I am not saying that the magazines themselves are really lacking or something, but it is just...Well... A lot of magazines and newspapers and other sources of information seem to be filled with bad news. The only magazine I have that is decidedly optimistic is Ode, which we subscribed to with our mileage. (If you fly a lot with an airline, say for example, United, then you might be able to rack up "mileage", a kind of points, and if you get enough you can use it for things, like getting a free flight somewhere) We had to use the mileage or else it would disappear, so my mom wanted me to pick magazines to subscribe to, since magazines don't use much mileage. Back to Ode, though; apparently they call themselves a magazine for "intelligent optimists".

Currently I am subscribing to the magazines Newsweek, Reader's Digest, National Geographic, and Nintendo Power. I don't mean to offend the folks working for Newsweek, but I am not too fond of it. It seems to have a lot of news about politics. The only things I find interesting are the comics (which are politically-themed), the Indignity Index (which features some rather not-so-good things public figures have done), and the occasional article, like this article I read about how Microsoft is losing out to other companies ever since Bill Gates stepped down from CEO or whatever.

My mom and I would prefer to have Time magazine, but my dad wanted Newsweek, so we got it. I have discovered that although my dad means well, he doesn't have the greatest judgment. When I was younger, we were looking for a Game Boy to buy and my dad said we should get the Game Boy Advance. That turned out to be a bad move because the Game Boy Advance doesn't have good lighting, unlike the Game Boy Advance SP (and DS, which hadn't come out yet at that time), so it was always hard for me to see what was on the screen. (By the way, the Game Boy is not well-named since it is kind of suggesting that boys are the only gamers, which is not true)

The reason why I mention Time here is because I just checked out an issue of Time from the library. I was looking for an article for Current Events (where we present an article we found in the news in front of our class - all science-related because we do it in science class) and I noticed an issue of Time magazine, the November 30, 2009 issue. There was an article about how parents are overprotective of their kids and how maybe it's time we loosened up a bit, so kids can learn to do things themselves. So I checked out the issue. I really like that article. It has some funny parts, like when it mentioned how suddenly strollers needed the label REMOVE CHILD BEFORE FOLDING (that's because parents got really paranoid).

There was also another article in Time (same issue) that I liked, and that was an article about Zynga. Zynga is a company, started in 2007, which makes games for social-networking sites. Some of the games include Mafia Wars, Cafe World, Zynga Poker, YoVille!, and Fishville. What amused me was the mention of Farmville, which was apparently similar to a popular Chinese farming game called Happy Farm. Hmm...My dad plays an online game where he waters his plants, steals other people's plants (gasp!) and keeps all sorts of fauna like squirrels and peacocks. I can't help but think it's really funny that my dad plays Happy Farm.

I also checked out the December copy of Cat Fancy magazine, since I don't have a subscription to it. Even this magazine has some gruesome aspects. There was a section about holiday safety for cats, and in it said, "When I diagnose cats with kidney failure from lilies, people tell me they've never heard that before." Lilies? You know, the flowers? Well, apparently they are dangerous to cats. And chocolate is also bad for them. So are nuts, splintery bones, and onions and garlic...Apparently, onions and garlic are bad for the red blood cells of a cat. The article may be helpful, but it seems to frighten you into keeping your cat safe. I mean, your cat being electrocuted by chewing on the Christmas tree lights doesn't sound too nice.

Well, the real disappointment in the magazine wasn't the fault of the magazine. It was all because I got it from the library. I wanted to rip out the poster of a kind of cat called a ragdoll. It has blue eyes, which I really like, and also, it kind of resembles my dad's friend's cat. Then I realized that it was a library copy so I couldn't rip it out. I was really crestfallen. (P.S.: Today's icon is NOT a ragdoll.)

Labels: 2009, cat fancy, christmas lights, game boy advance, garlic, happy farm, indignity index, lilies, newsweek, november 30, ode, onions, overprotective, parents, poster, ragdoll, safety, time, zynga

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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