Shelly’s Blog

I recently visited went to New York City for the first time. My mom and I flew into Newark Airport in New Jersey at 9:05 AM. Our ultimate stop was, of course, New York City, so my Dad arranged a car service from Newark to NYC. A car service is like a cab but is supposed to be better and less hassle.

What started off as a perfectly normal car ride with a driver from El Salvador soon turned into a not-so-normal ride with a not-so-civil driver. About halfway to New York City, the driver turns to my Mom and asks how she will be paying. She replies “With a credit card” and he turns back around and keeps driving. A little while later he says “Let me see your card now.” His English is broken and his accent is difficult to understand. My mom hands over her credit card and he says gruffly “No. Wrong card. Wrong number. I need same number.”

Somehow we figure out that he is saying that he needs to be payed with the same card that my dad originally signed us up with. My dad isn’t with us, and we don’t have that card so we tell him that. He gets a little angry and says we will need to pay in cash.

My mom calls my dad back in Austin and he says he will “sort it out.” Next thing we know, we are practically at the hotel but the guy is yelling about loosing his job and having to live out on the streets. Apparently my dad’s definition of “sorting it out” was complaining to the company and getting the driver in trouble. It actually got a bit scary after that. Evidently angry drivers don’t really have safety in mind. He started driving recklessly, and I was scared we would crash.

But I am still here to write this, so yep, you guessed it, we survived. He ended up letting my mom use her credit card to pay. But my mom insisted on not paying until we actually reached the hotel. He huffily got our luggage out of the back for us, and then sped off. I felt kind of sorry for the guy, but he should not have been yelling at my mom like that. It was all very strange and a weird introduction to New York, but I figured it could only get better.

Read the rest of “My Summer Trip to New York City” »

Last night my family and I went to a special screening of the movie American Teen, which will officially hit theaters August 25th.

It is a documentary, yes, but don’t let this category fool you. If you are like me, when you hear the word “documentary,” you usually picture some old man droning on and on about volcanoes or something, a dreary Beethoven soundtrack in the background. But this movie is more like a reality TV show. Let’s look at the trailer…




The movie covers the stories of five very different teenagers who (when the movie begins) have just started their first day of senior year in a small high school in Warsaw Indiana. Each of these students is facing a difficult year ahead of them, as they plan for college, struggle through touch relationships, turn on friends, and through all of this drama, try to find themselves.

Read the rest of “Movie Review: American Teen” »