Two nights ago, I found myself in the world of dreams. This hasn't happened for quite a while. In fact, I can't recall having any dreams since I got out of school.

I was at school and we were going on a field trip. We got onto a bus - but it was no ordinary bus. The interior was more spacious than your ordinary school bus, and the seats, instead of being lined up in two columns, were against the walls. We had chosen where we would sit beforehand by marking places on a chart. I had gotten the direction mixed up and sat at the right edge of a black bench at the back of the bus. I was supposed to sit on the left side, where two friends were. But since the bus was moving and I thought it would be troublesome to ask everyone to scoot over a bit so I could take my rightful place, I decided to remain where I was.

Then I noticed one of my friends was taking a picture of me using a device. I'm not sure how I knew, but I knew it was a camera. It looked very strange, with yellowish-orange and black colors.

Eventually we got off the bus and arrived at a place that seemed to be a recreational center. We all went to a room that looked very much like my language arts classroom. The teacher said to get our sleeping bags ready for later. I realized with a jolt that I had seen "sleeping bag" on the recommended items for the trip, but I had deemed it unnecessary and forgotten about it. I hadn't expected us to actually have naptime on the trip.

Then I left the classroom and began walking around. I recall walking on a grassy hill, and I think there were some fenceposts here and there. I eventually decided to go the bathroom. I saw someone I knew there. When I was exiting the bathroom, I went out the wrong door and found myself facing a swimming pool. There was a banner of some sort put up near it. The girl that I knew came out that way too. I was going to go back into the bathroom and exit through the correct door, but she said, "You can just walk around to the front." So that's what I did.

I don't remember much else of the dream. I think I had woken up from it by then. But I do recall having seen one other person in that dream - probably while I had been walking around the grassy hill. I've seen that person in another dream, too. It's been a long time since I've been able to talk to that person. I wish we could be friends again. Like we used to be.

Labels: bathroom, bus, camera, classroom, door, dream, field trip, friends, past, people, recreational center, school, sleeping bag, summer, swimming pool

I thought up this title because I've had a lot of dreams and would like to write them down before I forget them. Perhaps I should keep a diary of sorts, except of my dreams, not daily life. (But I won't make this an official dream diary, because I do want to talk about other things here, and I usually don't remember my dreams...Except for recently) Whenever I hear the name Dreamland I feel like it sounds familiar and that's because I used to play an online multiplayer game called Toontown.

I kind of miss playing Toontown. When I was younger, quite a few years back, you could get a free trial, and you could go to the other lands. You can never get very far with a free trial since it's only like 3 or 4 days but at least you could see the other neighborhoods (there are many different places you can go in the game). But then they changed it so you have to subscribe to go to the other lands. I decided to subscribe during the summertimes. I actually got quite far on one of my accounts and I'm proud of it. But I didn't subscribe this year and I feel strange not having played it. (I know I wouldn't have had much to do in the game besides maybe fight the really tough bosses, but just nostalgia, you know?)

Anyhow, on to the dreams, since they are already starting to slip from my mind. I'll go in chronological order (as in, when they happened). They did not happen in the same day, mind you.

- The first one was that I was at a pool. It's not like most swimming pools you'd ever see. It was indoor, except the walls were high and they were held up by columns. The pool was sort of like a lot of rectangles stuck together which made it look like a blocky zigzag, I guess. My mom and I were swimming in it and we were wearing wetsuits and snorkels and things like that. She and I had split up and I had swam deeper in the water to go into what I thought was probably a tunnel somewhere but it was just a dead end pretty soon. So I swam out of it and was going to go to the other side of the pool, but a shark was blocking my way. It swam back and forth in a straight line like those video game enemies you sometimes see. It noticed me and started turning around in a tight circle, watching me. I thought it was going to attack so I began back paddling furiously. The shark was going to lunge as I was pulling myself out of the water. (Luckily the dream ended because probably I would've had my legs stuck in a shark's mouth...Whoa.)

- The second one was quite short and simple. I was taking my vitamins and I was only supposed to take two of each kind but I started eating too many of them, so I overdosed on vitamins. It was freaky. At least I think it was an accident in the dream and I wasn't trying to kill myself.

- The third one was just last night, in fact. I was probably younger than I am now because I was on a trip led by my fifth grade teacher, Mr. Blaker. But the people with me were not necessarily the people who were in my class then. Just some random folks, some from the YMCA daycares, or from middle school, or something. So we were on a field trip to Los Angeles. There was a small bay there and we were on a huge white ship. (I don't know if Los Angeles actually has a bay, but in the dream someone said it was Los Angeles) All us kids got on some swim suits, life jackets, swimming goggles, that sort of thing. We went swimming in the bay. I don't know if the water was cold, but it was very clean and blue. And there were a bunch of white sailboats and fishing boats and stuff docked. You could see some tall buildings but not as much as you would expect from a big city, and the sky was quite clear. Eventually we stopped swimming and went up on the ship for a while, but then we were given the option to swim one more time if we wanted to before leaving Los Angeles. So I went down this ladder (it was quite a short one, I mean, you could jump from level to level if you wanted), and that area of the ship was really crowded what with people running about talking or going down and up the ladders. So I put on my gear again and I was going to go swim but it turned out that the only way down to the water this time was climbing! You had to climb down this tall, squishy sort of blown up thing. It sort of resembled the weird things you sometimes see at car dealers, you know, the long squishy ones that flop in the wind. I climbed down it carefully and I thought I was going to fall off because of my weight, but no, I didn't. Sometimes I had to climb onto a blown up dolphin, and I don't know what that was for... Eventually I got all the way down and swam for a while before going back up. There, a guy (whom I actually recognize as someone who goes to my school currently) showed us his bookmark collection, which had various quotes written on them. He took out a book as well, a small white one which I mistook for The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E. L. Konigsburg but it wasn't. Mr. Blaker took the book from the guy, found a page, and started reading. The story was set in the medieval times. There had been a legend, which I don't remember clearly, but it involved some important holy man who walked up some stairs and his key got tangled around his legs (maybe the key was on a chain or something). A man walked up some stairs and this happened. He had been invited to the home of two people who wanted him to marry their daughter, and he didn't want to get married but he thought he should be polite. Anyhow, the people who invited him gasped upon seeing that the key got tangled around him. I don't remember more since I had woken up by that point. (What a complicated dream! One of my longer ones.)

Labels: bay, bookmark, books, danger, dream, dreamland, field trip, key, legend, los angeles, neighborhood, online, overdose, shark, ship, summer, swim, swimming pool, toontown, vitamins

Recently I went to my dad's friend's apartment to go swimming. When I arrived, there were young boys running around and voices of people. The apartment had a miniature play structure. It seems to me that an apartment complex is like a little community. Since I don't talk to my neighbors much, it makes me wonder all the time what it's like to live in an apartment. But my mom says you don't want to live on the bottom floor since you can hear the people who live directly above you when they walk around in their apartment.

The apartment pool is not as big as my piano teacher's apartment's pool, nor does it have a shower and a little bathroom next to the pool (besides the bathroom in the gym, which is different) but at least it had a spa and I finally had the chance to go swimming. However, I had a bad feeling about it and kept complaining. It turns out I was right, because it was a windy, slightly cold evening compared to the rest of the nights recently, and also the spa jets weren't working. My dad kept hitting the button but it just wouldn't turn on.

That's when I stepped in. Even if the water was certainly warm enough, my mom wanted the bubbles. So I tried to twist the weird white things in the spa. (I wasn't successful, maybe those things aren't for turning) Then I got up and hit the button. A few minutes later, the spa turned on! The skeptics insist that the spa jets just had a very, very late reaction time, but I would much rather believe that I am a "special chosen one".

Speaking of pools...I've been thinking, and I've decided that if I could have a pool, it'd be like this... The pool would be a huge, huge circle, and in the middle there'd be a metal bar running along a small kind of round platform. (If you wanted to, you could hang on to the bar to rest or climb up over it and stand "in the center of the world") The ceiling would be made of glass so you can see the sky. It would be beautiful with the sun shining through and reflecting on the water. Perhaps the ceiling looks like this...


Too bad there is certainly no room to have a pool like that in my house. And maybe my backyard could contain a small swimming pool, but it would be no where near as big as I want it, and besides bugs would drown in the pool. It brings back some not-so-pleasant memories of the time I went to Saratoga Springs. There were dead bees and flies in the water. *shudders*

So, you may have heard that I am currently part of the Summer Reading Celebration for both San Jose Library and Santa Clara County Library. I saw something unexpected when checking my account for the San Jose Library's summer reading. They'd denied one of the reviews I'd sent in! How rude! I couldn't even edit it to send it in again (Santa Clara lets you edit already sent reviews, I think, but I'm not sure about San Jose). But at least it still counts as a book read.

Last week, I was working on doing some test prep problems that came from a book from the library. I came across some rather...interesting answers to questions. (These were multiple choice questions, so these answers are all incorrect ones)

Q: Why did the Aztecs sacrifice so many people?
A: They loved to watch people die.

Q: According to the code of chivalry, what did knights need to do?
A: Knights chased the servants around the castle.

Q: What happened when King Henry VIII demanded a divorce but the pope refused to let him?
A: The king published a pamphlet called "Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants".

Q: Which of these are Italian city-states?
A: Paris and Genoa. (Paris is in France, of course)

Q: What is the Counter Reformation?
A: People attempted to remodel a counter.

Q: Why were heretics discriminated against?
A: They had long hair.

Labels: anger, answer, apartment, button, ceiling, circle, funny, glass, indoor, jets, outdoor, questions, review, round, spa, summer reading celebration, swimming pool, test prep

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

Usually you probably hear the term "Live, laugh, love" instead of "Fight, love, live." Filoli Website

But that was the phrase popular at this place I visited recently, called Filoli. It's a California estate built in...the 1900's, I think...by a family, the Bourns. They were trying to get away from San Francisco (where they had previously lived) because a great earthquake and fire had ravaged much of the city, so those people with enough $$$ started building homes in the countryside. It took from 1915-1917 to build the house, which was modeled to look like an estate in Ireland, and also like the architecture of England, both of which Mr. Bourn (at least, I think it was him) was inspired by.

Anyhow, back to the phrase. The name Filoli was very puzzling to the Bourns' friends, since they didn't know what it meant. They thought it was an Italian name. (Yeah, right. The Bourns weren't from Italy.) Actually, he just took the first two letters of each part of his motto, which happened to be "Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life." If you ask me, that wasn't very creative, but oh well. At least he didn't just call it Bourn. (Notice a lot of people name their companies and other things after themselves...Like HP, otherwise known as Hewlett-Packard.)

The main reason my family went to Filoli was because of the gardens. They were really something. There were many, many gardens, and so if you come at different times of year (By the way, Filoli is open from mid-February to October) you might be able to see different flowers. When we went, it was tulip season, which delighted me to no end. (I have this strange fascination with tulips...) If you hurry you might be able to get there before all the tulips start to die. Some of them already lost their petals, like the ones at my house (it's really quite sad, but my dad still thinks they look pretty, even dead). They come in various colors like white, light pink, dark pinkish/red, dark purple, light purple, and even yellow with red parts. Too bad the roses haven't bloomed yet. The ones at my house have started to. I suppose that Filoli just follows a different seasonal pattern from my neighborhood.

Keep in mind that Filoli does charge admission. I was unhappy to hear that since I always want to get in free, but of course they need to make money to keep the place running. (My mom says that a museum in Las Vegas closed down since they had no budget. I wonder what kind of stuff they had - slot machines? Elvis Presley portraits?)

Still, it's a nice place. The house where the Bourns (and later the Roths, who moved in later) used to live has 43 rooms and 17 chimneys, according to one of those retired people tour guides (no offense to them, but they look rather...old, since they have white hair and all). I don't know why you would need so many chimneys. There must be a lot of fireplaces in the house or something. I only have one fireplace and we don't even use it. The house has a bunch of old-looking furniture and portraits. It looks kind of like the Hearst Castle, or a more modern looking version of those European palaces. Outside there's a small rectangular pond, and even a swimming pool. (Wow, I guess people liked swimming pools even back then. It was pretty big and clean, but I hear sometimes people fall into the pool, particularly little kids who just run around in circles. Personally I like the pools at Hearst Castle better since they have interesting designs.)

I wouldn't really want to live there, though. Instead, I'd rather live at this house I just saw today. It was an open house (you know, for sale so you can look inside if you're a buyer). It looked like an adobe house, sort of. It was only one story but there were many rooms. The furniture was very beautiful and the master bedroom had a little room connected to it where you can look outside (great view, the Stevens Creek is right there, and maybe you could spy on your neighbors :o). If you wanted you could set up your computer in that room so you would kind of feel like your were outside even though you were inside. Seeing as I am an indoor person, but like to have a view, that would be cool for me.

Labels: backyard, bourns, fight love live, filoli, flowers, garden, house, money, name, open house, phrase, san francisco, swimming pool

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