I have never been a huge fan of country music. When Taylor Swift came onto the scene, I just saw another country music singer. Not worth my time.

But somehow she seems to be creeping into more and more of my conversations, and I see her more and more on TV.

First I heard little blurbs about her:

Shockingly, after only about five weeks of school, I am already tired of being stressed and worrying about things.

I just want to take a break.

The experiences my sophomore year have given me a variety of emotions. I felt happy performing in "West Side Story," energetic yet tired from swimming, confused from the many translations in Latin class, and most of all: stressed.

… do as the Romans do!

This year I spent spring break in Rome. For any future travelers, I have put together a few guidelines on how to survive the city and some little-known facts that I gathered during my stay.

The end of the school year is coming, and with that comes yearbooks.

The ones with our pictures in them.

The embarrassing picture where you end up having squinting eyes, messy hair, and a little something (who knows what) stuck in your braces.

Once upon a time there was a school. The school's name was Uni High. At this school they decided to put on a play. "West Side Story."

Seems ordinary enough, right?

Wrong.

Valentine's Day is right around the corner, and some people are desperate to find their special someone. Pick-up lines may be your last resort, but even if they don't get you a partner, they'll at least give you a laugh.

For the Men

The top cheesiest lines for a guy to get a girl:

15. Am I dead, Angel? 'Cause this must be heaven!

There is a downside to being hearing impaired when it comes to watching TV.

For one thing, any time you watch a TV without captions, you are able to hear the sound but you cannot understand a word anyone is saying.

This isn't usually a problem, but on days like the inauguration of a new president, it kinda sucks.

Every season has one prized article of clothing. Remember a few summers back when gauchos were all the rage? Or even this summer when stores started busting out the colored skinny jeans?

You have all probably noticed the one thing you've got to have that will both put you on the best-dressed list and keep your shoes safe from the snow, slush, and all-around wetness.

Were you very excited when photos for "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" movie came out?

Were you totally psyched to go see the movie?

Were you extremely annoyed when they pushed back the premiere date to next summer?

I was.

As sort of a tipoff to the basketball season, which begins tonight at Kenney Gym for the varsity girls team against Atwood-Hammond, I thought I would create a mini-goal for all of Uni's basketballers:

By the end of the season, you should be able to dribble the ball as well as a certain 5-year-old girl.

With the swim season nearing an end, I found some time to sit back and explore my athletic past.

It didn’t take too long.

The only thing I've ever really focused on athletically was dance, and as I got older I could never find a dance school that taught things I was interested in.

But last year I finally found something I love.

Last year, then-juniors Kareem Sayegh, Natsuki Nakamura, and Karolina Kalbarczyk invited me to be a member of a new group, Uni High's first dance crew: Tempe Fugi.

Seeing as to how I should be working on some chemistry homework right now, a great idea for a blog entry just occurred to me. I am going to talk about procrastination.

For English class my group decided to go to another girl's house to record our skit. She lived way out in the country, which was a great setting for our forest scene.

After spending time getting our costumes on, we went outside with all of the things for our set and found a great little area in the middle of the trees. It was perfect in every way. Well, except for one thing.