I just read a book called Sand Dollar Summer by Kimberly K. Jones. In the book, the main character had said that if there had been only a few seconds of difference, the driver of a car wouldn't have collided with her mom's car and caused an accident. And then they probably wouldn't have gone back to her mom's old home of Maine. And if she hadn't gone to Maine a lot of things wouldn't have happened. It's like the butterfly/dead grasshopper effect.

For some people, "every penny counts" is not something they believe in. When they drop a few coins on the ground, they don't bother to pick it up because they feel it's not worth the effort. (I pick up money when I see it, though. I like coins since they're all...metallic.)

I was a few seconds away from trauma and possibly death myself on Thursday. I was standing on the sidewalk waiting for the light to change so I could cross the street. Right as I was stepping out on the street a car to my left was trying to turn right...It almost crashed into the three people walking a bit ahead of me. The driver stopped quite suddenly to avoid rolling over us. If the driver had seen us pedestrians a little bit later, I might have witnessed a car accident. And I'd be standing in front of a gruesome scene, calling 911 in a panicked fashion. Or perhaps if I had walked forward a bit more I would've been in the accident too. Imagine, just a few seconds can make so big a difference...

Sometimes I don't know what to think. At times, life moves too quickly, but at other times it seems painstakingly slow. I think time, like what happens to you, depends on how you interpret it... I guess time is really just a concept, though we may "measure" it with clocks.

And then there is this theory that perhaps life is just a dream. That we've been dreaming a long time and we simply haven't woken up yet. The line between dreams and reality can easily be blurred. I was thinking of Yosemite one night before I slept and then I had a dream where I was there, except things were weird there (dreams, after all, can be rather unrealistic, as they don't make sense at all...). I can't remember the dream anymore. I wish that I could. But it's like water - it flows right out of your hand...

Labels: book, butterfly effect, car accident, coins, concept, dreams, every penny counts, life, reality, sand dollar summer, seconds, speed, time, truth, yosemite

Well, I mentioned the butterfly effect in my previous post. In a nutshell, it's where one small thing happens, which leads to another thing, and another thing, and another thing, until a really big thing happens.

Shirayuki no Kimi called me a young grasshopper. I was rather offended and retorted, "I'm not young!" (After all, young can be associated with foolish. Like how in French, it's better to be called Madame than Mademoiselle because of such associated meanings)

SnK: Fine, then, old grasshopper.
Me: Dead Grasshopper.
SnK: Decomposing grasshopper.
Me: Hm...Worm food grasshopper.
SnK: Bird poop grasshopper.
Me: Mom's head grasshopper.
It kept going for a little while until it got to "Juppie's photo grasshopper", "Internet grasshopper", and then "famous grasshopper".

I remember that when I was at Yosemite, there was a pretty entertaining riddle that was shared amongst us. It goes like this: There is another world behind a green glass door. But not everything can go through the door. Here's some examples:

Daddies can go through, but fathers can't.
Kittens can go through, but cats can't.
Veggies can go through, but vegetables can't.
Scissors can go through, but shears can't.
Wheels can go through, but tires can't.

If you've already heard this riddle before, I suppose it'd be pretty easy for you to come up with some examples of what can go through and what can't. But see if you can figure it out if you haven't heard this riddle.

I'm pretty bad at riddles otherwise, though. I usually have to have someone tell me the answers. D: Either that, or the riddles really are that difficult. (But then again, if you know the answer to the riddle it must seem pretty obvious.)

Anyhow, though, I have a lot of things I want to do this summer vacation. Since we're going on vacation in July, it's not a good idea to go to summer classes because I might have to miss some of it to go on the trip (and so it wouldn't really be worth the money paid, eh?).
- Do some painting (I never get around to it during the school year :( )
- Practice on the tablet (Haha, I used it to color one drawing, but that is pretty much the extent of what I've done.)
- Drawing by hand (need to learn to do side views. And work on an eye style, as well as hair.)
- Make an OC - Original Character. Already have two but I want to change their looks a bit. And decide on the last name for one of them.
- Take photographs
- Do a 30-day challenge on EA Sports Active (Ugh. My dad bought another video game on a whim. But this one really makes you sweat...Not like Wii Fit.)

Unfortunately, my mom thinks I should get studying for next year, since there'll be SATs to take and whatnot. But maybe I can evade it, somehow or other. ;)

Labels: 30 day, butterfly effect, challenge, dead, drawing, EA Sports Active, grasshopper, green glass door, OC, painting, plans, riddle, summer, summer school, tablet, vacation, video games, yosemite

I've never actually watched the movie by the same name, but I still wanted to use this as the title of this post. XD

I am sure I have had a lot more than one missed call in my time, whether it be on my cell phone or on my home phone. For one thing, I don't really have my cell phone turned on most of the time, so it's highly likely that if you call me there, I won't pick up. D: And then I'll see your call four days later or something ridiculous like that. (Unless I'm staying home by myself, in which case it's better to keep my cell phone on to make it easy to stay in contact with my parents, so they know I haven't been kidnapped or that someone has broken into the house)

And as for the landline phone, I don't always pick up the phone. Oftentimes I just let it ring until the answering machine goes on and then listen so I know who's calling. It gets annoying when people call asking for my parents because they want to sell something to them or something like that. And it's also annoying when we get automated messages from the library or people running for political positions. (Well, I don't mind getting messages from the library so much. XD)

It was pretty funny because one time we were listening to the answering machine and then the superintendent's voice came on. He was encouraging people to vote for Measure B or something like that. My dad picked up the phone and said, "We've already voted for it," but the superintendent kept talking. That's when he realized it was just an automated message. (Well, I guess the superintendent is busy, so he can't really be giving personal phone calls.)

But hey, just because someone's got a lot to do or is a well-known public figure doesn't mean they can't take a little time out of their schedules. My math teacher sent an email to Steve Jobs to inform him about a problem. iPhones don't work around the area where my school is (actually, probably all cell phones using AT&T don't work in that area. How annoying).

So my teacher asked if any of us had parents that worked at Apple because he wanted us to get our parents to bug their superiors and somehow or other get Steve Jobs to reply to his email. He said, "If Steve Jobs sent me an email, I would reply to it!" And we were thinking to ourselves, "Yeah, but it's Steve Jobs".

But it turned out that Steve Jobs had read the email and had forwarded it to someone in a major position at AT&T (unfortunately I cannot recall who it is). This person then wrote back to my teacher saying that there was a tower planned to be put up later in the year, but it might be postponed. If necessary, a smaller mobile tower might be set up to give coverage to the schools. It's the kind that gets used when there are natural disasters or something like that. Apparently it's actually pretty big even if it's not quite a permanent tower. It would be pretty amazing if that happened. Kind of makes me think of the butterfly effect that was being talked about in language arts class, which is where something small can cause events to happen and eventually leads to something big happening. (I actually had a layout for the blog up before that was called the Butterfly Effect, haha.)

Labels: answering machine, apple, automated, busy, butterfly effect, cell phone, coverage, email, famous, hole, layout, mobile, movie, one missed call, parents, phone, steve jobs, superintendent, tower

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