I've recently been learning about logarithms in my math class, and it has not been going well. So far this semester, math had not been as challenging as I'd expected, up until I got to logs. They seemed simple enough, and I thought that I understood them...But I found out during the most recent math quiz that I really don't understand them at all. I couldn't even finish the quiz in time. It was really a slap in the face. I knew I'd been getting overconfident about tests; I studied less and less as the year went on.

It's tempting for me to just blame it on the fact that there weren't the kind of problems on the test in the textbook - nothing to study with. But if I'd actually been trying hard enough to study, maybe I would've realized that. Maybe I would've gone looking for problems, made up my own, just done something. Anything.

I started to write this post before, but I completely forgot about it; my memory hasn't been good for quite a long time, and I haven't been sleeping too well lately. I wake up in the middle of the night, and then I can't get back to sleep again for a long time, if at all. I've been pretty tired during the day, and one of my friends even asked me if I was okay, saying that I seemed out of it. But I guess being sleep-deprived hasn't been as bad I as I expected. I thought I would pass out in the middle of class or something.

People do pass out, though. The reasons are unclear; could be dehydration. A couple of weeks ago, I was minding my own business in science class when I heard a loud thump. One of my classmates had just fallen out of her stool. The teacher called the office, and a woman came into the classroom with a wheelchair to take away my classmate. Thankfully she wasn't badly injured after all and was back to class the next day. Crazy enough for one person to faint, but the teacher said she'd seen it happen before. There was even a student who practically did a backflip when she fell out of the stool.

But even such things are a part of normal life, are they not? I don't know anymore if there is a such thing as normal anymore. You'll see that idea in Durarara!! and in Inception, both of which were (perhaps still are) quite popular, and not without reason. Inception is one of those movies where you have to pay attention - if you're multitasking the way I tend to, then you might look back at the screen and realize you don't know what the people are doing or where they are. Still, it was a riveting movie, and one of the few movies with lots of explosions and guns that I actually liked, seeing as am I'm generally more of a fan of comedies. If you haven't watched it, I definitely recommend Inception.

Labels: algebra, anime, durarara, faint, health, inception, life, logarithm, logs, math, movie, normal, quiz, sleep

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

Have you ever heard of that TV show called Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? I think I've watched it once or twice, not very much, but enough to get the gist of it. It's a game show, where a person tries to answer questions to win money. Sometimes the contestant asks for help from one of the fifth graders present. I used to be shocked by how little the contestants seemed to know. Like how they didn't know the epidermis was the outermost layer of skin.

But then again, I, having been quite a bit younger than those adults at the time, had learned the facts more recently, and since they were still fresh on my mind, I could recall them easily. Adults cannot remember all that much of what they learned when they were younger, except maybe the subject they teach if they are a teacher. My parents weren't even taught that much biology (there was more focus on physics and chemistry). And it's hard for me to talk to them about science because they learned the terms for things in Chinese, whereas I only know the English words. Well, anyways, there's no guarantee that they remember any history they learned. They still know how to do math, but they use it in their jobs (and in daily life - there is always that stress on "Math is important!") and I make them help me with hard homework problems, which are probably the main reasons for that.

I wonder if all these years of going to school are really worthwhile, then. If we don't remember much of it later on, what use is it to us? Knowledge is power, but if we lose that knowledge, has it not gone to waste? Or is it worth it to go school for other things, like the memories and friends we make? And yet at the same time it can be painful, when friends drift apart or fight and never make up, when friends move away, when you have difficulties in academics or in PE that you can't seem to overcome. When you have a teacher who seems to have a personal grudge against you. (Some of these have not happened to me. But I have drifted apart from friends. And many of my friends have moved away. I am lucky in being able to maintain contact with some of them. But I fear I might never see others ever again, except by some chance encounter. And what if I didn't recognize them? Because we had changed so much in our time apart?)

We still go to school anyways. (It is required by law, so I suppose it isn't much of a choice, but nevertheless...) We still take the good together with the bad. A few people do lose faith, lose hope, want to give up, try to end their lives so they can find an end to it all, have a chance at a fresh start. But as I heard in a school performance about puberty, "Suicide is a permanent solution to what may be only a temporary problem." And I suppose we all still have to keep struggling, keep living, reach out for the things we want, despite all those things that stand in the way, make you experience all the emotions you wished you would never feel again. I think it's something amazing, how there are still little things - and big things - that make it all worth it, that we can all bear our burdens for the sake of something precious.

I am getting awfully sidetracked. But then, that's not necessarily a bad thing. My history teacher was rambling about something that wasn't necessarily related to history, and then a student raised his hand to ask a question. The teacher said with a humph, "Great. You shouldn't interrupt me when I go off on a tangent. Now I feel like teaching again." At this point, we all groaned, since we preferred hearing interesting stories to getting an education. (I mean, hearing stories is a kind of education too, an education in life instead of just in academics.)

We didn't have much to do in science class at the end of the day, so a student said, "Hey, do you want to play Stump the Science Teacher"? The teacher asked how it was played. The student said that it was his goal to ask a question about any kind of science that the teacher would be unable to answer. He asked, "What is cement made up of?" The teacher said, "Well...What kind of cement are you talking about? Different grades of cement are used depending on the purpose. Do you mean our modern cement, or the kind that was made a long time ago in England?" and so on. I think it was more like the teacher stumped the student than the other way around.

Labels: are you smarter than a 5th grader, cement, change, daily, distraction, education, friends, game, life, loss, math, memory, pain, school, science, show, story, teacher, television, waste

I may not have much knowledge of this matter, but I've always thought make-up was meant to be used on faces. Not drawings on paper. But I have a classmate in my Japanese class who uses lipstick, nail polish, and other things to color in strange drawings of female faces. She said that she uses make-up instead of color pencils for Fashion Design class. Two of the people sitting with me keep pulling their desks away whenever she takes out the make-up since they say it smells too strong.

It's kind of funny, but depending on what kind of twins you are, sometimes siblings are more alike than twins are. If you're identical twins then there's no match for you but if you're fraternal twins of the same gender, then it's possible for two regular siblings to have more resemblance than you. I know two guys who look very alike. Not completely alike, but still with enough similarities for people to mistake them for twins. But they are actually just brothers.

I have discovered a song that I find endlessly funny. The name of it is Ippon Demo Ninjin. It's a song about counting from 1-10 in Japanese using various objects like carrots, sandals, yachts, grains of sesame salt, rockets, turkeys, bees, whales, glasses of juice, and strawberries. Unfortunately, I couldn't locate the song, which was a great disappointment to me. I wish I could show you all, but only my Japanese teacher seems to have a video of it.

Geometry really is hard like I had expected. There are some things I know - like how two angles would add up to 180 degrees so you just need to play around with numbers already provided - but there were problems about clocks which stumped me. I hadn't remembered that when the minute hand moves, the hour hand must move too. I really need some practice otherwise I'll be like my 7th grade math teacher, who had to retake it because she wasn't good at Geometry. Then I'll have lost the head start I got by going to Pre-Algebra in 6th grade. (And possibly, the chance to go one of the colleges I've been thinking of!)

I wonder if I have become too used to drinking bottled water. My mom says that since it's the summer, I should just pour some water from one of the really big Crystal Geyser water containers since that would save plastic and in turn the environment. However, out of habit, I end up grabbing a water bottle whenever I feel thirsty. And only later do I remember that I should have filled a cup with water. Probably I will be unlucky and I won't learn to do that until the end of the summer. It's kind of like how I want to sleep in on Mondays but wake up early on weekends, and how when I go to China I only become used to the time zone at the end of the trip. I have some belief in karma and I bet I did something in my past life that wasn't too bad, but bad enough to earn me faults.

Labels: appearance, clock, cosmetics, count, drink, geometry, habit, ippon demo ninjin, japanese, math, oddity, siblings, song, summer school, twins, unlucky, water bottles

I don't remember the phrase exactly anymore, except I know Gill (an angelfish) and his gang (other assorted fish, all of them living in a fish tank in a dentist's office in Sydney, Australia) said that when they were making Nemo (one of the main characters, and he's a clownfish with a mutated fin) one of them. If you've watched the movie Finding Nemo, this may ring a bell in your head. For some reason I kept thinking of it lately. I guess it's because when I'm playing a video game, Animal Crossing: Wild World, I keep on catching clownfish when I'm fishing in the ocean. (It's too bad you can't go swimming or own a boat in that game, but oh well.)

Lately my parents are talking to my dad's friends a lot because my family is planning a trip to Australia this summer. We're going for a pretty long time, a couple of weeks, I think. Though it is shallow to think this, I always wonder if I'm going to get Internet access, because I don't want to get behind on role-playing on one of the websites I visit (by the way, role-playing is kind of like writing a book, except each of the characters is controlled by a different person, so basically it's a group effort. Role-plays can be anything from a pack of wolves running from humans, to vampires mingling with humans - sometimes it's too much like Twilight, so I only join ones that aren't using Twilight characters - to depressed people going to a summer camp). Also, I don't want to miss making money on the Internet, even if it's fake money. I guess I am too used to having a computer around all the time. Or maybe I'm just a worrywart.

Something happened on Tuesday in math class that I didn't expect. On the part of the board where the homework assignments are written, the teacher was writing down "No homework" on our side of the section (one part is for the Pre-Algebra 7, or regular math, and the other side is for the Algebra 1, or advanced math). There was a lot of surprise in general since usually we have homework every day, unless it's the day before a long vacation, or we just took a test. It turned out we were taking a test which doesn't affect our grade to judge how much of the Algebra curriculum we knew. I know I must've failed miserably since I didn't remember most of the stuff. So today my teacher said some people scored really high, but some people weren't retaining the things they'd been taught (she must have meant me XD) and she was worried about it. She started talking about how we needed to remember all these things in Geometry, since Geometry is different from most of the other math courses we'll take, and so on, blah blah blah. (Note: I don't mean to offend anyone with the last three words)

In the mail, we received a letter from the BestFriends Animal Society addressed to my mom. It was saying how they were trying to give homeless animals homes, and they wanted her support to help make their goal possible. My dad and I could hardly believe it since my mom is not too fond of animals. She thinks cats are kind of useless and that big dogs are scary. We get all sorts of other weird things in the mail, especially flyers advertising the store called Express, and how it's having sales on women's jeans and things like that. It's always addressed to some random person called Eun M. Ji. (By the way, please don't Google this person or anything like that, or it'll ruin their privacy) I wonder why we keep getting them. Did this "Eun" purposely ask Express to send mail to us?

Labels: algebra, animal crossing, animals, australia, exams, express, finding nemo, geometry, internet, mail, math, movie, roleplaying, RP, vacation

My mother is eventually going to catch me and force me to do the extra math work she assigns. I really do not look forward to it. I don't feel any particularly urge to be a hard worker, as I do not have much of that "inner drive" some people seem to think I have. Really I just want to enjoy myself while I'm still...young.

Anyhow, happy Lunar New Year to everyone! (I think it's really tomorrow, but the weekend is a better time to celebrate than Monday, if you ask me.) I didn't really do anything, myself; just got some money from my parents. Some people actually have a feast and people coming over to party and all. But I guess in the USA not as many people celebrate it seriously.

My parents were watching the Lunar New Year celebration on television. My father says that people in China look forward to the new year, like people in the US look forward to the Super Bowl.

Anyhow, the celebration thing they have (it's basically some entertainment such as acting, dancing, singing, etc.). Some celebrity guy called Jay Chou was singing earlier, along with a little boy dressed up in a miniature version of his outfit. The little boy was pretty odd...I think he was singing some kind of rap music. o_O

I was really upset earlier today because my GIMP broke down. (For those who don't know, GIMP is an image editing program which you can download on the Internet.) I was making a banner and I forgot to save it. At first I was in misery, then I went back to the computer and made another banner, which actually turned out better than the first one I made. The only bad thing, I guess, is that I wasted so much time that I could've spent doing other activities.

Labels: error, gimp, holidays, jay chou, math, music, new year, television, torture

(Thanks to "Marine" for the heads-up about it.)

Doesn't that title sound cheesy? Like some kind of show or musical group? But no, it's not any of those. It's two girls who go to the school, both named Jessica, who stick together like glue (not for real; they're not Siamese twins or anything).

I thought of this because I was walking home, and was a little behind schedule. I saw one of the Jessicas (this one being the taller one who wears her hair in a ponytail. The other one is shorter than her and has glasses). I was surprised since I didn't see the other Jessica with her. I guess they don't live near each other, or maybe the other Jessica rides a car home. Still, it's odd, after seeing them sit together in their classes and walk around the school together, whenever they can.

Well, I got home, anyhow. I did something a little risky today. I have to press a button to cross the street once during the walk home. This time, my walking companion was a little late to press the button, and the green light came on without giving us the walking signal, so my companion didn't walk. However, I thought it was okay and just plowed on ahead. I almost didn't make it because the light changed to yellow and then red before I got to the curb on the other side...But I'm still alive. I won't do it again, I hope. I was a bit freaked out because I didn't get enough time to walk.

I was meant to be doing my math homework, but I was on the Web to find some explanations to assist me with it. Then I got distracted by chatting to my parents and I decided I might as well write today's blog entry while I'm at it.

My father is such a glutton. He is always eating stuff when it's not meant for him to eat. Like when I used to keep a bunch of Popsicles in the fridge, he would chow on them and there wouldn't be much left for me. Or chocolates - he'd eat those too. And even raisins. My mom bought them because they contain some iron but my dad already ate...one third of the container! Wow!

Anyhow, here's the cooking schedule for this week.
Tuesday - Burritos (Mine fell apart. I put too much stuff in it.)
Wednesday - Table Setting (What's that? Maybe the teacher's out again)
Thursday - Prepare Streusel Coffee Cake
Friday - Bake Cake (Sounds tasty, except I don't like coffee flavor...)

Labels: blog, chat, cooking, crossing, danger, food, jessicas, math, people, road, walk

Don't worry, the sky isn't falling, there isn't an earthquake or King Kong or anything. No, it's my dad, because he brought back an old friend of his.

The friend is just coming here to visit. He will only be here about two days or so. But my parents say I have never met this person (even my mom doesn't know him). And he will be sleeping in one of the bedrooms in our house (we actually have three, but one is normally used as my mom's home office, so most of the time no one sleeps in there). I guess he doesn't want to pay for a hotel since he's only staying here a short time anyways. He's Chinese and wears glasses. He lived in Australia (in Sydney! What a shock). And he says his daughter has a friend with the same name as me. (Bigger shock!)

Anyhow, though, I will have to make the best of it, and play the good child/good host. After all, my mom will shoot me warning glances the whole time if I misbehave. (Well, my mom's not home yet; still on the way from her office building, but still.) My mom tends to be the stricter person in the family. Not to say my dad doesn't also have a short fuse.

Today was a pretty lazy day. We had a quiz on Africa's geography, a quiz on our Animal of the Week in Science (We don't do it every week. Just every once in a while), and review work in math. It was weird in math since the student teacher took over the lesson. He seemed a bit uncomfortable since he always says "Umm" and "Uh" when he talks. (But I guess he's always like that.) Some of our table groups had to volunteer to talk about math problems. We also had a Tips section at the bottom with some important reminders. I wrote "Please give me $50" in that section. My tablemate/friend saw it and laughed, but she crossed it out anyhow. Oh well.

Oh yeah, in the morning, I was with my friends, and one of my friends complained about her parents thinking about what kind of husband she would want, despite her only being in middle school. Then another friend remarked that her parents already had a person in mind. Apparently it was a rich family they knew and the son was smart and tall and didn't wear glasses. Her parents thought that guy was handsome but she just says he's weird. I laughed, and then asked them if they knew a guy called "Anton". They did, and I told them my dad had suggested I marry him (seeing as he is fairly wealthy and is actually in advanced math). My friends were at first in shock, then laughed like crazy. (By the way, does anyone know how he got into advanced math? The only time I ever saw him, I thought he didn't look that...intelligent. Maybe looks are deceiving.)

And then one of my friends starting giving some other friends and me nicknames. She called me Syd (no surprise there, though), and called another friend Lily, and a third one she dubbed Nicky. Nicky says that some people call her Nicky and others call her Nickel. Nickel is very similar to her actual name, but I would feel strange if someone called me a kind of money.

When I was walking home, there was a young boy ahead of me. He was walking home along with his sister, father, and some younger sibling (he/she had to be lifted up as they were quite young and could be too weak to walk for a while). The boy was talking to his sister and didn't notice a mailbox sticking out almost over the sidewalk. He hit his head on the mailbox and it fell open, revealing some brochures and other papers inside it. It reminds me of a time I was feeling naughty when I was young, and opened a mailbox. I took one thing out of it, closed the mailbox, and walked for a while, then placed it in a random person's mailbox. (I felt bad afterward but it's too late now.)

Labels: attention, australia, family, friends, future, mailbox, marriage, math, nickname, personality, school, teacher, temporary

My eyes keep drooping. I don't feel exhausted, just mildly drowsy. I guess I still need more sleep. I tend to wake up at odd times and get up, then go back to bed. I have heard that having a broken sleep pattern can take its toll on your health.

In language arts, we've been using laptops at school to research for our essays. These essays are about our "personal values", the traits that we admire. Take for example courage, friendship, tolerance, and so on. There's two ways you can write the essay: 1) Pick a few values you want to write about, and describe notable people who have those values... 2) Choose a person who shows multiple values you admire. Anyhoo, this essay makes me feel nervous, but I suppose I shouldn't stress over it. It's not going to kill me, right? (Not like crossing the street in Shanghai, China could kill you, what with some people running the red lights.)

A little voice in the back of my head is reminding me to do my math homework. I'm really unhappy with math so far this trimester. I completely blew the quiz because I got 13/15. It doesn't sound so bad since I only lost 2 points, but I lost those points for a pretty lame reason. Say if you came up with x-2y, you're supposed to write 3x(x-2y) because you divided by 3x before. But I didn't remember to put that and I lost those points. (The one comfort I have is that I have no problem with the actual problems then.)

I haven't been doing much Wii Fit lately even though I've eaten a lot recently. I hope that doesn't mean I'm getting less fit. I hear you get health problems (like higher risk of stroke) and you sweat more if you have too much weight on you.

Labels: language arts, math, sleep

Today has not been such a good day. To begin with, we had a substitute for math. I never like having subs. This teacher had a heavy accent and couldn't pronounce our names when she was trying to take attendance. One kid, Aditya, received a new nickname because of it. We now call him "Adeeya". He said he likes his new nickname, though.

Since she didn't have the answer key (we did homework with a worksheet last night), she just tried to get the answers from students. That worked up until we had different answers for a problem. So, a girl was called up to explain the problem on the board, and then people were still arguing, so now the whole class was in chaos. Somehow, we managed to get through all the answers, but you could tell there was a feeling of unrest in the room. -_-;;

Later on, in PE, it turned out we were doing the mile run for fitness testing. Bad news for me, because I can't run that fast, my fasted mile time still wouldn't be able to get an A. (At least it's not possible to get a 0. That's a comfort.) I ran like a freak today and got my fastest time - around 7:50 - but then I felt like throwing up. Bleeeeeh.

Labels: algebra, answer, math, mile, name, PE class, running, substitute, teacher

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