I didn't know who Ansel Adams was until quite recently. While I was on a school trip to Yosemite National Park, all of the students would walk to the theater for our evening program every night (usually something informative, like about rock climbing or climate change, but one time we just hiked outside and played a game similar to hide-and-seek). We always passed by a place called the Ansel Adams Gallery, which sold gifts, and I think you can rent cameras there, too.

Once I returned from Yosemite, I visited the library and checked out some magazines. I usually look for science-related magazines at the library because every trimester we must present a scientific news article. I happened to see the magazine called Popular Photography, and I have checked out a few of the issues (not particularly new ones, but oh well). I was looking at an article about 30 photo-friendly cities in the USA when I saw San Francisco, in 2nd place. And it was mentioned that Ansel Adams broke his nose in an earthquake in San Francisco.

I've probably written about this before, but this still keeps on happening to me. I even saw the very same camera that I have - a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3A - in an edition of the Popular Photography Magazine. It was apparently a good camera for a not-too-expensive price or something. In fact, when I was at the Campanile in UC Berkeley, someone asked my dad to take a picture of him, and he had the same camera, in the same color. I suppose it's just a common camera. (Not like my old Nikon Coolpix, it was a pretty rare one. A silvery sort of color. I sure miss it, even now.) But it's still unsettling to see it in other places. It's kind of like how I'm bothered by seeing people with the same name as me.

Ever since I arrived home after my trip, I've been feeling a bit out of sorts. For one thing, my dad left for Shanghai, China, to visit his family. It's pretty quiet because it's only my mother and I around the house. That's kind of a good thing, and kind of a bad thing. I'm not really used to having less noise around the house. But it's kind of good since I get to talk my mother more than usual. (My cell phone ringtone is starting to annoy me, though. I figure I should change it, but I actually still haven't figured out how)

Speaking of my cell phone...I'm still frustrated at it. Sometimes I think I don't get any signal. One time I was walking home from school and needed to call my mom, so I whipped out my cell phone and dialed her number. I kept hearing it ring, and ring, and ring, and finally I was told that the call wouldn't go through or something. I kept trying this over and over while I walked. I finally managed to reach her when I was near a school (I think the schools should all have cell phone coverage). What good is the cell phone if you can't even use it? Also, my mom said she called me on my cell phone, but I don't think I ever heard it ring. She says I probably had my cell phone on mute or some other mode where you can't hear the ring, but I don't know...I think perhaps it really is hard for me to get a signal, which will be troublesome if I ever desperately need to get in touch with someone.

Recently, I visited Cold Stone Creamery, my favorite place to get ice cream. There's actually a place Cold Rock Creamery, but I've only seen it in Australia. (It's not bad either. They have some different flavors.) My mom had some coupons, and I always leap at the chance to save money on yummy food. Cold Stone now has warm sundaes (we had a buy-1-get-1-free coupon for it, but sadly it expired before we had the chance to use it...) and I think my mom might like those. She used to complain about how ice cream was too cold for her. It kind of ruins the point of ice cream if it's cold (and it isn't all that fun to drink "ice cream soup") but it still does sound like it would be tasty. And it'd be nice during the winter.

When I was younger, I had trouble eating hot food. I would refuse to eat anything that was too hot (in fact, I even went so far as to put ice cubes in my hot chocolate so it would cool down to a reasonable temperature). My parents would say, "It's not too hot," but when I tried it, I thought it was still too warm. I wonder if we have different senses of temperature and taste. They don't see any difference in taste between water bottle brands, but I actually have slight preferences in water bottle brands. Also, I hear people are more accepting of alcohol when they get older because their taste buds have died and they can't taste the bitterness as much anymore. If so, I guess it's good if I have a sensitive tongue since that means I'm still young. (It does conflict with my trying to act like an old person, though. But you can't have both. It reminds me of a conversation I heard...A girl was saying to her friend that she didn't want to take some pills because her mother told her not to, since there was a drowsiness side effect. "So don't take it," said her friend. "But I need it..." said the girl - it was carsick pills. Her friend said, "Then take it!" Basically, there's no middle ground - she can obey your mother or she can save herself from being carsick)

Labels: ansel adams, camera, carsick, cell phone, choice, cold rock creamery, cold stone creamery, ice cream, inconvenient, magazine, photography, popular, signal, taste, temperature, tongue, warm, yosemite

It's good to brush your teeth at least twice a day, and even better to brush after every meal. (That's something I don't do, hehehe. I really don't floss enough either.) But what people don't necessarily remind you to do is to brush your tongue. Your tongue gets dirty too, so keep it clean! I remember when I was younger one time my tongue felt uncomfortable or something. It was because it wasn't clean. I forget what was stuck to it... Perhaps toothpaste? But nowadays I just give it a quick swipe so it won't get dirty. Be careful when you're brushing your tongue unless you want to throw up. It's pretty nauseous if you brush towards the back of your mouth.

I watched the movie 2012 over the weekend. It's not really a new movie anymore, but I had wanted to watch it. I actually didn't know much about it - I know it was about the world ending (Apocalypse, is that the word for it?) - but I expected it to be kind of like a documentary. It was actually more of a science fiction movie, I guess. It was very saddening, seeing people die and cities fall and all that, but then the movie ended on a hopeful note. For some reason it seemed very wrong for it to be like that, because the survivors all smiled and (seemingly) had forgotten their loved ones who had perished, the homes that they had lost. It was like the movie made me all panicky and then eventually said, "Oh, it'll all be okay in the end, even if we have to go live on Africa because the rest of the Earth is underwater." It would have made more sense to me for all the people to die, but of course there has to be some sort of a happy ending.

Well, anyways, I was starting to panic because of how horrible it was seeing the cities falling down and the ocean swallowing up the land. The destabilizing of the Earth's crust began in California, because we have fault lines here, thus making earthquakes more likely. So I thought, "Well, we should hurry and move elsewhere, so we can live just a little bit longer than we would here." Because that way, we'd have a little time to say goodbye.

Of course, a lot of people say the world's not going to end in 2012. I'm really not sure. I have a tendency to be paranoid, and besides, I find the thought of the world ending kind of exciting, so I tend to believe it will happen. Who knows, though? We won't be able to find out until it happens.

Oh yes, and before I forget, there was one part in the movie I found really meaningful. It was a scene in the movie showing people in Italy praying to be saved. Then they noticed that the ceiling was cracking. A crack ran along the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel...and separated Man and God! (That famous painting, you know?) You can imagine the shock it caused. It was like God had given up on the humans.

That's why the ships that people boarded so they might be able to live were called Arks. It's a reference to Noah's Ark...The ship Noah boarded along with two of each kind of animal to ride out the storm while God gave the Earth a "fresh start". (No wonder in the movie I saw elephants and giraffes being airlifted to the Arks...)

Speaking of other movies, I was thinking about going to the movie theater sometime. I still have Silver movie tickets left and I haven't used them up. I was planning to see the movie Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (It's a Hayao Miyazaki film, from Studio Ghibli, and I am a great fan of their work, so I have to see it!) but it's already gone from the theaters. I was really saddened. The other day my mom and I were looking at movies that are in theaters currently, like the Princess and the Frog (which I heard my history teacher took his son to see. Is it good? I might want to see it even if it is intended for a younger audience), and New Moon (which I won't be watching; usually books are better than their movie counterparts, so since I didn't like the Twilight books much, I probably won't like the movies much either).

There's a movie called Avatar that came out recently. I had no idea what it was about so I jumped to the conclusion that it was Avatar: The Last Airbender (the cartoon about the bald guy with an arrow on his head! Wahoo!) Actually, it was about aliens, I think. I really have to stop jumping to conclusions. XD

Labels: 2012, apocalypse, avatar, california, dental hygiene, god, happy ending, hayao miyazaki, movie, new moon, noah's ark, ponyo, sistine chapel, studio ghibli, survival, the princess and the frog, tongue

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