We made it to the last blog!! Isn’t that crazy?

Originally, I was thinking about writing about my favorite high school memories, but I decided against it. (NOT because high school sucked so horribly, but because today, while I was looking at my poorly put-together lunch, I realized that this is a daily occurrence and it was a little funny.) ALSO, these lunches might be useful in college if you’re low on time (I’m not sure about budget though… these are my parents’ ingredients). 

I’ve made my own lunch since my Junior year of high school when I became aware that the food at school is just not very appetizing. Spending a year online eating homecooked meals for lunches made raised my standards (to which I dropped… apparently) for food, so I began making my own lunch. 

1. Tortilla with chicken breast and some sort of salad mix

This one is the most convenient because it literally consists of throwing a few Costco Rotisserie chicken breast pieces and shaking some bagged salad mix into a tortilla. It works really well on days when I have only 3ish minutes to put my lunch together in the mornings, but it’s really easy to get tired of the taste of tortilla. It also looks kind of horrendous because the big chicken breast pieces make it look lumpy when you roll it. It’s tasty though, and it normally fills me up for a long time.  

1. Salad mix with chicken breast or tofu (+++ points if you put the dressing in a bag and it gets all over your lunchbox and now all of your tupperware is greasy because you didn’t put the salad dressing bag into the tupperware box with your salad and you never make that mistake again)

This is basically just a salad with a protein. It’s kind of basic and really easy, but it’s also really tasty. I feel like salads can be really refreshing in the middle of the school day. Salads are also one of the easier lunches to throw together when I’m in a rush. The biggest inconvenience, however, is the dressing. I don’t have one of those cute tiny plastic dressing containers, so I just use a plastic bag that gets oily everything oily without fail. I also tend to put crunchy toppings like fried wonton wrappers and slivered almonds in a separate bag so it doesn’t get soggy from the chicken and the salad. 

1. Sandwich made of entirely engineered ingredients (except for the lettuce)

I mean it when I say entirely engineered ingredients,  I mean it. The discomfort that comes with knowing the ingredients of all of my food is part of why I don’t make this sandwich as often as I would otherwise (it’s really convenient). But then I remember why I’m going to therapy. Anyway, the ingredients I use are Sara Lee Honey Wheat bread (because my mom likes it the best with her peanut butter and apple breakfast toasts), American cheese (the kind that I used to bite “crowns” out of when I was little), chicken/turkey deli meat, and romaine lettuce (because I buy it for Toasty… and she can’t eat all of that by herself). This sandwich always smacks (albeit maybe a little too salty), and I like to cut it into 4 pieces instead of 2 so it feels like I’m eating little tea sandwiches. 

1. Sweet potato and an egg

Despite taking the longest, this has been my least favorite lunch. I always feel a little unhinged taking a whole lukewarm, microwave-baked sweet potato out of my fourth-grade pink zebra print thermos. Also, do not worry, I am not eating a plain hard-boiled egg with my sweet potato. Normally I eat a soy-sauce marinated egg that my grandma brings over on occasion. I kinda hate this lunch just because for some reason eating it at school makes me feel a little crazy. I normally only pack something like this when I need to get rid of some sweet potatoes. 

1. Last night’s leftovers

Not gonna lie, leftovers for lunch are pretty mid. For me, it feels weird to eat dinner food for lunch. My thermos also isn’t the best at insulating so it always ends up a little lukewarm. The condensation also builds up so it ends up lukewarm and soggy/dry at the same time. It’s not my favorite, but if I don’t have any “lunch” ingredients, it’s a way to avoid buying lunch at school. 

Making and planning my own lunches has become a staple in my routine, and I might miss using the fresh ingredients that I have access to when I’m confined to the dining halls for my meals. 

Last blog post guys!! We made it!

I feel like for a long time, the media has portrayed teenage girls in such a negative light. Tons of movies and shows have portrayed teenage girls as vain and shallow: obsessed with make-up and shopping and boys.

For a while, I fell into this “trend” of hating on teenage girls. I rejected the color pink. I rejected femininity. I rejected dresses and pretty shoes. I rejected boys to the point where I’m surprised my parents didn’t think I was lesbian. 

I stuck to baggy clothes. I didn’t let my mom buy me new shoes until they were visibly unwearable. I once proudly announced to my family and my family friends that “I was not into boys.”

I rejected all of these little things that piqued my curiosity. All out of fear of being seen as the shallow caricature of a teenage girl displayed across my TV and computer screens. I was afraid of being laughed at like the tracks in the background of some 2000’s sitcom. Embracing feminity made me feel a shame that could have only been planted in me by the outside influences of media.

As those around me and I have grown, I’ve begun to embrace what it means to be a teenage girl. To be a teenage girl is to have a somewhat understanding of the bitterness that society injects into us, but to still feel the same capacity of love and excitement for the future as a child. 

I don’t want to continue taking my happiness, my interests, and my body for granted because of what society believes a teenage girl is or should be. 

So, here are some things I love about being a teenage girl:

• writing in all caps to maintain an unspoken aesthetic 
• whispering secrets into my friends’ hair
• witnessing arguments and conflicts among friends and the unique thrill that comes with working to fix them
• feeling pretty in simple clothes that remind me of the “it” girls i see on pinterest
• being at the golden age where i can go out wherever i want but still have a safe and familiar home to return to 
• picking up new hobbies and putting them down as the thrill of novelty subsides and the effort begins to feel like a little too much
• baking with ingredients purchased with my parents’ money
• window shopping online instead of writing this blog post
• the thrill that comes when a new person confides their secrets in you
• keeping a collection of stuffed animals that date back to when I was an infant (my dad called them my citizens [my childhood favorite plushie being the mayor, of course])
• stalking people on Spotify and creating a story about them (which obviously has to be true)
  • hey, what’s that heartbreak/falling in love/anger playlist about? 
• playing card games on a picnic basket because we don’t have school on a weekday, and it’s still sunny out
• playing these card games until it’s dark and the mosquitos are starting to bite
• retreating from the mosquitos and the chill of the night to a warm home that isn’t yours (it’s my friend’s, her mom is really nice) but still feels like it 
• planting my whole face into my pet and just sitting there, for maybe thirty minutes, because i don’t want to do my bc calculus homework 
• baking a cake for the hell of it, because i have too much time when i’m not doing the homework that i should be doing
• being able to run down the steep hill in downtown naperville without worrying about old ankles giving out
• feeling pretty in a new dress
• finding a new comfort food and eating solely that for at least one of my meals for like a month (right now it’s chicken soup and orzo)
• waking up to the smell of cooking on Christmas, or Easter, or before a family party 
• watching a movie in my living room with my parents and my brother
  • Listening to my dad enthuse about the film/actors/directors
    • “Look how young she was, Lisa (my mom)!” 
• getting driven by my friends even though i already have my license 
• going on taro boba runs at 9 pm (just because we can)
• binge watching a show until late in the night, even though i still have school the next day

These are just a few things about living at this age, as a teenage girl, that I’ve taken for granted. These little things make life so much more vivid and bring a vibrance to all of the little moments that surround them. Not every moment has been good, and not every moment will ever be good, but I’ve started to begin recognizing the little things that make life worth living (and that makes it feel worth living even more).