I've had a few previous run-ins with cats. Most of the meetings were with cats in the neighborhood, except for two occasions, one at my mom's friend's house and another at a Humane Society. Cats have never seemed to like me much. They either stare at me suspiciously and run off if I try to approach, or they keep turning away from me to show their disinterest. In fact, my parents' friend's cat even bared its teeth (though I'd heard that he - or was it she? - didn't like people much to begin with) when I attempted to get friendly with it.

So I wasn't quite sure if I really ought to be volunteering to help out with a Town Cats event at PetCo. It was an adoption fair for cats, and I was supposed to be helping with the cleanup - dismantling the cages and that sort of thing. I figured I might as well go. Despite all of my cajoling for the past couple of years, I have still been unable to convince my mother that we ought to get a cat or dog. It's probably because of one of these reasons...

1. My mom never liked cats or dogs much. It seems that her side of our family isn't fond of animals in general, since they didn't have pets when my mom was young.

2. No one has time to take care of it. There's no one to feed lunch to a cat or dog, and if we got a dog we'd have to walk it every day. (I think that'd be good exercise, but it is time-consuming.) Cats are lower maintenance, but as my mother considers them to be rather disloyal and not as useful (for instance, dogs could guard the house while we're away), that's out of the question. I don't think my mom has ever really spent time with a cat, though, so how would she know?

3. My mom is afraid of dogs. She thinks that the big ones are scary and that they will bite her. It's ridiculous considering that she's never even been bitten. And I don't think it's good to be judging animals' temperaments by their sizes. I've told her to pet dogs, that they won't hurt her, but she always refuses.

4. I'm allergic to cats, so I can't have one. Three times I have gotten rashes after coming in contact with cats. Of course, it's not life-threatening, I could still have a cat, but it sure would be annoying suffering from allergies all the time. (And since cats don't like me, I think I'd get along better with a dog.)

5. My dad is allergic to dogs, according to the doctor. I might've mentioned this in an old post. The doctor told him that he's allergic to dogs (guess he found out by giving my dad an injection of something doggish - yeah, I know, that's not a real word - and deduced that he's allergic) but I have never seen him react to dogs. So it's probably a lie. But I don't know for sure.

Anyways, I've wanted to have a dog since about second grade, though I didn't start to nag often until middle school. But even after years and years, I have not managed to convince my mom. She half-jokingly made an offer to me many years ago, saying that if I quit going on the Internet, I could have a dog. I suspect that she only offered that to me because she didn't think I would be able to do it. I have considered quitting the computer (except for homework purposes, I suppose) so that I can have a dog, but I'm not completely sure she would hold up her end of the bargain. Besides, there are lots of things on the Internet that I still want to do - post on my blog, for one. And so I am still stuck in this dogless, catless state. I'll probably be like this until I move out (my mother is always saying I can have a dog...when I'm an adult. It's rather frustrating. She says I'm not responsible enough to take care of one anyways, since I've broken my DS and a camera, as well as lost a jacket, homework assignments, and various other things).

Labels: adoption, allergies, animals, cat, deal, dog, fair, family, internet, mother, pet, petco, reasons, town cats

There are two Chinas, actually, the People's Republic of China (the big country) and the Republic of China (the island of Taiwan), but both countries are Mandarin-speaking and Mandarin-writing.

This poses a problem for me, especially considering the vast population of the big China. Mandarin is becoming more of an important language to know in the world, and I'm already affected, despite that fact that my "world" is still not very big.

On Friday afternoon, while I was at home, the phone started ringing. I decided to pick it up, figuring it might be one of my parents. It was a lady speaking in Mandarin. I was quiet a while, trying to translate it in my head. The lady finally said something in English, something about a clinic, and that made sense to me. Then she spoke in Mandarin asking if ___ (my mom's name) was home, to which I responded she wasn't. The lady seemed slightly worried, saying that my mom had an appointment tomorrow and she wanted to know if it could be rescheduled or something like that. I tried to reply that I would tell my mom, but I couldn't come up with the right words...So after a little pause, I hung up.

This made me realize what a pickle I'm in. I can understand Mandarin to some degree (I know more of the Shanghai dialect than Mandarin because my parents speak that at home), but I am illiterate (the only ones I can easily recognize are 人, 一, 二, 三, 四, 月, 火, 上, 下, 小, 大, 云, and 中). Also, I can only say a few phrases. One of the phrases I know sounds like "Wan Dan La!" (Don't really know how to translate it.) My parents say it is something more commonly said in Taiwan, almost like slang, I guess, and they think I must have picked it up from one of my friends from Taiwan. But that's weird, because usually I speak English with my friends.

Anyways, I will be in a real fix if Mandarin becomes the language of the world. I mean, it's already the #1 spoken language of the world, and the second place language, Spanish, is far behind. I'm kind of worried. I don't think I could easily learn to read Chinese at this age. I did start learning once during a summer, years back, but I've already forgotten. It was more like I was memorizing the lines so I knew what to say; not sure if I actually knew what I was reading. Anyways, it gets harder and harder the older you get to learn a language. So if you want to learn, start early. (I'm jealous of my cousins in France. They have already started learning English and they're not even in middle school yet)

Recently, my middle school had an Electives Night. I didn't attend, though I wanted to (just to get cookies from the cooking classroom! They have great cookies). My mom said, "Why do you want to go? You're going to a different school next year, so it doesn't matter." And so I stayed home.

But some students did go, to help my French teacher out, since she has to "sell" her classes and all. Parents and students tend to wonder, "Should I take French or Spanish?" (I say French, but I'm biased.) Since Spanish is considered to be more useful (because more people speak Spanish, and California is close to Mexico), more students take Spanish. And there is somewhat of a misconception that Spanish is easier than French. (I have no idea about that, but I'm guessing they're about the same once you get used to them. You just have to get more of an accent for speaking French) There is one good argument for French, though, and that's the fact that there is no Spanish Week at my school, only French Week. Haha!

I really wish the schools still offered German. And I'd like to learn Italian (but then again, I hear if you know French or Spanish - or both - it shouldn't be too hard to understand Italian. French, Spanish, and Italian all use the word "Ciao!" for "goodbye"). It'd be nice if my school had Japanese. Then I could learn Japanese 1 in 8th grade and take Japanese 2 in high school. It seems weird that Japanese 2 is an option for freshmen. Only people who learned Japanese outside of school or who already knew Japanese would be able to take it, right? I feel like it's a setback for me and other students since we can't take Japanese in middle school (not even Mandarin, the class got cut, sadly). I'd like to be able to get all 5 levels of a language done.

Then again, it's not horrible if you don't take AP classes, is it? I've heard that AP classes are college level classes. I suppose if you take AP classes and then make yourself busy in college, you can graduate earlier or something. But I don't see why you have to be in such a rush in life. Why not take it at your own pace? (Assuming your pace isn't as slow as mine, since I want to retire and all) I guess this competitive world and market makes people feel they must try their hardest, be the fastest and the best, so they can come out on top.

But if you've got friends like these, who needs anemone? (Get it? It's a joke from Finding Nemo.) I know that doesn't make sense, but I just wanted to say that for once.

Labels: ap classes, china, ciao, college, competiton, difficulty, finding nemo, french week, important, italian, japanese, joke, language, mandarin, mother, phone call, reading, school, spanish, taiwan

That would be my house. (Though maybe you think it's the last house on the street if you live farther down the street. But to me, it's the first house, because when you drive to the street where I live, my house is the first one on the right side.) Some mysterious happenings have been going on here lately, and the place that once seemed safe now feels dangerous.

Last night, I had a most unusual dream. Even though it is common for "kids" to get nightmares, when I was young, I never had any. But starting from this year I have started getting them. This was the most major nightmare I ever had. In my dream, I was woken up and was told by my mom that my dad had suffered a heart attack. I don't think I properly absorbed the news since I went numb and blank. Then finally I said, "He didn't have a pulse?" And my mom said, "No." I was in shock for a while. But then, later in the day, my dad walked down the hallway. I thought I was hallucinating. He was alive and didn't look unusual at all. He asked me what was wrong. Before I woke up for real, I was thinking, "But he was dead! My mom must've misjudged! People don't come back to life."

The other creepy thing that happened also had to do with death. Do you remember reading about the dead birds and other symbols that I was noticing/my mind was making up? (If not, refer to the posts ◆ something wicked this way comes, and ◆ the keys to the kingdom. They should be at the bottom of the September 2009 archive) Well, I hadn't seen any for a while since the two birds that had died, but in my backyard on the weekend, we found another one. There was a nice-looking bird on the ground, or at least, the bird used to look nice. Now it just looked gross because it was covered with ants and a few flies. It was really disturbing. My dad and I worked together to get rid of it. I used a big shovel to pick up the bird and dump it into the plastic bag my dad was holding. My dad tied up the bag and took it out to the trash.

Strangely, the dead bird with the ants swarming over it reminds me something my language arts teacher said. We were correcting a sample of a badly written memoir about a person and their dog. One of the sentences was something along the lines of "We where over my aunts house". Never mind the fact that it's the wrong word being used. Think about being over someone's house. Would that mean you're floating over it? Or on the roof? It should be "over at my aunt's house" or "at my aunt's house". My language arts teacher said that if you say "over my aunt's house" it seems like you are a bug or a pest running about the house. The thought of bugs reminded me of that dead bird with the bugs all over it.

I shall try to speak of something positive so the post will end on a good note and won't have you shuddering. It seems that my running seems to have improved (only on the warmup run, but better than nothing!). I used to always pull my PE shorts high up, sort of onto my stomach. Now I let them down a little more, so that it still is covering me adequately (no worries, I'm not going to try and "sag" like some people) but it is more at my waist than covering my stomach. It seems to help a lot with running. I can't believe I didn't figure this out sooner. XD

Labels: ant, birds, bugs, death, down, dream, family, father, flies, heart attack, house, life, mother, nightmare, over my aunt's house, reincarnation, running, shorts, strange

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