One of the songs I like is a song called Mad World, sung by Gary Jules. (#37 on my Playlist, if you want to hear it) I first heard this song during my summer classes in 2009. My painting teacher often played music, since it kind of helps the creative process and is just relaxing in general. One of the songs that I heard was Mad World.

Well, as I mentioned in "What Seems Unique is Actually Common", I had to find an example of slant rhyming in a song...I thought through what English songs I knew and remembered Mad World. I looked up the lyrics and discovered that yes, indeed, I could use it.

Then today on announcements a video made by a few students encouraging us to help Haiti started playing. And the song in the background was Mad World!

I've been having lots of instances of deja vu lately. I wonder if this means something is coming or if I simply have a weird knack for having such instances.

Recently I've started to think more about entering contests. There's a part of me that says, "What if I can't do a good job? Is it really worth my time to make an entry if I won't win?" And there's another part of me that says, "You never know until you try." I don't know which one to listen to. I really want to change myself and become more proactive rather than reactive. But I have lazy tendencies and a lack of time management. I'll have to work long and hard to change that.

I've read about things like pumpkin growing contests, such as in the book Squashed, by Joan Bauer. But I've never really seen that around my area. We don't really have carnivals or fairs except for maybe Christmas in the Park (and that's not my town). In fact, I don't know if we even have the Lunar New Year parade anymore...

Ah, yes, it is almost the Chinese New Year. It will become the Year of the Tiger, which is my father's year. I heard this year will be unlucky, at least for Rats such as myself. But I wonder if you can really trust horoscopes. (I've sometimes asked my mom to read the ones from her Chinese newspaper for the Western Zodiac. Actually, they are true more than half the time, at least for me)

One time I was talking with someone and they didn't know about the Moon Festival. I was surprised, considering that China has a huge population and I figure that would make people more aware of it and its traditions (not to mention any other Asian countries that celebrate it). But then again, in most of the USA, there aren't that many Asians. I suppose where I live is kind of an exception. (Though I have read books where it is said there are Asians - of the Orient, not necessarily India - gathering in Seattle...)

I also heard once that there are some Chinese people (perhaps they know my parents, I forget exactly) living in a different part of the USA and some people don't like them all that much. I asked my parents if it was pure and simple racism, but my mom said perhaps some people felt that people from other countries were taking away their jobs. (After all, jobs get outsourced since people elsewhere may be willing to do the same job for less pay)

Ugh! You should work harder, then, and take it as a challenge to yourself. You see, although bigger population means more jobs, jobs cannot grow fast enough to keep up with population (just as the amount of food grown cannot keep up with the population either). So, living in our world means we have lots of amenities and useful devices but it also means we have even more competition for resources. It's the sacrifice you have to make, living in the modern world. But this also means you can fly even higher. (Well, I suppose in older times, since there were different social classes, there was a really huge difference between the poorest and richest, whereas nowadays some economies are designed to be more socialist than capitalist, but...) I believe people should take having to compete as an asset and not a disadvantage.

Labels: asian, carnival, china, chinese new year, competition, contest, deja vu, economy, horoscope, job, mad world, moon festival, outsource, pros and cons, rat, song, summer school, tiger

Sometimes I feel like that, and other times I feel like quite the opposite. There are times that I have the feeling of being on top of the world, like I can overcome anything, and that life is easy. But there are times as well where I feel as if there is so much out there and I am just one person, too insignificant to matter.

I mentioned in a previous post (unfortunately, I can't remember which one it was, so unless you're really bored, don't bother searching for it) that I live in a place where many people are fairly affluent. One time, my language arts teacher (who says she is poor, but I suppose it can't be so bad she must live off of freebies) asked how many of us think about the price of things when we buy them. I didn't mind when I was younger, but over time I started to care about it, and nowadays I don't really buy much for myself (except for a Galileo thermometer, but that's a different story). A lot of people said they just asked their parents to buy something and didn't really worry about how much it cost. I had heard that my town prides itself on having an average income that is quite high, or something along those lines. (Note: That doesn't mean everyone owns a private jet or a beach house in a foreign country, though)

I started to wonder, "Would us kids be able to survive out in the real world?" Well, my parents' friend's son was a student at both UC Berkeley and Harvard, and he said, "The experience you get at the schools is different. At UC Berkeley you're more left to your own devices, but at Harvard you'll be helped along." Basically, even the different colleges may encourage a different level of independence. I have been wondering whether people living a sheltered, privileged life will really be okay when they get out there into the rest of the world. (Well, unless they always live in the same place, or move to a similar place) I mean, there are 6.8 billion people in the world and counting, so there will definitely be a lot of competition - for example, people will fight for jobs, as jobs are not created fast enough to make up for the growing population and the bad economy.

And really, the world is filled with hardships. I don't think everyone can be so lucky to never experience them. Some of my troubles are physical, like when I catch a cold, or sprain my ankle, but most of them are mental. I've always wondered what it would be like if I had a different life. Like if I had siblings...Being an only child, I don't really learn to share or to take care of someone else. In fact, I don't really do chores besides putting my clothes away when they have been washed.

Today, I visited a bridge in my town. It's not a bridge over water, it's simply a bridge over a highway. I think it looks very nice at nighttime, though I didn't visit it at night. I walked there with my dad in the afternoon. There were several people on the bridge. No cars are allowed on it - only people on foot and people on bicycles. The bridge is practically on the border of my town and a neighboring town, so if you cross the bridge, you'll be in a different city. But you'll be in the same school district. There is a high school right next to the other end of the bridge. I would like to be able to go that high school. (The high school I will probably be going to is a very highly ranked one in academic terms, though, and the high school next to the bridge is...not so much) It would be so charming, living next to the bridge and walking across it to go to school. Quite picturesque. Some people would be bothered by the highway noise, but I don't think it would be too much of a problem for me (as long as there aren't too many police chases and ambulances at nighttime).

I wonder what I ought to do. Should I accept my fate, because destiny cannot be altered? Or should I fight against it, fight to change it, and make a life for myself? Is it better to be the blade of grass, which bends but doesn't break, or like bamboo, which prefers to break than bend? Is it better to go with the flow or to make ripples in the water? I wonder about that.

Oh, before I end this post, I would like to explain why I was thinking of fish in the beginning of the post. It was because of something I saw in the December edition of Reader's Digest. There was a complaint someone made to a travel agent. The person said, "No one told us there were fish in the ocean. The children were startled." Wow. I guess there are many different people.

Labels: bamboo, berkeley, bridge, change, college, competition, destiny, feelings, fish, grass, harvard, high school, money, only child, readers digest, spending, survival

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