Well, I mentioned the butterfly effect in my previous post. In a nutshell, it's where one small thing happens, which leads to another thing, and another thing, and another thing, until a really big thing happens.

Shirayuki no Kimi called me a young grasshopper. I was rather offended and retorted, "I'm not young!" (After all, young can be associated with foolish. Like how in French, it's better to be called Madame than Mademoiselle because of such associated meanings)

SnK: Fine, then, old grasshopper.
Me: Dead Grasshopper.
SnK: Decomposing grasshopper.
Me: Hm...Worm food grasshopper.
SnK: Bird poop grasshopper.
Me: Mom's head grasshopper.
It kept going for a little while until it got to "Juppie's photo grasshopper", "Internet grasshopper", and then "famous grasshopper".

I remember that when I was at Yosemite, there was a pretty entertaining riddle that was shared amongst us. It goes like this: There is another world behind a green glass door. But not everything can go through the door. Here's some examples:

Daddies can go through, but fathers can't.
Kittens can go through, but cats can't.
Veggies can go through, but vegetables can't.
Scissors can go through, but shears can't.
Wheels can go through, but tires can't.

If you've already heard this riddle before, I suppose it'd be pretty easy for you to come up with some examples of what can go through and what can't. But see if you can figure it out if you haven't heard this riddle.

I'm pretty bad at riddles otherwise, though. I usually have to have someone tell me the answers. D: Either that, or the riddles really are that difficult. (But then again, if you know the answer to the riddle it must seem pretty obvious.)

Anyhow, though, I have a lot of things I want to do this summer vacation. Since we're going on vacation in July, it's not a good idea to go to summer classes because I might have to miss some of it to go on the trip (and so it wouldn't really be worth the money paid, eh?).
- Do some painting (I never get around to it during the school year :( )
- Practice on the tablet (Haha, I used it to color one drawing, but that is pretty much the extent of what I've done.)
- Drawing by hand (need to learn to do side views. And work on an eye style, as well as hair.)
- Make an OC - Original Character. Already have two but I want to change their looks a bit. And decide on the last name for one of them.
- Take photographs
- Do a 30-day challenge on EA Sports Active (Ugh. My dad bought another video game on a whim. But this one really makes you sweat...Not like Wii Fit.)

Unfortunately, my mom thinks I should get studying for next year, since there'll be SATs to take and whatnot. But maybe I can evade it, somehow or other. ;)

Labels: 30 day, butterfly effect, challenge, dead, drawing, EA Sports Active, grasshopper, green glass door, OC, painting, plans, riddle, summer, summer school, tablet, vacation, video games, yosemite

One of the songs I like is a song called Mad World, sung by Gary Jules. (#37 on my Playlist, if you want to hear it) I first heard this song during my summer classes in 2009. My painting teacher often played music, since it kind of helps the creative process and is just relaxing in general. One of the songs that I heard was Mad World.

Well, as I mentioned in "What Seems Unique is Actually Common", I had to find an example of slant rhyming in a song...I thought through what English songs I knew and remembered Mad World. I looked up the lyrics and discovered that yes, indeed, I could use it.

Then today on announcements a video made by a few students encouraging us to help Haiti started playing. And the song in the background was Mad World!

I've been having lots of instances of deja vu lately. I wonder if this means something is coming or if I simply have a weird knack for having such instances.

Recently I've started to think more about entering contests. There's a part of me that says, "What if I can't do a good job? Is it really worth my time to make an entry if I won't win?" And there's another part of me that says, "You never know until you try." I don't know which one to listen to. I really want to change myself and become more proactive rather than reactive. But I have lazy tendencies and a lack of time management. I'll have to work long and hard to change that.

I've read about things like pumpkin growing contests, such as in the book Squashed, by Joan Bauer. But I've never really seen that around my area. We don't really have carnivals or fairs except for maybe Christmas in the Park (and that's not my town). In fact, I don't know if we even have the Lunar New Year parade anymore...

Ah, yes, it is almost the Chinese New Year. It will become the Year of the Tiger, which is my father's year. I heard this year will be unlucky, at least for Rats such as myself. But I wonder if you can really trust horoscopes. (I've sometimes asked my mom to read the ones from her Chinese newspaper for the Western Zodiac. Actually, they are true more than half the time, at least for me)

One time I was talking with someone and they didn't know about the Moon Festival. I was surprised, considering that China has a huge population and I figure that would make people more aware of it and its traditions (not to mention any other Asian countries that celebrate it). But then again, in most of the USA, there aren't that many Asians. I suppose where I live is kind of an exception. (Though I have read books where it is said there are Asians - of the Orient, not necessarily India - gathering in Seattle...)

I also heard once that there are some Chinese people (perhaps they know my parents, I forget exactly) living in a different part of the USA and some people don't like them all that much. I asked my parents if it was pure and simple racism, but my mom said perhaps some people felt that people from other countries were taking away their jobs. (After all, jobs get outsourced since people elsewhere may be willing to do the same job for less pay)

Ugh! You should work harder, then, and take it as a challenge to yourself. You see, although bigger population means more jobs, jobs cannot grow fast enough to keep up with population (just as the amount of food grown cannot keep up with the population either). So, living in our world means we have lots of amenities and useful devices but it also means we have even more competition for resources. It's the sacrifice you have to make, living in the modern world. But this also means you can fly even higher. (Well, I suppose in older times, since there were different social classes, there was a really huge difference between the poorest and richest, whereas nowadays some economies are designed to be more socialist than capitalist, but...) I believe people should take having to compete as an asset and not a disadvantage.

Labels: asian, carnival, china, chinese new year, competition, contest, deja vu, economy, horoscope, job, mad world, moon festival, outsource, pros and cons, rat, song, summer school, tiger

Here's a quick run-through of what each term means. Diurnal means active during the day, nocturnal is active during the night, and crepuscular means active at dawn and dusk. So which one would you be? For myself, I'm not really sure. I used to wake up early, and I still can't sleep in much, but I am more awake in the late afternoon and evening. Maybe I would be crepuscular? But that's weird, considering it's mostly animals which are crepuscular. XD Like deer and cougars or something.

Today marked the official end of my classes. I didn't finish my painting of a bird in my class and so I figure I'll have to work on it at home using oil paints (because I don't have acrylic paints). This is a problem since the bird itself has some black areas and I don't have the color black (I've got other oil colors, but not that...Weird, isn't it? That it doesn't come with a set). I guess I'll have to figure out something. If you have an idea, please offer it up. :D

I'd been wondering before why sometimes if you look at a clothing label, it says that the clothes is such-and-such % acrylic. (My mom often looks at those labels when she's considering buying something. She thinks cotton is a good material, and I suppose "Mom knows best"...) I was told by my painting teacher that it was basically plastic, so if acrylic paint dries up, you can peel it off. So I guess that explains why it can be used in both making clothing and paint. o_O;;

Anyhow, it's a little sad that my classes are over. Of course I'm glad to have more free time now, but I will miss the relaxing atmosphere of the classes, and I hope I'll be able to see some of the people who were in my classes next year in school (if they go to the same school, that is).

Yesterday I went to see the animated movie called Up in the movie theater. It has been talked about a lot, probably more so than the average animated movie. Here's the story in short...

A boy called Carl is a big fan of exploration. He wants to be like his hero, Charles F. Muntz, who was a man who claimed to have discovered a rare bird in Paradise Falls, a place in South America. However, it was discovered that he'd put together the skeleton of a bird with existing bones, and so in order to clear his name, he vowed to go to Paradise Falls and not return until he caught the rare bird. Anyhow, the main character, Carl, meets a girl who also is a big fan of Charles F. Muntz, named Ellie. He gets to see her "My Adventure Book", which is a book she put together about adventuring. Eventually Carl and Ellie are married, but in their old age, Ellie dies, and Carl is left on his own. His house is going to be taken away, so Carl blows up a lot of balloons, ties them to his house, and sets off for Paradise Falls. Along the way he meets a boy who tagged along called Russell, a bird which happens to be the rare species that Charles F. Muntz had been looking for, and a dog called Dug. They meet Charles F. Muntz himself at Paradise Falls, but it turns out he is quite evil and so owns many dogs for the purpose of finding the rare bird. He attempts to get rid of Russell and Carl and to take the bird for himself. But there was a good ending, as is necessary for a children's movie.

This was a surprisingly good movie. It was funny, but it was also a little sad as well, and I think you ought to go see it if you want to see a movie. ...Or you could go see Harry Potter, the newest movie...It was so crowded when I left the theater after watching Up because everyone was there to watch Harry Potter. Wow.

Labels: acrylic, animated film, crepuscular, diurnal, end, harry potter, movie, nocturnal, painting, summer school, theater, up

I may not have much knowledge of this matter, but I've always thought make-up was meant to be used on faces. Not drawings on paper. But I have a classmate in my Japanese class who uses lipstick, nail polish, and other things to color in strange drawings of female faces. She said that she uses make-up instead of color pencils for Fashion Design class. Two of the people sitting with me keep pulling their desks away whenever she takes out the make-up since they say it smells too strong.

It's kind of funny, but depending on what kind of twins you are, sometimes siblings are more alike than twins are. If you're identical twins then there's no match for you but if you're fraternal twins of the same gender, then it's possible for two regular siblings to have more resemblance than you. I know two guys who look very alike. Not completely alike, but still with enough similarities for people to mistake them for twins. But they are actually just brothers.

I have discovered a song that I find endlessly funny. The name of it is Ippon Demo Ninjin. It's a song about counting from 1-10 in Japanese using various objects like carrots, sandals, yachts, grains of sesame salt, rockets, turkeys, bees, whales, glasses of juice, and strawberries. Unfortunately, I couldn't locate the song, which was a great disappointment to me. I wish I could show you all, but only my Japanese teacher seems to have a video of it.

Geometry really is hard like I had expected. There are some things I know - like how two angles would add up to 180 degrees so you just need to play around with numbers already provided - but there were problems about clocks which stumped me. I hadn't remembered that when the minute hand moves, the hour hand must move too. I really need some practice otherwise I'll be like my 7th grade math teacher, who had to retake it because she wasn't good at Geometry. Then I'll have lost the head start I got by going to Pre-Algebra in 6th grade. (And possibly, the chance to go one of the colleges I've been thinking of!)

I wonder if I have become too used to drinking bottled water. My mom says that since it's the summer, I should just pour some water from one of the really big Crystal Geyser water containers since that would save plastic and in turn the environment. However, out of habit, I end up grabbing a water bottle whenever I feel thirsty. And only later do I remember that I should have filled a cup with water. Probably I will be unlucky and I won't learn to do that until the end of the summer. It's kind of like how I want to sleep in on Mondays but wake up early on weekends, and how when I go to China I only become used to the time zone at the end of the trip. I have some belief in karma and I bet I did something in my past life that wasn't too bad, but bad enough to earn me faults.

Labels: appearance, clock, cosmetics, count, drink, geometry, habit, ippon demo ninjin, japanese, math, oddity, siblings, song, summer school, twins, unlucky, water bottles

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