The Teenage Tunnel

What most excites me about reading Teen Ink is that I don’t have to read in a certain order. There are no rules for reading this book, and no one can judge me if I decide to read more stories from a certain topic. I wish life was like this but as I live through my teenage years I find myself stuck in a tunnel with no light and certainly, no exit.  To my comfort, I know I’m not the only one in the tunnel. As I read five different stories and poems from Teen Ink, I learn about things that have occurred to other teens from all over the world. Some stories I didn’t relate to but there was one I found very familiar.

Lisa Gauches lost her best friend, Tyler. Their relationship was “one of those situations where you know the other person better than you know yourself” (2). For as long as Lisa could remember, Tyler had been sick. It wasn’t until she started “watching him grow thinner and thinner that her positive feelings turned into a façade and she worried all the time” (3). In the end, Lisa talks about how tough it was to lose Tyler when they were only seventeen-years old.

As I read Lisa’s story, I thought how my Tyler was called Mariana. We weren’t best friends but we were very close since we had known each other from way back. Unlike Lisa with Tyler, I didn’t know Mariana would die. A terrible accident happened to her and I didn’t have time to say goodbye. This catastrophe was only in my first year of being a teenager but it still marked me forever.

So far, the different stories in Teen Ink have been very interesting and meaningful. In our teenage years, we make a collection of memories and stories that in the end help us get to the end of the tunnel. I’m glad John and Stephanie H. Meyer decided to put together some stories and make this book. 

Vocabulary:

Cystic Fibrosis- a common hereditary disease that appears in early childhood, involving generalized disorder of the exocrine glands, and a deficiency of pancreatic enzymes

The Glamour Spell

The months that follow New York City’s Fashion Week are very busy. Critics talk about the designers that rocked their collections and about those who should probably retire from the fashion industry. They also talk about which catwalk was the best and which ones made the public sleep. But one thing that has been ignored over the past years is the force labor that makes Fashion Week possible: the models. Ashley Mears decided she would not let this issue remain unattended so she wrote the article Poor Models. Seriously. for the New York Times.

Having been a model before, Mears understands how modeling works: “That and a buck will get you a cup of coffee.” She remembers how at her first fashion show at age nineteen, she lied to the casting agents and said she was eighteen. “We are meat and it gets bad as it gets old,” said a Parisian male model to Mears at a recent interview. She discusses some conditions models have to go through and how even after fulfilling all requirements, models are not treated fairly. Ashley Mears, now an assistant professor of sociology at Boston University says she “feels lucky to have a job with a future.”

Why does being “a paid beauty” bring no future? In what ways does modeling become grueling? How can all of this change?

I agree with Ashley Mears completely. Things have to be done and the issue cant be ignored anymore because not only is it happening in America but in the rest of world too. I might love fashion, glamour and style but I also love to stand up for what I believe is right. Like Mears, more models or ex-models should speak out and let the world know the conditions in which they are working. After all, the fashion world wouldn’t be the same without them. Some solutions can be organizing alliances or groups that can serve models in organizing what they do to create real jobs. For example, the nonprofit group Model Alliance created by Sara Ziff. Ziff is a model working with Fordham University’s Fashion Law Institute. Another issue that can’t be left unspoken is the big number of models that have eating disorders.

“We shouldn’t miss the opportunity to change the terms of fashion’s labor,” says Ashley Mears. I support her opinion and will hopefully make others notice the conditions fashion labor is going through. Fashion doesn’t have to be linked with any type of drawback and discomfort. Anorexia is not in this season.

Here I include a video in which some famous top models are interviewed during Fashion Week. What Do New York Fashion Week Models Eat? Watch carefully for this part: “The last delicious meal? I can’t even remember the last time I ate a meal.”

Vocabulary:

grueling- (adj.) extremely tiring and demanding

Not a Photogenic Group

Section 10 pictures. At least we tried! 

They are in the order in which they appear in the book Cinematic Storytelling. 

Group: Natalia Ordoñez, Camila Franco, Isabela Uribe

Fashion and Decorum Icons

Olivia Palermo and Chiara Ferragni: Two socialites and it girls that have conquered the world of fashion, more specifically, the social media of it. Traveling to more than four different places per month, attending the most important runways, and getting gifts from the best designers, are just some examples of how they live. How did they get to where they are? How come they have not thousands, not millions, but billions of followers from all over the world? Rhetorical decorum is the reason why these two icons have made it that far. They have mastered "the art of fitting in" (46). The audience loves them. Everyone, including me, loves the way they dress and they way they act, even if it's not in the same way as we normally do. "To show proper decorum, act the way your audience expects you to act—not necessarily like your audience" (46).

Palermo's and Ferragni's audience consists mainly of young girls that admire them for their taste in fashion. The majority, don't care at all if the two of them are good people. In fact, Olivia Palermo was part of a reality show called The City and it was here were people found out she was a real bitch. People follow them to look at their clothes. They don't care about the strange personalities hidden behind all those layers of Chanel, Prada, and Ferragamo. In this case, the values the audience looks for is their popularity, their bag and shoes of the day, and their hair-do for the specific occasion. "You don’t even have to do what your heart knows is right; you simply must be seen to have the “right” values—your audience’s values, that is" (57). Can you imagine how great it is for them? Wake up, do your makeup and hair, climb on to a pair of 5 inch Louboutin’s, and post pictures of what you do all day. Chiara’s and Olivia’s style make teenage girls, aspiring designers, bloggers, adults, photographers, and most importantly designers like and trust them.

These two icons seem to follow everything Jay Heinrichs says in chapters five and six of his book Thank You for Arguing. They are famous because they have virtue as well as practical wisdom which is that “you appear to know the right thing to do on every occasion” (56). In this case, the two fashionistas appear to know the right outfit to wear on every occasion. I think Heinrichs is right about most of the concepts he explains. However, I must disagree with him when he says that “style doesn’t make them man but rather the occasion” (53). In some cases, for example Olivia Palermo’s and Chiara Ferragni’s, style does make the man. 

Everyone Wants Baby Lips

          I wonder what an argument between two people that have already read Jay Heinrichs's book, Thank You for Arguing, is like. In the first two chapters, this guy promises so much! "After it awakens you to the argument all around, the world will never seem the same." (6) However, I need to accept that I am a little scared. What if I don't learn enough skills? What if this book might just mess up with my mind? This book seems as something very helpful. I hope it gives me superpowers or something that helps me because "rhetoric is the art of influence, friendship, and eloquence, of ready wit and irrefutable logic." (4)

        One thing I had never thought about before was how many situations in our daily life include rhetoric. For example, as Heinrich talked about his type of normal day, I was amazed by how many things included rhetoric: the smoke detector, the cat, the wristwatch,etc. (7) I like what the author says about how "we live in a tangled, dark (I almost added “moist”) world of persuasion." (8) 

       Another thing that came to my mind while I read some of the examples was the many ads I come up with every day that have to do with fitness, beauty, and health. I have come to see that the products that have the best or even the most propaganda are the ones who sell the most. A while ago, I bought a lip balm called Baby Lips because I saw it in every magazine. I thought it was so good but it was only a matter of buying the product to find out that I had been persuaded by great advertising and pictures of lips that probably didn't even use Baby Lips. I guess persuasion is, after all, everything. 

Social Suicide Video... I Mean, Life Skills Video

Self-evaluation for Life Skills grade. So embarrassing.  -___-

Dear Psychologist, I Hate You

 (This is sarcastic)

Brent Runyon’s memoir helped me remember how much I hate psychologists. I mean, could there be more annoying people on Earth? In my case, I was forced to visit not one, but several psychologists. I guess I am weird. Anyway, I can totally relate with the way Brent feels the minute he sees Dr. Rubenstein walk through his door. Or should i call her “Dr. Bitchenstein” (95) like Brent does? By what he tells, she really is a bitch: “Most people who come to visit me lean forward in the chair, but she leans away.” (49) God, I was really liking the characters in this book but Bitchenstein had to come along and ruin my fairy tale. That witch!

It is funny that most (if not all) of Brent’s thoughts while being with a pyschologist have ocurred to me before. “I wish she’d just leave me the fuck alone.” (59) I said this to myself infinite times while I looked at the Medellin’s amazing view through my psychologist’s window. “Dr. Bitchenstein is here to ask me about everything that’s ever happened and everything that ever will happen and to try to make me feel worse even though its not really fucking posible to make me feel worse at this point.” (95) I wouldn't be able to come up with a better way to explain how going to a pyschologist feels. Thank you Brent, it’s nice to know I’m not the only one with this kind of  archenemies.

            I must say that even with all my complaints, I appreciate pyschologists and the very difficult role they have on trying to make people happier or have less problems. Not everyone is willing to do this, for example I would never willing to solve extra problems aside from the ones i already have. For me, that would be like doing someone else’s homework. Crazy. In conclusion, i thank all of you psychologists out there and everything but I think Brent Runyon and i would agree on one thing: we dont need you unless you are going to solve our problems with real stuff. Ice cream, perhaps and make it New York Super Fudge Chunk.


Vocabulary:
gurney- (noun) a metal stretcher with wheeled legs, used for transporting patients