I was driving into school this morning, when I heard that a teenager had been arrested for two armed robberies yesterday. “Oh great, more teens with guns. I love Charlottesville…” I was thrown off when I heard the kid’s name, though: “Quentin Levar Gray.” Smack. I knew that guy; well, a few years ago, anyway. He was the kid that bullied me in 9th grade Gym! You see, I was a very shy 9th grader, and my first month in high school was, shall we say, less than ideal. Quentin would always walk up to me and make fun of me in some respect, calling me names, all that good stuff. So eventually I complained, and he was expelled and sent to wherever they send the expelled kids.

On the one hand, I’m glad I only had to deal with him for a month, considering he’s moved up to wielding guns now. On the other hand, how the hell did society fail this kid? I’m probably not legally allowed to disclose what the Assistant Principle told me about his background back in 2004, but it’s not like he was quiet about his delinquent behavior - I mean, he did get expelled. So how is it that, given his background and history of violent bullying (I haven’t been back in those locker rooms ’til this day…), he ends up with his mug shot all over the local news? There’s not always a lot you can do about someone’s home life, but that’s where the public school system comes in. Just because someone’s been expelled, doesn’t mean they should be subjected to substandard education. Honestly, I don’t know anything about the Alternative Education Center for Charlottesville, but I also don’t hear any teachers talking about how they’d love to work there. It’s hard enough getting teachers for Charlottesville City Schools when they can’t afford to actually live in Charlottesville, let alone getting teachers for the so-called “bad kids.” I know the teachers at the Alt Ed Center are doing everything they can - but we as a community need to give them the resources to do more.

Unfortunately, the forum for school board candidates was last night, so I’ve missed my opportunity to bring my opinion up before the candidates in general. But I’ll be going to school board meetings throughout the year, and I’ll be letting them know how I stand on this issue - because these kids obviously are not getting the support they need. Something more needs to be done. And if we don’t want kids running around downtown with guns, we need to attack the problem from where we can do the most good: the schools.

Just an events post today.

As I was driving to the Jefferson District Theatre Competition this morning, a live version of The Fray’s “Over My Head (Cable Car)” came on the radio. As soon as the lyrics started, you could hear this sort of echo on about an eighth of a second delay, which turned out to be the audience singing along. Wow, was that annoying. Then for one chorus, the lead singer stopped singing to let the audience have their turn all by themselves. I had no idea that, collectively, fans of The Fray sound like an anorexic 9-year-old girl. Don’t ask me how I know what an anorexic 9-year-old sounds like.

Now, as for the District Theatre Competition… CHS won first place (which has happened three out of the four times in my high school experience). More surprising, however, was that every member of our cast won an “Outstanding Actor” award - something they normally only give out two of. This means we’ll be going to the Regional competition in Broad Run on November 10th (and also means that my schedule gets that much more complicated).

But honestly, the judging, or even performing, isn’t my favorite part of these competitions. The best part is getting to see all the different plays and hang out with the theatre kids from other schools. Aside from Gov School friends I saw again, I got to actually have conversations with people I haven’t spoken to in over a year, and put faces to various Facebook profiles of people I’ve never actually spoken to (Oh, Facebook - it all comes back to thee). I need to stay in touch more with my theatre friends…

In other news, I’ve finally sent off my application to NYU!!! After months of stressing out, the first (and hopefully last) leg of my college application process is now done. I don’t find out until December 15th, so I have a little bit a rest before I know whether I need to write tons more essays for the other colleges I’m thinking about applying to. And let me tell you, those six weeks are going to be killer. But it will be very good to know…

And gosh darn it, why do emotions have to be so complicated?

So, I was quite literally awoken on Saturday by my boyfriend complaining about Dumbledore being gay. Dumbledore, for those of you that refuse to read Harry Potter, being a character in, yes, Harry Potter. As most of you likely know, J.K. Rowling mentioned on a tour stop at Carnegie Hall on Friday that Dumbledore is actually gay. Despite website claims that “Millions suspected it,” very few outside the crazy world of fanfiction shipping actually thought so, and I think that’s a credit to fact in general.

I think this is great - first of all because I just like Dumbledore’s character, and this makes him that much more awesome. But most importantly, Rowling and Dumbledore have become role models for millions of children, and someone’s role model saying that being gay is ok - in fact, that the greatest wizard of all time is gay - will do a lot for the general acceptance of gay characters into mainstream media. Which inevitably follows with the acceptance of gay people in mainstream life.

A lot of gay rights groups have applauded Rowling for outing Dumbledore, but they’re also lightly criticizing her for A) waiting until the series was over to announce it, and B) for not elaborating on it in the books themselves. I, for one, think waiting ’til now and not elaborating on it at all is the best way this could have happened. This way, Dumbledore is just an incredible character that “happens to be gay.” It’s not a central part of his life at all, and shows that gay characters don’t have to be “gay.” Plus, overprotective/homophobic/crazy parents that wouldn’t have let their kids real Harry Potter if they knew a central character were gay (and you know right wing groups would have protests at book and movie releases) lost their chance to keep the books away from their children.

But elaborating on the crazy right wing groups for a moment, can you smell the reigniting of censorship flames by those that brought you the slogans “Pikachu is Satan” and “God Hates Fags”? Ahh, yes. The sweet scent of humanity and compassion going up in smoke…

Anyway, I thought this deserved a trip to Photoshop:

I drove for upwards of eight hours on Friday and Saturday, and ended up listening to a lot of music on this wonderful thing called XM (*gasp*, WNRN sacrilege!). And there were a few things I noticed about modern music in general:

First, music used to involved just one person singing. Then, they moved up to including instruments on the records. Harmonies would be accomplished using random backup singers the recording studio hired by the hour. Now, with the wonders of modern technology and artists like Enya and Imogen Heap, we’ve got songs which layer 10-50 tracks of the same artist on top of one another. Should this seem weird to us? I mean, last time I checked, there was only Enya in existence. Shouldn’t listening to one of her songs cause some sort of red flag to go off in our brains? Generally speaking, people can’t sing five notes at once. Or sing five different things at once, for that matter.

And what’s up with the purposefully misused grammatical forms and tenses in rap songs? I’ll let songs like “Crank Dat” slide, since I suppose it’s part of the grammar of the subculture that’s developed around rap. But “The Way I Are?” No one even says that. Oh, so she likes me “just the way I are.” That’s so wonderful. I’m flattered. I love to be a incorrect, second singular version of a verb.

Speaking of music, you guys should all come to CHS’s One Act musical, “How to Eat Like a Child” on Wednesday. Interaction problems aside, it’s a fun play. And you get to see me play a dog - a role at which I’ve become something of an expert, performing as a dog no less than five times during my high school career.

Oh, and the second installment of “Adventures of an NBC Intern” is coming soon - I’m changing it up a bit, since it involves real people.

The street I live on has had an odd little tradition for at least as long as I’ve lived here in Virginia (at I think it’s odd - I don’t actually know how many other neighborhoods do this). Whenever we drive by someone else walking their dog or getting the mail, we always wave at one another. Now, I know this fosters a sense of community, and encourages friendly feelings between neighbors; but despite this “community” that supposedly exists between the 30-40 houses on my street, I’m positive I’ve never actually spoken to a neighbor in at least one, maybe two years. Call me antisocial - I call myself busy.

But even though I’ve never spoken to 98% of the people I wave at, it’s still a nice gesture that, aside from removing a bit of the awkwardness associated with passing by complete strangers, just makes for a happier and less stressful world.

So why can’t we be more like that in real life?

Today marked the “one week left” rehearsal for CHS’s One Act, “How to Eat Like a Child.” And boy is everyone edgy. It’s the first year we’ve done the One Act with a student director, and so things are working a bit differently than what most of the actors are used to. Result: not everyone is as prepared as they should be, making everyone even more stressed. Stress leads to anger, anger leads to students turning against each other.

Today, I counted no less than a dozen instances of the high school favorite, “f–k,” used by one member of the cast against another. Really, guys? Is that really necessary? Whatever happened to cast members working together to overcome any difficulties another actor has? Instead, we’re just getting mad at each other, destroying any community I used to feel with the cast, and creating an environment conducive neither to improvement nor fun (which, correct me if I’m wrong, is what high school theatre should be about).

If people just put a little bit of effort into rebuilding that community - something as simple as a hand wave - we could start having fun again, learning again. Come on people - just wave.