So for the last five days, I’ve been subbing as an aide for a high school freshman. On a normal day, I am a one-on-one aide to a boy in the first grade class, so this has been a change for me. To say the least of it.

At first I was just overpowered by the sensory experience. The stringent scent of Axe, for starters. The pheromones so thick you can bathe in them; teenage hormones are a very powerful thing.

After a day or so of being around the youngest of the high school career group, I was accustomed to the intentional swearing-because-I’m-cool, the casual blow-offs of teacher instructions and assignments, the students who are trying entirely too hard to be apathetic. I’m not judging, though, because I have to remember that I was a teenager once, too. I did stupid stuff like skip school, brag about drinking over the weekend, have sex too young, pretend not to give a shit about my grades. I guess it’s a right of passage.

One thing, however, that really pissed me off is listening to the way that some boys at Tok School (and all over the country, probably) address the opposite sex in their peer group. And more disturbing than that? The way the high school girls respond to it.

Nobody has the right to call you a whore as a “joke”. Nobody gets to make sexual inferences about your {insert body part here}. No boy is ever excused from treating you like a piece of dog meat just because he has absolutely zero control over what his penis does to his brain. It isn’t funny to be referred to as a whore, or a bitch, or a hooker, or anything other than your first name by a boy who is supposed to be your equal.

Listen up, girls. Fear is not your friend. It isn’t hot to shrug, turn red, and giggle when some douchey, pimply, skinny little prick tells you that you’re useless unless you’re fucking somebody. Do not let some boy who spends more time jacking off to soft porn than he does bathing or keeping his pants on his skinny little ass make you feel dumb, or small, or dirty, or useless. Chances are you’re smarter and better than whoever is trying to make you feel ugly and dumb.

And if you are a boy who treats girls this way — who thinks that making girls feel small is good for shits and giggles and props from your homies, or if you’re a boy who laughs along with some ish like this — you should know that putting down the opposite sex most certainly will not make your balls drop any faster. It’s legit. You can google it.

Once again, this is a case of logical deduction being canceled out by shallow desires.

Here’s the thing about human chorionic gonadotropin: It is a hormone produced early in pregnancy. The only possible way for a human being to produce HCG naturally is by having a placenta. Keeping in mind that a placenta is a temporary organ produced solely for the purpose of carrying oxygen and filtering carbon dioxide for the fetus; thus, the only time the human body requests the HCG hormone be produced en masse is when it is ovulating or making a placenta.

Synthetic hormones have altered life quality for like a bajillion people. Women suffering through menopause, people who suffer from joint and sinus and gastro-intestinal issues. Couples trying to get pregnant. Make no mistake, man-made hormones have worked miracles.

Remember when the Fen-Phen diet was all the rage? Remember how not long after millions of people began this diet, some of them began to suffer heart attacks? And how the FDA swiftly banned Fen-Phen from the market?

I give you the HCG diet. People go to doctors — doctors — and get the human pregnancy hormone injected into their bloodstreams. Consequently, they have no appetite and are perfectly content consuming the 500 calories a day mandated by the “health plan” accompanying this “diet”. 500 calories a day is not even enough food to fuel your brain for an entire 10 hours of consciousness. 500 calories a day is not even enough calories to fit in all of your daily suggested intake of fruits, veggies, legumes, and good fat.

I could write an entire research paper outlining the risks associated with taking in synthetic hormones for purely cosmetic purposes. However, I believe that the obvious facts — 1) this is a diet that requires you to FUCK WITH YOUR HORMONE LEVELS. 2) 500 calories a day?! That is less than my three year old eats. — speak for themselves.

HCG has been banned from Major League Baseball and it its use in application to healthy weight loss is not approved by the FDA. Just because a doctor or clinic endorses it does not make it good for you; it just makes it profitable to the entities offering it. It’s really sad that health care providers place more importance on their own financial gains than they do the health of their patients, but in the case of HCG diet, that is exactly what is happening.

If you want to get skinny, shoot yourself up with HCG and eat 1/8 of a chicken breast for dinner every night and go on about your life. If you want to get healthy, change your eating habits for good. Adopt a permanent work out regimen. Don’t eat fast food.

Chances are, if you choose the first option, in a year you will still be fat and out of shape and eating shit food because you hold the philosophy that seeing a smaller figure in the mirror equals being healthier. Phen-fen says it ain’t so.

If you choose the latter, it will take time and dedication to see results, but the benefits are permanent. As long as you do the work.

Think of fitness and health like you think of self-made millionaires. The results are not instant. The work is hard, the hours long, the dedication huge. But the payoffs? Well they don’t include adverse reactions due to the introduction of synthetic hormones.

Why is it that the one very simple, very free Get Skinny plan that guarantees results is the one plan that so few people ever in their lives pursue? It is called proper diet and exercise. It’s like the chicken soup theory: Chicken soup cures colds and proper diet and regular exercise produces results that last. WHY do we want to alter our entire hormonal balance in order to be thin?

Just, why? Where is the logic in that? Oh, that’s right. THERE IS NONE! I now refer you to the first sentence in this entry.

If a person is willing to suffer the pain of consuming 500 calories in a day, then they should surely be willing to suffer the pain of intensive work-outs and giving up Carl’s Jr…and still get to eat a whole chicken breast at dinner.

Lifetime movies continue to amuse me. I don’t know how an idea so generic has not one, but three different viewing networks from which to draw the same sad conclusion: People actually watch this shit?

How. Many. Movies can possibly exist that cover the subjects of murderously jealous lovers, murderously jealous best friends, murderously jealous random strangers that want to steal your babies, teenage pregnancy, student/teacher relationships, and infidelity? And for the love of all things original, WHY is it that all of said movies must contain at least half of the following:

*Insanely rich people who live in insanely huge houses but judging from the amount of time they spend cyber-stalking or shopping or cooking perfect meals or screwing the babysitter or all of the above, seem to be unemployed.
*People die because their (food, water, really expensive cognac) has been poisoned.
*Chicks who are always either running away from bad guys or sneaking into houses wearing six inch high heels that are completely impractical in application to running for one’s life or needing to be quiet.
*Wardrobes brought to you courtesy of an ex-anchorwoman who shops at Kohl’s like it’s a religion.
*Male actors previously employed by XXX Entertainment Group.
*Really, really, really, really bad karaoke remixed soundtrack music.
*Ex-uber-famous actors who are either in need of money or fresh out of rehab. Either that or new-ish actors fresh out of ACME acting school.

If you’re addicted to Lifetime movies, you should save yourself some embarrassment and order Telemundo. At least this channel has some real-life lessons to offer. Like how to speak Spanish in a very accusatory tone. Or how to apply lip liner in force.

My favorite movie is Little Children, because it is the quintessential Lifetime movie burn.