I've noticed a lot of Americans take great pride in being moralistic. Since I am slowly and grudgingly growing up I've somehow learned to accept and respect other people's ethical beliefs, despite how they might conflict with my own, but it doesn't stop me from noticing the differences. Somehow, here in America, the terms "morality" and "interfering with the lives of strangers" have become interchangeable.

    To say things in the least offensive way possible, I find myself politely bemused.

    I'm no expert on world cultures, but from what little I've observed I've concluded that morality is more or less relative. There are consistent elements, but these tend to be too straightforward and simple to answer any big questions. Basically, all people can agree that doing things to make others happy is good, while prompting anger or sadness is bad.

    And yet somehow we demand more than this. We look within ourselves, probing further than ever was necessary, demanding answers to the mysteries of life. This is, as you might imagine, rather unnerving for our flustered consciences, who thought they had settled things pretty well. "Oh, I don't know," they say back disappointingly, nervously, like a student grappling to explain a portion of his report he hadn't researched thoroughly enough. "I guess whatever you're afraid of. Whatever you're afraid of is immoral." Our consciences don't tell us this because they know it for a fact, but because they suspect it will leave us satisfied. And usually, it does.

    I don't know a lot about religion, but I've gotten the sense that the rules established within well-known texts - that a person shouldn't wear cotton and polyester at the same time, that homosexuals shouldn't be allowed to marry, that in order to gain the approval of the Heavens it is necessary to bathe in goat sweat in a field of barley beneath the full moon each month, whatever they may be - are not necessarily the key points. This actually bodes well for religion, because if the stories in the bible were the foundation for morality, it would be easy to point out inconsistencies and label Jesus and his pals as unreliable and uneducated. I suspect if God did not have an underlying regime to what sometimes seemed to be simply ridiculous shenanigans, he would have faded from public view years ago, only to be embarrassed on occasion by critics. "And as you can see, on page 628, Mr. God neglects to mention that the Earth is not flat," a student might point out pompously to his friends, and they would laugh mean-spiritedly, cruelly at the poor deity's expense.

    Because let's face it: God or Jesus or whoever authored the bible really didn't have much of a knack for writing, but there is no denying that his heart was in the right place. And that's why there are morals to go along with the sometimes improbable stories. When Moses abandons his comfortable life in the Pharoh's kingdom to help the Israelite slaves, he reminds us about the value of freedom. When Lot's wife is turned to a pillar of salt for looking back at a burning city, we see how dwindling on the past can destroy a person. At the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addresses his congregation, telling them to reject their inclinations and strive to judge no one - and somehow, all of this is overlooked in favor of a tiny passage that loosely implies two men shouldn't have sex.

    I don't personally find morality to be a legitimate justification for denying other people happiness, and I think it's sad that it's often been acceptable for groups of people to be eradicated or tormented under the guise of righteousness. Regardless of whether or not you agree with someone's actions, they are still a human being and should be granted the right to do what they want with their lives. I read a saying somewhere - I think it's used a lot in Pagan texts - and while I am decidedly Atheist, I've always liked the line: "If it harms none, do what you will."

    I don't see how anyone can go wrong with that one.

    My personal taxi service (aka mother) went back to work full time recently,
leaving me in a bit of a quandary in regards to my own job, an internship at
the Ventura County Star that inconveniently started later and ended earlier
than her grown-up-person post as a teacher. When I arrived, half an hour
later than usual and decidedly frazzled, the receptionist regarded me with
vague amusement. "Tell your mom you need a car," she said, and though I
smiled politely, I knew a car was uncharacteristically last on my list of
things I'd ever ask for. On top of being fifteen and incompetent, the former
of which makes it illegal for me to drive and the latter simply ill-suited,
I am a public transportation junkie. Thus did I enlist the services of CAT,
Camarillo Area Transit.

    Growing up in San Francisco, I've always harbored a deep love and
appreciation for subway systems - an almost over-zealous love, perhaps
fueled by my indignation at being mistaken for a tourist. I haven't lived in
San Francisco for almost six years, but I am defiant about my heritage,
arrogant and stuffy and generally very obnoxious. It was easy to do in
Camarillo, where a few casual references to Bay Area geography reaffirmed my
status, but a year of living at Thacher, where I found myself
surrounded by real San Franciscans, left me in a constant state of
self-doubt. Sure, I can rattle off descriptions of San Francisco's various
neighborhoods or talk about the historical significance of city board member
Harvey Milk, but I've also been known to wander downtown to meet a friend
without a phone or money, expecting her to just find me. I try to convince
myself I'm really just stupid, not a tourist, but I think people are onto
me.

    These suspicions were reaffirmed last time I visited San Francisco. I
stayed with my friend Noelani, and around midday we decided to go into Noe
Valley for coffee.

    "That's a bus," she explained to me gently, and my mind darted to a home
video I'd seen of my mother, teaching a class of learning disabled third
graders. "This is flubber-agoo," she told them in the same patient voice,
gesturing to a jar of slimey, home-made silly putty. "What do you think you
do with flubber-agoo?"

    The third graders in the video answered her with vigor. "Eat it!" one of
them suggested while another sat and cheerfully picked his nose,  but I was
not going to give Noelani that sort of gratification. "I know what a bus
is," I said irritably and she ignored me.

    "You put the coins in that little slot there, you see? Hey, do you have
buses back in... where do you live again?"

    "Where do you live again?" has come to be the question I fear the most,
because despite all the wonderful things I've gotten from my Thacher
education, it's also left me with a crippling lack of identity. Determined
not to answer with Camarillo but also aware of how misleading it would be to
say San Francisco, my response has become wildly inconsistent. To be honest,
I still haven't settled on one. For awhile I was partial to the rather mysterious, "Oh, all over, really," although when people started to assume I literally traveled from interesting place to interesting place I was forced to stop. "Stepford," in reference to Camarillo rendered responses of, "Oh, in Connecticut?" and "Suburbia," really wasn't a lot better. Most of the
time I tend to just stammer awkwardly before declaring that it doesn't matter, and people will generally leave it at that.

    The CAT, which requires a reservation and is really more of a taxi
service than a bus, doesn't quite compare to San Francisco's MUNI but it
isn't by any stretch the worst way to travel. It may have come a half hour
late, but it showed up nonetheless in my driveway and transported me
diligently to the Star office in good time. There were no singing homeless
people or bus transfers to save against all reason as weird tokens of
appreciation to a city that may or may not be my own, but it got me where I
needed to be, which I think is all most people demand of their public
transit anyway. I might have no identity, but at least I don't have to pay
for gas!

    Thacher uses an email client called FirstClass. It's popular among private schools and businesses alike mostly because it's a fairly effective way of uniting a group of people over cyberspace, oftentimes in ways that take infinitely more effort otherwise. We have an online kiosk, club folders, discussion groups, a convenient directory with all the students and faculty, and only a vague recollection of those long-ago times where it was necessary to physically talk to someone to convey information. Instead of having to memorize and save countless addresses, or even worse, utilize those pesky vocal chords, a FirstClass user can just type in a name or premade group - "freshmen" or "seniors" or "Barbara Streisand" for instance - making communicating with peers and teachers amazingly simple.

    With the school year approaching, my class has just been bumped up to Sophomores on the mailing list, a cause for great celebration. It was Graham who sent the email. "Just a quick question," it read. "Which class is this going to?"

    When I registered what his email was asking and what my receiving it meant, I let out a joyous yelp and, since there was no one home at the time, set out telling everyone on my AIM buddy list. "I'm a sophomore!" I typed, albeit with more caps-lock and exclamation points and affectionate profanities, and my friends who were not older and therefore too cool to congratulate me joined in my festivities.

    There are a lot of great things about being a Thacher sophomore; familiarity with the campus, no horse program requirement, built-in resistance to the ice cream machine, more course options... But these were not the ones I dwelled on.

    "We get to be condescending and mean!" I told my friend Sienna, and it surprised me how much I must have been subconsciously waiting to defy my moral obligations towards human equality and become a bully. While we chatted happily about how she would go about harassing the freshmen who signed up to be in tech crew with her, a thought crossed my mind: "Isn't this a little sick?" my conscience asked me.

    "Shut up," I said, and returned to Sienna. "So will it be like subtle mind games or flat out harassment?"

    I realize now we were probably being a little over-zealous with our ploys. Sick as I may be, I don't know if I could ever justify any sort of genuine cruelty, and even if I could I don't think my peers would tolerate it. Yet you hear about this sort of thing all the time. In real life it all plays out a little more subtly than on TV, but no matter how nice a school is, there is always stigma associated with being in the youngest class. I've experienced it three times now, in primary, middle, and high school, and I still find myself at a loss to explain why it happens - why after a year of indirect isolation, a class is so willing to turn around and repeat the cycle. Is it carelessness? Insecurity? Immaturity? And better yet, does it ever stop?

    The only time I handled the transition with any sort of maturity or grace was first grade, and I think that's because I didn't attempt to analyze the situation. It didn't occur to me why Dylan Smith and Maurice, two second graders I regarded with a combination of awe and jealousy, were unwilling to let me play cards or dig holes in the sandbox with them. I just knew it was mean and I didn't like it. After grappling with their disappointing rejection for a year, I entered first grade and finally had the opportunity to showcase the philosophy that they led me to develop: that all people are pretty much the same, and everyone should be nice to everyone.

    I still think this.

    Eventually, I wound up meeting a girl named Elena Goldstein. She was a year my junior and tended to get food all over her face whenever she ate and could play harmonica and was generally a charming person, all of which boded rather well for our friendship. We used to write comics together every day after school. Being older and having more developed motor skills, my art was a little better, but she had a sense of dedication I lacked and eventually produced at least ten serialized issues of her comic, "Burglar Bulldog." It was an impressive feat.

    We fell out of touch around the time I moved away from San Francisco, but this isn't to say the friendship was insignificant. I almost feel a little guilty when I think about how my seven-year-old self might regard me now, plotting how to best harass incoming Thacher freshmen. She resides in the back of my mind and abuses me regularly about my day-to-day decisions.

    "What's your problem?" she demands, never one to beat around the bush. "I mean really, what's your problem?"

    "It's not that I'm going to be a condescending jerk because they're younger than me," I insist, but my excuses always seem flimsier when I say them aloud. "It's just because I'm genuinely cooler than them! I swear!"

    "And how will you know you're cooler than them?"

    "Well, you know..." I trail off, scratching the back of my head. "Because they're younger."

    "You're a joke."

    "Joke!" I exclaim angrily. "Hey now, I'm FIFTEEN AND THREE QUARTERS! You're SEVEN! So why don't you shut up and go play with your dolls or something, I don't have to listen to you."

    What a piece of work is man!

    Like most people, I was a little sickened by the lip-syncing gag pulled by the Chinese at the Olympic opening ceremonies. On top of bringing back painful memories of the Ashley-Simpson-on-Saturday-Night-Live fiasco, I was depressed at how starkly shallow the incident was, that a person's humanity could be so readily sacrificed in the name of vanity. (Dig them rhymes! I could be a rapper if I wasn't doing this crazy blog thing.)

    However, being a big proponent of the "morality is relative" theory, I suspect my response to the incident may be distinctly western. I'm no expert on Chinese culture, but I think it's interesting to consider that the two girls and their families consented to this arrangement - that it was by no means forced on them, and both parties have expressed pride at being part of the ceremony. From what I've gathered, most of the outrage stems from American and European spectators, and I think it's plausible that we are applying our own ethics in a situation where they are irrelevant.

    Since the Renaissance, western culture has been very individualistic. Americans and Europeans tend to place emphasis on personal worth and achievement a lot more than their Eastern counterparts, so it makes sense that we would be disgusted by the incident - but I'm not sure if the Chinese feel the same way. Neither of the girls seem to be traumatized or upset over their roles in the ceremony. To the contrary, they are honored. If no one was hurt, is there really a problem?

    Yes, I'd be enraged if someone tried to pull that sort of stunt on me or someone I knew, but that's the culture I've been raised in. People are all different and perceive situations in different ways. What is injustice to us may not be elsewhere, and if people are content with their lives I don't see any reason to pass judgment or interfere.

    I have always been a little confused at the prospect of English and history standardized tests. Sure, I can buy that there might be some merit in evaluating a kid's reading comprehension, but, ultimately, I don't really see how it's going to do anyone any good. When I first started writing for The Star, I was greeted with a fair amount of skepticism from some readers -- it appeared there was a contingent of people completely unwilling to believe I'd written my pieces by myself, and while at first this left me completely aggravated, I eventually came to understand why. America might have a high literacy rate, but when it comes to actually conveying thoughts on paper, a lot of people -- adults and teenagers both -- are shockingly inarticulate. And this, I believe, is where the precious state-mandated multiple choice standardized tests are failing students. While they are easy to prepare for (because most of the material is based in rote memorization) and easy to grade (a machine does all the work!), they fail in teaching any real critical thinking, and as much as I liked bubbling in my knowledge about who the third president was, or how old a person has to be to run for senator on my eighth-grade history examination, I think I would have benefited a lot more from being asked to write an essay. Yes, an essay! A glorious and miserable essay with a thesis and a conclusion and paragraphs and paragraphs of analysis and evidence and, you know ... thought! Real intelligent thought! Thinking in school, what a concept!

    I think the two main arguments against essay-writing in school are as follows: They are hard for students to write and hard for teachers to grade. This is undeniably true, but instead of allowing ourselves to take the easy way out, we need to collectively raise our standards and make the changes necessary to really help kids learn as much as possible. Too hard for someone to grade 35 essays in a timely manner? Give more tax dollars to the schools and mandate smaller class sizes! We should never underestimate the importance of teaching our kids to formulate arguments and articulate their points. In fact, I would call any school that doesn't center its curriculum around critical thinking a waste of time -- and, unfortunately, as things are in public schools today, we are left with a whole lot of kids wasting their time. Let's not underestimate the importance of our nation's future and call for reform in public schools today!

    I'm really awful with children. Something about them completely unnerves me and even as it pains me to avoid eye contact with my six year old cousin, lest he try to initiate a conversation, I grudgingly acknowledge that we would both be better off without my fumbling, stuttering attempts at being entertaining. Heck, I'm barely able to talk to kids my own age! Kindergarteners are definitely too much, and so I'm sure you can imagine the sinking horror I felt when, a week ago, I found myself in the company of an eight year old boy. He was my mom's friend's son and, despite having only three years of formal schooling, was undeniably much more charming and charismatic and intelligent than I could ever hope to be. I stood before him, petrified, wracking my mind to think of something both clever and age-appropriate to tell him. After an awkward silence wherein I concluded that such sentiments simply don't exist, I turned, desperately, to the only thing I could think of.

    "So," I said, arms swinging stiffly at my side. "What are your thoughts on Pokemon?"

    His eyes widened and I knew I had done the right thing. "I love Pokemon!" he told me. "Did you see the episode today?"

    "No, I missed it!" I said, and my disappointment was genuine. I had willingly missed more or less every Pokemon episode for the past nine years, but it still didn't feel great to be reminded of it. "What happened?"

    "Cyndaquil evolved into Quilava!"

    "Oh my god!" I exclaimed, and again, I remind you that one cannot force this kind of enthusiasm. "That's so cool!"

    When I told my dad about our conversation, a fond look came across his face as though he were reminiscing on something whimsical, like a tap-dancing puppy. "You were there at the beginning," he said. "I bet that's impressive to kids. You watched the first season."

    I agreed, although inwardly I knew his words were a gross understatement. I had done a lot more than just watching Pokemon. I lived Pokemon, allowed it to consume every ounce of my being and dictate every aspect of my life. At the end of kindergarten, my school's resource specialist told my mother that she was concerned about my reading progress. She suggested I be tested for a learning disability, but my mom knew it was not dyslexia that stopped me from being able to read and write - it was the looming hope that perhaps Team Rocket would burst through the classroom window in their hot air balloon and adopt me as their own, and she single-handedly quashed the school's suspicions by forcing me to keep a journal over the summer. I reread it now, from time to time. "I watched Pokemon today," my six-year-old self writes. "It was great."

    Even now, at least ten years later, I find my obsession completely justified. Pokemon is simply the greatest concept ever introduced to man. No matter how many high-brow, experimental movies I see, no matter how much a book makes me think, no matter how emotionally moved I am by a song, nothing will ever compare to Pokemon in my heart of hearts.

    Since talking to Anthony, I've had something of a Poke-revival. I've pulled out my old games and cards, but the best part has been watching old episodes. My poor, befuddled parents, who ignorantly thought I had gotten over this in second grade, demanded an explanation. "It's just so great!" I told them.

    "But why?" my dad asked, exasperated.

    When I attempted to explain the plot to him, I discovered something that might have been a little unsettling had my devotion to Pokemon not been so sincere. It's totally stupid. The protagonist, Ash, perpetually ten years old, has spent over 400 episodes working towards the exact same pointless goal - becoming a Pokemon Master. Sure, he goes to other regions every so often, he might compete in a different tournament or pick up a new traveling companion, but not much ever changes for Ash and Co. For what reason, I asked myself, did I find this show so indisputably charming?

    I think, for me at least, the answer lies in the program's quirks. I have an overactive (read: sick) imagination, and the questions posed by the chronicle's odd circumstances continue to surprise and delight me as the years go by. For instance, why does Ash's single mother spend so much time in the company of the elderly Professor Oak? Why is it that, even when more gender-appropriate disguises are procured, Pokemon thief James is often partial to women's clothing? How does Ash's friend Brock see anything, considering his eyes appear to be constantly closed? These mysteries are presented unapologetically, flamboyantly, and I often find myself wondering whether or not the implications I notice are included on purpose.

    Every so often, I'll walk into a room of people and morosely express my never-diminishing desire for Pokemon to be real. Nowadays, it's generally interpreted as a joke. My friends laugh appreciatively and I grin along with them, understanding on an intellectual level how absurd I must sound. But it's true. There is an innocence to Pokemon, a sort of nostalgic free-spiritedness, and I often find myself wishing our world could run as smoothly as Ash's, where there are no wars or hunger, where villains aren't villainous, and ten year old children travel freely from city to city, accompanied only by an assortment of cute little monsters, always at the ready for a new adventure with their human friends.

    The term "tragedy" is used quite often in reference to the recent school shooting at E.O. Green Junior High. Larry King's death was a tragedy. Brandon McInerney's desperation was a tragedy. Locking a teenage boy in jail for life is a tragedy and, of course, denying proper justice to his victim is tragedy as well. The term "moral paradox" also describes the aftermath of the incident well, although it is admittedly not one used quite as often.

    When Larry King was first murdered, it was a story that registered with me emotionally on many levels. Even as time went by and the series of events that led up to the shooting were revealed to be by no means as black and white as they first appeared, I retained a great deal of sympathy for Larry. His life was taken unfairly in a planned murder, and it only seemed reasonable to demand some kind of compensation from Brandon for the crime he committed -- and yet, as the debates about his trial have unfurled, I have found myself surprisingly unable to take a side.

   While on the surface, there is undoubtedly a huge difference between 10 and 50 years in jail, I am left with the looming suspicion that, regardless of the sentence Brandon receives, he has already lost whatever slim window of opportunity he may have had to improve his life. Brandon and Larry both came from broken homes, felt victimized and unsafe at school, and appeared ultimately to have no one to turn to for help. In short, their lives were tragedies before the shooting -- and I see no reason to believe, even had Brandon not brought a gun to school and killed his classmate, that his life would have taken some upward trajectory and he would have grown up to be a happy, functional member of society. He's currently doomed because he was set up to be doomed  before he killed anyone -- and while it may feel good to lock up a killer for life, I think it would be a more proper tribute to Larry King's memory to direct our energy and attention to the thousands of kids living lives like his and Brandon's: lives that are tragedies.

    I don't believe Brandon will ever be able to take back what he did, and I don't think it's appropriate to refrain from punishing him properly because he happens to be young, but we owe it to both boys to make sure that something like this never happens again -- that no young student is ever deprived the resources, support and encouragement he needs to be comfortable with himself and content with his life.