Ah, chocolate. So delicious. I do like a lot of sweets, but out of the "candy" variety, chocolate is probably my favorite. (I say probably because there may still be more delicious foods out there, just waiting for me to try them.) Milk chocolate in particular. Dark chocolate's a bit too bitter (a lame attempt at wordplay there) and white chocolate's artificial... But milk chocolate is simply splendid. Right after winter vacation, I noticed that my parents had purchased a box of chocolate cookies, and I ate so many of them that I gained several pounds. (I still haven't been able to shed them. In fact, I gained weight again. I wouldn't care so much if it didn't mean that it makes my pants not fit so well.)

Too bad chocolate isn't really the best thing for your health. Recently we had to bring in food that we cooked to French class, as the product of a cooking project. Many of the foods were desserts, and most of those had chocolate in them. What's funny is that the very day that many of us brought in the chocolate foods, the teacher said that she'd just been to the dentist. He had not been happy with her teeth...because, apparently, she'd eaten too much chocolate.

I'm pretty sure my dentist won't be too happy either. He always tells me that I need to floss, and I realize that I really ought to...But I'm not good at it; sometimes it hurts, and it's a hassle besides. I wonder if I have cavities again? I never seem to feel any pain from them, so it always surprises me to find out that I have them when I see the dentist. Maybe it does hurt but the signals for pain haven't been reaching my brain.

I wouldn't be too surprised, because lately, I think I am somewhat of a masochist. Just the other day, in PE, I was playing soccer, and it got kind of wild. I probably could've stopped myself from falling, but instead I let myself fall to the ground. I hit the ground pretty hard, and I was asked the customary "Are you okay?" by several girls. But I actually felt better after getting bashed up, just as I enjoy feeling hungry and even having pulled muscles (if I pulled the muscle from a good run the previous day, that is, and not from being in a weird position).

Ah, but it is getting to be around time for Valentine's Day, and Singing Valentines and rose grams are going up for sale at my school. I wonder if anyone here gives chocolates for Valentine's Day? When I was in elementary school we'd give each other little Scooby Doo/Clifford/Spongebob/etc. valentine cards, with a lollipop or some other candy. But I don't recall ever seeing anyone give just chocolates for Valentine's Day, and certainly not hand-made ones in a heart-shaped container or anything like that. I guess it's either something kind of personal that you wouldn't do within sight of other people, or I've been reading too much manga and keep expecting people to behave like they're in Japan. (No White Day here, after all.)

I was reading one of the two Kaichou wa Maid-sama! side stories that comes after chapter 28, the one about Yukimura and his sister. I thought it was really a lot like a certain episode in Ouran High School Host Club, when Nekozawa isn't the princely big brother that the little sister wants. Well, Maid-sama and Ouran were both in the LaLa magazine, so I guess they would have stylistic similarities. By the way, I'm looking for good manga to read - either really funny or just something that would touch your heart, or both - preferably already finished (but not that old, at least in terms of art style, if you know what I mean). Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Labels: chocolate, cooking, day, dentist, food, gift, health, injury, kaichou wa maid-sama, maid sama, manga, masochist, ouran high school host club, pain, sweets, teeth, valentines, weight

The most recent edition of Reader's Digest, February 2011's issue, has made me depressed about what I eat. People who eat 5 or more cups of white rice per week are 17% more likely to develop diabetes, compared to those who eat less than 1 serving per month. Also, most people have to stay under 20 grams of net carbs per day (meaning the grams of carbs minus the grams of fiber in a food). Two slices of bread contain about 24 grams of net carbs, and pasta has 40 grams per cup. I eat bread, rice, and/or pasta pretty much all week. So I can either choose to pursue my goal of weight loss and suffer, or I can become a glutton and enjoy myself but have pangs of guilt all the time...

...And stomachaches, too. These days I tend to eat when I see something tasty, instead of because I'm hungry, so I have to stay away from the kitchen, bakeries, grocery stores, even my own school during lunchtime. I guess it's like this quote I saw on the Internet; it said that you never really stop being addicted to things, you just get addicted to something else. If only I could stay addicted to something that wouldn't sap my energy and time, the way various websites and video games have done to me. I figure I ought to do something more useful at least, since those things that I think I'm doing for fun don't really make me happy anymore. What I'd really like to do is just live a slacker lifestyle - get up late, eat when I feel like it, work on my character designs, read a lot of books, go on walks to take photographs, practice drawing, go to bed when I'm tired. But considering how many years of school and a career that I have ahead of me, I wonder when, if ever, it'll become a reality.

Oh, but today, January 23 (the publishing time shown for this post is actually the time I first saved this post, not always the real time that I posted it!), I did get to eat some delicious food, so I am pleased. I had spaghetti with beef as dinner (my dad makes some nice spaghetti, I haven't tasted one like it in restaurants, though I like almost all pasta in general), and then I had a little taste of chocolate crumble. It's a cakish, soft brownie kind of thing. One of my classmates from French class and I made it for our cooking project. Too bad I have to bring it to school and give away the pieces. I'd rather just eat the whole thing myself, it's so sweet and chocolatey. (It was kind of a hassle to make, though, I suppose it'll be a long time before I eat it again.) Ahh, it makes me miss being on a cruise ship. I love how there's a buffet and you've already paid for it so you can eat what you like, when you like. It was so nice getting to eat cheesecake and chocolate cake. But gosh, I should stop talking about it, it's just going to make me hungry again.

I really haven't had much to write about lately, so I guess I'll just end with saying that I am currently watching Durarara! and I'm reading Kaichou wa Maid-Sama. Both were fairly popular series, so I thought I ought to check them out. At first I was dubious, since sometimes popular things turn out pretty disappointing (like the Twilight series, Edward bores me) but so far both Durarara! and Kaichou wa Maid-Sama are fair enough. I watched Toradora! not long ago and I suggest that you watch it if you haven't. I don't know if I had abnormal levels of hormones or something, but I actually cried a little when I watched it. I figure if something can actually make me show some emotion, it must be pretty good.

Labels: addiction, buffet, carbohydrates, carbs, chocolate, control, cruise ship, crumble, desire, durarara, eating, food, gluttony, health, magazine, maid sama, readers digest, spaghetti, toradora

I thought of this while I was reading a book called The Outsiders for school. The book is about the 60's, and it takes place in Oklahoma, I think, or somewhere around there. The main character is a boy named Ponyboy, who is part of a gang made up his two brothers and his friends. Well, I'd never really read this kind of book before, so I wasn't sure if I'd like it, but it turned out to be better than I expected. Ponyboy and his brothers are fond of chocolate, and Ponyboy's brother said that if there was a such thing as a chocolate cigarettes, Ponyboy would've had one made. (By the way, Ponyboy is an avid smoker. One time he went to the countryside and a man told him, "You shouldn't be smoking." Ponyboy looked around for a No Smoking sign and didn't seen one. "Why not?" asked the confuzzled Ponyboy. "Well, uh...You're too young," said the man. Ponyboy was surprised - Ponyboy is only 14, by the way.)

Whenever I see people with lollipops in their mouths, I think that they're smoking at first. I saw a book full of pictures of flashy outfits people in Japan were wearing. (There were some things that looked fairly normal, but some of the outfits were pretty strange.) I saw lollipops in their mouths and assumed they were cigarettes at first but it turned out that they were lollipops...Whew.

I remember when I was young I used to just stick a carrot in my mouth and pretend I was smoking since I never want to try it for real. It's way too easy to get addicted to smoking so it's just better not to ever do it. Good people get ruined by smoking.

I overheard two of my classmates talking. One of them said, "A man walks into a bar." (He's telling a joke.) So the other guy said, "So?" And the one telling the joke said, exasperated, "Don't you get it? You're so slow!" Basically, in this joke, a man doesn't walk into the kind of bar where you drink alcohol. He walks into an actual bar. Now that would hurt. (I only understood the joke because I had heard someone else tell it before)

Anyways, back to The Outsiders...There was something in the book that I found interesting. Ponyboy, as he narrates the story, mentioned that he liked Two-Bit's mom because she was humorous, but not lazy like Two-Bit. (Two-Bit is a joking guy who likes school for some weird reason and is in Ponyboy's gang) Then Ponyboy said Two-Bit's mother let Two-Bit get away with murder. Ponyboy was making Two-Bit's mother sound like a good person, so this was a bit of a shock. That's a very interesting parent there.

I've been wondering about something for a pretty long time now. One time I was at school, because I heard there was free ice cream (but the line was too long. Just earlier there had been a dance so many students were at the school). A woman asked me, "Are you J?" (J stands for the name of the person, I didn't want to reveal her name) I said, "No," and moved on. I bet that person didn't know how J looked or something - I mean, I don't wear glasses. Anyhow, J is of Korean decent. And people sometimes think either that I look Korean or my dad does. (Then again, maybe it's because some people aren't good at telling, people occasionally ask me if I'm Japanese) Plus, both my mom and dad's last names are Korean last names. It's sort of uncanny. I keep wondering if I could be Korean instead of Chinese but all my relatives live in China. Then again, Koreans once came from China. I mean, even the language has some similarities, and names for nobility used to be taken from Chinese. I'm always been curious about where I really come from. (Well, Africa originally, it can be traced back there, even if people insist they aren't from there, like my dad said the aboriginals in Australia said they were from Australia, not Africa, even when DNA tests were taken) I wonder if there is a way to find out. It would probably take a long time trying to trace it all the way back. I mean, for one thing, China has a huge population, so would there even be any documents? And it would be written in Chinese (Mandarin) so I wouldn't be able to read it...

Labels: africa, bar, chinese, chocolate, cigarette, heritage, joke, korean, lollipop, name, parents, ponyboy, smoking, the outsiders, two-bit

Lately my teachers have changed their tune (no, I don't mean that they have a theme song) - in other words, they've started talking about the importance of making yourself appear different from other people.

Both my history and math teachers told us that just doing the same thing everyone is doing will not get the colleges interested in us. My history teacher described 85% of the high school I'll probably be going to as "Brown eyes, brown or black hair, between 5'3" and 5'8", 4.0 GPA, not doing any sports - oh, and playing an instrument" (in other words, a lot of Asians D: ) and he said that the colleges don't care if you are identical to everyone else. You'd have to display your uniqueness or they wouldn't want to have you in their school. And my math teacher said that colleges want people who will do great things after they go to college, because then the colleges will become famous. (So I think probably in your application essay, you ought to tell the colleges what you are planning to do in your life, not just what you've already done)

In fact, even my language arts teacher seemed to be aware of this "Don't be like everyone else" movement, because of the quote of the day she picked. The quote was, "The hardest struggle of all is to be something different from what the average man is." This quote was said by Charles M. Schwab, apparently. Well, I'm pretty sure the teachers must be in cahoots. I mean, I've sometimes seen all three seventh grade math teachers in the same room together, doing who knows what (planning the math? The 7th grade math teachers all teach at the same rate, and give the exact same homework).

Well, anyway, I've been studying the holiday spirit lately since it is almost Christmastime. It seems to me that people start setting up their decorations after Thanksgiving, sometimes even earlier. I saw that the classrooms of my history teacher and language arts teacher from last year are already starting to be decorated by Christmas lights. However, some people have rather...strange holiday spirit. My history teacher is a prime example.

Some students (certainly not all) give their teachers presents before winter break starts, as I don't know if we have an official week or day for giving teachers gifts. It's supposedly a way of showing appreciation, or it's out of "obligation", or maybe people think they can bribe the teachers into giving them good grades... But my history teacher says he doesn't want anything. He says that whatever he wants is not something that us students could give him anyway. So he'd rather have us work hard in his class or show him our "charming smiles". He told us to tell that to our parents, even if they don't believe us - and then he said we should say, "So you think my smile isn't charming?!" and the parents will say, "No, no, that's not what I meant at all, dear."

It's the thought that counts, but he said that it doesn't show thought at all if you give him a Starbucks giftcard because he doesn't usually drink coffee (he does eat the breakfast sandwiches at Starbucks, though). I think that my math teacher last year also didn't want Starbucks coffee, but it was a completely different reason - she had some kind of problem with caffeine, maybe an allergy (dunno how to describe it), and she couldn't eat chocolate, otherwise she'd get a migraine headache.

I still have to think about what I should get for the other teachers, though. I think it might be nice to give them something, but I'm not exactly sure what I should buy. Getting them a Target giftcard would be way too typical. But I don't want to get them something that they don't like. And it would be too obvious just to ask them...

Labels: asian, caffeine, charles schwab, charming smiles, chocolate, christmas, christmas lights, coffee, college, different, gift, giftcard, plotting, quote, starbucks, teacher, unique

Well, the common phrase is "Thank God it's Friday", which even inspired the restaurant called TGI Friday. In fact, I saw a poll one time and it seems the majority of people pick Friday as their favorite day. (Personally, it's not my favorite day, because I still do my homework on Friday so I have the weekend free...) But it seems to me that Black Friday, which was just three days ago, is not necessarily the best day of the week to go shopping.

I didn't go shopping on Black Friday because of a few things... For one, my parents said there probably wouldn't be good deals at the stores, because this year, because of the suffering economy, stores didn't stock up a lot, so they aren't desperate to sell off their merchandise right now. There might be better deals around Christmas or some other later time. Also, the stores were probably going to be really crowded, and my family didn't want to have to deal with that. (Thus, we escaped to the museum, as mentioned in the post "A building full of life and death")

On Saturday, since my family was going to be visiting the house of their friends (the friends had a new house, which the previous owners had lost through foreclosure! Scary), we took a detour to Great Mall, figuring we could buy a few things. There were already warning signs when we were driving there. At the turn-off that eventually leads to a different mall, Valley Fair, a lot of cars were stuck waiting. We went to the mall, and were having trouble finding a parking space, but luckily my dad snagged one later on when someone else was leaving. I had expected that everyone had gone shopping yesterday, but it was a wrong assumption, just like when I assumed that no one would go to the California Academy of Sciences on Friday because they'd be busy shopping. D:

We only ended up buying one thing (I did see a few items of clothing I liked, but it wasn't worthwhile because either the price wasn't really, really cheap or the clothes were not unique) which was, surprisingly, some earthenware. We got it from the store called Daiso Japan. There are a lot of Daiso Japans popping up in my area. I've seen three of them. I like Daiso, but I can't really read the labels because it's in Japanese, and my ability to read it is practically zilch.

The good thing about going to the mall was that Hershey's was giving out free chocolate at several locations that day. They had several flavors of Hershey's Bliss, such as Raspberry, Milk Chocolate, and Dark Chocolate. I think all the flavors are yummy but my favorite is Milk Chocolate, as is typical for me. No one really cares if you come back later to take a second chocolate from a place you've already taken chocolate from. My parents think Hershey's must've lost a LOT of money that day, giving away chocolate.

Then, after a few hours squandered in the mall, we went to my parents' friend's house. It's not a bad house, even if it is one-story (I've always wanted to live in either a multiple-story house or an apartment...My house has two stories, but there is only one room upstairs which we use mostly for storage). I was surprised to see that the family keeps a chicken. The chicken is almost 8 years old now. They raised her basically since she was a just a chick. She actually lays eggs. I heard there used to be another chicken except it was eating by wild animals...Raccoons or something...Yikes. My parents' friends set up some Christmas lights around the chicken coop and stuff like that to scare off the animals.

It seems to me that middle-aged Asian people really like to watch soap operas and other TV shows. My parents and their friends were having an exciting discussion about places to watch dramas, like PP Live and PP Stream and things like that. (I am familiar with them since I have seen my mother using them. Even my dad watches dramas sometimes, though he's more of a movie person) In fact, when my mom and another friend (there were two other guests) recommended a website, the host dashed off to his computer to check out the site. I didn't see him for quite a while after that, except for when I passed his office when heading to the bathroom...Wow. He was watching dramas, I think.

Labels: asian, black friday, chicken, chocolate, christmas lights, daiso japan, drama, friends, hershey's, house, mall, shopping, soap opera, wild animals

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