No, I have not suddenly skipped multiple grades and gotten myself accepted to a college. But one of the French words for middle school is collège, so you see, I am in college if you interpret it that way.

I've heard several mentions of college recently. The first one was in debate club, which I went to as usual on Wednesday. It's kind of a regular activity of mine now. I still don't really say anything, but I listen to other people's opinions. This week it didn't go that well. People didn't seem particularly interested in any topic, so the topic kept changing. At first it as whether health care should be free for everyone, and then folks starting talking about alcohol and how it's more socially acceptable than smoking even though alcohol is still bad for your health. Someone brought up the point that smoking affects the people around you, but if you're drunk it's not going to damage someone else's liver (at least, I hope not). I think it's because people think alcohol is good for your health, at least, people say red wine has benefits. But I still don't approve of wine. When I ask my dad what it's like, he says it's like grape juice except with alcohol, but then, couldn't you just drink grape juice? (And I hear that liquor has a bitter taste. I don't understand why you would want it.)

Then my old teacher, whose classroom the debate club is held in, noticed a girl. She is a regular to the debate club, and that day, she happened to be wearing a college sweatshirt. (I believe it was a UC Berkeley shirt, but I can't be sure) The teacher asked her, "What are you doing wearing a Berkeley sweatshirt? Look at her, the girl who has been saying she's going to go to Harvard." Apparently it was a sibling's sweatshirt. "So you're supporting a sibling? Clearly an inferior sibling..." (Berkeley isn't a bad college, but I suppose Harvard is still considered harder to get into) "I've gotta get a picture of this." The teacher whipped out his cell phone and was trying to take a picture of the girl wearing a Berkeley sweatshirt, but she kept hiding it. My teacher called for back-up, which happened to be one of my friends. She ran over and kind of half-tackled the girl, and the teacher managed to snap a picture. "Not very good, but I think you can tell it was her," he remarked.

Later that week, my history teacher (let's refer to him as JB, it's tiresome having to say "my teacher" every time) told us about his college times. He said that there were three floors on his dorm building. The first floor was filled with guys and the second and third floor were filled with girls (which was pretty nice for a freshman, so he said). JB says that when you go to college, you fill out a form with who you want to be with as a roommate. Either you can name a specific name (if you have someone in mind already) or you can describe what kind of person you're looking for or what kind of person you DON'T want. JB was pretty much fine with anything but he did say he wanted a non-smoker. But most of the people in his dorm building are smokers, so he ended up with a guy called Doros from the island of Cyprus who is 24 years old because he had to serve in the Greek military.

There are a variety of people in JB's dorm, but he says they all kind of got along, despite their differences. He had a friend by the name Sid (or is it Syd? I have no idea, but I'm guessing). One day Sid asked him for a favor. He wouldn't tell JB what it was, but he told JB to take a nap, and then be awake at a certain time. So JB did as he was told and took a nap. Then Sid barged in and said, "Are you ready? ...Could you put on some nice clothes, like slacks and dress shoes?" JB replied, "No, I don't have anything like that." Sid sighed. "Fine, that'll do." Sid had gathered a total of 12 people for this favor. Sid knew someone who was a valet, and his friend had called him, saying that they needed 12 more valets for a party at the W hotel in Los Angeles because some valets had just canceled. So the college students went to Los Angeles to be valets for the night.

Out of a total of 40 or so valets, only 6 of them, including JB, knew how to drive stick shift. JB had been arguing with the others earlier over whether the tips should be split evenly or if everyone should keep their own tips. Now JB's decision to keep his own tips was coming in handy. He had more opportunities to make money since 34 people could drive with automatic only. The first car that came up was taken by him. It was a Jaguar (I forget what kind exactly), which had been JB's dream car. He said that he didn't have pictures of girls in his room - he had pictures of cars like that Jaguar. The old gentleman who owned the car said to JB, "If you crash this car, I'll kill you." JB responded, "Oh, don't worry, if I crash this car, I'll kill myself." Unfortunately, the story ended there because the bell rang.

Labels: alcohol, berkeley, car, college, cyprus, debate club, driving, french, harvard, jaguar, middle school, party, siblings, smoking, stick shift, sweatshirt, teacher, tips, valet, w hotel

This is a valuable lesson that I learned today from my teacher. It ought to be the new Golden Rule. (Well, not really. I'm not all that fond of cars because I get carsick. But that's besides the point.)

More than ten years ago, a young man (my teacher) was going to a place called Jake's to meet up with his friends. He was sitting on the roof of his car when a Ferrari came into the parking lot. Back then, a Ferrari was quite expensive (and still is), $150,000 or something. My teacher and his friends stared at the car, drooling. It was red and sleek, and was shiny, like it was polished often (which is quite a feat, since it's harder for things to look shiny in the nighttime than in the daytime). They couldn't decide whether to go inside Jake's or not. They were hungry, but if they went inside, they wouldn't be able to see the Ferrari anymore. After a few minutes, an old lady stepped out of the car.

"Hello, boys," said the lady.
"........Uh, hello," said my teacher and his friends.
"My husband died recently. I'm getting ready to sell it," remarked the old lady (regarding the Ferrari).
"Oh, what, really?!" At this point, my teacher is rummaging in his pockets for money (though he wouldn't be able to afford the Ferrari anyways).

Later, the old lady gets back into the car. She accelerates a little.
"Awww..." go the boys/young men/whatever you call them. (Just like a kitten's purr, so says my teacher)
Accelerated again. "Ohhhh...."
Went in reverse. "Ooohhh..."
My teacher offers, "Will you be alright? I'll drive you home." (Doesn't matter to him that he'd have to walk home after all, he just wants to be in a Ferrari, something he probably never got to do before)
"Nah, I'll be fine." The old lady drove off...Out of my teacher's life forever.

My teacher then said to us, "Don't let widows wreck nice cars. And treat your car nicely."

Anyways, speaking of cars, I was given some advice about how to skimp on car insurance. You have to pay more for car insurance if you get into lots of accidents. I was told that you should get your license when you're sixteen, and then wait two years or something until you actually get a car. Then when you get car insurance it'll look like you're a safe driver because you didn't get into any accidents for two years. (Obviously, if the folks who work for insurance companies figure this out, they might get suspicious, but oh well. Thought I'd let you know.)

I've always complained about not having life insurance to my parents, but in reality, it's probably better that I don't have it. For one thing, I'm young, so the chances of my dying are lower than those for an older person. And also, some people can't use money that results of a death. (Though there are quite a few people who say, "Well, money is money!" and there are even those who kill people on purpose to get ahold of inheritance money) I wonder if my parents would be willing to spend money they received if I was insured and I died. Would it pain them too much to use money which my life had been the price for? And if you had a dog, for instance, and it died, and you got money as compensation, would you be too pained by the loss of your dog to touch the money? Or would you move on, and put the money to good use?

While I'm on the topic of cash, my school district often doesn't have enough money. One of my teachers complained, "They want us to teach differently, in the 21st century, but they don't give us the money to do it. In fact, they take away money." I know it can't really be helped, because California is a state in debt (as is the whole US of A), but it's annoying. Most of the people who make decisions are not students anymore themselves, so it doesn't really matter to them if they take away the money for schools, even if children are the future. (Yeah, I know, school is mostly based on memorization anyways, but still. It's worthwhile to go to school.) If only, if only, there was something that could be done about it. Money is what makes the world go round but it is also what stops it from going round. D:

Labels: california, car, death, debt, ferrari, future, inheritance, insurance, jake's, life, money, problem, school, story, united states of america, world

There's no need to be concerned, because I don't gamble. I once tried to in the Venetian hotel quite a few years ago, when my mom and I were eating dinner at a restaurant inside the casino, and I wanted to press one of the buttons on a nearby slot machine, but then a worker came by and said I couldn't. How disappointing. Slot machines make cool noises, kind of like the newer checkout machines at the local library.

The inspiration for my blog post and title today was cars. Yup, cars. I often see doubles of the same car. Today when going to school, in front of my car were two Lexus (dunno what the plural form is...Lexuses? o_O;; ). They were the same exact kind except for the color.

And there are a lot of Subaru Foresters, I have discovered. I have seen a couple of them in my area, same color and everything. And one time I came with my mom to work at her office since there was no one to watch me at home (and I have no siblings, so I am not trusted to stay by myself, except for this summer when I was doing just that). Well, my mom had parked her car next to another Subaru. It was also a Forester except it was a black one. I know they have to sell a lot of a kind of car or they would discontinue making them but I still get amazed if I see the same kind of car. I see the Mercedes we have hidden in our garage sometimes too.

There are a lot of twins, too. A pair of twins who are both geography whizzes are in my village this year, along with a girl who apparently has a twin (but I haven't quite figured out who her twin is. I assume she has to be in the school somewhere). Maybe there's more twins in my village that I didn't notice yet.

Anyhow, on to other news. The blog layout has been changed since unfortunately the one I had in mind isn't working as well as would be nice. So maybe I'll just try and format it for Nutrinopets or something, because I often use blog layouts for my profile there. This time I got it from createblog.com, which has Blogger layouts, though I still prefer to go to blogskins.com most of the time. I thought the toast was very charming. And I really like bread. XD

I've moved my playlist and it is now underneath the posts, at the bottom of the page. It will autostart so pause it or turn off your sound or turn off the playlist's sound if you don't want to hear it. There's also a Youtube video so you can have images and sound together if you would like. I picked out Colorless Wind sung by Yuuki Aira, which is the Sola anime opening. It's one of my favorite songs. (There was another song I wanted to put up but I couldn't find it...Sigh...)

Labels: automobile, blog, car, casino, change, colorless wind, forester, gambling, las vegas, layout, lexus, mercedes, playlist, slot machines, subaru, toast, venetian, video, youtube, yuuki aira

Top ↑