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

"Homemade" movies have been coming together around me. My piano teacher and my parents want me to record my piano playing. My teacher says that I can share it with my children when I'm older (since when you get older, you can't play some songs anymore. Lack of strength? Lack of skill? I dunno). My parents just want to send my music to my relatives in China so they can ooh and ah over it. So my family has been using our new (sort of) camera to record the songs that I'm playing currently. I keep laughing or getting nervous, though, and so I don't think any of the recordings were really as good as I can play if I'm feeling good. Oh well.

And then my piano teacher actually arranged for her top students to have their songs all recorded and put together in a DVD. We would dress up - like dresses, or perhaps a suit if you're a guy - and then we'd go to her apartment, and one of her students recorded us, and then he made it into a DVD. I just got the DVD. The cover picture is nice-looking. But all the piano players and the teacher have their picture in black and white, so it made me feel like I'd already died and it was a memorial DVD. D:

One time I was reading Fruits Basket, and in one of the novels, I was looking at the fan art section in the back. (I don't know if the original Japanese manga has a fan art section, but I know the English manga does.) Actually, I think there was someone from the town where I live. It was amazing. I guess it's a small world after all.

It was the Moon Festival recently. I had forgotten until my mom told me. (But really, it's late this year. I thought it was normally in September) Some of my parents' friends came over to our house because of it. Apparently, one of the families (there were two, though one person was missing because he was sick) had another friend who owned a cat and a dog. They went over to the friend's house, and then their son (who was also at my house, but didn't do much besides play his DS) was bitten by the dog. The dog wasn't even vaccinated since their owners thought it "wasn't necessary since the dog never left the house". And the cat was crazy too, trying to attack people. I guess that's why my parents' friends are against dogs going unleashed in our town. If they already can cause trouble when they are leashed, then having them unleashed would make it worse. But I think it would be cool if there were places dogs could run free, and maybe "touch upon their wolf heritage" or whatever. I mean, I heard there are places where there are beaches for dogs to run free. It would be cool if someday I could have a dog and go there.

I was taking some photos at home and one of them came out kind of weird. I spilled some soup at dinnertime once so I decided to take pictures while I had the chance. When I had the flash on, the photo turned out kind of interesting. (Click to enlarge photo. It's really big!)


This blog has already been running for a whole year. In fact, the anniversary was only a few days ago, on September 30th. Let's toast to the future of the blog! (Unless you want it to go down. If so, I don't even know what you're doing here. o_O;; )

Labels: anniversary, black and white, blog, cat, Dogs, dvd, fanart, fruits basket, homemade, manga, moon festival, movie, music, photography, piano, record, songs, vaccination

Well, that would sure be useful. For one thing, it would extend my summer vacation (I think the summer vacation is 10 weeks, something like that) and it would give me more time to get things done. But probably having more hours in a day - but not needing more sleep - would be more helpful. Even if it's the summer I don't really feel laid-back. True, I am watching a lot more TV lately but the main purpose of that is to have sound in the house. It's way too quiet if you're here by yourself.

Just the other day I went to my piano teacher's apartment for a recording session. It was my bad luck that I woke up around 9 pm only on Thursday (usually I wake up around 8 pm. I guess I'm either too used to school or the sun wakes me up). My piano teacher's apartment is a pretty nice place. I like the way the apartments look, the top ones being painted a lighter color than the bottom ones (they're only two stories high) even if the wood siding usually bothers me. But in this case it looks just find. (Mostly I prefer stucco on the walls) There's a pretty good pool and one jacuzzi/spa, and there's flowers planted around the sign with the name of the apartments. Also, there's a lot of grass and big trees.

It may or may not surprise you that I want to live in an apartment someday. My parents thought I was crazy - I mean, a lot of people wish they could own a house but they don't have enough savings or the bank won't let them have a mortgage, and such. But I think it would be kind of cool. I mean, you have neighbors so close to you - I barely talk to mine except for that one time I got locked out of my house (let's not get into that, at least not right now). And if you have a nice apartment you'll have access to a pool and you can easily get help if you set your apartment on fire or something. I know this since one time my dad accidentally set his home on fire, back in Shanghai, his hometown, but a neighbor dumped a bucket of water on it and put it out.

I especially have my eye on property near the local library. There are townhouses and condos there, some are pink and the others are kind of yellowish creamish. I would like to have one of those, especially if it has a nice, glass door. I just love doors with glass in them. It's a convenient location, too. You have access to restaurants like Curry House (a Japanese restaurant with curry and spaghetti and weird things like tofu cheesecake), Amici's Pizzeria (nice pizza, and nice restaurant too), and Red Mango (a great frozen yogurt shop). Not only that, but the library is very near by, which is very useful for people who go to the library a lot.

I've recently had inspiration to write a story, and I had better write it down before I lose the idea and never remember it ever again. Should I type it up, by using something like Microsoft Word (or even this blog could be a place to write), or should I use a notebook? I have plenty of notebooks and it is easy to get more of them, so that won't be a problem. And it's a lot easier to carry around a notebook than having to lug around a laptop. But my hand always hurts if I write too much. I wonder which would be better.

Labels: apartment, condo, convenient, laptop, library, notebook, piano, record, restaurant, story, swimming pool, television, time, townhouse, vacation

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