Saturday was not such a relaxing day as I had expected. My mom wanted me to come with her to attend a seminar, which would have been okay, except that it was in another city, so it took about fifteen to twenty minutes to get to the seminar location.

Before he started talking, the man speaking in the seminar asked who would be fine with hearing it in Mandarin, and many of the people in the room raised their hands. Then he asked who can only hear it in English, and I was the only person to raise my hand. (Sadly, my grasp of Mandarin is still rather lacking, what with us mainly speaking the Shanghai dialect at home. English, being my main language, is much easier for me to comprehend) I hope that I didn't inconvenience the others there by totally changing the tide. If I hadn't raised my hand then, the seminar would've been conducted in Mandarin, which might be easier for the other people to understand.

After the seminar, since we were in the area, we had ramen for lunch, and then we went to a library. I haven't been to this library for a long time. I used to go when I was younger, when I went with my mom to her workplace. I feel that the town is a peaceful place. It has these buildings (which I believe are probably a school) with murals on them, and I would like to live in one of the townhouses facing the library. The only setback is the odd smell. My parents told me that there is a landfill nearby and that you can smell the trash from the library. Although I don't like such smells, I suppose I could get used to it, if I were to move to that town.

While we were driving, I noticed that there was a large cloud of grey smoke in the sky. Something had probably exploded or a fire had been started. It seems that I see these sorts of things a lot. There was one time years back when I saw orangish smoke coming from the mountains near my home. And when I was in Australia last summer, I saw smoke coming from someplace as well.

Fire is a fearsome thing. I have been burned several times in the past, although it was not from a fire exactly...The first time was when I was in fifth grade, I believe. We were having one of those themed days - probably Colonial Day that time. We were doing some woodburning. But I was holding the little pen-like device the wrong way, so I burned myself immediately. Not a pleasant experience, but I can't remember whether it hurt a lot anymore.

Then, when I took cooking back in seventh grade, I was burned when I accidentally touched a cookie sheet that was still hot. I always seem to get injured doing something ridiculous. Like how I pulled my leg muscles while rolling around in bed. And how I banged my knee when escaping from the door (the doorbell had just been rung, and I usually flee when someone is there, unless I've been expecting a person). I wonder if someday I'll really get in serious trouble through my careless actions.

Labels: burn, careless, chinese, cloud, danger, door, english, foul smell, injury, library, living, mandarin, memories, seminar, smoke, town, trash

Yesterday, I tried to fight a spider to the death. I was eating lunch when one of the people there panicked because a spider was scrambling about. I attempted to vanquish the spider by slapping at it with my corndog wrapper. However, the corndog wrapper isn't perfectly straight, so by luck the spider was always not getting squashed - I hit him at few times and he still got up and started moving again. Eventually I gave up and let him crawl into the wall. It looks like spiders are very strong, even if it is annoying when they make spiderwebs in my garage.

Moths are not invincible, though. A classmate of mine once told me that there had been a moth at her house. It was attracted to light, as insects are wont to be, and so the moth flew inside a lamp. Then, apparently, there was a sizzle and some smoke coming from the lamp...The bulb must've been hot enough to burn the moth to a crisp. o_O;; What a gruesome way to die.

I just saw a third Scissorhands person. When I was walking home one time, I saw a man holding a huge pair of scissors (shears?) and he was trimming his bush. That makes three Scissorhands people now. The craze really is spreading. D: But that's very dangerous. You're not supposed to run with scissors, and you should hold the scissors away from people. But maybe people are fond enough of having scissorhands that those cautions shall be forgotten.

My history teacher has been exasperated with our class recently. The students have been asking questions since we are having a quiz on Monday. Some students asked if they had to memorize the whole Preamble or Article 1 and things like that. The teacher said, "What kind of man do you think I am? You guys seem to think I'm really mean or something." Well, it is true that I find him intimidating. But he doesn't need to know that. XD

Also, he will give us extra credit if we do something extraordinary. He said that people have been saying, "If I write an essay, can I have extra credit?" And he is not going to give extra credit for that because it's not special enough, doesn't show enough effort. He showed us an example of something he would give extra credit for. It was a video made by a student that showed James Madison talking with a mountain background. The funny part was that James Madison's mouth was basically moved up and down, which looked very awkward. The student talked in the background (it didn't always match up with the movement of the mouth, but oh well), apparently he used a voice modifier so he wouldn't sound like himself. The information was correct, though. Overall it was an interesting piece of extra credit work.

I've been wondering if maybe I should try to get some extra credit. But I really don't know what kind of thing I should do. It's hard to come up with something creative.

Oh yeah, and recently I paid a visit to a website, mikumix.com. It's a fan site of Vocaloids, more specifically Hatsune Miku. (Vocaloid, by the way, is a voice synthesizer made by Yamaha. If you want to see a comparison, look for Tori no Uta on Youtube. Listen to the one by Lia - it's the anime opening for Air Tv - and then listen to a version by Hatsune Miku, Luka Megurine, Rin and Len, or whoever else you can find. Those are all different Vocaloids) I thought the art gallery was particularly nice. The wallpapers are high resolution, so it's helpful for a person like me who has a big screen resolution, even if there is no 1440x900 wallpaper offered.

Yesterday was the last day of the trimester. Our school years at my school are divided into three trimesters, instead of two semesters (like what's in the local high schools, I believe). It's amazing that the time has passed so quickly. It means I only have two thirds of the school year left before I'm out for the summer, and then after that I'll go to high school. I don't know if I want to be older quickly or if I want time to stand still...

Labels: burn, extra credit, hatsune miku, james madison, mikumix, moth, school year, scissorhands, spider, teacher, time, trimester, video, vocaloids, wallpaper

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