A terribly cliched phrase, but it's true. There has been that kind of weather, last night, and sometime a few weeks earlier. Actually, I was never really afraid of thunder or lightning when I was younger, but this school year, when there was a storm with very loud thunder, I was frightened out of my wits. I don't even know why. It's not like a blackout is really something to be feared. I feel like Haruhi from Ouran High School Host Club. Or Nagi from Nyan Koi.

This morning there wasn't a storm, though it was certainly raining. I was woken up at 5 am, which is really way too early for me, even if I don't sleep well on a daily basis. It is kind of exciting, though, driving along a nearly abandoned highway and seeing the water spurting from the cars. I ought to have taken photos of the street lights or a certain bridge in my town that I am quite fond of. But I guess I was half-asleep and too lazy to bother.

Right now I'm at SFO Airport for the bajillionth time (I never started counting, but it's been many times, that's for sure). We're going to Vancouver first, and then we'll change flights to go to Shanghai. It would've been nice just to stay in Canada. But as my grandparents are aging, it becomes more important to visit them, and unfortunately they aren't going to move close to California. It might be easier if my family, instead, moved somewhere closer to China, like Australia...well, that's still rather far, but it's at least closer than California. And Australia's got some of my dad's friends. So we'd be in good company.

It's been two years since I last went to China, and I wonder how much has changed. I'm still wearing the same jacket and I've brought at least one of the same shirts. I haven't grown taller, either. I think that the things that have changed about me are mostly bad things. When I get angry, I swear in my head a lot more often than I did in middle school, and I find that I say "like" too much when I'm talking. I've seen on Tumblr that people turn into what they said they'd never be, and it's true.

While I still have the opportunity, if anyone is still reading this, allow me to announce my 2nd Tumblr! Yeah, one should be more than enough, but I have now made a division - my original tumblr, Serendipity-solstice, is for photography, quotes, and other such things (though not my own photos, that's still on my DeviantArt). The new one, click here for it, is for artwork, mostly anime-style, and it's named after this blog. Just a little tribute to Blogger for sticking with me all this time. (I mean, it has a lot less errors than Tumblr. I'm thankful for that, at least.)

I have no idea if Tumblr, DeviantArt, or Blogger will work in China, so perhaps this is the last time I write until about New Year's time. So, happy holidays to you all, and may the force be with you.

Labels: change, china, haruhi fujioka, highway, internet, morning, nagi ichinose, nyan koi, ouran high school host club, rain, relatives, same, time, travel, tumblr, weather

The title is inspired by a song by the Carpenters. Ever heard of that band? It's made up of two people, two siblings. The brother is still alive, but sadly, the sister died.

Rain doesn't normally upset me, and though I dislike Mondays, usually that won't depress me too much either. But last Monday wasn't an easy day, and it was a rainy day, so I thought it would make sense to use this title.

This past week, I've been gone on a school trip to Yosemite National Park, so I haven't been able to write anything. On Sunday morning, I boarded a bus headed to Yosemite. It's a pretty long drive there, probably four hours or more. I took a carsick pill called Dramamine to help me out with the carsickness.

I wonder if medicine really does work or not. Sometimes it's just people believe something will help them, and because of the positive feeling, their health seems to improve. I'm not sure whether medicine does any good or if it's only the "placebo effect". Perhaps the world may never know (like that thing about "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie pop?).

Once I was at Yosemite, I had to adjust to a lot of things that I wasn't used to. For instance, dinner for me was at 5:05 pm, and breakfast at 7:05 am. I usually have breakfast not long from 8 am and I have dinner at around 7 pm. And I had to sleep with a sleeping bag, which I wasn't accustomed to, because I have never been camping. (Which is good - I don't think I could put up with going to the bathroom in the Great Outdoors for long XD) But the sleeping bag wasn't too bad, it was actually kind of cozy. It got too hot, though, when the heater was on in my cabin.

I kind of expected it to be like science camp. At science camp, you didn't need an alarm clock because someone would wake you up if you didn't get up on your own. There was a bathroom that was fairly clean and it was conveniently located, so you wouldn't have to get up in the night, wake someone up, and walk through the snow or melting puddles. You wouldn't hike so much that you'd be really tired and you'd always have your time managed well for you. And you didn't need to get a lot of gear, not even hiking boots were required.

Yosemite is sort of similar, but sort of not. The food is in buffet form (that's nice, since I can just a get a little to try something and see if I like it first). You're expected to meet up with people at a certain time (though there's almost always someone missing or late). You have to manage your own time to be able to complete a journal, take showers, and get enough sleep. And there is a lot of hiking and climbing and other physical activity.

Monday was a hard day for me. I am a special case since my cabin mates are in a different rotation than I am (meaning that they had different meal times and different evening programs). I was really stressed waiting for them in my cabin, and I kept thinking that something horrible must've happened to them (I didn't realize back then that their evening program was later than mine). I was also annoyed about the cold showers and stinky bathroom. And it was really noisy at nighttime, making it hard to sleep. I got really homesick, thinking of my parents and comfort and having a dependable routine. And this homesickness didn't really go away. During science camp I was having such a blast that I didn't think of my home much.

On Monday, there were many kinds of weather. We had rain, then hail, and then even snow. The snow is beautiful, that's for sure. But it was hard to appreciate when I was so worried and stressed. I wasn't able to relax until maybe about Wednesday or Thursday. By then I realized that I would be going home soon, and so I was in a much better mood. (Kind of funny how sometimes you have to be waiting for something to enjoy yourself.)

There were a lot of things I didn't like about the trip, but there were things that made it better, too. Things that made me dry my tears and smile and put my best foot forward. Being outdoors was great. I didn't really hike much or even go outside that much before. I thought I'd be tired easily from hiking. It's true that I was usually pretty worn out from lugging around a heavy backpack (too used to the roller backpack by now) but I wasn't lagging too horribly behind, either. And seeing the mountains and waterfalls and getting the occasionally opportunity to sit by myself and think was calming for me. I also got to try so many new things, like eating hummus (never tried it before, but it wasn't bad), eating celery (also wasn't as bad as I thought), eating sunbutter (yes, I'm eating lots of new things. Sunbutter is like peanut butter but made from sunflower seeds), and going cross-country skiing... I'm really starting to realize that I don't need to have limits, boundaries, things holding me back. I can do my best and achieve so much more. I just have to be openminded and live life to the fullest. After all, even if you have more than one life, you'll never remember the past ones, so of course you have to do everything that you can.

Oh, and going on the trip makes you appreciate home. Many of us longed for warm showers. I also heard some students saying they missed eating rice (they had rice at the buffet, but it was like fried rice and things like that. No sushi, dumplings, or miso soup, that's for sure). I believe that going to Yosemite was a good experience for me, even if I still feel there would've have been a lot of room for improvement. (I heard there was a bathroom with ants in it.) It's something you'll remember forever, after all.

Labels: backpack, effort, food, hiking, home, homesick, life, monday, new experience, placebo, problem, rain, rainy days and mondays, sleeping bag, song, the carpenters, tootsie, trip, weather, yosemite

This is apparently a phrase from the famous story The Three Little Pigs. (I may not have gotten it down exactly right.) I had a similar experience to this recently.

On Tuesday, where I live, there was some surprisingly stormy weather. It rained and poured until nighttime. I hadn't brought my umbrella, nor had I brought my raincoat, and so my not-so-waterproof jacket was my only protection. The rain started to become a hassle because my shoes weren't so waterproof either, and so my socks became soaked. It's a good thing that a teacher had her classroom open and I went indoors to eat my lunch.

Come fifth period, multiple kids were drenched from having to go through the rain to get to the classroom. The math classroom is a "portable", I think, since it has a ramp and the ceiling is not so high and such. And whenever someone stomps you can feel the room shake a little bit because it's not as steady as the "actual classrooms". (But schools still insist on having these "portable classrooms" for some reason) We were being punished for talking too much - for some reason, my math class has a lot of people, and so it is even louder - and we were not allowed to speak to each other. It was eerily quiet in the classroom, except for one sound...The sound of the wind. The wind was beating very hard on the classroom and it sounded like we would be blown in, like the Three Little Pigs' houses, but nope, it didn't happen. In fact, the teacher never even looked up. I guess not much can faze him.

PE was canceled that day because it was far too rainy. We were all hustled into the gym, which was muddy too (it being the last period of the day, and many shoes having already been in and out). We watched some Comcast Sportsnet videos, which were showing the "science behind sports". Apparently a golf ball can go farther if it is warm than if it is cold. So, couldn't you become better at hitting long distance by simply incubating your golf ball and then hitting it? (Though why you would incubate golf balls, instead of incubating chicken eggs like you should, is beyond me)

Does good handwriting matter a lot in life? My math teacher always stresses that we need to work at having neat handwriting. He said that sloppy handwriting is NOT a "style" of handwriting, and that teachers grade less harshly when you have good handwriting. "And don't go running to your parents saying how unfair it is! That's life! That's HUMAN NATURE!" he'd say. "If you have messy handwriting, then I have the urge to pick it apart for mistakes. I might overlook a mistake or be more lenient if you have good handwriting." I am going to try and work on mine. I think it is legible, but someone said I didn't "write like a girl". That's so sexist. Not all people write the same. I even hold my pencil differently. D: I started holding my pencil that way when I was young and I don't think someone corrected me, so now I'm stuck that way since I feel awkward if I hold pens and pencils the way almost everyone does.

Nowadays I sometimes draw things with pencil, then scan it, and color it in with the most basic of GIMP brushes (in other words, plain old circle brushes which come with GIMP when you download it). It's always so messy, though. In fact, I think my drawings might look better in black and white... o_O;; I've heard of something called Copic markers and I've been curious to see what they are. Does anyone have them, by any chance?

Labels: art, classroom, colors, copic, drawing, fantasy golf, gimp, handwriting, human nature, incubate, life, markers, pencil, portable, rain, storm, story, three little pigs, weather, windy

Actually, that's a poem. Written by some person (I think it was a guy), but I don't remember who. I simply lacked naming ideas for the blog today. D:

I almost lost my socks. Much to my disappointment, we still had to go through the motions of PE in the rain. The wind was strong so that you could see the students' PE uniforms flapping. (That sounds rather odd. I was trying to make a simile or metaphor out of it but couldn't find a good comparison.) It made the rain come down at a funny angle. It was even more diagonal than it usually was. And since it was raining, puddles formed on the ground. My PE number (a white, bland number painted on the blacktop), Blair's 15, was submerged as usual. Probably due to that area of land being on a lower elevation than the rest.

One of my classmates, who I shall just call AV for privacy, was bursting with questions in Mr. Brown's science class. He always asks questions or makes comments, particularly in the 2 B's (Blair & Brown). For instance, Mr. Brown wanted us to guess the reason for wolverines having plantigrade posture. (We have plantigrade posture, too. Meaning we walk flat on our feet, unlike dogs and cats, who only walk on the balls of their feet. You know, that sticking-out hard on the bottoms of your feet, below your toes.) AV almost but not quite had the answer - which, by the way, is...flat feet are good for walking in the snow - but he couldn't get it out. "I-i-it's f-for...walking on snow and ice, and...uh...steep elevation stuff!" I think he was unable to speak properly due to his excitement, or eagerness, or something. No offense intended to you, AV, if you ever read this.

After school, my walking-home-companion's mother came to pick me up. This was a relief since the rain had just started again at the end of school. Besides me, the mother, and my companion, there was also the brother and his friend. No one spoke besides the mother and the brother's friend. The mother was very curious about what the friend was planning to do in Monta Vista (he's an eighth grader, even though I thought he looked kind of shrimpy. But maybe it's because he got injured when his cousin tackled him) and the boy is taking band (not much of a surprise to me, I expected that) and Japanese. I was surprised by the latter since my mom had led me to believe there would be no Japanese in high school. Hmm. I may consider learning it, if it's not too difficult. (However, my peers say Spanish is the most useful language, so I'm in a tizzy. I don't want to take Mandarin since colleges may think I was cheating by taking a language that my ethnicity is supposed to already know. My mom thinks I ought to take French, so I can speak to my aunt, but I'm not too keen on it.)

Speaking of languages (now that occurs to me as a very bad pun, if you catch my drift), I eavesdropped on my mom and my aunt talking, via Skype, the free online Webcam Messenger thing-a-ma-bob (of Science! as Bill Nye wouuld say). Apparently my cousin, who I shall call Sun (that's my mom and aunt's maiden name, and also kind of my cousin's nickname - Yang Yang), is already learning English in school. It's true that English is a much more "useful" language than French, particularly for business, but still. I was outraged as he is still in elementary school, and yet he gets taught another language, and will be trilingual, therefore beating me (I don't know enough Mandarin/Shanghainese/Japanese to really count it). I hope my intelligence at least rivals his.

Labels: carpool, high school, jabberwocky, language, monta vista, number, poetry, rain, relatives, school, socks, speech

It's been pouring buckets lately, and I was braindead about what to name my blog post, so there it is.

This morning, my piano class was at 11:15 (weird, because nowadays it's usually 11:30). As always my mother and the piano teacher started off with their strange middle-aged/old lady talk. They talked about how a lot of piano students have been skiing, and how one of the kids was very sick with a cold, yet he was still going to go skiing. Wow. The two older folks, however, kept saying how they don't like camping and things like that (my mom says "So many bugs and dirty ground!") but all the same, a lot of people like to go back in time (y'know? Because sleeping in the "outdoors" and cooking stuff over a fire is basically going how life was a long time ago).

Everyday when I walk home I continue to keep an eye out for the black cat. He, or she (I can't tell the gender of it) doesn't come out if it rained that day, it seems. I guess felines aren't too fond of the wet weather. Most cats, after all, are freaked out by that sensation. Maybe their fur isn't completely waterproof, or they just aren't used to it, or something.

I'm impatiently waiting for more magazines to arrive in the mail. I constantly read the magazines Reader's Digest, National Geographic, and Nintendo Power. I got a new Nintendo Power issue yesterday, but I've read almost all the interesting stuff already (I didn't want to read about an Indiana Jones game) and I haven't seen a new RD lately. I don't know if any new NGs came, either, because they tend to get scattered around the house.

Last night I was reminiscing about not going swimming for several months. I kind of miss it. The last time I went was in late November, swimming in the Venetian hotel pool (that's in Las Vegas). Ever since I stopped my swim lessons, as I don't have much free time for them, I haven't had much chance to go swimming. Oh well...As long as I don't completely forget how to swim, I suppose it'll be okay.

Oh yeah, we bought some Milanos today. It's a kind of cookie of sorts, from the Pepperidge Farm company, whatever that is. There are many flavors - regular, milk chocolate, mint, dark chocolate, double chocolate, black&white, raspberry, and orange. I bought one raspberry and one double chocolate (they're tasty and have less calories). My mom actually likes the raspberry, so that's cool.

Labels: blah, camping, cat, food, gossip, magazine, milanos, old folks, rain, ski, swim

I'm so glad it rained today! It's been so long since the last time it rained (February? March? Maybe somewhere around there?) that my skin has been dry for a long time. I've always suffered from skin problems, even in my baby pictures. When I was still really young, I smiled, but when I got a little older I had a terrible rash on my forehead and I cried in all the pictures. XD

We went to the flea market this morning, and I bought an orchid. I like to spend my money, even if whatever I bought wasn't particularly useful. D: Then it started to rain, and my mom and grandma got really scared by it. I guess my grandma is scared of the sun, the rain, dogs, cats, ants... Maybe it's partially genetic.

Labels: crying, dry, family, fear, genetics, orchid, picture, rain, rash, skin, spending money, the treasures of weatherby

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