a Chicagoan,” an acquaintance of mine cites, “because I’ve lived here my whole life. I’ve felt the ridiculously freezing winters and the absurdly melting summers.  I’ve seen the stunning falls and revitalizing springs.  I’ve suffered the most extreme weathers one can go through.”  I nod and ask, “But doesn’t it only take a year to go through all the seasons?”  They respond, “Yeah, but you need to have suffered more than once.  You need to have endured many times.”

4)      A sense of Midwestern security from natural disasters. My eight-year-old brother is very confident when making this point. “Chicago isn’t close to any oceans and there are lots of buildings. That’s why there aren’t any hurricanes or tornadoes.  Those are really scary.  And we never had any earthquakes.  Not like California.  We only had that teensy-weensy one and it didn’t even hurt a fly!  Oh, and there are no floods‘cause we’re right near a lake.  AND there are no burglars.”

Among all of this, I would like to add my own criteria.  I think what makes a true Chicagoan is an ability to appreciate the little things.  One doesn’t have to live in the John Hancock Building or own all of the Cubs merchandise.  A true Chicagoan knows where good food is.  A true Chicagoan can predict the outcome of a Sox-Tigers baseball game.  A true Chicagoan knows where there’s safety.  A true Chicagoan knows the city.

My family and I celebrated Thanksgiving in a way I hadn’t experienced before.  The cooking started at noon and the whole family pitched in to prepare foods that we had never served together before for the holiday.  Green bean casserole, turkey, stuffing, sushi and two pies were all squeezed onto the table that night.  There was excitement in the air as we feasted.  For most people, though, this is pretty normal.

The Thanksgiving menu is pretty typical for most American families.  But for me, it’s always a unique experience. You see, my family is one of mixed heritage; my mom is Chinese and my dad is Caucasian.  Usually, when Thanksgiving comes around, my Chinese grandparents eat with us and they cook.  For almost my whole life, I’d see them come over at 3:00 with practically a miniature farm/aquarium in their grocery bags.  When they cooked, the air would be filled with the aromas of lobster, crab, sea cucumber, jellyfish, pork and other delicacies.

But this year, my usual Thanksgiving cooks were in China, leaving me and my family to fend for ourselves.  My father immediately jumped at the idea of having a “normal” Thanksgiving meal.  He made a list of the dishes he used to eat during Thanksgiving when he was a kid.  Of course, my mom added a couple of her own (sushi and Chinese sticky rice stuffing) and we got ready to brave the unknown.  We were on a new frontier in the land of holiday dinners.  The biggest question that we all shared was, “Okay, we’re having turkey.  What do we do with it?!”  Were we supposed to fry the thing?  Maybe rotisserie?  Maybe barbeque?  We pondered this looming question for a while, thinking and brainstorming.  In the end, we decided to bake it.

The dinner was a complete success.  Everything was delicious and I’m glad we ventured out into uncharted waters. This experience has given me a mini-epiphany.  I’ve realized that even though most of Thanksgiving is focused on the big dinner, there’s a hidden purpose behind it.  The food doesn’t matter that much.  The only consistency during Thanksgiving is that Americans everywhere get together.  The purpose is to unite.  I know it fits very well into the “cliché” category, but hey, it’s a revelation to me.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/esthereggy/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

This is a typical music video from the music group Grizzly Bear, a band that meshes poetic lyrics, beautiful harmonies, and bizarre ideas to create a genre of music that blows one’s mind away.  For those of you who haven’t heard of this alternative music group, Grizzly Bear is a memorable, unconventional band that has performed on TV and radio, Paul Simon, and Feist and even has a soundtrack on Twilight’s latest “New Moon” CD.

What makes their music so mesmerizing, so exceptional, is that the songs they write are captivating, but not mainstream.  Their quirkiness and appeal are matched only by their music videos.   Just like the band’s music, their videos exhibit a high level of creativity, humor, and engagement.  They have a new CD out called “Veckatimest”, which has one of my favorite songs, “Two Weeks.”  If you get the chance, check it out.

Maybe I had expectations that were a tad too wild, or maybe had standards that were a tad too high; but to put it plainly, it disappointed. I wasn’t exactly expecting “Dancing with the Stars”, but I wasn’t anticipating blaring rap music for 4 ½ hours and sore glute muscles either.  My idea of a high school dance couldn’t have been more off-target.

The only thing people were doing at that dance was juking, which is your mother’s “bump ‘n grind”, but on steroids.  I’m sorry to say that I am probably scarred for life.  That type of dancing isn’t bad, of course, but I felt incredibly awkward and spent the whole night standing with a few friends, talking about how uncomfortable we felt.

Well, now that I think about it, my expectations for school dances are always wrong.  After talking to a few friends about it, I found out that the same thing happens to them as well.  So what’s with this?  Why are our expectations always a smidge too high when it comes to dances?  I think I know the answer: movies.  It’s the movies with those overly romantic scenes where a handsome prince charming finally builds up the courage and asks a perfect, beautiful girl to dance.  I have a feeling that this is a fantasy.  No, scratch that.  I know that this is a fantasy.

But this doesn’t faze me.  So what if I don’t get to dance with a guy to a song about the glittering stars and eternal love?  I’d probably step on Mr. Wonderful’s foot anyways.  Yes!  You know what; I think I’ve just had an epiphany.  I’m glad that I didn’t get asked.  I mean, what’s the matter with just hanging out with your friends?  What’s the matter with not caring if you’re going to be invited to awkwardly juke with some guy you barely know?  I’ll tell you what: nothing!

So girls, if you’re at some party and that man friend of yours isn’t asking you that question, shake it off!  I can guarantee you, you aren’t missing much. You know what? That’s what I’m going to do at the next dance. I’m just going to hang out, with no worries whatsoever.

Unless of course, someone does ask me…….