Yet again, I'm doing things in a roundabout way. Or at least, planning to do things. At several points over my life I have gotten the notion that I ought to start learning some Chinese characters so I can at least read the signs if I somehow get shanghai'd (Ha! Get it?) and am stranded in China. Well at least if somehow I ended up in Shanghai, I'd be okay because I can sort of speak the dialect...But anywhere else, it'd be hopeless.)

I do remember that back when I was about 6 or 7 years old, I went to a sort of day care place (it was called Little Genius Learning Center, if I remember correctly. Pretty arrogant-sounding name, if you ask me), and there was a nice lady who would go over a beginner's Chinese book with me. She'd point to a line and I was supposed to recite it to her, and at the end of the day she'd give me an apple as a present. Actually, I didn't really know what the words said, I'd just memorize what she'd said when she read it earlier, and then I'd just repeat what I remembered. But it sure looked like I was learning Chinese. Now that I think of it, I was good at fooling people when I was a kid. My grandma made me take a nap every afternoon, so if I didn't fall asleep I'd just fake it when she came in to check on me. Eventually, when enough time had passed, I would get up and she'd give me some ice cream. So actually I never got anything near as much sleep as my parents thought I had, especially in preschool, when I never slept during naptime. (But then again, they know that I'm an insomniac, because when I was a baby it took a really, really long time for me to fall asleep. It's still pretty bad now.)

Now that I'm interested in learning Japanese now, though, I'm starting to regret the fact that I never went to Chinese school or at least made my parents teach me. In fact, I was just the opposite for most of my life - I was adamant that I'd focus on English. I really believed that if I tried to learn Chinese, I'd forget English, because I actually learned to speak Chinese before I learned to speak English. Soon as I went to school and was forced to learn English, though, I pretty much forgot all the Chinese I'd learned and now I almost always speak English at home. And on another note, I actually look a weird, irrational pride in the fact that I was Chinese but did not learn my own language. I guess that was an early sign that I would later try to go against the tide in most aspects of my life, if only just to be different from "everyone else", whom I would refer to with slight contempt. I used to want to just blend into the background, but now I kind of think that fitting in means being boring. (That's not necessarily true, though; I probably just don't get to know people well enough to make an accurate judgment.)

Well, although I tried to memorize Katakana and Hiragana with the help of Quizlet, I am still a very long way from reading Japanese because I don't know enough kanji. Guess what kanji is? Yup, it's Chinese characters. The one thing I insisted on not learning turns out to be really important. So I have to start from scratch now if I ever hope to learn Japanese. I was actually planning to work on that this summer, but now that I have the homework from my classes to do...Well, I let myself get too stressed again and now I'm really not in the mood for the things I was doing earlier this summer. Looks like it's going to be a wasted summer and I'll probably be cursing myself for the rest of high school because I won't get to relax again.

Still, I probably should talk to my parents about it sometime. I know that they're going to be busy, what with work, remodeling, and health problems on both sides of the family (grandma on mother's side had back issues and had to go the hospital; dad and his mother were both very ill not long ago. And I should not neglect to mention that my mom is still limping around, although her toe is recovering considerably). But I guess if I'm going to learn a new language, starting late's better than never. I've gotta get crackin'.

Labels: china, chinese, dialect, different, english, family, foreign language, health, japanese, kanji, languages, late, mandarin, nap, pretend, problems, quizlet, sleep

Today has been a chilly day. There are clouds in the sky for the first time in a week or so. I can't remember a year when there was such cold weather at this time in June.

Maybe this year is meant to be different. There was rain later in spring than normal. The reservoir is full and beautiful and reflective. But not everything is good about such change. Different weather is bad for some fruits. I heard that cherries were more expensive this year. And my mother worries that our persimmon trees will not yield much when the time comes to harvest their fruits because of the unusual weather.

But this chill, though it is June, makes me wonder if perhaps the summer will end early this year. My dad dismissed the idea, saying something like "The summer really starts with July 4th" which I don't really understand (I mean, only the USA celebrates Independence Day). There was already a warm spell back in May.

I read the book Sisters of the Sword: Journey Through Fire. The main character, Kimi, is driven by her desire for revenge, but she is told that she should not be filled with so much hate, that it will consume her and lead to her defeat. But in the book I am Apache, revenge seems to be embraced, as warriors set out to avenge their loved ones, who were killed by Mexicans in a surprise attack. I've heard the phrase "revenge is sweet", but is it really? If you kill someone, your hands will be sullied by the blood, and you may forever live with the guilt. And it would not bring back the people that you have lost. But perhaps you must kill someone for the sake of the future and of other innocent people - if you don't kill the person, it is not far-fetched to think he or she will go on to take more lives.

I've also been watching an anime; the name is Ef: A Tale of Melodies. It is a disturbing story, but at the same time it also intrigues me. One of the characters said that he wondered why a person would be born in the first place if they would die. He said that there isn't any point in starting fights that you know you will lose.

But I think that because we are alive, there must be something out there for us to accomplish. I don't think life is meaningless just because we know it will come to an end, for some sooner than others. We still think of things that are temporary as important, like youth, passion, friendship, and dreams. It's up to us to make these things permanent. If two friends swear to be BFFs and support each other when times are rough, then the promise is not broken.

As I am now, I am weak. I don't have thick skin, so the words of people pierce me more deeply than any physical injury. But I still want to become strong. I'll fight every day, even if it's an uphill battle, even if I die and am forgotten. I am alive, so I'll do what I can. There are days when I'm lost in a sea of misery. Days when who I am and who people think I am are different; days when what I want to do and what I need to do are unbearably far apart. But I'll fight on. Even if I'll die trying.

Labels: ability, books, death, different, dream, ef a tale of melodies, fruit, I am apache, journey through fire, life, purpose, reservoir, revenge, sisters of the sword, strength, summer, temporary, weather

Earlier this month, there were flag football tournaments going on at lunchtime. Some of the students had been participating at the games. Apparently one of the PE teachers made the students stay late to clean up after the games (at least, they claim that, I wasn't there).

Well, I was sitting in my math classroom and the bell rang. A few students ended up being late. The first said, "Flag football," the second said the same, and so on...Until there was only one person left to come to class. As he was approaching the classroom, our teacher said, "Let's see what his excuse is."

To our surprise, when the boy came in, he said, quite simply, "I was late." My teacher was impressed by this, saying that the boy had taken responsibility instead of shifting the blame to the flag football games and PE teacher.

And then, during another math class, we were reading out the answers. It's usually like this: The first person in a row reads an answer from their homework, and then the person behind them reads the next answer, and so on. Well, it got to one boy and he couldn't read the answer because he didn't have his homework. "Do you have your homework?" asked the teacher. The boy fumbled for a response, but finally he had to say no.

My dad asked me later on if students ever claim that their dog ate their homework when they don't have it. I guess it's not really an excuse that's used nowadays. I mean, it wouldn't be a credible excuse unless someone had a dog in the first place.

Well, anyhow, I was reading a book called When Heaven Fell by Carolyn Marsden. It's about a girl living in Vietnam, named Binh. Her aunt moved to America when she was very young because it was rough in Vietnam at the time. Now that she is 35, she has rediscovered her family and traveled to Vietnam to visit them. But there's a lot of culture shock on both sides. The relatives living in Vietnam expect Di Thao, the aunt who lives in America, to be rich because she is American. And Di Thao has trouble getting used to the lifestyle in Vietnam.

For one thing, a relative asked Di Thao what her age was. Di Thao had said that in America, women didn't reveal their ages, before finally saying she was 35. Binh didn't understand why her aunt was uncomfortable because apparently, it's important to know someone's age so you know how to address them in Vietnamese.

And then the relatives asked Di Thao what she did for a living. She said she was a teacher. "What do you teach? Mathematics? Economics?" asked the relatives. Di Thao replied that she taught art. The relatives were confused about this. "People go to school to learn art? Why?"

The relatives also thought it was shocking that Di Thao was 35 but had no husband or children. As for Di Thao, she was surprised by the toilet, which you have to squat to use (Bleh! Horrible! I saw those kinds of toilets in China. I wouldn't go to the bathroom when there weren't the kinds of toilets that you can sit on).

I've been thinking that I really am very used to the American lifestyle myself. I love spaghetti (but when Binh ate it, she thought it was strange, especially the cheese taste). Our house isn't big, but it isn't so small that we all sleep side by side on the floor. (I think houses are pretty big in the USA compared to other countries. In Europe, things are more petite too) And we are accustomed to not wearing uniforms to school. When Binh saw a photo of an American school, and saw that the students wore plain clothing, she wondered if they were too poor to afford uniforms...In the USA it's usually just the private school kids who wear uniforms. I would like to be able to live in another country - not just visit it - because simply seeing a place for a week or two is not enough to really get a feel for what life is like there.

Labels: america, book, class, culture, different, dog, excuse, flag football, geometry, late, lunch, math, scapegoat, school, shock, sports, teacher, uniform, vietnam, when heaven fell

That is French for "Circus of the Sun". It's really a lovely name. And I think the performances are lovely too.

While I was in Las Vegas, my family saw a show, the KÀ. It's a wild and exciting show, but at times also peaceful or comical. KÀ can be seen in the hotel/casino MGM Grand.

This is the second performing arts show that I've seen in Las Vegas that cost money to see. The first one I saw was Le Rêve, which is not part of the Cirque du Soleil (Cirque du Soleil has several shows, such as the O, Mystère, The Beatles Love, and I heard there's a new one, Viva Elvis). I think Le Rêve was a good show too. But it's a pretty different experience from KÀ. For one thing, Le Rêve has water, while KÀ has fire.

I don't want to spoil much of the KÀ for you, so I'll only talk about one part of it. There is this one scene where a prince and another guy are making shadows. It's pretty cool. They formed various animals with their hands. I'm talking about something like this (click here!). I'd like to try doing that sometime. I'm not really great with any kind of puppets, not to mention doing shadow puppets. (But I probably haven't tried enough to find out anyways.)

It seems performing in the shows is pretty dangerous. True, mostly people have lines attached to themselves, so they aren't going to fall and break their necks, but there are a few performers who don't have these safety lines, and they do rather risky-looking things. I've never seen someone mess up in the two shows I've seen, but you never know, accidents do happen...

...like car accidents. There seem to have been several in this area. I've never been involved in one, thank goodness, besides getting scratches on cars (and that's no big deal, since no one was hurt). But there really is death happening, even if you haven't been seeing it, people are dying all the time - and it's so hard for me to realize because none of my relatives or friends have ever died. That's why I have trouble sometimes feeling sorry for people who are starving in other countries. Since I haven't experienced it, I can't really understand it (I'm a seeing is believing sort of person). I might be starting to understand, but I don't know if I'd really get it. (There is, after all, a difference between just feeling sorry for someone and actually understanding their situation.)

I've been realizing lately how time is also passing, though subtly. I was taking pictures outside, and even though two pictures (of the same place) were only less than a minute apart in time, the background (the sky and clouds) was different. That's how fast clouds are really moving on a windy day. On some days, you don't think the clouds are moving, especially since they are far away and it is hard to see their movement, but they really are...

And I'm always stuck with mostly the same people as I move up through the grades. Sure, there are people from other elementary schools added once you're in middle school, but eventually you know those people too, and it's just the same old faces. I sometimes feel people act rather immature and really aren't any different, except maybe being taller, but really, they are changing. And the schools are different as you move up. Some middle school classrooms look like elementary school classrooms, but there are different desks (the kinds with the chair attached to the desk; at first I wasn't used to it and I tried to scoot back, but the whole desk moved). And although I wasn't too excited about having to go to high school next school year because it's only across the street and I will still be with mostly the same people (though I will see more of the older students), there are some changes there, too. We'll get to use lockers (we do have lockers at my school but most people don't get to use them nowadays), and we'll actually get to sit in chairs when we have assemblies. This is a major change. In elementary and middle school, we've had to sit on the ground for the sake of space.

And there is one change that I hadn't thought about for a long time. In elementary school, during recess, mostly the students spent their time on the playground, though some people played on the grass, walked around, or spent time in areas they weren't supposed to me (like me...hehe...I used to make mud things in plastic containers). But once you get to middle school, there's no more time on the playground. Instead, you spend time talking with your friends or studying. I guess you just get used to it. One of my friends has a younger sister who is still in elementary school. Her sister asked, "What do you do during brunch (what recess is now called)?" My friend said, "We just talk..." And her sister said, "That's boring." (Probably seems that way...I mean, back in sixth grade I just read books instead of socializing anyhow.) But I guess she'll adjust to it too when she moves up to middle school. It seems mostly everyone does sooner or later. People just accept the way things are.

Labels: car accident, change, circus, cirque du soleil, clouds, desk, different, KA, KÀ, las vegas, le rêve, people, playground, recess, school, shadow, show, sky, time, understanding

This is sort of a follow-up to my previous post, "The Pealing of Bells". Well, just to bring you up to speed, I visited Sather Tower (the Campanile) of UC Berkeley.

While I was up there, I was snapping photos, as is my hobby nowadays. Other people were doing the same thing. A few people asked my dad to take a picture of them. I looked at their camera, and alas! It was a Panasonic Lumix, blue like mine. In fact, the two cameras were exactly the same.

Whenever I hear bells mentioned, I end up thinking of the song Viva la Vida, from Coldplay. Part of the song mentions bells.

In language arts class, part of our homework was to find some song lyrics where slant rhyming is used. (A slant rhyme is when two or more words sound similar but still different, like dark and heart, or me and harmony) I was sitting there thinking of songs that I knew (besides the Japanese ones XD) and I started remembering the lyrics of Viva la Vida. Well, then I noticed the two other people sitting at my table group were also trying to recall lyrics. Upon listening closely, I realized it was from the very same song.

I've been hearing Coldplay music in other places too. It's golf season again, so my dad has been watching golf on TV. In the background, the Coldplay song Clocks was playing (without any voices, though).

A while back, in language arts class, we spent the whole period writing an in-class essay. We had been given the prompt options before. The purpose of this was to practice writing within a time limit and also to practice writing the kind of essay that would score well based on the grading guidelines that are used for writing tests. One of the things you need to do to get a high score is to come up with a unique interpretation of the prompt.

That's a pretty tough thing to do, isn't it? What if you came up with something and you thought it was unique, but fourteen of your classmates also thought that? How would you be able to know whether you had a rare interpretation or not unless you were able to compare yourself to other people?

What really makes someone unique? It is commonly said that everyone is different. At the same time, we are more similar than we think. (In fact, humans have a lot of genes in common with corn, or so I heard... D: ) There are those that seek to make us be the same. And there are those who seek to make us be different. Which is really better? For to be different means we could end up apart from each other. Separated by the things we don't have in common. But to be the same means that you could lose your identity.

There are times that I feel separated from my peers. True, I may spend my day with them, but hearing their problems, sometimes I end up thinking, "Why is that a problem when there is so much else in the world?" or "I've already gone through that years ago." Perhaps that is was led to my belief that I am old. For the older you are, the more experiences you are likely to have gone through, and so you will end up with much wisdom (or in some cases, bitterness at the injustice).

On a side note, I discovered one possible origin of Santa Claus. It appeared in the book Twice Upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris.

"Now, the last thing we have to do is find a name for our business. Since it's all Mr. Lucasa's idea, I think it should be named for him. I've been fiddling around making anagrams out of his name. And I think I've come up with something. It just needs a little tinkering."
She put a piece of paper in front of them. Written across the top was STAN LUCASA, and underneath were all the combinations of letters she'd been able to think of, none of which made any sense at all, including:
ASA CALNUTS
SAL NATSUCA
SALSA CATUN
LASSA TUNAC
LUTS SAANAC
At the very bottom of the page was a name with a circle around it. "This is the one I think we should use," Susan said. "I can't explain why - it just seems right. What do you think?"
"Santa Claus," Mr. Lucasa said slowly, trying it out.

Labels: bells, clocks, coldplay, deja vu, different, interpretation, jean ferris, language arts, problem, same, santa claus, sather tower, slant rhyme, songs, twice upon a marigold, unique, viva la vida

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

My mother has revealed her uncanny knack for making things. (Well, she was always better with her hands than I was, but never mind that) Why, just today, she was helping me out with a project about buoyancy we're doing in school.

The project is a partner project. I have a partner who I work with in science class. The point of the project was to build a boat which weighs less than 15 pennies and for the boat to float for 10 seconds in water with a load of 60 pennies, 2 quarters, 3 dimes, and a nickel. You can't get a premade boat or use a boat-building kit, and the boat needs to be small enough so it won't hit the sides of Lake Hembry. (Lake Hembry is not an actual landmark, it's a big tub filled with water. It got polluted by the coins)

My partner and I worked on it on Monday and Tuesday. Our first stage of the boat, which was simply a box made of aluminum foil with toothpicks in the corners and yellow masking tape to make the walls higher, worked fine, and was able to hold the load quite well when we performed a test run. However, some problems did occur later on. For one thing, my partner had some ideas, like added another structure made out of carton and putting it in the boat (which I denied him, because it would add to the mass without really adding to the volume, thus making the boat more likely to sink). We ended up putting paper on top of the foil, and putting another layer of foil on. Then we added another layer of tape. It still floated, but now it was leaking, which is very dangerous. And so I brought it home, planning to patch the leaks (I tried to do that with Scotch transparent tape, but the transparent tape soaked up too much water).

And so here came my mother to the rescue. She said we should simply build a new, better boat, so we did. We got some aluminum foil and recreated the boxlike shape. (I know a box isn't necessarily as good, because that means it has more mass and less volume than just an almost completely horizontal boat, but we have to make sure water doesn't flow over the sides and into the boat) We put plastic wrap on the inside of the box so that even if there were holes in the aluminum foil, the water would not leak into the part of the boat where we put the coins. And then my mom suggested we line the base of the inside of the boat with four straws so the walls would stay straight. And now we are just waiting for my dad to bring masking tape since he probably can find that at his office (he insists he is much more valuable to the company than masking tape, so no one minds if he takes supplies as long as he's not abusing them).

My mom is much more resourceful than my partner and I combined. I feel the need to bow down to her. I never really thought my parents had great knowledge of science despite the fact that they have Master's Degrees (my mother in Physics, my father in Electrical Engineering). So I guess it's like a wake-up call for me. You can never judge a book by its cover; you can't underestimate people, either.

Let me give you an example...There's a book called The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson. (I can't recall whether I've talked about it, so please tell me if I already have) I had been seeing this book in the library quite a few times. (This was some time ago, when the Calabazas branch of the San Jose library was not yet planning to close) I always debated whether to check it out. I wasn't sure if I was going to like it or not. Finally I did check it out, and it turned out to be one of my favorite books. This isn't a risk, but it reminds me of what my math teacher has been talking about...

He said that some students have parents who are successful in their fields. And if the parents would be asked by their fellow workers "What can I do to get ahead?" (regarding work) the people would say, "Do what everyone else is doing" or something like that. And they want their kids to do that too. "Get all A's. "Take as many AP classes as possible." And my teacher said that colleges are not going to be interested in you if you do the same as everyone else. True, having good grades is definitely helpful. But you need to make yourself look different. The colleges are interested in people who have dreams and plans for the future, who are going to do great things (to make the colleges famous! XD). So my teacher said, "Why do all of you not want to take a job at Starbucks? Go join the Peace Corps? You have to take risks sometimes in life." And I heard someone say (not to the teacher, "I only care about getting rich." So my previous post, about the selfish people, is proven... People really are selfish after all.

Labels: aluminum foil, boat, buoyancy, college, different, eva ibbotson, knowledge, lake hembry, leak, library, master's degree, physics, problem, risk, science, selfish, success, the star of kazan

Top ↑