methodwriter85

Not so much in terms of the sex, but in terms of partying. I think Andy from Cross-Currents is a good example- he was one of those guys who matured physically at fourteen, and his early/mid-teens allowed him a lot of experimentation with drugs and sex. He had a crazy freshmen year, but by sophomore year of college he was pretty much over that phase in his life and was ready to settle down into a serious relationship at 20. I think Will's going to be similiar.

I cannot believe I got a negative point for my post. Exactly what was offensive about what I was saying? I thought I gave a balanced viewpoint- admitting that I'm not comfortable with this scenes, but also admitting that life experience has shown me that the kids who get into the crazy stuff early tend to be more settled and self-assured than the kids who waited until college to cut loose, and in the end it should work out fine for Will. At the same time, I was wondering what will happen to Late Bloomer JJ, who WON'T have this worked out of his system early because of the constraints that are put on him for maintaining a family-friendly image at all times. Repression can lead to some very unhealthy acting out, which I think is in JJ's future, especially when he's set loose among the Torino Olympic Village away from the watchful eyes of the U.S. As for Mark's quandry, I'm guessing Wade Danfield will bring it up. He's well-versed on P.R. As for the future. I can't really see Will as being someone who even wants to have a profile career, so it should be okay.

It's icky, but I have to remind myself in the long run it'll be good for Will to get all of this out of his system when he's a young teenager rather than saving this stuff for his 20's, when there are more consequences. I can tell you from experience that the people who wait until they're college-aged to go wild and crazy tend to do it in a much more idiotic way. JJ, when he cuts loose in 2006 at the age of 20, is probably going to be a lot more screwed over in the end than Will, who by college prolly isn't even going to be that interested in raging.

R.I.P. This is about as shocking when Brittany Murphy died.

Chapter 29 -When Will enters the gay club. I'd never heard of this one, but it sounded pretty appropriate for a Euro club scene. And it hit number 1 in Italy in 2000, so I imagine it must have been on a lot. -When Will dances himself to a happy ending. Center Stage for the win! -When Will and Berto help out their roofied friend. "Right Here, Right Now" by Fatboy Slim

This is one of those chapters I really wish was set in 2003 when Will is nearly 17. I really have to bare-knuckle my way through reading this stuff.

*sigh* Alright. We always have Fabien Forte, anyway. I guess I can't hit it out of the ballpark every time. I still have a pretty good batting average- I got Matt, Wade, Will, Kevin(Sergio), John Hobart, and JJ spot-on. JJ took me the longest- two years. God, you were picky about how you wanted him to look. Let's thank Mattie and Adam for having a crush on the guy from the "You Belong With Me" video for giving us a JJ. Kristin Hendrickson? I like how Ashley Benson(there's that Ashley name again) manages to pull off both the nasty, snotty bitch in Fab Five: The Texas Cheerleading Scandal and the genuinely sweet popular girl in Pretty Little Liars. I get the feeling Kristin has that kind of duality. And I like her expression in this picture: The pretty blonde girl next door with an edge. I could easily see this girl threatening to lie about being molested by her dad to get her way. LOL.

My favorite gay movie was A Home At the End of the World. I just thought the soundtrack was brilliant - "Only You" and "It's Going to Take A Miracle"? Awesome. In terms of fun, I really liked Trick and Girls Will Be Girls. Dorian Blues and The Curiousity Of Chance also get honorable mentions.

I kinda like the idea of Dr. Cullen from Twilght as middle-aged Brad: Look! He even has the natural reddish highlights that Brad's supposed to have. And he's got that air of youthful boyishness that Brad needs to have .

Honestly, I thought Cooper got what he deserved in this chapter. At some point in your life, you have to stop jumping into things head first without thinking about the consequences. I have no doubt that Chase and Cooper will end up together, but it needs to be hard, because otherwise it's just one of those Happily Ever After stories that make me wanna barf.

I loved the teasing at the end, I just thought, "This is how they're going to act with each other when Kristin and Gathan have been married for twenty years."

The unfortunate thing is that the guys who are wearing the tight pants now are usually the guys who *shouldn't* because it's usually the dudes with chicken legs and flat behinds. The guys with great legs and badonkadonks are still wearing the looser fit jeans, with the exception of the extremely preppy guys who are wearing the kinds of shorts paired with boat shoes that Brad would have worn in 1980. Skinny jeans are not a good look on guys. Especially paired with those bright neon 80's throwbacks and deep v-neck shirts. Ugh. It's funny watching 80's movies and t.v. shows and seeing how extremely tight jeans and pants were at the time, and usually on the studly guys. So different from the carpenter pants and wifebeater look that I grew up with: God, "Zach" is hot. When you look that good, you can get away with being a total psycho. LOL.

Yeah. It's starting to swing back the other way, but in 2000 it's de riguer to wear baggy pants. Plus again, most of the surfers I've met like baggier shorts and the like.

Right. Italian men. Not American guys. Seriously, just sit around an American college campus and note what the guys are wearing. Most of them are going to be in looser-fitting pants. The silhouette for this decade is baggier pants with tighter tops. It's the reverse of the 1980's, when it was about wearing looser tops with really tight pants. There's currently this incredibly conflicting trend of guys wearing skinny jeans that are still somehow baggy and sagged down. And bright, neon sneakers with deep v-neck shirts. But skinny jeans and girlcut jeans don't come into style until about 2005-2007, and the guys wearing them are usually skinny emo and hipster kids that don't have much off a rear end to show off anyway. LOL. Kristin's parents are mad crazy.

Tiffany has a big gay following, apparently. She's a regular on the Pride circuit. I'd never heard of her until I saw "I Think We're Alone Now" on Pop Up Video back in the late '90s, and her Behind the Music Special. I liked Tiffany's spunk and her admitting to being a pothead. I do remember Debbie Gibson, however. Her career was similarily short-lived, but much bigger. She had a perfume called Electric Youth that my sisters had. So, basically, pretty young jailbait dancing while singing pop tunes about boyfriends never goes out of style. Even when people were all grunge, we had .

I think he meant track. See, it's funny- all the soccer kids I knew from high school were the happy stoner types that meshed well with track/cross-country types. The only douchebags were the baseball guys and the lacrosse guys. Football players tended to be the friendliest. Anyway, it's more than just Will not being aggressive- it's that he doesn't seem to have a need for the thrill of competing. He'll be more the type to join a club or pick-up games, but not someone who wants to win the big trophy . Will had that reaction because he doesn't' wear tight pants. Look at high school yearbooks from that era. Hell, look at the videos of people from Harvard-Westlake and Malibu High. Every guy is wearing baggy jeans or cargo shorts with oversized shirts. At the very least, it's loose-fitting, even the preppy guys. American guys during this time gravitated towards wearing looser pants, likely because of the influence of hip-hop.. Wearing baggy pants sagged down your hips to show off your boxer's brand was considered very sexy at the time, especially if you wore a wife beater on top. It's de rigeur until about 2006-2007, when tighter fitting jeans start coming back in. It's a complete 180 from when JP and Stefan were young and very tight pants were "in". I've heard more than one older gay guy bitch about the baggy pants trend because it makes it harder to ogle the young guys wearing them. LOL. I remember one friend in high school getting teased for wearing pants that *fit*- not that they were tight, but because they actually fit him. I've never met a surfer who was into wearing tight stuff either, with the exception of the wetsuit. Board shorts with baggy long-sleeved "(Name of Beach Town) Lifeguard" shirts ruled the day. Ooh, also hemp bracelets and pucca shell necklaces. I think Brad will laugh his ass off when he sees the pucca shell necklaces that he wore in junior high making their big comeback.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omq-Qb_zmqc&feature=player_embedded Josh Server got really attractive, but damn he looked too old for the show by season 6. I think Lori Beth Denberg and Katrina Johnson were my favorite cast members. Amanda Bynes was better on her own show.

Chapter 28 -When Will and Berto continue to enjoy each other. -When Gathan gets arrested for statutory rape. In a state where 17-year olds can consent to sex. As a random note, I posted a thread to fan forum message board wishing Mila Kunis a happy 17th birthday. This guy posted the lyrics to this song, I think. (Back then all we had were midi files.) -When Gathan teases Kristin after her parents and their lawyer leaves.

Right. There was a similiar rule in Delaware, although the adult requirement was over by the time you got to the full license at near 17. I remember having a friend who couldn't drive past 10 p.m. He would give me rides. I was similiar at sucking at driving. Can you try and find an old CA driver's manual to figure out what the rules were in the early '00s? It just seems like there's been a lot of changes with regards to teenage drivers.

Like most pre-2000's shows, it's a bitch to get them on DVD, and a lot of time the DVD's get botched because of music issues. (I really want to get the Daria DVD's, but I'm hestiant because they replaced all of the music, including the two pivotal music moments from the series - "What Do You Want From Me?" by Monaco and "Everybody Hurts" by REM.) So syndication is best way to view the shows. I have nieces, so I have watch a lot of current children's tv. I think the one thing that stands out is that all of the kids on current kid shows seem to think acting equals making your eyes really big and shouting your lines. No one looks or acts natural anymore, like you would see on Are You Afraid of the Dark or Pete and Pete. Plus, from a feminist perspective, there is a serious dearth of female leads who get to be interesting, quirky, and different-looking. It just seems like the girl role models currently on Nick and Disney are all vapid, shallow, and obsessed with looks, getting a boyfriend, being famous, and popularity. (Do not even get me started on Zoey 101 or Shake It Up.) You don't get characters like Clarissa Darling or Alex Mack anymore- lead girls who don't dress in perfectly trendy outfits with perfectly coiffed hair, girls who don't simper at the sight of a cute boy, and who have actual interests that make them stand out. I mean, Clarissa would make video games to teach her mom a lesson about the need to let your daughter express her individuality in clothing. How cool was that? My favorite Are You Afraid of the Dark episode was the one with guy who hangs out with a girl to research this ghost story about a young guy, only to realize at the end that she's his ghost girlfriend and they leave to go to their 1950's ghost prom in the sky. I was a sucker for the use of "In the Still of the Night".

There was an interesting bit of character development that hasn't been touched on- Will saying that he thought about competitive surfing, but decided against it because it would take the fun out of being a sufer. So it looks like Will is not going to join a competitive sport in high school, which goes so far with how he's been characterized as generally laidback and not a particularly agressive person. Most of the jocks I knew in high school had agressive tendencies that they were channeling into their sports, and Will doesn't seem to have that trait. Maybe Will's extracurricular can be Environmental Club? That could be fun for him. I could see him being articulate enough to do Newspaper, but I'm thinking Environmental isses could be interesting. I can't see Will in Mock Trial. Definitely not Yearbook or Drama. He's already got his community service covered, but now he needs an extracurricular.

When I was going through Driver's Ed in 2002, there was already an increasing of age going on- I think permit age had been moved up to 15 and a half years old, and you couldn't have a full license until you were 16 and a half/closer to seventeen. That meant you had to drive under curfew for an entire year. (I wound up bombing Driver's Ed. If you did that, you had to wait until you were 18 and go through the DMV.) So Blue, that means you do get your license on your 16th birthday, right? At least for circa 2000 California. Were these graduated licenses with restrictions on when and were you could drive? Or just full licenses right at 16? I just realized that you're doing a 9/11 story anyway, so we'll see the begnnings of Will and JJ's tenth grade year, if only mentioned in passing by whoever the protagonist is. I guess references can be dropped about the boys learning how to drive. Since JJ is going to get his license first it'd be funny if Jeanine nagged him about giving Will rides. Not so much because Will would need them since there's the chauffer, but to keep them bonded and talking to one another. Will's going to get a SUV, like the one Gathan got, and I see JJ with a compact, hip, European car. Defnitely not a BMW- way too boring and staid for JJ. He'd want something chic with flashy colors, like a 2002 Mini-Cooper. Or maybe this- I could also see JJ going classic, getting something like an Austin Healey. I think his Vanity Plates would read "1JJ1". lol (Extra points if you get the reference.)

Damn, you look like a better-looking, blue-eyed version of Brody Jenner. I like that you're not plucked and shaved to death. If you're getting stares on the beach it's not because people think you're suicidal; it's cause they like looking at you!

I'm happy to announce that Teen Nick is going to start running classic Nickelodeon shows from the 1990's! Teen Nick To Run Shows From Network's Golden Age 90's kid television is soooo much better than what they have for kids today. We really did have the best t.v. shows for our childhood- everything from Clarissa Explains It All, Pete and Pete, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Legends of the Hidden Temple, and of course, Doug and All That. Contemporary Nick just doesn't hold a candle to 90's Nickelodeon. It's pretty awesome that Facebook fans of these old shows were able to spearhead the revival. I cannot wait to start laughing at Lori Beth Denberg again, or watching Sam climb up Clarissa's ladder again, or see Da Brat doing a performance on All That. This is going to be off the hook!

So I checked out the Harvard-Westlake curriculum guide. I gotta say, I'm impressed with the school's committment to community service and character development. No wonder the kids seem generally down to Earth. It's so different from the closeminded, hedonistic Catholic prep school kids I was seeing when I went to high school. These are the requirements for 9th grade: Requirements Core • English—English I (M2200-0) • Foreign Language— Chinese, French, Latin, or Spanish. In most cases, students continue to study the language chosen in seventh grade but have the option to begin a second language if they intend to fulfill the Foreign Language requirement by studying two languages through level two • History and Social Studies—The World and Europe I (M6200-0) • Mathematics—Placement is determined by the department • Science—Biology (M5200-0) or Biology Honors (M5210-0) Arts • Arts—One semester of either performing or visual arts taken in either eighth or ninth grade Physical Education • Physical Education—Six trimesters of Physical Education credit earned while in grades 9–12. Students in ninth grade can earn credit by taking Physical Education 9 (M8009-3/4/5) and/or a Dance class and/or by participating on an interscholastic sports team (see the Athletics section for a complete description of the program options) Service • Campus Service (SQUID) —Three periods during the school day • Community Service—Twelve outreach hours • School Service—One period per cycle for one semester Electives Students are encouraged to take three or four semesters of elective courses. • Performing Arts—Performing Arts electives are available in choral music, instrumental music, dance, and theater arts • Visual Arts—Visual Arts electives are available in two-dimensional art (mixed media), three-dimensional art (ceramics and glass), and media arts (photography, video art, and web design) • Other—The Communications, English, and Mathematics departments also offer ninth-grade elective courses Hmm, for JJ, I'm thinking English 1, French 1, The World and Europe 1, Alebra I, Biology, Drama Workshop, and Contemporary Dance Workshop I to fufill his physical education requirement. Will, I'm thinking English 1 as well, Latin 1, The World and Europe 1, Geometry Honors(I think Will's gotta be good at math), Biology Honors, Mixed Media II, and Physical Education 9. Damn. These kids will not have any free time during the school week, will they? This is on top of the extracurriculars activities they have, and the community service they're supposed to do. I was reading about the 9th grade retreat trip they're supposed to take in October to the Colorado, and I was just thinking, "Wow, I could really see JJ and his Louis Vuitton purses enjoying a camping trip." LOL. JJ will also enjoy having to sweep and mop floors under the Middle School SQUID programs, which requires 9th graders to clean up the lunch room for three periods in the school year. Basically like a mandatory detention. God, I can see JJ just loving that one. LOL.