Today a childhood friend of mine came over to my house. She has been living in Shanghai ever since she moved away many years ago. I haven't seen her for a few years. She's in California now because she's attending a creative writing summer camp (I believe it lasts for three weeks) at Stanford.

I'm afraid I'm not very good with people. Although my zodiac sign, Leo, says I'm supposed to be extroverted, strong-willed, ambitious, and a born leader, I don't think those things are true...Maybe I used to be more like that, but I've been changed by my experiences. (Or I happen to be unlike most Leos.) A person once said I was more like a Virgo. Virgos are shy, meticulous, intelligent, analytical...as well as being perfectionists and worrywarts. Maybe I was born at the wrong time. (But I was actually born a little bit late, so maybe I'm meant to be a Leo with a Virgo's personality?)

I'm not a very good host, and I couldn't really say much. There were things I wanted to ask, but I couldn't really express myself because I thought the questions would be too blunt and rather strange... And I couldn't really say what kind of things I do when I'm at home during the summer because it might take a lot of explaining. Nor was I able to properly tell her how video and computer games that I was playing worked. (I guess it's partially because I don't know what to say exactly and partially that I've usually figured out how to do things on my own or by reading instruction manuals, so I'm not so familiar with giving people verbal instructions...)

She did say that the Korean boys at her school were quite fond of Starcraft, and it occurred to me that some member of the Korean boy band SS501 had become a Starcraft programmer or something of that sort.

Anyhow, though, that's not really important. I'm sorry, I got sidetracked again. (I apologize for my disorganized posts recently. My thoughts are a bit...muddled.) To me, living in Shanghai is a foreign concept, even if I've visited the city several times. Through listening I've noted various differences between the city where I reside, in California, and Shanghai, China.

- SH: Hot and humid in the summer
CA: Hot, but apparently not as hot as SH (both my friend who lives in Shanghai and my friend who lives in Taiwan say that here is cold, comparatively. I was horrified. XD)
- SH: Friend gets on the bus at 6:45 am and rides it for an hour to get to school
CA: I leave for school at 8:00 am, about an 8 minute ride
- SH: A polluted city with weak sunlight
CA: Bright sunlight (but in my town, you can't see the stars that well at night. Yosemite, on the other hand, is just splendid for stargazing.)
- SH: No wildlife, except in zoos.
CA: Birds (mostly pigeons, crows, and seagulls) and squirrels. (Stanford University, as I just discovered today, has so many squirrels in this one area. It was amazing.)
- SH: 8 classes at the school my friend attends (which is an "international" school that teaches by USA curriculum.) 4 classes in one day, then the other 4 the next day. (It's a good idea. You would have 2 days to do your homework so you can manage your time. And if you have trouble with it you have one day to ask your teacher for help.)
CA: 6 or 7 classes, daily. (It's predictable, but I want to try the 8 class system.)
- SH: Many students use Skype.
CA: Kids are more likely to chat through Gmail.

I wonder if I would come to like Shanghai if I went there. Maybe I could have a dog, like my friend does, if I lived in Shanghai. But I have very little grasp of Chinese (at least as a written language - I can speak Shanghainese somewhat better than Mandarin, so maybe that's okay) and I like my big backyard and getting to use the Internet freely (in China, you can't access Facebook, Youtube, or Blogspot, as well as other thinsg). Perhaps trying out the lifestyle is the only way to see.

Labels: atmosphere, california, china, comparison, friends, inability, instructions, internet, korean, language, leo, lifestyle, school, shanghai, squirrels, stanford, starcraft, temperature, virgo, zodiac

I was considering just leaving it as "clones", like it's supposed to be, but I figured that since the enemies looked different (and even had different names), it would be better not to.

Recently, I had the opportunity to play the game Wii Sports Resort. It has quite a few more games than the original Wii Sports (which comes with the Wii when you buy a Wii) but it does require the Wii MotionPlus accessories (apparently it makes the Wii remote's motion more accurate, or something along those lines). I thought the Archery and Swordplay was fun. The Cycling was amusing, but it wasn't very much like actually riding a bike since you just move the Nunchuck (also an accessory for the Wii, you attach it to your Wii Remote) and Wii remote in tandem.

If you unlock it, there is a Swordplay activity where you go around fighting off everyone else. You can only take three hits - if you get hit three times, then you lose. The enemies are pretty easy since most of them only need one hit to keel over. It really looks like Star Wars since your Mii uses a blue sword that looks like a lightsaber, and the enemies all use red swords which resemble lightsabers. But at the same time, the game has an oriental feel since everyone wears a kind of armor (which looks kind of like samurai armor) and because of the background music.

After watching Shirayuki no Kimi play the computer game Starcraft, my interest in it was rekindled. Several years ago, when I was in elementary school, I would watch people play that game, and eventually I got ahold of it myself (I can't remember who bought it for me) and played it at home. I'm not good at fast-paced games, so I'm used to cheating my way through. (This applies to other similar games, like Age of Empires, which has the same concept as Starcraft but isn't so...science fiction-ish.) I looked Starcraft up on Wikipedia, because that's what I always do. It turns out Starcraft was released for Windows in 1998. Whoa! That's even older than I thought. I am always surprised by the ages of things. (I can't really judge people's ages, either.)

On television, I saw some mention of more coffee = less diabetes, or something. Wow, that is so weird. People keep changing their mind about what's good for your health. And there are all sorts of strange diets for people who want to lose weight. It's hard to tell what's really good for your health and what's just bogus. I don't even drink fruit juice much anymore because it has a lot of sugar (but then, various fruits have a lot of sugar because they're, well, sweet). Well, I guess I'll keep eating fruits and vegetables and drinking water, I'm pretty sure that's safe and there isn't going to be a health specialist saying, "Oops! It turns out an apple a day makes the doctor come more often".

I used to have a teacher who really liked coffee. He said he wanted to try to drink less coffee, but it wasn't easy. This year I have a teacher who likes coffee, too. She even keeps it on a shelf in her room, behind the whiteboard. The classroom smells funny sometimes because of the coffee. I wonder if a lot of teachers drink coffee or if it's just a myth.

At my house, no one really drinks coffee. I heard my grandma likes it, but I'm not sure whether or not that's true. My dad drinks a lot of tea. Apparently, it stains his teeth, because my dad said his dentist was complaining. "Ugh! Drink less tea! Your teeth get so dirty." My dad replied, "Yeah, but I give you business." It all works out in the end, I suppose.

I don't think my mother drinks much tea. In fact, I don't really see her drink much in general. I think she's lactose intolerant or just has bad digestion, because she doesn't drink regular milk. But she says it's okay for her to eat a little ice cream now and then (although she complains about it being cold; it's ice cream! What do you expect?).

Labels: age, age of empires, coffee, computer, games, health, ice cream, lactose intolerant, milk, nunchuck, samurai, shirayuki no kimi, star wars, starcraft, tea, wii, wii motionplus, wii sports resort

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