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

Interpret the meaning of that however you want. I love having titles with multiple layers of meaning. I guess my Writing for Publication class really is seeping into the rest of my life.

Well, one of my friends, thefalse-tto, seems to enjoy being written about, so I suppose I'll inflate her ego a bit more (no offense intended, if she is reading this). She was telling me about how before she'd made a "persona" on the Internet, which means that she basically made a whole identity for herself.

She managed to convince people that she was a 17-year-old boy living in Korea, and she explained that she knew English because you have to learn in there (which is true) and that she knew Chinese because you had to learn another language besides English and Korean (apparently also true; first time I've heard it, but it doesn't surprise me). I think it'd be pretty fun to try doing that myself. All I've done so far is stop showing my gender one or two of my accounts...but then again, I bet they already saw that I was female before I hid it. Or they can tell from the way I speak and the kind of pictures I have on my profiles/blogs/etc.

But then again, maybe not. It might not take much to convince people I'm the opposite gender or that I'm a different age or anything I feel like. I've done it before by accident; when I was in 7th grade, people on a forum I used to visit said they thought I was in high school or college because I apparently sounded mature (well, most people speak with tons of smilies and chatspeak, so I guess I seem really old in comparison. I don't know about you, but I estimate people's ages based on what they type). And there was a really funny incident many years ago on Club Penguin: Some girl thought I was a guy, so she kept having her penguin make those emoticons that look like a heart is breaking. Concerned, I asked her what was wrong, and then somehow or other we ended up going to my penguin's igloo. Well, eventually I said I was a girl and she said "You lied" and left. I was really flabbergasted at the time, and even angry, because I never said that I was male. But now I just find it hilarious. Isn't it funny how people are trying to flirt using a kids site where everyone is a bird?

Anyways, I don't really like to lie about my information, because I try to live by what I believe in, and also because I've seen lots of people on the Internet say they hate fakers and liars. I am overly concerned about whether people dislike me because I believe that they attack me with switchblades in some dark, obscure alley, or take pictures of me while I'm changing clothes and put it all over the Internet, and other things like that. (Not that it's ever happened, but hey, you never know.) Still, I am very curious about what people would think I'm like if I didn't have much information up. So maybe from now on I'll reveal as little as possible and see what happens.

This is a pretty big change of topic, but it's still got to do with this post's title. Very literally. Because there's a series of video games called Persona, and another friend of mine started telling me about the plot of Persona 4 yesterday. I've certainly seen Persona around before; one time I was on the air plane, and I noticed that the guy in the seat in front of me was playing a video game. Being the creepy, eavesdropping, people-watching sort of person that I am, I stared at it through the gap in the seats to see what game it was. I saw a character that looked very familiar, and then after a while I was certain that it had to be Minato Arisato, the protagonist of Persona 3. (And I was right; I later confirmed it by looking at pictures of Minato on the Internet. Couldn't find out from watching the guy play because his game was in Japanese, I think. I really have to learn Japanese this summer.) My friend says that she convinced her mom to get her Persona 4, which she says was pretty awkward, because Persona 4 is rated Teen in Japan but is rated Mature in America. (Tells you something about Japanese standards for what's age appropriate, game-wise at least, doesn't it?)

What I'm really in the mood for playing, though, is Pokemon. Sure, I have the older games, and I could go back to those, but there's nothing to do except slaughter wild Pokemon (which is like animal abuse, seeing as I don't even need to attack them except to make my own Pokemon level up), since I've already beat the main storyline. I'd like to try playing Pokemon Black or Pokemon White. But I haven't decided which one I want yet...I like Reshiram, the legendary Pokemon of Pokemon Black, but I think it'd be more useful to have Zekrom, and possibly Thundurus, if I ever get that far in the game. It seems, from what I've Googled, that it's easier to level up your Pokemon in Black...? (Correct me if I'm wrong.) I guess Black might be more useful to me because I don't really need those Pokemon that you can get in White but not in Black. (I mean, I checked the Pokemon that are in the White Forest, which is only in Pokemon White, and I have those Pokemon on my older Pokemon games.) If you have either game, please do tell me which you think is better.

Labels: club penguin, first impression, friends, honesty, identity, internet, japan, minato, paranoia, persona, pokemon, pokemon black, pokemon white, pretend, video games

Today's homework was to write a poem about ourselves. The poem started and ended with "I am -namegoeshere-." In the poem there are eight other lines. Four of those lines are true things about ourselves and the other four are lies. I thought it was interesting that my teacher wanted us to write lies about ourselves. Was it for fun, so we could pick out which parts were right and which parts were false?

I've never been much of a poet myself, I'm afraid. When I was young I tried my hand at writing a poem. I think I still have it tucked away in a notebook. Now that I look back at it, the poem seems rather meaningless and rough. I guess that things always look different when time passes, though. Drawings that seemed good to me when I was younger just look funny when I get older. And seeing pictures of myself a few years ago, I think, "Wow, I looked really different then." (But after a while I always looked similar in the pictures. I suppose it means I'm getting old.)

Sometimes I wonder if it's better to always tell the truth or if it's okay to lie sometimes. Most of the time telling the truth is the better thing to do - it shows you have integrity, and people who lie tend to get found out anyways (unless they're good at lying. I mean, I heard all the best thieves are never caught).

But telling the truth can be a harsh thing. Sometimes this happens to me, or I see it with other people... A person asks their friends, "Do you like my ____?" or says, "My drawing is so terrible!" And their friends would just say they liked it or that their drawing was bad right away. I wonder if they really mean it or if they're like me...Sometimes, even if I don't really think as highly of something as the person asking me does, I just say "It's nice" or something like that anyways. I figure they'd be offended if I say "I'm not really that fond of it." I don't want to hurt their feelings, so I just pick the safe choice and pretend.

But how much longer can this go on? How much longer until it all unravels? I can't always live my life like this, can I? And yet speaking my mind could be costly too. I don't know what I would rather do.

There's also a different situation, one I haven't come across yet, but still a possible one. Say there is a person who actually has some health problems. In fact, they have a terminal illness, but they don't know it - but some people close to them know. The person would become depressed and listless if they found out about it, but as long as they think they're not going to die soon they are able to live their life happily and blithely. Do you think they should know because they deserve to know their own fate? Or should the truth be hidden from the person so they can enjoy what life they have left?

Anyways, on to a different topic... Today in PE class, my PE teacher spoke to us about a girl who has one of the school records for triple jump. She is still in the school (in fact, she is in my grade). The teacher said, "I've heard a few people suggesting she's been using steroids. That's not true at all. She trains really hard every day with a professional coach, and worked to make her legs and body strong. Don't say that she's been cheating and taking the easy way out by using steroids. She has really good work ethic. I think people who are saying that she uses steroids are just jealous. And yeah, it makes sense to be jealous, but you can just say, 'Wow, she's good.' You don't need to mention steroids."

There are some athletes out there, such as a few baseball players, who use steroids. Some folks think that athletes who have used steroids should be taken out of the Hall of Fame or whatever records they got into. My PE teacher had an idea for it...He said he should leave both the records of people who used steroids and those who didn't in the records, but that the people who used steroids would get a * next to their name. I think that's a pretty good idea. That way everyone will get credit, but people who decided to use steroids would have some shame. I think it's only fair. If you do something dishonorable, you have to pay the consequences. (I believe in poetic justice. But it's not always dealt like that in life.)

Labels: athlete, baseball, death, fate, friends, happiness, innocence, justice, lie, life, opinion, PE class, picture, poem, pretend, record, steroids, thief, time, truth

My mother has abandoned me again. It's only for two days, but I kept wailing and trying to grab her arm and things like that. She managed to evade me, saying that I should turn on my cell phone and she would call me later. I would've gone to the airport and seen her off but she is with a friend/classmate/other kind of acquaintance. The lady kept smiling strangely at me, and she asked me if I remembered her and things like that. (Probably not. I didn't retain any memories until preschool, and I usually forget who my parents' friends are unless they are people I see frequently) If I had gone with my mom, my mom would've been pretty distracted and I wouldn't be able to talk to her one last time before she flew off to Las Vegas. (She's going there to meet up with some other friends she hasn't seen in a long time.) Also, I would've had to act smiley and nice for the lady-that-I-don't-remember-anymore, because they sometimes saying things like "You've grown so much" or "How old are you" or something. So maybe it was better not to go. But still, it's really quiet here. All you can hear is the sounds of birds outside.

I don't really understand what is up with teachers. They seem very laid-back, particularly the PE teachers and my science teacher. For instance, Mr. Brown, my science teacher, was sitting in his chair with his feet propped up on the counter, answering questions about Human Growth and Development. Since there is a door or something connecting our classroom to the neighboring classroom, another teacher, Mr. Aochi, came over and started talking to Mr. Brown. They said things like, "You want a refresher?" (while holding up a bag of coffee beans) and "Twist my arm" (which I assume means "Yeah, thanks, go on ahead") Then Mr. Aochi tried to describe a flower, and Mr. Brown said, "Oh, you mean gardenia." In the meanwhile the students were talking amongst themselves. I wondered, WHAT IN THE WORLD HAPPENED TO CLASS?! It must be hard to get teachers fired unless they really do something wrong, like handing out permission slips and taking students to 7-11. (A teacher once did that. Mr. Blair, my history teacher, admires that teacher.)

As for the PE teachers, they get paid as much as regular teachers, but they have way less assignments to grade - only tests and projects and possibly notebooks, if they even assign them at all. Oftentimes teachers talk to each other. Mr. Robinson usually talks to Mr. Murray, while Mr. Nakamura usually talks to Mr. Blair (and sometimes the female teachers, Mrs. Jennings and Ms. Rawson). We used to have another teacher (though I am not sure if she gossiped during class as well) called Ms. Hanohano, except she moved away to Arizona or someplace like that.

I heard some strange news. Apparently not only is there a new principal next year, but another PE teacher may be on her way. I am not sure of her name's spelling exactly. Besides the fact she is female I don't know anything about her. I guess it's a good thing to have another PE teacher at the school because otherwise we have practically 40 students to a class (using up ALL the painted white numbers on the ground). Still, I am anxious to know who is this teacher and whether she is nice, or if this is really just a weird rumor.

Labels: chat, confusing, friends, gossip, mom, new, noise, old folks, parents, PE class, phone, pretend, questions, quiet, school, talking, teacher

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