Teen Ink

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• Hot Topics > Pride & Prejudice
  Ending an Ugly Habit

  

  By AliciaH, Bronx, NY

  I used to read Seventeen all the time, but I'm no longer a fan. It indulges in celebrity-worship, it engages in colossal overuse of italics and exclamation points, and it seems designed to make readers feel as bad as possible about their bodies. In my eyes, the biggest offender is the magazine's...
• Poetry > All Poetry
  September 11, 2001

  

  By AliciaH, Bronx, NY

  I was nine Nine and a half and still a little kid and my fourth-grade teacher started crying on the second week of school in front of the class and all she would say was there was a problem in Manhattan but her daughter was okay. School ended early and we children clustered in the schoolyard...
• Nonfiction > Celebrity interviews
  One Experience

  

  By AliciaH, Bronx, NY

  My first reaction to the voicemail was annoyance. I’d been sick for a week, and I had fallen behind on schoolwork, ­debate team assignments, and college application essays. Then, as soon as I turned on my cell phone, there was a message waiting – yet another thing to deal with. When I discov...
• Hot Topics > Pride & Prejudice
  Don't Say It's So Gay

  

  By AliciaH, Bronx, NY

  “That’s so gay.” If you use this as an insult, then you are saying something that has the potential to deeply hurt people, whether that is your intention or not. You are implicitly describing an entire group of human beings (i.e. gay people) as less valuable than the rest. You are equating ...
• Hot Topics > Community Service
  To Become a Garbage Collector

  

  By AliciaH, Bronx, NY

  “Oh no, oh no!” Across the classroom, a student panicked over her missing AP U.S. history homework. Trying to calm her down, the teacher joked, “Well, that's it – now you won't get into college and you'll end up a garbage collector.” I laughed with the rest of the class. Being a g...
• Poetry > All Poetry
  We Wonder

  

  By AliciaH, Bronx, NY

  I wonder if you've ever taken the time to think that maybe humanity is alone or if you've always accepted what the patriarchy told you. I wonder if it's ever occurred to you that you let others control what you do and that maybe reality is right in front of your face. I wonder if you've e...
• Hot Topics > Pride & Prejudice
  Reflections on "Mulan"

  

  By AliciaH, Bronx, NY

  As a little girl, I was bombarded with the message that I could do anything a boy could do. My parents said so, teachers said so, and the media said so – both explicitly, through advice columns on how to get boys to play with me in magazines like American Girl, and implicitly through female role m...