Pajiba

Wow, Julianne Moore as Dana Scully.....that's gonna take some time to process. I thought she was passable in the Hannibal film, but I wished that she was the one taken in "The Forgotten". Apparently Hollywood casting agencies have been infiltrated by the crew of Candid Camera...

"We've secretly replaced Gillian Anderson with Julianne Moore. Both actresses have red hair. Let's see if the audience notices!"

*sigh*

I actually attended the high school in the NYTimes story. And yes, it was full of wealthy kids complaining about how hard their lives are and oh-the-PRESSURE-sniffle. But then, I suspect all high school kids do that.

The Moore/Scully story is a joke: http://www.moviehole.net/news/20070401_moore_to_play_scully_in_xfiles.html

I've never seen an Eli Roth movie in theatres...does he always do those fake trailers before his movies?

That NYTimes article complements the post here about American Idol and the "You can do anything" attitude. Somehow, 'anything' got replaced with 'everything'. And while it warms my heart to hear of a teenage girl who wants to discuss Kierkegaard rather than American Idol, it isn't worth it if they all collapse in on themselves because of the stress.

I used to think like they did. I wanted to go to several schools before the one I am in now, and my heart broke with every single rejection I read. And when I did get into school, I pushed myself too hard to keep up with my classmates and completely crashed, flunking nearly every class and nearly getting kicked out in my freshman year.

It is patently ridiculous to expect these teenagers to be such high achievers, because not everyone can keep that kind of workload. And are there really that many career opportunities out there for them? Are they all going to end up at Fortune 500 companies or becoming political dynamos and what not? Of course not. There is a reason those college rejection letters say they have so many qualified applicants. There is only so much room, and not everyone will have their big shot.

It is almost like they feel they must pick up the slack, while the rest of their generation wallows in their mostly self-imposed ignorance. And the saddest part is that for all the extracurricular events and clubs and all that they force upon themselves, it is essentially useless. Nothing but transcript and resume padding in order to beat out the overachiever behind you.

Unfortunately, despite all the sacrifices, they will eventually discover not all of them will make it. Hopefully, the schools, parents, colleges, and headhunters will realize that just because someone took AP Latin or was in Habitat for Humanity or can sing seven octaves doesn't make them really any more or less right for a school or job. Sometimes, the best just isn't good enough.

Now that I got that out of the way, it is time for my horny male comment: Jessica Biel. Half-naked. Catsuit. Mmmmmmm.

That trailer by Eli Roth is just too stupid for words.

I'm currently a junior in high school, and I know people exactly like the girl in the NY Times article. Generally I divide my social time between the "smart kids" and the "art kids", for lack of better terminology; among the former I'm considered an absolute slacker. To put that into perspective, I have a 3.9 GPA, got a 5 on the AP US History exam, volunteer regularly, and sometimes get B's. You'd think I was burning my school record in comparison to some of my friends. There really is a lot of pressure to do everything; it's been difficult to stand my ground and focus on art instead of extraneous AP, math, and science classes that have nothing to do with my future career. But I'm rarely stressed out (and I have time to read Pajiba), so the trade-off and appointed slacker status is completely worth it.
(I think every sentence used some variance of the first person. The first rule of AP Composition? Don't talk about yourself excessively. I apologize.)

I just love how one reads through the NYT piece and toward the end a teacher says "I just want them to write in original sentences". Says it all, doesn't it?
I can't help feeling that the point of that article had to be to make us hate these girls and their parents (it worked). Surely, we were never intended to feel sorry for their priveleged asses.
I absolutely hate the college elitism that exists in this country. Forgive my digression into "we lived at the bottom of a lake" here, but in most other countries, you apply through a computer that places you in the program that fits your grades and interests (as expressed on the app). And you're damn glad to get in. No opportunity to boast or whine. Here people have fabulous choices. I'm not talking about Yale versus Mrs Miggin's Knitting School, I mean wonderful state colleges, etc., but of course it's all turned into a fucking "look much money we have and where our child is going" platform by the middle class. End-of-rant.
Oh, just needed to mention that I laughed so hard at the comment that chicks wearing Uggs and North Face jackets were "trend setters". I'm sorry, did we retro-move to 2004? And when were Uggs ever trendy as opposed to the foot opium of the suburban masses?