Teenage Angst

            Teenage angst is a common predicament amongst teenagers that causes them to feel like nobody understands them. When experiencing teenage angst, many teenagers feel misunderstood and helpless in situations.

Teenage angst most frequently occurs in teenagers after fighting with their parents. The teenager feels that his or her parents are controlling the teenager’s live in a harmful way. This can extend to teachers and other adult figures who interact daily with the teenager’s live. Parents who impose too many rules or direct the teenager’s life may cause the teenager to feel teenage angst.

            Holden Caufield is the classic example of teenage angst in literature. Holden thinks that everyone else is a “phony,” meaning they act fake in attempt to get people to like them. Holden goes into deep bouts of depression interspaced with happy periods. Holden feels that his school is terrible and his parents don’t care about him and just get angry at him.

            Holden thinks that he is one of the only genuine people out there. He thinks that anyone who attempts to act nice is a phony, and as a result, Holden has very few close friends. Holden is unable to connect with people very well.

            Like teenagers experiencing teenage angst, Holden thinks that his parents don’t understand him, and travels by himself around New York. In New York, Holden experiences drastic mood swings from happiness to depression and towards the end of the novel, he grows paranoid and thinks he sees his dead brother Allie.

            Holden seems to have a distrust of adults. Adults have never helped me before, and he only has one teacher he likes. Holden is constantly misunderstood by adults who think he is just a troubled teenager. 

Mac and Windows

            Especially with the explosive growth of Apple, one of the world’s largest consumer electronics company, more Apple products are cropping up from schools to the workplace. One of Apple’s biggest products, the Mac family of computers, is a direct challenger to every desktop that supports the Windows operating system. Combining clever marketing with innovative products, Apple has proved a strong competitor to Microsoft.

            However, computers that run Windows are much better than Apple Macs. The 17” Mac Book Pro starts at $2,499 – more expensive than 6 Dell laptops running Windows. The Mac Book is even more expensive than Alien ware’s lineup of high-tech gaming computers. One can buy the best processor, the best graphics card, etc. and still build a computer that would cost much less than a Mac Book.

            Consumers are drawn in by the MacBook’s pure white exterior, luring in the consumer with attractive, smooth corners and brushed keys. The consumer is guided by his eyes instead of his brain – he is already hooked on the Mac before he or she sees the extremely high price tag and the sub-par specifications. Mac commercials grab consumers with airbrushed, Photoshopped images of the Mac. Sadly, the design of the Mac is the only part of the Mac that is better than Windows computers.

            Microsoft’s more open approach with Windows makes Windows a better operating system. Microsoft allows many different computer companies to use Windows, whereas Apple only allows its own computers to use the OSX operating system. As a result, Windows computers are more customizable and can be tailored to fit an individual’s needs or a groups’ needs, rather than a shiny and flashy computer that tries to appeal to the entire audience. The consumer gets leeway in what sort of specifications a Windows computer has, but a Mac user is locked into whatever specifications Apple decides. For example, you can pick and chose amongst Windows computers how much hard drive space you want, what kind of processor you want, and much more while with Apple computers, Apple decides how much memory and what processor the Mac uses. A Dell computer running Windows may have 500 GB of hard drive space, a Compaq computer may have 400 GB of hard drive space, and an IBM computer have 700 GB of hard drive space – and a buyer can decide which computer he wants to buy. Microsoft gives its users the right to chose and pick what they want.

            Mac’s incompatibility with many programs is also a massive drawback. Many programs that work on Windows will not work on the Mac, leading to problems and frustration. This contradicts with Mac’s image of a high-end business computer that is also available for common users.

            Before you buy a Mac, use your brain and not your eyes.

Two Truths One Lie

            On a recent trip to the Blue Mountain Ski Lodge, I got lost and spent half the day wandering around the mountain. After I took my the required ski lessons, I immediately skied downhill from the top of the mountain, only to wind up in the middle of a double Black Diamond trail with professional skiers and snowboarders flying at well above the legal highway speed limit. I thought the ski rentals and main lodge was downhill, so I raced downhill only to find a couple of small coffee shops. Desperate, I skied up and down the trail asking for a cell phone. I finally found a person willing to help me, but my parents’ phones were in their locker. At around 8pm, I heard my name called on the loudspeakers located throughout the lodge, directing me to go to the top of the mountain – a ride would be waiting at the bottom. I found a small bus waiting at the bottom of the mountain, which took me up to the lodge. I ate dinner, which consisted of cup noodles, and vowed never to get lost on a ski lodge again. I had spent 1 hour skiing and 5 hours wandering around aimlessly.

            In January 2012, I was taken in for questioning by the SEC for investing in stocks which I did not pay the taxes for. I had made a few hundred thousand dollars, which were put in an offshore bank account based in the Cayman Islands. I opened the bank account online, using an anonymous proxy servers and fake credentials. From there, I moved 7 hundred thousand dollars from my bank account in the Cayman Islands to my Bank of America bank account, which attracted attention from the SEC. The SEC notified the FBI, who traced the account to my internet service provider, who willingly gave up the address to my house. I was expected at court the following February, and I was convicted of tax fraud, operating a hedge fund without a liscense, opening a bank account with false credentials, and much more. I was fined 9 hundred thousand dollars and was sentenced to 9 months to a juvenile detention facility. My assets were frozen and liquidated, crashing my hedge fund and damaging my stocks. I was put under probation and house arrest for the next 2 years.

            In sixth grade I was awarded with two days afterschool administrative detention for distributing and possessing weapons. When class became boring, I took apart pens and pencils and used the springs within the pens to build tiny shooters that shot out small plastic pencil parts. These “pen guns” hurt less than a rubber band, but somehow the principal thought I was running an undergrounds weapons ring and selling guns to the mafia. My friends that I gave the pen guns to had an unfortunate habit of shooting them off during class, which annoyed the teacher so much she told the principal. Me and several friends were called down the principals office, where we were questioned. The principal called the police department, who came to the middle school and searched my locker. They found nothing but a broken pen because I kept all of my “pen guns” at home. Still, the principal sentenced me to afterschool detention. She, a remarkably stupid woman, started ranting about how these pen guns were similar to similar guns, and that I could of course, poke out someone’s eye with it. I could do the same thing with a stapler with much more severe consequences, but that’s besides the point. Whenever I pointed out the numerous fallacies in her reasons, (eg. Rifle ammunition contains explosives, while a plastic tube is clearly not explosive) she told me to be quiet and stop interrupting her. I decided to stop speaking because if I did, she would probably realize her own logical fails and experience a mental breakdown, and the principal’s husband would sue me for causing great mental distress to his wife.

Sales

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving. On Black Friday, many retailers and stores offer extreme discounts and sales on their products. Black Friday generally spans from Friday to Monday. Minor violence has happened on Black Friday, such as assault and trampling caused by over-eager shoppers.

            Last November, I received an Office Depot catalog by mail a week before Black Friday. I scanned through it and noticed a Dell laptop selling for $450 dollars. I go to my garage and sift through old junk mail, newspapers, and letters to find the October Office Depot catalog. I see the same exact Dell laptop. The price? $450. The only difference was the November catalog had a gigantic “40% Off Black Friday Sale – Limited Availability” stamped on the cover.

            When shopping for a hard drive about a year ago, I came across at a website that offered a Seagate 500GB external hard drive for $100. The website stated that the regular price was $200, but it had a Winter Sale for 50% off. I mused over the hard drive, then planned to check in a couple of months. After a couple of months, I checked the website. The website now read “$100 Regular price: $200 Spring Sale 50% off. I checked the website again in four months and it stated that the website was having a summer sale, and that the hard drive was $100 – 50% off its original price. So apparently the website offered sales year-round: the winter sale, the spring sale, the summer sale, and the fall sale. All of the sales were 50% off. So how did the retailer make a profit?

            Are sales really discounts? Or are they descriptions used by retailers to lure buyers with “limited availability” on “one-time offers?”

Cheez-its and Fine Dining

            There I was, sitting at one of the most expensive restaurants I’ve ever been to and chewing a piece of steak, nodding my head – when I realized that the steak probably tasted worse than the paper the restaurant menu was printed on.

            What differentiates eating at a normal restaurant or buying food from Acme from dining at an expensive restaurant? Is it the ethnicity of the food? Is it the deliciousness of the foods? Or is it the price?

            There is no need to fly to Italy to experience pizza, as there are twenty pizza shops just ten minutes away from my house. Similarly, there is no need to vacation to Japan just to experience sushi. Googling “sushi restaurant” brings up twenty sushi restaurants around Princeton.  The diversity of the United States negates the need to travel long distances to experience authentic dish from countries around the world. Walking into a local supermarket I see frozen Italian pizzas, ready to be eaten after microwaving, rice imported from Thailand, and chocolate imported from Switzerland.

            Society panders the notion that a dish of food only tastes good if it costs more than 100 dollars, it is served on a silver platter, and if it tastes like absolute garbage. In an expensive Chinese restaurant I recently went to, the menu charged $10 for “high quality and succulent” white rice. The only problem? Rice has no taste, and nobody can differentiate between this “high quality” rice and normal rice.

Expensive restaurants take advantage of this and raise prices for the same exact item, but instead of calling the dish “white rice” on the menue, they now put “High-quality rice, carefully cultivated handpicked from the finest rice grown. Our rice undergoes rigorous labatory testing to ensure that it is the best, most delicious rice in the world $15.00.” Of course, the public eats it up. The restaurant is rated 5 out of 5 stars, featured in Zagat, and praised in local newspapers. It’s a placebo effect, just as sugar pills can give the impression of recovering from a sickness, or an ordinary pair of shoes marketed by a famous sprinter can give the impression of running faster.

Potato chips were once considered a luxury dish. Created by a resort chef in 1853, potato chips soon became an expensive and popular part of the resort’s menu. The chef had to manually cut potatoes very thin, and then fry them with a pinch of salt. This process was time consuming and contributed to the potato chips’ high price. After the advent of the mechanical potato peeler, the price of potato chips fell and fell until they became a mass-produced snack eaten by millions of Americans. Nowadays, potato chips are deemed as unhealthy “junk” food. What changed? Only the price. The taste of the potato chip remained the same for almost two centuries, but potato chips changed from the popular luxury dish eaten in restaurants to cheap junk food eaten by the masses. After potato chips became less expensive to make, they lost their luxury appeal.

            To put things in perspective, if given a choice between a slice of France’s most expensive cheese and a bag of Cheez-its, I’ll probably need a pair of scissors to cut open the bag of snacks.

Abortion

            Abortion represents one of the most controversial and contentious issues in the 21st century. It is a popular subject for talk shows and news channels, and also radio stations, podcasts, and other media. The issue of abortion splits itself into two main groups: pro-life representatives, who are opposed to abortion, and pro-choice believers, who believe that women have a right to abortion.
            In 2008, about 1.21 million abortions took place in the United States. About 50% of these abortions were preformed on women under the age of 25 years old. In 2007, over 84% of these abortions were preformed on unmarried women.
            Pro-life groups argue that it is morally wrong to take a human life, and sometimes use sentences such as “life is scared” and religious references to back up their ideas. There’s a great deal of hypocrisy amongst pro-life groups, from extremists who burn down abortion clinics to justify “saving lives” to ordinary believers in pro-life who have momentously warped perceptions of what a life is. Pro-life believers claim that a microscopic ball of tissue is a “life” and destroying it is one of the most heinous crimes a person can commit. Take in mind, this ball of tissue has not breathed a single breath of air from the outside world and has not loved, hurt, nor felt anything. From a biological standpoint, the baby, at this stage, is no more sentient than a skin cell or a tissue cell. The baby is nothing other than a fertilized egg.  Life is scared? A bacteria cell is “alive,” but when was the last time you felt bad for washing your hands? A baby in the first trimester shows the cognitive ability of a bacteria cell.
            But maybe that’s a faulty analogy, comparing humans to bacteria. Let’s compare humans to humans. Millions of people are dying in genocides in Darfur, bombings in Iraq, to mass murders in Rwanda. It boggles the mind how ignorant pro-life believers think that an unborn mass of tissue being removed is more serious than these mass genocides of cognitive, living people. Sentient people who have experienced love, hurt, happiness, and sadness. Instead, pro-life supporters are determined to force a sixteen-year old pregnant girl to keep her unborn child while ignoring the deaths of living people worldwide. I rarely see pro-life supporters donate to help cancer victims from death or children suffering from leukemia. When I usually hear about pro-life supporters, they’re usually on the news for bombing another abortion clinic and killing doctors, to augment their psychotic and prodigiously flawed ideals about abortion. Shootings, murders, bombings, assaults, kidnappings, and even anthrax threats have been carried out by pro-life extremists in the name of life.
            Anti-abortionists try to impose their ideals on other people, usually violently. They believe that a pregnant adolescent who was raped at eight years old, should ignore her mental trauma and suicidal thoughts to raise her child without any preparation – a child she didn’t even want. Maybe the eight year old girl should “suck it up” and “do what she’s gotta’ do.” Despite the fact that she still wakes up in the middle of the night, screaming and crying for her mother. Despite the fact that she has no idea how to take care of a child, no idea what to do, and no love for her child. No child should be raised without love. And for the girl, the child is a malicious byproduct of the most violent and frightening night of her life. ■