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Bringing you safely through high school and into college

How do I ask a girl to prom in a cute way?

Finding a cute way to ask a girl to prom is always fun

Finding a cute way to ask a girl to prom is always fun

So you’ve decided who you would like to go to prom with, and now you’re unsure of how to ask that girl. It’s fun to ask people in cute ways, rather than just “hey wanna go to prom with me?”, but that’s not always the best choice.

When deciding how you should ask a girl, you should first know the answers to these questions:

  1. How well do I know this girl? How well does she know me?
  2. Would she expect me to ask her to prom?
  3. Is she likely to say yes?

Sometimes the answers are obvious — if you’re wondering how to ask your girlfriend, all three will be pretty obvious. Others you may have to take a guess on.

Should I ask in a cute way?

If you think the girl is likely to say yes, then I definitely recommend this. Sure, you could just walk up and ask, but asking a girl in a cute way will make it memorable for the both of you, and you’re going to love her reaction. There’s no need to go overboard in how much time or money you spend on this, but putting at least a little effort into it is definitely worth it.

Some guys may give you a bit of flak for doing more than just asking, but in the end, their dates will be jealous that they didn’t receive the same treatment.

However, if the girl is likely to say no (for whatever reason), I would recommend against it. If you go to great lengths just to ask, and then she says no, you’re going to feel worse than you otherwise would because of the lengths you went to. If your hopes aren’t high, then your best choice is just to simply approach her and ask.

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When should I ask a girl to prom?

Asking someone out to prom is always pretty nerve-racking. There’s the fear that she (or he) may already have a date, that she may not be going, or, worst of all, that she just might not want to go with you.

You can’t do a whole lot to prevent the first two, but you can definitely avoid the first one by making sure you ask early enough.

A tough choice comes in trying to figure out when to actually pop the question. If you ask too early, it may seem a bit weird or even be too early for the other person to even consider it. Asking too late runs the risk that he or she may already have a date.

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Learning a foreign language: Which should I choose?

Many high schools offer different foreign languages for students to take. Taking a foreign language looks great on college applications (especially if you stick with it), and it’s neat how many different choices high schools can give you, including Spanish, German, French, Punjabi, and even Japanese. Of course each school offers different languages, but usually you at least have a couple of options to pick from.

Currently, Spanish is pushed pretty heavily in schools. The Latino population in America is always on the rise, and so many believe that learning Spanish becomes far more beneficial than other languages. While it’s true that learning Spanish might some more perks, if your heart isn’t set on learning it, then choose another language that’s more suited to you.

An official in my local school district wanted to eliminate all non-Spanish programs at the high school. This caused an immediate uproar from the language department, as every teacher believed that all languages should hold value and be taught, not just one. I was pushed to learn Spanish at first, but after deciding to learn German, I found that German was where the better fit with me was. Spanish is great, but you definitely should not feel like you have to learn it. Learn it because you want to learn it.

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A timeline for your senior year in high school

Senior year in high school can definitely be a bit hectic. Even though you’re trying to enjoy your final year in high school, you also need to keep an eye on all kinds of deadlines to make sure you don’t fall behind and miss out!

Keeping a calendar will help you to remember important dates during your senior year.

Forgetting important dates in your senior year is easy

Senior year is a big year, and it flies by, believe me. If you want to make sure you leave high school with every loose end taken care of, it helps to have a nice guideline of what to do as your year goes by. While individual parts will come with their own specific dates, some senior events will remain constant year to year.

I’ve come up with this timeline, going by what events happened during my senior year in high school. Hopefully, this list will help you out a bit. Please let me know if there’s anything important I’ve forgotten.

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Open campus lunch

My old high school was one of the only ones in the area that had an ‘open campus lunch’.

Our high school used to be crowded, with around 3,000 kids. Our school wasn’t built for even two-thirds of that, so there was no chance of accommodating that many students at lunch time. As such, there was no choice but to have an ‘open campus’ at lunch.

An open campus allows kids to leave the school during lunch, just so long as they’re back in time for class afterwards. You could go anywhere: out to fast food, back home briefly, walk to a local store, wherever.

After arriving at high school from middle school, the thought of an open campus lunch was probably the coolest thing I had ever thought of. I remember my first lunch at high school, I walked to a local market and bought some food. I felt so grown-up.

With an open campus lunch, the big thing was always having your license and a car, even moreso than normal. Once you had both, you had the freedom to go wherever you wanted during lunch. Of course, once everyone else fond out, they would pounce on you like wolves to try to be taken out to lunch.

With so many kids leaving campus though, you can imagine the traffic around the school and the crowds at restaurants. If you didn’t skedaddle to leave campus after 4th period, you had to face enormous lines and risk being late for class.

But if you were lucky enough to be early, there was plenty of time to arrive, eat, and make it back without being late.

Unfortunately, eating out becomes expensive, as well as the gas to get there. By the end of my senior year, I was tired of wasting money and actually ended up staying around on campus a lot more. I was surprised how empty the campus was.

At one point, the school board tried to end open campus. A new high school (one with a closed campus) had been built that, in theory, would have lowered the amount of students enough that we could now accommodate all of us at lunch. The truth was that the parents of the new school complained because their kids couldn’t leave at lunch, so the school board wanted to stop receiving complaints.

But the students fought it like there was no tomorrow. We housed sit-ins at our school to show them how bad of an idea it was. Virtually every teacher and administrator agreed that it was a terrible idea. I spoke with the superintendent personally to tell her what a terrible idea it would be.

The school board held more meetings to ‘reasses’ the idea, and in the end, open campus won.

Having an open campus was a great opportunity as a student to learn how to manage money and time. Even though it was almost closed, students were glad to finally be seen as mature enough to handle themselves during the lunch hour.

Has anyone else ever had an open-campus lunch at high school?

School becomes more like prison: Ankle bracelets to keep track of kids who ditch class?

In San Antonio, Texas, a school is trying out new ankle bracelets for students who have been caught ditching class or who have had discipline problems, it seems. The bracelet will monitor them using the GPS system, so authorities will be able to track where the kids are round-the-clock.

Students will not be able to remove the bracelet for up to six months.

This is terrible. What right does the school have to know where a kid is all hours of the day? Everybody needs privacy, and being forced to be monitored around the clock for something as tame as skipping a day of class is just pathetic. Privacy is valuable to everyone, and to know that someone could be watching you all the time just shows the sad direction we’ve been heading in discipline for some time now.

Not only is it a civil liberty question, this policy also won’t really benefit the student. What happens when these kids go to college or get a job? They aren’t going to have an ankle bracelet there, and they’ll be free to skip class or bail on work whenever they want to. The best way to help to start good habits about attending class is to create relevant punishments — perhaps they can’t turn in their work from that day they missed, perhaps they can’t take the test when they come back, etc. The punishment needs to relate to the class itself, and it should definitely not infringe on a student’s privacy.

The only time I can see this measure being logical is when the student’s whereabouts are a matter of safety to other students. As a punishment, it’s not at all effective. Along with making kids wear prison jumpsuits for violating the dress code, this seems to be yet another way to associate students with prisoners. Students go to school to learn how to be adults, not to be watched over like criminals.

What do you think? Is this going too far or is there a good reason to resort to GPS ankle bracelets?

The school uniforms debate rages on!

The other day, I was reading a blog post how Texas schools are considering forcing students who violate the dress code to put on a prison jumpsuit. While that doesn’t directly relate to school uniforms, it got me really thinking more and more about the ever-continuing debate about whether or not school uniforms are worth the trouble.

The debate over school uniforms always gets people fired up

The debate over school uniforms always gets people fired up

One thing I’ve noticed about the school uniform debate is that parents tend to be more in favor of it, and kids tend to be more opposed. Being young, I’m against it. I went to a private school where uniforms were required from kindergarten right through 6th grade, then I went to public school where free dress was the norm from then on.

I have to admit, when you’re at a school where uniforms are already a policy, being told what to wear doesn’t seem like a big deal at a time. But if a school were to switch from a free dress policy to a uniform policy… that wouldn’t go over so well.

The school uniform debate is undoubtedly a complex issue, but here are some commonly discussed pros and cons and what I make of them:

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It’s time to get over your organization woes.

Every year before school would start, I would inevitably make a hurried run to Target to pick up all of the school supplies that I needed for the upcoming year. Binders, dividers, sometimes a new backpack, you name it. Each year, I had the same goal in my mind: “This year, I’ll be organized.”

I’ve always been that kid with the messy backpack. You could open it up and see tons of papers crammed in here and there, not at all organized. My binders and folders would be empty and unused, wasting space and adding to the burden on my shoulders.

Again last year, I decided I wanted to be a bit more organized, but I also decided that I didn’t want to fail yet again. It was time to decide what was going wrong and how I could finally be happy with my schemes. I took some time to figure out why what I was doing wasn’t working for me.

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