Duck Memorial & The Dates

This post is dedicated to my favorite farm birds.

Latté and Mocha were the two best ducks I have ever had. They were broody girls, always sitting on eggs. The last time I saw them they were both sitting on separate nests, five for Latte, eight for Mocha. In the morning, my mum found latte in the field, very much not alive.

good news is that we made an emergency trip to a friends house with the eggs, and they successfully transferred the living ones into the incubator. They are scheduled to hatch around the eighth, so keep a weather eye on the hatch cam! http://www.homegrowngourmet.org/

Awesomeness

Three more weeks of school.

Awesomeness. I like school more than most folks, but I say that I definitely won't miss it. summer means freedom, which -- Crap I'm leaving that for a later discussion.

Anyway, I'm psyched. My friend and I are planning on making some awesome videos of redneck awesomeness so keep an eye out for that if you're interested in kids doing really stupid stuff (hint: like hanging out of windows trying to catch a chicken).

Well I gotta go,
THEYOUNGTRAVELER

random joke

Alright, so.
A icescater comes into a bar and asked the red cow bar tender to give it a cold fly.
     "Whats a cold fly?" the red cow asks.
     "A flyer on ice," says the icescater.

Its not funny... or makes sense, but im bored. lol

THEYOUNGTRAVELER

Um, is that normal?

Well well well. Now I have some strange coincidences for you that I had today.
I was doing school - homework - a bunch of questions that are like for students 2 grades a head of me, but anyway, I look out the window and heres a huge tractor. It took me like ten minutes for me to realize what it was. Im like "Uhhmmmmm..... That's not normal." Oh yeah, there just a huge tractor parked on my lawn. Not on the road, no, on the lawn. Did I mention that we don't know who it belongs to?

Then again there was a turkey in my bathtub, so I guess its not that weird... WTH??

TheYoungTraveler

 

 

P.S. Am I seriously the only one that finds this really weird?

Longest word

Oh my god.
I just was bored and looked up the longest word. Whoa

1. Longest Words. (45) PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS (also spelled PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOKONIOSIS) = a lung disease caused by breathing in particles of siliceous volcanic dust. This is thelongest word in any English dictionary.

Woooooow. Amazing what you can find when your brain dies.

TheYoungTraveler

1. 
   
   
   

GBAG

OMG I FOUND A NEW WORD

IM KIND OF OVER EXCITED RIGHT NOW FOR NO REASON

SO IGNOR THAT

GBAG

IT'S GENIOUS

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT MEANS

THEYOUNGTRAVELER AT YOUR SERVICE

Ps
I looked it up online and got images of a bunch of weird Korean snacks. Ummmmm.....

Snowy the Snowman

This is written in honour of my wonderful sister and the best to-be mother I have or will ever know. I love you Elissa.


A winter's day, 'ere at last
Not this much snow in winter's past
So cold and oh so white
But my such beauty when comes to night!
This house is but a big white cake
For which the clouds did joyously make
Even though you'll freeze to death
It's oh so fun to see your own frosty breath
Oh, out there in the cold thin air
If it's wet, shall freeze your hair!
A small black dog will frost its fur
A quick gray fox will leave little paw prints for sure!
The sad brown plants all withered and gone
Are replaced with fun cheery snow song!
After school all children come
And they all are church yard from!
And snowmen they make
With snowballs they take
From the pure white ground
And snow hills and mounds
Leaving divots in the earth
Which brings great mirth
For as a cold pillar I stand
And watch all play on the land
And all are merry and festive and joyful
But when I melt all will be soulful
For then winter is over and spring has come
Where they will experience a later dawn
Then comes planting for farmers
Saying without weather's harm
And spring cleaning for city folk
With hopefully some a funny joke
And green will sprout out on the lawn
And trees will live without their pawn
Children forget the snow that was here,
And run to the swings, unmeddled by their peers
Parents will laugh and talk to each other
Till a child gets hurt, and runs to Mother
Then she take a cloth and pats the boys's head
And words come out stopping the tear shed
Calming and soothing, and off he goes
To play with his friends and a small cut he shows
Then says "My mommy's the best, she stopped my sadness!"
And giggles he will bring out of funny madness
And even though I have melted
My heart feels like it's felted
Then after that comes that summer time
Where kids play in lakes and of course that is fine
As long as they know how to swim
And maybe play the game of Nim
But in the lake would not make sense, water that is
That would ruin a game, and would not miss
But anyway, they run and play
And still the mother watchs in May
With caring eyes full of love
She feels like she has found her favorite dove
Even she knows that hardship will come soon
For they grow faster than any would think in a room
Then orange and yellow and red and brown
Color the leaves without a frown
And fall has arrived!
With an early sunrise
And then the apples and veggies are ready to pick
Without preservatives to make you sick
Then cook and boil and mince and bake
And then there are plenty of leaves to rake
But that only lasts for a few little months
Then back comes my favorite season
Which is for obvious reason
Winter means I can return
And watch the little children at play,
With mothers and fathers helping the day
White snow forms me again
And this time I have months to mend
Before I melt once again
And I will be made with a smile on my face
Though I have no legs, so that means no race
But know that I don't complain,
It's better than being melted again.

Ha that one's better

I hope you like!

TheYoungTraveler

Silent Assasson

I just found this poem that I wrote years ago, and after editing, I decided to share it :) hope you like it!

My greatest fear is hope.

My greatest hope is fear.

Yet to my heart I hold so dear

A pain so horrid and all consuming

You will cry out from your soul marooning

"Stop, end this misery," you scream

Though none shall hear and you redeem

What hell you live shall doom the damned

Brought forth from in a flame they stand

An evil so much like a black hole

Which will suck you and thou'st soul

An evil so whence and hideous

That love itself would seem ridiculous

This is the hell that's modern day

This is the road that rules the way

Yet while others go 'bout their work

In the shadows do I lurk

Listening. Waiting. Striking.

Open war is but for a Viking

Not a silent assassin in the night

Slitting throats just for spite

A dagger to a pulcing throat

Splattered blood on a fur coat

A young priestess killed while sleeping

A little maid fallen to weeping

At her kind master's demise

While a girl sits eith evil eyes

A knife concealed within her cloak

With which she slit her father's throat

Yet for he murdered the love of her life

While they were bound in deadly strife

Over a single chair and mead

And then no reason did they heed

And out came shining tips of dagger

Fought till each were tired and haggard

Then, oh, the lover fell

Taken hence by drunken spell

Over him stood father panting

Like caged beast was he ranting

And drove the dagger through this man

Cutting wind like a fan

"Never again shall you part our ways

For I, a lord, shall end your days!

You loved my daughter yet in vain

For she is mine to give to pain

For though she loved your more than I

I shall kill you, then you die!

Kill me I think not

So in the ground then you shall rott!

For I defeated this rotten foe

Hence you are a dimwitted bozo!"

Hunting, part one

Hunting. This is a topic that I have wanted to write about for a while. I go hunting. My dad goes hunting. Countless other people go hunting. But the ratio of hunters to animal activists is only 6:5. The AA say that hunting is horrible. Is it? No. I've done so much research on this before I got my hunting license, and no, it's really not bad. It's actually good for the animal population. I'm not joking. Think of what might happen if you have a five gallon bucket, but over fill it. Water spills out, and slowly hurts the bucket. Now think of this. There are 100 acres of open space, which can hold more or less 1000 elk. What happens when that population over flows? The grass will die due to grazing, trees will be stripped of leaves, water will be even more contaminated than it is now, with all the feces. Is that, I ask you, a good thing? No way in ___. The amount of natural predators has gone down due to lack of space, which in turn is due to us, building houses and such, and thus, with no natural preditors to hunt them, the elk will soon over populate and destroy the land they are on. With human hunters (well I guess you could be alien hunters too, but is that likely?) the elk population will be kept to a reasonable value, that, my dears, is why the hunting centers and smart valued peoples make regular laws: you can only hunt bucks, you can only hunt for two elk, etcetera. Without us contributing to the wild life, it would very soon be out of control. This, of course, applies to more than elk, duh, that was just an example. All in all, it is extremely good to have hunters. Not trophy hunters that's sick, but I'll get into that later ;).

Your awesome and wonderful wacko,

TheYoungTraveler

The Coyote Problem

We have coyotes here. Over the past few months, they have been getting a lot more aggressive. Example. A guy jogging was attacked by three coyotes on the road next to ours. My neighbor's chickens were attacked and killed by the creatures IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY with the guy gardening next to them. I've seen them trying to creep up on our bird flock every once in a while.

My mom was annoyed and started posting stuff like "Careful, keep your pets inside" and such, and a bunch of people wrote things like "Well can you shoot them?" and this friend of ours, who's a total animal rights peep, writes "We can't shoot them! We evaded their territory and they just want food!" We've been here and owned a farm here for over a century. She is wrong also cause coyotes don't have territory. They range for over 5 thousand miles in their life, and never stay in one spot for more than a week. I understand her love of animals, i love them too, but we should co-exist. They can go after rabbits, but I will kill them if they try to kill my pets.Plus, if 'you' want the coyotes to be able to do whatever they want, would you like us to cramp myself, the cows, the chickens, my cats, and my dogs into my 1800's farm house? She doesnt understand what being on a farm means. You have to protect your land. You have to take risks. You have to make the hard decisions. A city-grown person does not have the right to say what we should and shouldn't do. It's either their (the coyotes) life, or one of the farms, or even mine. So pease keep in mind people, don't tell other people what to do. Sharing your beliefs are great, but forcing them upon someone is not.

TheYoungTraveler

Dogs in Hot Cars

Alright. So, I'm on Facebook, duh, and it really annoys me when these animal protection groups/ humane societies post these dramatic things about "Don't ever leave your dog in the hot car" and put temps up there. What these animal freaks (and I'm a freak so that's not an insult) don't know is that dogs, no matter what breed, have an extra layer of fur that act in hot weather sorta like their winter coat does in cold weather. This layer keeps out the heat, and keeps in the coolness. The reason that so many people mess this up is that it is CRUCIAL that a dog has water to drink. It won't be hurt by the heat, but it will dehydrate twice, if not three times, as fast as it would in the winter, and people confuse the need of water with "don't keep your dog in a hot car at all". I was seriously lucky that I ran across this, and believe me I know what I'm talking about.

Basically, you can have your dog in a hot car, but I suggest only for an hour MAX. It's still true what people say, they've just exaggerated it over the years. Thanks guys.

The*Awesome*YoungTraveler

Okay, I'll Release my Epic Finger, thank you very much

I saw an add for a game on my iPad today, and it was one of those HearthStone games or some such nonsense, but anyway, it was of this girl pressing her finger to something glowing, and the caption was this:

"Go ahead. Release your epic finger." Wow. What do you say to that? "Um, yeah, okay, let's play that finger game, shall we?" Wow. Yeah, that's just a little strange. Definitely an eye-catching caption, I grant you. But does it make me want to play the game? Not really, thank you.

Education

Education just seems really counter-intuitive at times, honestly.

And, along with all that, piling homework assignments on students just causes unnecessary stress and, if you're a good enough teacher, why should you assign busy work anyway? We go to school to learn, why should we have to go home and learn stuff for school when not in school? They (the teachers) might have more "experience", but they seem to forget what's actually important for people approaching the end of their childhood to learn and experience, rather than just what they'd like to have them learn. People say that getting a good education is the gateway to having a successful life, but there's no success in store for someone who, despite being intellectually brilliant, can't pay their heating and electric bills for the lack of knowledge.

Here's a quote from a friend of mine.

"I only learned how to use a charcoal grill last May, which I should've known how to use far sooner. It's actually kind of scary to know I'll be on my own in two years and have so much to learn about living on my own. And school seems to think that we don't need to learn these things or that our parents will teach us, but my parent's haven't taught me how to do much of anything when it comes to managing life on my own. XD"  

They should teach stuff like government and history in collage and the tax/payments and stuff in high school when you get a job, a lot of parents never teach their kids that stuff. Why bother with teaching something that won't help you when you could teach something that could be usefull right away? I don't have this problem because I have parents that teach taxes and things, but most kids don't have that luxury, so really, teachers are just teaching kids fancy facts and sending them into the world without knowing any useful stuff. Spelling? Useful! Grammar? Useful! Algebra? Useful! Calculus? My dad has not once used that in real life. Just because someone super smart came up with it doesn't mean that EVERYONE else needs to know it. Sorry peeps that are in the history books. No offense to anyone, but how will knowing the past presidents of the U.S.A help me in real life? Will that knowledge pay my phone bill? No, I think not. I can fight for animal science, if something bites you you want to know what it is right? But I don't think I'll find myself stuck in the Civil War and say "Huh, I wonder what war this is, oh I should have studied more on that final..." Whoops! Wrong answer get stuck by a sword bye bye. See kids that what happens when you don't know your history. No no no, anyway, yeah, I think I've gotten the point across.

Your Rebelling Sunflower,

TheYoungTraveler

P.S.

Obviously I suck at grammar. See that's something useful. <3 u all

Um, another weird random post

Well well well. This is almost embarrasing and I dont wanna do it but I gotta.

So my birthday's in a few days, and for fun I'm going out with a few (all) of my three bffs on the mall. And my awesomeness BFF Lizzles got me to buy and wear a tutu. Ugh. And the crazy thing is Im going through with it. Hey I guess I wont be that weird dressed as a rainbow, I mean she saw a unicorn there so yeah (im pretty sure shes also a basket case). Well I really dont know why im posting this but whateves, wish my luck lolol.
THEREALLYHYPERYOUNGTRAVELER

The Cone of Shame

     Well, my dog just got fixed a few days ago and it was so funny because for a while he had to wear a cone so he wouldn’t lick….The Cone of Shame…. It was so funny because he just would just shove the cone on the floor and just run full speed ahead with the rim of his collar pressed to the floor.

     While he had the cone he reminded me of a lampshade. As a lab he would stick his nose straight up in the air to sniff, and just walk around with his head looking like a fluffy lamp. Poor guy.

     Speaking of the Cone of Shame, my brother’s dog was also just fixed and had a cone. This little guy discovered that if he lowered his head to the ground and ran, he would scoop up snow, and then he would just toss it up in the air. So seriously he would just run through the yard scooping up snow and toss it in the air behind him. Our dog’s not smart enough to do that.

Always here and forever crazy,

TheYoungTraveler J

Blue Sky Kiddnapping

I was in a Starbucks a few days ago and was examining their billboard and at the bottom there was a little tag that said Blue Sky Kindergarten, but since I looked fast it seemed to me:

Blue Sky Kidnapping

I'm just trying to figure out what they were advertising there.

Want a break from your kids? A romantic getaway with you love? Well now you know where to go! Just call Blue Sky Kiddnapping and we will come in the middle of the night and kidnap your child FOR FREE! Warning though, there is a $500 dollar ransom to get your offspring back! Just call 376-kidnappers or email us at wetakecareofit@44kidnaping.com

What? Who would take that?

"Oh honey, if we can't send Jeffie to school, this is a great alternative!"

If that's what you come to, you got problems.

TheYoungTraveler

For dads everywhere

There's always that moment in your life when you stop looking at your dad like the hero you always thought of him as and realize that he is actually an imperfect, selfish human. A kid can only go so far while being ignored. I realize this now that not all of you have or had dads like mine, and I knew mine was messed up a bit, but seriously, that moment that your pa stops acknowledging you really hurts. So here you go dads. No matter what happens at work or at home or how your feeling, always be nice to your child. Even if he/she doesn't want your love and attention right now, it stings when you don't give it when they need it. Believe me I know.

A little depressed right now but always yours,

TheYoungTraveler

People

Does it ever bug you when compleat strangers tell you what and what not to do? god, it does for me. So we were picking up my beloved dog from the local Humane Society after getting nurtured and the doggie nurse was talking to us about him.

Well it turns our that he threw up the tail of his green toy snake, and the lady was just going on and on (well I might be exaggerating but really does "she said briefly" make for a good story? No. I think not.) about how we should watch him every second and crap like hat and in my head I'm just going "My moms dogs ate a bike, two garden hoses, and a flipping lawn chair. I think he's good with a slippery snake tail." And then she really got into the whole surgery recovery thing. She's like "You should keep him from running, or walking, or playing or swimming, wrestling..." I am just like "And he's a puppy? Are you sure you have the right dog hee, or are you just kidding us? Ollie's never gonna stay like that. Not for a day not for 2 weeks. Nun uh." all in all she was actually really nice, but that part just killed me.

Anyway, Ill head off, write another blog post, who knows.

To all my non-existent fans,

TheYoungTraveler

What does it mean to be human?

What does it mean to be human? Why can we call ourself "the higher species"? We are responsible for a million more human deaths than the lion, hippo, shark, bear, rino, and snake combined each month. People say that we have a right to call ourselves "educated" "advanced" "inelegant" "chosen". Why? Because we have found "advanced" ways to ruin the health of our planet? Because the "inelegant" scientists have created powerful ways to kill millions of people in less than a freaking minute? Because "educated" teachers have taught and will teach hundreds of kids new ways to kill people? Because the "chosen" governments create stupid laws that keep girls from protecting themselves and raised prices so that billions of people can't afford to have houses, food? Why do we have the right to call ourselves "the smart ones", just because we have the power to kill anything and everything? Think, where will our planet be in 100 years? Who will win the next war?We all know that there is bound to be another with the corruption called China and Korea. Think with our currant pollution problems. Think with the growing population, will we have any agricultural farm land left? There are millions of outcomes, and they are all ending in desolation unless people actually do something! Right now, nobody is doing anything except the small people. And can we do anything? Us kids, or small people? I have seen so many chances for people, big people with big reps, to do something to help the environment, or starving people or animals, but do they do anything? No. They refuse to get their fat butts off their plush couches and make a difference. They instruct their hired staff to do their dirty work, and that means "take care of me". The politicians, the government, the big business people, they don't care about anything but themselves, money, and maybe a select few other people. I mean, it's the little guys out there that really care.

Well once again I must go, short post I know. Remember, I shall say again that this is only my point of view, and if you don't like it WELL STOP READING.

Forever and always,

TheYoungTraveler

Completely Random

Okay, so, I just wanted to point out that I was arguing with and yelling at a computer program a second ago, so just saying, that's probably proof that I'm an idiot, ya know? Okay yup that was it. I will try to get another actual post about something usefull up in a few days (or knowing me it could actually even bee a few weeks :( ) . See ya then!
Your Wonderful Idiot,
TheYoungTraveler XD

China Part One

I think growing up in China rather stained my outlook on humanity. At the age of two, I was innocent and content. Then, through the years, I grew less and less connected with humans and more and more content with the others. Stray dogs, mostly, were my joy for eleven years. Though through that I saw the horrors of the place I was in. I won't go into detail, but I assure you, China is much, much worse than what ads for Beijing vacations suggest. Yeah, I admit gladly that there are some places still that are like that. Xichang, my home from 2009 - 2013, in the middle of Sichuan, China, started off like that when I was there. You could actually see the mountains around you, unlike my time in Chengdu, where, even though I lived there for six years, I only saw the moon once, thanks to the pollution. And only after I moved back to America did I realize that the mountains were less than 10 miles from our last apartment there. Now, unfortunately, the pollution is so bad that I heard on the news that a lady said (and I do not quote because I don't remember exactly) "The air was so bad in the morning that I opened the windows." and I just remember thinking, 'Why? Why why why??' Because of all the factories (which by the way most are staffed, at least half, by either under-aged workers or severely over-worked women) there is sooooo much pollution that you can't even see the freakin' big building next to you. By the time we left our fifth-story apartment, I could barely see the people walking by below us.  One of my only human friends worked at one of these factory places, she wasn't like, under-aged or anything, I think at the time she was just out of collage, but one of the things I remember being completely enraged about was her hours, I think they were around 12-14 hours long seven days a week. Ah, and there was also the complete rudeness of the people, most of them anyway. There were some nice ones, and I appreciated that very much, but still! And their driving habits were atrocious! You know how you have to test and study and stuff to get your drivers license? People get drivers licenses there by paying off the people that hand them out (without taking the test). In some extremely rare cases I imagine that people, good people, actually work to get their driver licenses, but seriously, if you saw the highways in Sichuan (at least there) you'd see that I was telling the truth. Well, I guess they could have changed in the two years I've been back, but I'd bet my life on the assumption that they haven't (but please don't come kill me if I'm wrong, ok?? Haha :) ). At one point, a little after we moved to Xichang, the government, or someone important, at least, decided to put in crosswalks (and traffic lights earlier, but I'll talk about that in a minute). I have no idea why because it made it more dangerous for pedestrians, and there we get to my main point about the crosswalks (and the traffic lights, I'm just adding that in, so keep that in mind). The white or yellow lines that indicate "walk across and cars will stop for you" in America apparently mean "Walk across and cars will speed up and run you over" in China. Seriously, like many things I do not doubt that this is better in some places, but at least the crosswalks I've seen were pretty much exactly like this. I get completely scared out of my pants when I cross roads, you're never sure if a car is going to stop for you or not. When I was in china, I got hit by many a car. Thankfully never hard enough to cause damage, but yeesh, still. Then again I get hit with a lot of huge stuff, so I think I just magically attract huge metal ramming things, so then if you come to china you might not have the less than good luck I had, but hey, I don't know for sure. So anyway, back to topic, crosswalks gave the false pretense that you could walk, but then to cars it just screamed "SPEED UP, SPEED UP!!!" so really it was a safety hazard. And now I come to the lights, finally. They (they are unknown people of importance) put in the traffic lights a LONG time before they put in the crosswalks, but they basically did the same thing. People who actually knew how to drive and cared about others' saftey would stop, usually, when the light was red or whatever, but then on the other hand, the people that didn't care about any of that and probably bought their license, would fly right on by, so all together, it wouldn't turn out well. An example is when I was sitting in my room, looking out the window (background is that they had just put in a new road behind our building and a new light, so it was kinda like the new highlight of that month... trying to count how many accidents there were that month. There were around 15, by the way) at the intersection and one car came from the West and one car came from the north and KWABAM!! High speed from different directions, ouch. And that happened A LOT. Many of the times the accident was also a hit ad run, or a hit. My mom didnt let me see those, but there were only like, two, in a month. One of the things that annoyed me most was the roads themselves. The manager or captain or whatever — the person calling the shots when they built a new road, would very often embezzle money from what the government gave them to build the road. Yeah, the roads would be nice and smooth for the first year or so, then they would start getting potholes...and cracks...and they would sometimes sink into the ground though I only saw that twice. Believe me, if you think the mountain roads here are rough, ride a mountain road in Xichang in a bread van, you'll never look at American roads the same. I don't even think they know what one of those dirt road smoother machines are. Okay and here's another thing. My parents work in villages, bringing water and stuff to them, but it really made me want to punch someone when we'd drive to a village or through one — realize first that what a poor village looks like is a bunch of packed mud, windowless huts, goats dilly-dallying on the side of the road, chickens everywhere, filthy starving children silently praying for food, a goose potentially chasing you (we call them the village police, they literally chase you if you speed, weirdos), basically brown EVERYWHERE. Oh, and dogs, can't forget them. But anyway, what I hate is when before officials or any government people come to inspect the village, they (again I'm not sure who) paint up all the buildings in the traditional colors of the culture, and I think they also give out some money for people to clean up, but I don't know. They basically dress everything up on the surface just for important people so they can get money and then spend it on drinks. Yeah, you know what I mean. In general, I guess it's not that bad, I mean, I get dressed up when my grandma ( <3 ) comes, but still, it really feels like an injustice. Yes, I know I said I don't much care for some humans, but as much as I dislike humans, I do have compassion, I'm not a total basket case after all. Well maybe I am, but that's not important. :) For now I think I will leave it at here, though there is much more to say. And I'm gonna say this again. This is only my point of view. I do not want you to come to me saying "Oh you're racist" blah blah blah unless you have experienced what I have. It's true, you might have a wonderful time in China if you visit, this place does have its perks, but tourists go to the Great Wall or somewhere nice and beautiful. They don't travel to the remote villages and cities and stay for 11 years among the chaos and the suffering. Do not judge me until you have learned for yourself the standpoint that I come from.

Yours truly,

TheYoungTraveler

Parental Guidance from the Teen's View

Yeah, I know that you never understand what it's like being a mom or dad till you actually are one, but I do know what it's like being the kid.

Okay, it really drives me crazy when "grown-ups" treat you like you’re an idiot. No offense but usually that happens. For instance, I was walking into a pet store to buy a fish, and this lady just goes all freaking blabber mouth on me, telling me that I didn't have the right kind of water and I should have a parent take care of them and whatnot, and I'm just standing there like ... . Seriously, a teenager is JUST AS capable as an adult! Yes, our brains are not quite fully developed, but if we have the facts and know how to do whatever, we can do it appropriately. I really don't understand why people think that just because you’re not out of school means that you can't handle anything.

Don't stereotype the teen for being irresponsible just because you were or your friends were or whatever. I was talking to my friend about this. “Just because my friends are idiots don’t mean I am," she said. Yeah, she gets that her parents want to protect her, but they can't help her when she goes to college or gets a job and she's not street smart. Most parents have this 'knowledge' drilled into them that their kid is always less mature or less smart than they truly are, and even if they really are irresponsible, it's still important to let them be them, show them how to be responsible instead of deciding that they are careless and don't let them fight their own fights. No matter how much you want to protect your child, the ugly truth is that you're not always going to be there, and it is always better to let them learn life skills while your around so that you can help them learn, than to hold them back, and when they move out they will have to learn those things without you, and that will always be difficult because you're not there to catch them when they fall.

Two things that are rather important for parents to know is that they need to let their kid explore. For an example, I grew up in China, aka around people smoking all the time, and I still can't get that feeling of clogged lungs out of me, and I have never wanted to smoke since then, ever. Same with drugs - if you have a friend or family member that does that and gets sick, I doubt that you would want that, but that is only me, so, I don't know if that method would work well for anyone else. Number two is to just let your kid be himself/herself. If you put too much pressure on them, they'll either end up hating you, or completely not healthy. I had a friend in china, her mother would make her do Band every day, you know, the marching kind, and I remember talking with her, all she wanted to do was art, not music, and I accidentally let that slip to her mother. I never saw her again, she was angry because now her mom has her in an art class, three hours every day, seven days a week. Her mom killed her hobbies by turning them into torture.

The friend that I talked earlier about also has parent issues. Her parents don't trust her with anything, I've seen it first-hand. They love her, and deep down I know she loves them, but she's so mad because they won’t listen to her. She tries to plead her case and they just walk away. I have spent hours thinking about this and I think that they just think she's a stereotypical teenager; dumb, irresponsible, idiotic, and pressured (meaning that if her friends pressure her into something stupid she'll do it).

Your loved basket case,

TheYoungTraveler