via LOOKBOOK.nu: “Rome was so hot” by Chiara Ferragni.

via LOOKBOOK.nu: “We’re hiding behind skin that’s too tough” by Lua P.

via LOOKBOOK.nu: “Honey, just allow me one more chance” by Lua P.

1. First take three pounds of sharp cheddar cheese and cut it up into cubes about the size of a pea.
2. Next you will need 2 small cans of tomato paste or one large can.
3. Boil 1 bag of small pasta shells until soft.
4. Mix together the tomato paste, cheese cubes and noodles into a casserole dish. Heat in the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until brown around the edges.
5. Serve.

I learned to cook this macaroni and cheese dish after watching my mom cook it for every Thanksgiving and Christmas. It originally came from my great great grandmother who always made this for holiday occasions but when she passed away my mom inherited the recipe, which she now knows by heart due to its ease.

Photo by Gillian Roberts

Photo by Charlotte Kraska

The remaining months we have left of 2009 is our only hope for things to look up. From the steady decline of the economy to accidental deaths of  big celebrities, it feels like a year of on-going tragedy.

Fortunately, for me this year stands for a lot more than simply that. I have proceeded into my final year of college, meaning that my graduation date is finally in sight and the next chapter of my life will soon begin. But as a result of this crumbling economy, the California State University system is stuck in the midst of a money crisis, and unfortunately as a student I am affected.

Being a senior at a California State University, Chico, budget cuts hold me back from making the most of my last year in college. Not only am I paying more money for tuition, but I am spending less time in the classroom with my professors, and I have fewer options of classes and I am graduating into a pool where job opportunities are slim.

Things could be worse for me. As I witness the challenges my professors are faced with during the time we do get in the classroom, I really have begun to appreciate their time. Furlough days have become mandated, forcing professors away from teaching and not getting paid for it. This year alone has put school into a completely new perspective for me.

Perhaps I am just bitter because I have to read my syllabi online instead of holding it in hand. And my lab manuals come on CD-rom instead of paper, yet we pay the same price. You can waste an entire cartridge of ink to print your own copy of the lab manual and then scrounge up the hundreds of papers to tack them together if you want to bring it to class.

If this doesn’t make a student going into their last semester of college thoroughly appreciate their time with their professors and make the most of each class, than I don’t know what will.

Your typical  student athlete…

A curly haired blond man, approximately 21 years old, accompanied a young girl, about the same age, for lunch. They must be in the mood for mexican food, both spotted devouring some sort of tacos. They really don’t need to worry about what is healthy for them and what isn’t, because they both are relatively thin and are wearing running shoes.

The young man is wearing a black  extended Jansport backpack with two “Chico Bags” hanging from the zipper. He walks away from the restaurant with a Chronic Taco to-go cup in hand and helps his friend unlock her bike.  As he turns around, his red t-shirt that says, “I run for lives,” confirms the “student athlete” stereotype that I immediately gave him.

“Student Athlete” Stereotype:

• Good student
• Goal-oriented
• Clean cut
• Player
• Muscular
• Active

The young man I described above immediately struck me as a student athlete because of his shoes,  “I run for lives” shirt and Jansport backpack he wore, however he does not fit the muscular or player traits that the stereotype portrays. He was in shape but not muscular and he was a gentleman , not a player, because he went out of his way to help his friend open her bike lock.

Your not so ordinary goth…

As I walked across the street, a girl struck my attention when she got up from a table to throw something in the trash can. From first glance, she was mistaken as a man because of her short, frizzy brown hair that looked purposely teased and not brushed for days.

She occupied a table for two, outside the Naked Lounge, except she was all alone with a coffee and ashtray piled with cigarettes sitting on the table. Her circular freckled face starred down at her black fingernails that she filed. She wore black satin pants, a zebra stripped shirt underneath a black cape that was tied around her neck. When she eventually rode away on her bike, her cape blew in the wind and you can see the other side was red.

“Goth” Stereotype:

• Listens to hardcore music
• Goes to raves
• Quiet and keeps to themselves
• Suicidal
• Mysterious
• Lonely
• Not very active
• Smokes cigarettes
• Wears black

The girl I described in the paragraphs above fits the Goth stereotype because of her black clothing and her cigarette habit, but she definitely didn’t appear to be listening to hardcore music or inactive because she rode off on her bike. Perhaps she was lonely and quiet because she was alone the entire time.

Thursday seems like trash and yardwork day because green garbage cans scatter the ends of driveways with lids hung open as if the trash man had just done his duty. Across the street you watch a clean cut young man raking the newly fallen leaves off his porch while “summer nights” by Rascal Flatts plays on low from the garage. A white haired frail man stands still at the top of his porch staircase, the kind wraps around the entire home, staring out at you in curiousity.

All the homes are immaculate, possibly built in the 60′s, are petite and cottage-like, except the peculiar home on the corner. An ADT security sign found in front of one house explains the neighborhood of families who might live here. A happy couple strolls hand in hand with their golden retriever just before dusk, smiles at you and waves. The narrow uneven road of Sheridan Ave.  seems like a long trek, however, only thirteen homes reside on this block.

Boy 1: “I’m gonna get on the bus here…”

Girl: “Ok see you later.”

Girl: “Make sure you get on the RIGHT bus!”

Boy 1: “Yeah.”

Girl: “You know there’s like three buses that pick up there.”

Boy 1: “Yeah.”

Boy 2: (From a distance) “Adios loser.”

Boy 1: (Standing in the middle of street) “Get over here! I’ll fight you right here!”

Boy 2: (laughs) “Sure you will.”

Boy 1: “That’s what I thought.” (Drops his cigarette in the street and steps on it)

Descriptions:

• I was sitting on the curb waiting for the bus and I noticed a black haired boy with a backpack smoking in the middle of the street. He was with two friends who kept walking when he stopped to wait for the bus. It wasn’t until his two friends were down the street conversing with the boy that I felt the need to eavesdrop.
• We were a few blocks away from Chico High School on the Esplanade so I am assuming they were high school students.
• The boy stood in the middle of the street with a cigarette in hand, looking down the road for the bus.
• The boy wore blue jeans with two large holes ripped in each leg. Words and pictures were drawn in ink all over the front of his jeans. The writing was small and placed in all directions. The ends of his pant legs were dragging on the floor and frayed.
• His black greasy hair fell onto each side of his face under his black and white hat, which on backwards. The hat had graffiti letters printed across the bill.
• The boy wore big bulky skater shoes, a gray t-shirt, and an ‘Etnies’ backpack that was set on the lowest notch so it falls low on his back.
• The above conversation took place at the 2^nd and Esplanade bus stop, at 3:05 p.m. on September 29, 2009.

Story Ideas:

• Where does anger stem from in teens?
• School Violence
• When adolescents are mean to their peers.

Conversation #2: Eavesdropping on the B-Line

Girl: “Hey I know you. How come you weren’t at school?”

Boy 1: “I was.”

Girl: “I didn’t see you.”

Boy 1: “I was at school all day but I was in the office.”

Girl: “Oh.”

Boy 1: (Shouting out the window) “Hey faggot!” (Turning to the girl) “I love picking on him. I forgot his name though.”

Girl: (Laughs)

Boy 1: “Dylan! That’s his name. He’s so funny…”

Girl: (Continues to smile and laugh)

Boy 1: “So you’re a sophomore?”

Girl: “Yep. I’ll be 16 in March.”

Boy 1: “When’s your birthday?” (Shouts out the window as we pass Normal Street Bar) “Hey yo buy me a six pack!”

…and I got off the bus.

Descriptions:

• The boy got on the bus at 2^nd and Esplanade at the same time as I.  He sat in the same row as me, except on the other side of the aisle next to the window. Immediately, he opened the window all the way and hung his arm out.
• Next, a girl got on the bus at the Chico High School bus stop and plopped herself right next to the boy. Because she was surprised to see him, I could tell she did not expect to know the person next to her.
• The boy wore blue jeans. Each leg had a large hole, that looked like it was purposively ripped, and the bottom was frayed at his shoes. Pen graffiti drawings filled the front of both legs from bottom to top.
• His backwards hat was black and white with graffiti letters printed across the bill. His black shaggy hair fell to both sides of his face underneath the hat.
• He wore an Etnies backpack and black bulky skater shoes.
• The girl had maroon wavy hair that was tied half up with elastic. She wore a gray faded cotton shirt and black denim jeans that were covered in glitter. She had black converse on her feet with purple stripes down both sides and a blue and gray Jan Sport on her back.
• This conversation between the boy and girl took place at 3:20 p.m. on September 29, 2009.

Story Ideas:

• Pick up lines high school teenagers use.
• Does spending time in the office and pulling the student out of class actually teach students a lesson?
• Graffiti filled jeans- the new trend?

Conversation #3: Cell Phone Eavesdropping

“Hey how are you?”

“I’m good. I had a bad case of missing you today…”

“Yeah, I called and left you a message during my break.”

“If you’re wondering what the pause of silence was all about, I was walking through campus and there was this rabbit that was glaring at me! It was pretty creepy.”

“You’re probably thinking… ‘Shawna you are crazy.”

(Laughs) “How was your day?”

“Again? Good thing you don’t have to deal with her all the time.”

“That’s weird…Your dad needs to get rid of her.”

“I saw my chem. professor at his office hours today…”

“I was in there for like an hour and a half asking questions. He’s like, ‘Shawna do you stay up all night thinking of questions to ask me?!”

“He told me to go home and don’t think about chem. tonight.”

“I’m like stressing out and I can’t calm down. I need a Zanex”

…and this is when it was my turn to check out.

Descriptions:

• The girl was a college student at Chico State.  I ran into her inside Butte Station while I was getting coffee and overheard her conversation as she look in the fridge compartment for something to eat.
• I was waiting in the long line that winded around the food shelves so eavesdropping was a little hard to avoid.
• She had brown hair just past her shoulders that was parted on the side and pulled behind her ears. She wore black sweat pants that say ‘Chico State’ on the behind. She had on a jungle green color t-shirt and tennis shoes which made me think she was either going to or coming from the gym.
• She spoke so loudly that I was eavesdropping on her conversation even before I realized that I need to do this for an assignment for class.
• I eavesdropped on this girl’s cell phone conversation at 2:30 p.m. on October 1, 2009.

Story Ideas:

• Using Zanex to relax- a trend in college students?
• Natural ways to relax from a stressful day.
• People who don’t care to censor their lives in public.

• Meghan Brown
• Victor Cantu
• Amanda Hasaka
• Kyle Yamamoto

Our team’s theme presentation day is October 5, 2009.