Best night ever

I know. I am the worst blogger in the history of the world. But now that I no longer have that pesky school to keep me busy, I fully intend to post a heckuva lot more.

There is so much that I have to tell you, but since I am on a schedule, I'll keep it short.

As some of you probably already know, yesterday was my graduation from high school. It was a bitter sweet moment. While I was glad to be done, I realize that I may never see some of those people ever again. At the graduation ceremony I was able to give the welcome adress. It was awesome. I got to sit onstage and goof off with my friends the whole time and then we led the whole class in changing our tassles and the hat toss.

After the ceremony, we all went outside and hugged and took pictures and hugged some more. It was great. We said theings like "stay in touch" and "come visit" and it was all very sincere and touching.

Then came the graduation party. At the party there was tons of food and prizes and even a mechanical bull (well actually it was a fish). The theme was Las Vegas so upstairs there was poker and roulette and craps and stuff. I found out that I am the worst gambler ever, and I guess it was good for me to find out when I wasn't using real money. At the end of the night they gave away some pretty cool prizes, and right now I am typing this post on my brand new Galaxy Tab that I won. It's like the Android version of the iPad. It costs like $350 and everyone was mega jelous. It is fantasic, I love it.

It was seriously the best night of my life.

Untill next time,
Stay classy.

and sunday comes afterwards

Hey interwebs, so it's been a few weeks since I did a post and that means I have a lot on my mind. In order to expedite this process I have decided to forgo words and just use pictures to show all of you the things that I have been thinking about the past two weeks. Here we go.

Yellowcard- When You're Through Thinking, Say Yes

Ghostbusters 1+2

Diego Maradona

Phineas and Ferb

Rebecca Black- Friday

My new TOMS

Aldous Huxley- Brave New World

Hairspray

The Onion

Jimmer Fredette

Well thats it. Until next time,

Stay Classy

almost forgot

So in all the craziness yesterday, I nearly forgot to post on my awesome blog. That was close.

This week I realized that I might be spread a little too thin. Between school, quidditch (which is going awesome by the way), TOMS, trying to start a YouTube channel, my online sociology class, Jersey Shore, and student council, I'm feeling a tad overwhelmed. Something has got to go. Probably homework. Nah just kidding. Sleep isn't that important is it? How about eating? Oh well. Ill figure something out.

Anyways, I'm really tired so instead of writing a blog post as usual, I'm going to post an article I wrote for the school paper that was published this week. I think it's one of my best, but I would really like some insight from my beautiful readers. Please. Anyways, here it is.

In this day and age, you would be hard pressed to find someone under the age of 30 that did not have a Facebook page, let alone a teenager that actually opposes the site. However my dear readers, I will be so bold. My name is Austin Duval, and I have been clean from Facebook for 36 days. It is my opinion that Facebook has very few benefits and in some cases, is socially destructive.

Facebook has become a means of instant communication between not only you and a friend, but to thousands of people you hardly know. To several people this seems like a positive; they can just say whatever they want, whenever they want, to whoever they want. You know who these people are. There once was a time where people actually had to think about what they say before they say it, but not anymore. All the thought and nuance that used to go into conversations has become obsolete over the internet, turning us into the sort of people that just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. The thing about the internet is that once you click "post", you can never take it back. It now will exist forever, for the world to see.

Which brings me to another aspect of Facebook that I find disturbing: the underlying judgmental theme of the whole site. Out of your hundreds of friends, at any given time, one of them is looking at your pictures and judging you. Whether it's your best friend, that one girl that was in your third grade class, or the creepy kid who stares at you and smells like waffles. Although you may not want to admit it, you have undoubtedly done some Facebook stalking of your own. Could you imagine if you did that in public? People get arrested for that kind of stuff. You aren't a creeper in real life, so why be one online?

Your "friends" aren't the only one that can access you personal information though. Facebook has been selling your personal information to companies for years, but of course, you know that because you thoroughly read the Terms of Service on the site right?. That's what I thought. According to the Terms (that you completely blew off reading), not only does Facebook own anything you put on the site (section 2.1), but if you don't keep your information up-to-date, they have the right to terminate your account (section 14). Essentially, they are using you as the biggest advertising research team on the planet.

Let's face it people, you don't have 837 friends, but that's OK. You probably have a few genuine friends, and that's what's best for you. You don't need hundreds of people knowing about your problems and privately judging you. Your Facebook self does not define you. In the words of Ross Gardner, "You are much more beautiful

than your profile picture. You are much more interesting than your profile."

Stay classy

shoes, brooms, and tubes

Hey guys, so as I told you last week, my new project has been trying to host an event at my school for TOMS shoes, all leading up to One Day Without Shoes on April 5th. So far I have made some pretty nice progress. After I posted my blog last week, I emailed TOMS asking for a copy of their documentary so I could host a screening, and then yesterday I got an email back saying the DVD was in the mail.

I am way stoked. I'm super excited to start organizing a screening and the April 5th festivities.

In other Austin news, I am in the beginning stage of forming my own quidditch club at my school. For those of you who do not know what quiddich is, what is your problem? Do you hate happiness? Because that is the only reason I could think of for a person to have not read Harry Potter. This little side project is the second little source of joy in my life as of now. I cant wait to mount my broom and take to the pitch. I spent a lot of today researching designs for our uniforms. It's gonna be fantastic.

Oh, and just FYI, I have created a Youtube account so in the future I might be posting some random videos of myself doing stuff (I kept that vague because I'm not really sure what I'm gonna be doing). So look out for that.

Until next week,

Stay Classy

saving the world..eventually

Here I am blog people, on time for the third week in a row. I should get a medal or something. I'm so awesome.

Anyways, as I was sitting around today, doing nothing in particular, I was struck with the pressing impulse to do something. I don't mean like to clean my room or eat a sandwich. I wanted to do something real, something that mattered.

So I perused the various charitable organizations that I pretended to be a part of. You know the social groups that look cool on a tee shirt or your facebook page but you never really get involved with. And then I came across TOMS.

For those of you who don't know TOMS is a shoe company, and for each pair of shoes you buy, the company will give a pair to a child who needs them. I really like the simplicity of the movement and I have decided to get involved. While at the present moment I am too poor to afford a pair of TOMS for myself, I do intend on contributing on other ways.

On April 5th, TOMS is hosting an event called One Day Without Shoes. The premise of the event is pretty self explanatory. You go without shoes for a day (or however long you can) to raise awareness for kids who have no choice but to go without.

I plan on hosting an event at my school, and doing some other stuff, but that is a blog for later. What I would really like is for all of you guys (all 5 of you) to do what you can to raise awareness and to contact me if you want to help me in my little quest.

I fully intend to give several updates about this issue in the future, but until then,

stay classy.

anatomy of a saturday

My recent return to the blogging world after my extended departure has been met with an alarming lack of fanfare and jubilation from my 5 followers and the other random people who read my blog. So little that my blog has actually had exactly zero views in the past three of four days.

How can this be? Its not like I have taken this blog for granted, I mean I have like eight posts over a timespan of nine months! (my sarcasm hand is raised)

Still, I had expected to get at least a few of you guys reading my words. So I have decided to change my approach. In order to acquire my teeming mass of soon-to-be fans I decided that I need to give all of you a glimpse into the fast-paced and exciting experience that is my life. Let us begin with a typical Saturday.

5:15 am- I wake up due to the fact that I had yet again forgotten to turn off my alarm from the previous school week. I clumsily stumble through my room, tripping on just about everything between my bed and the bathroom where my alarm is located. I return to bed.

8:27 am- I wake up to go pee. I return to bed.

10:38 am- I decide that I should probably get up and be a productive person. Instead I go into the living room and watch Yu-gi-oh (I think that's how you spell it) with my little brother.

11:32 am- My stomach growls, reminding me that I haven't eaten yet. I convince my dad to make me an omelet.

11:37 am- Eat Dad's omelet while listening to his obnoxiously loud talk radio. I notice that the omelet taste a little funny because Dad used those Eggbeaters things. I comment on the funny taste.

11:51 am- Begrudgingly help my dad wash and put away like a million dishes. I complain about the number of dishes.

12:19 pm- I retreat to my room, intent on being productive. Instead I go on Blogger and blog surf while listening to Pandora.

1:02 pm- I go back into the living room and watch rugby with my little brother.

1:31 pm- I remember that I need to do my online sociology class. Instead I watch stupid Youtube videos and cruse altpress.com.

2:15 pm- I get a call from my parents. They ask if I'm doing my sociology. I lie. I then hurriedly start my class.

2:36 pm- My parents get home from the grocery store. I finish the last few questions on my assignment and get a 95%. I walk downstairs with an exaggerated sense of accomplishment and help put away the groceries.

2:58 pm- Go upstairs and contemplate taking a shower and being productive. Instead I get back on Blogger and Pandora. Later I decided to update my own blog.

4:15 pm- Finish blog post. Decide to be productive. Instead...

Stay classy

im baaack!

Hey guys. It's been a long time, but I'm back for real now (I hope).

So you may be wondering what gem I have decided to bestow upon you after my five month hiatus, and believe you me, it is a gem.

I present to you... a list of girls that I would totally like to marry.

And do not worry ladies if you did not make the list, there is always time.

And so we begin...

Cady Groves

Her album The Life of a Pirate has pretty much been on repeat in my room all day.

Cassadee Pope

Definitely one of my favorite lead singers in a band ever.

Liz Lee

I am so excited for season two of My Life As Liz to start. This girl is hilarious.

Christina Grimmie

Beautiful- check

Talented- check

Plays video games- check

Down with Jesus- check

Taylor Momsen

I don't even watch Gossip Girl but this girl is probably one of the most attractive people ever.

Well I hope my little list was informative and entertaining and I hope me legions of female followers took a few notes.

Stay Classy