Do not be alarmed. The sky is not falling. Your hair is not on fire. Your family and friends are all alive and well. The world is not ending.

The running that I am referring to here is not running for survival, but as part of a chosen lifestyle.

Judging from what I am hearing and seeing at my school, being a teacher can be a really great job. Sure, you might catch colds from the kids, have to deal with rude and overly talkative children, and complain about not being paid as much as you deserve, but teaching has its perks, too. You receive pension when you're retired, and you can go to school with your kids, if you're like my math teacher (his kids are in middle school right now, so he gets to go to school and leave school with them!). You also get to watch kids grow up and have a hand in how they turn out. It must be really cool seeing your students come back many years later, mature and successful.

The PE teachers have a nice time. They can be outside in the fresh air and have less grading to do than other teachers, but they are paid the same. They can exercise if they feel like it or they can just stand and order the kids to do something. And I don't think you would normally have to work overtime. (My parents still do work at home after they get back at work. I think it's more lax if you're a PE teacher.)

I heard that one of the PE teachers injured his Achilles tendon and it was driving him crazy because he couldn't run. I'm very fearful of getting my Achilles tendon hurt because of how important it is - you could be out for a year, depending on how bad the injury is. It's pretty important in walking and running. It was already bad enough those times I sprained my ankle and kept getting left behind when I tried to run in PE.

I just really wish I could live the active lifestyle. Even the non PE teachers have the chance to pursue athletic hobbies. One time, during PE class, I saw my history teacher jogging on the track. Maybe it was his prep period and he didn't have anything to do so he decided to enjoy the nice weather. I wish I could be as lucky as him, doing a job that I like and also doing one of my hobbies at work.

I am sad about going to high school because I don't think I'll be able to take PE every year. I know I will take it for at least two years, one time in 9th grade, and the other not determined yet. I really want to take PE every year because I fear I will not exercise enough without it. But I don't know if I can. We can only take a certain amount of classes. And it really saddens me.

Labels: achilles tendon, classes, family, health, high school, hobbies, injury, jealousy, job, life, lifestyle, mature, overtime, PE class, pros and cons, running, school, teacher, time, wish

On Wednesday morning, a problem presented itself when I was about to leave for school. Every weekday, I go to school by carpooling with one or both of my parents. I was ready to leave, but my mother told me that she couldn't find the car keys! She said that perhaps my father had taken them with him. I tried to help her look for the keys, but they were nowhere to be seen.

Eventually, my mom said, "You'll have to walk." I balked at the idea. "What?! It takes at least twenty minutes to get there! I'll never make it in time!" "Oh, yes you will." I suggested using the bike, but that was an impractical idea considering that I would probably need to register my bike at the school office or something along those lines, and anyways, the roller backpack is rather heavy.

So eventually I set off for school, in a panicked state of mind, breaking into a run out of paranoia. I tried to run as much of the way as I could, but I tired after awhile, and I saw some other students walking. I wasn't sure whether they were Kennedy students until I walked a bit faster and caught up (and quickly overpassed - I walk faster than the average person, or maybe I was just in a rush) and saw two people that I recognized. At this point I decided I didn't have to run anymore. And when I got closer to the school I realized Zero Period PE was still going on, so I wasn't late at all. I had arrived in good time.

I heard from my mother that my dad had driven home so he could take my mom to work. (Without the keys, you can't unlock the car or even get it moving. There is another car in the garage, but my mom doesn't know how to drive it - my dad was the only one who drove that car, and we haven't used it recently - and anyways there was no way we could get it out of the driveway without crashing into the car that we were supposed to use.) It turned out my dad really had taken the car keys with him. My mom said she wants to have a copy of the keys made (and I bet I'll be the one keeping the spares. I am quite scatterbrained, but it would still be safer with me in the future).

It mildly annoyed me that when I went to school, no one seemed to notice the minor trauma that I had just experienced that morning. My mom insists it wasn't that big of a deal, or at least I wasn't showing that much outward instability. I mean, I could have easily been late for school because of my need to improvise on transportation. (There wasn't really someone else who could take me to school...I know a few people on my street go to my middle school, but I believe they probably bike or walk) But I suppose it's just as well, because it didn't happen, and so I should let the past (even if it is only the very recent past) be the past.

In my history class, we had been working on a group project, where we were to present people and parts of the lifestyle (like farming, food, architecture, laws, entertainment, and so on). My group wanted to get more practice in, so we were going to meet up at the library. I was very worried about this because I really don't have any way to get there. My parents are both working, so I don't have a ride, and I'm not allowed to walk or bike all the way there by myself. One of the other people in my group offered to stop by and pick me up, so I ended up riding in her car.

At the library, I was surprised to see so many people there. There were quite a few young children. Many of them were captivated by the big fish tank near the children's section. They would peer into the tank and say, "Oh! Nemo!" and things like that. And their mothers would eventually try to pull them away. I think perhaps I did that, too, when I was younger and the library was very new. It's kind of nice to see that the fish tank is still there. I'm not too fond of change; I like familiarity, and having things in my life that I can always depend on.

I saw a lot of teenagers at the library. Some of them, like my group, were there to work on homework (I saw a few girls with a big poster), but others seemed not to be doing anything in particular. I saw some people outside climbing on the statues. Do people really have nothing to do? I guess they're still young, after all. It must be nice to be so blithe and carefree.

Labels: car keys, carefree, children, driving, finding nemo, forgetful, library, lost and found, normal, nothing to do, panic, people, project, running, tank, teenagers, transportation, walking to school

The building I am speaking of here is the California Academy of Sciences. It was completely only recently. It's located in Golden Gate Park, pretty close to the De Young Museum. I heard it had started being built ten years ago...Wow, that's a long time.

We arrived at the museum around maybe 11 am or so, I believe. I should've gotten up earlier (I woke up pretty early in the morning, but stayed in bed being lazy) but it's too late for that now. The line was really long...My family had thought that since it was Black Friday, a lot of people would be out shopping to get deals, but it turned out that wasn't true. There were a lot of people there. I guess it's because both the kids and the parents have the day off, so it was a good opportunity for them all to go to the museum. We had to wait for quite a while. Luckily, we made it inside before they started metering. (Metering is, supposedly, only letting people in when people leave the museum. I'm sure that must've been annoying for the people who wanted to go in.)

We started out by going to the rainforest. There is a four-story rainforest in the museum. Quite a few animals were there, such as macaws (which are a kind of bird, they look like parrots), frogs, lizards, butterflies, and other birds. I tried to take pictures of them, but there were kids shoving me, the glass on the cases (some of the animals are in display cases, but the birds fly free inside the rainforest building) was reflective, and besides, the birds and butterflies moved around too much. In fact, I think some of the animals in the museum were mocking me or something, because they would suddenly move when I pressed the button to take the picture. (I couldn't think of how to describe that...I think there was some other term for it, having to do with shutters or something)

Afterwards, we went down to the aquarium. Lots of fish there, some that really huge...My dad was commenting on how it would be tasty to have sushi made out of the huge fish, but my mom said that it wouldn't taste good and would be tough to eat. (Well, there was a term she used, but it was in Shanghainese, so I don't know how to translate it) There were some jellyfish, which I discovered come out nicely in photographs. I will probably upload them somewhere later on, once I get all the photos onto the computer.

Speaking of photos, I ran out of batteries on my camera...I think that my Panasonic Lumix seems to run out of batteries even quicker than my old Nikon Coolpix. I really miss using Nikon. This is a bit off topic, but I heard that Canon and Nikon are the two best brands of cameras...But more folks say that Canon is better. I don't remember whether I've used Canon cameras before or not. If you have a camera, what brand do you have? Does it work well?

Back to the topic...There were other things in the museum as well, like dead animals. I saw some jars with things in them; one jar had a fruit bat, another had a snake, and a third had black rats. The rats looked kind of nasty. You know, I once heard that although squirrels and rats are similar (can carry the same diseases, and both are rodents...or at least rodentish), people tend to dislike rats more than they dislike squirrels. Personally, I just think it's funny how when the squirrels run it looks kind of like a wave. (I mean waves in water, not a person waving their hand)

The museum also had some penguins. They're bigger than the penguins I saw in Australia, I think. When I was in Australia, we saw some dwarf penguins, which I believe are the smallest species. They live in the wild, I guess, but you do have to pay to go see them. It's actually quite interesting. It was nighttime when they were coming in from the ocean, so it was hard to see them at first. But then eventually I could make out groups of penguins swimming to shore. Sometimes, if they got scared (there were a lot of people watching, though from a distance, and besides, there were seagulls on the beach also staring at the penguins) they would run back into the water instead of crossing the beach. But once they thought the coast was clear, then they would all sort of line up, and then run like mad across the sand until they got into the safety of the bushes. It was really funny. I thought the penguins were quite amusing, but I had to leave because we were supposed to meet some other folks to eat dinner in a Chinese restaurant. Sigh.

Well, this post is getting really long and confusing, so I shall continue another time.

Labels: animals, aquarium, australia, batteries, beach, birds, butterfly, california academy of sciences, camera, fish, macaws, museum, penguins, preserved, rainforest, rats, running, squirrels, sushi

I have a different PE teacher now because of the trimester change. I had him last year, in the third trimester, so I am familiar with him. I thought I would be fine again, but last year, when I first started off, I was really tired from his class, and the same thing is happening this year. I'm started to get used to it, but it'll probably take a while before I'm completely accustomed to the hard work again (this teacher isn't mean or anything, it's just that we do more extreme stuff in his class than the teacher I had the trimester before).

When we run a regular, four-lap mile around the track, it's called a Smile Mile in his class. Since we do regular exercises before running the mile, I'm always tired out when it's time to run the mile. So my times have become slow again - I got 8:28, when my recent times last trimester were nearly 30 seconds faster. So I am not too pleased with that, because even when I try to run fast it still isn't enough, what with shoulder and gut cramps...

But then there are times when I am angry at myself for having a weak-minded attitude. I should definitely try my best. You can never say you're already good enough, you have to keep trying. I have to continue to do my best until I run this whole mile smiling. It's not like I dislike running. This year I have discovered that I like to run, as long as there is not a huge amount of pressure on me.

After all, I was able to help someone else just a little bit last trimester. If you want to improve your time or keep a steady pace, then look for someone who runs faster than you, but not too much faster. You could just follow them the whole time, and it might make your time better. One of the students in my class last trimester ran with me to improve her time (with my permission :p ). My strategy for running is to start out with a slow pace, then speed up gradually or maintain the pace, and in the last lap, I try to spend all my energy and sprint to the finish. It's just what works for me. Some folks prefer to sprint on the first lap instead.

My classmate said her time got a bit better this trimester, and it's kind of nice to feel like you've done something. "A good deed is a reward in itself" or whatever the saying was...Not that I built a house for low income people or something. (My dad did, but then he got sick, probably because he was sweating and he wasn't dressed for the cold, or something, and then my whole family got sick.)

Speaking of the cold weather, the squirrels are making their preparations. I think squirrels are hibernating animals, so they have been eating like crazy to prepare for sleeping until springtime. They robbed my backyard of fruits, like the figs and the persimmons. And now the squirrels that live near me are chubby as can be.

I wonder if that added weight means they can't run as fast. Some time ago, I saw a squirrel on the road. It was pretty gruesome, as the squirrel was actually sort of flattened, it smelled a bit funny, and there was some blood. The squirrel must've been hit by a car. Ouch, what a painful way to die.

It seems squirrels elsewhere don't have as much to eat. The squirrels at my piano teacher's apartment were more normal-looking. Probably they have to work hard for their food, instead of having fruit practically at their doorstep, waiting to be picked.

Oh yes, and I just heard recently that my cousins will both be taking piano class. Originally my younger cousin wanted to learn piano, but then her brother decided he wanted to learn too. So now they have a piano and will be taking lessons. They're already having lessons that are an hour long...My mom said to my aunt that it's not good to do that, as young folks have a short attention span. I mean, when I started out piano, I only had half-hour lessons with the teacher, and my lessons are still only forty-five minutes long.

Labels: car accident, cousins, death, exercise, fruit, hibernation, house, improvement, low income, overweight, PE class, piano, running, smile mile, squirrels

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

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

Today, in PE, we had a 20-minute run, which basically means we job for 20 minutes straight. It's tougher than it looks. Somehow, though, I lived. I thought it hadn't been too hard after all, until I tried walking down the stairs. Not good, because my legs shook a little when I attempted to walk. They're still painful now. I think they'll be better in the morning, though.

I've started reading the adult books at the Calabazas Library (I haven't looked at the adult section in the Cupertino Library yet, though) but they aren't as good as I expected. I mean, mainly the book I'm reading is just about a lady whose fiancee's daughter disappeared, and so far it's mainly the main character thinking about her past and looking for the kid. So nothing exciting is really happening yet. Not what I expected. -_-;;

Labels: 20, adult, books, boredom, calabazas, legs, long distance, minutes, running, shaking, the year of fog

I finished running the mile in the morning. I got my best mile time ever. Must've been the fresh morning air- does the body good. I don't know if I got full credit, though. Once it was time for PE, my PE teacher informed me I had forgotten to check in before I left. So now I don't know if she gave me the credit or not. I mean, I ran the whole mile, and she saw me show up, but still, sometimes teachers will take off points for things like this.

I had to stop halfway through writing this because my mom wanted me to eat dinner, but when I told her I would hurry and write this, she just got mad. XD My mom and I don't really get along most of the time. It's not like we're mortal enemies, though. We simply don't agree on many matters. My dad is more submissive and only argues because it's fun.

Wednesdays are nice days. One of my favorites because that means that more than half the school week is over.

Labels: air, conflict, dinner, family, fresh, mile, morning, running, wednesday

During the nighttime sometimes my nose seems runny, or it is hard to breathe, or I get dehydrated. I guess I could have caught a cold from one of my classmates, or my mother. I am not sure.

Anyhow, this evening, I went to swim class. And at the end of the class, I was getting ready to leave when this alarm went off, and one of the people who works there told us to exit the building...I started to panic, wondering if maybe there was a fire, or someone might have thrown up/gone to the bathroom in the pool again. I really hope not. It did not seem like anything was wrong, so maybe it was a false alarm.

I am really hoping I do not wake up too early tomorrow, because that means I do not have to attend the make-up running a mile in the morning, but then I would have a 0 for the day. So either way, I LOSE. XD

Labels: alarm, breathe, emergency, lose lose situation, mile, morning, running, sick, swim

Today in PE class we were told the policies regarding absences, makeups, jewelry, the PE uniform, etc. Apparently, illness isn't a good excuse because you shouldn't be in school if you're sick. (Does that apply to getting sick because you went to school, since people who are sick still attend school?) Anyhow, I was told that if I want to earn back the points I missed, I have to attend a makeup in the morning on Wednesday. I really don't want to go, but my mom says I should, to try and earn back the points. But I don't want to wake up earlier on the only day I get to sleep in...

So I've decided that if I wake up early enough, I'll go to the makeup, but if I sleep in, then I won't worry about it. My grade is an A- (But only barely!) so I could use the points, but I am pretty sure I could make some it back up with the next project, anyhow. (Haha, I'm trying to make myself feel more confident, but I don't know if it's working.)

Labels: absence, confidence, grades, mile, PE class, running, sickness, sleep

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