On the 4th of July, my dad and I left our house and walked over to a nearby building, where we had watched fireworks in the past many years ago. My dad said we would be able to see the fireworks from there, although I was dubious (the fireworks were being shot from a high school off in the distance. I don't even know what that high school looks like, even though it was named after the town I live in). It turned out that we could see them, although the fireworks were partially blocked by such obstacles as trees...But it was still nice to see fireworks. (The benefit of being far from them was that the sound of them wasn't so loud. My childhood fear was the sound of fireworks. They were too loud for me to stand. Even now I still dislike them.)

I later realized that there were fireworks coming from three different places. One was, of course, my town's fireworks. Then there were the fireworks from an amusement park, Great America. And lastly were ones in some other park in the county. All of them were not very close by, but they were still visible. One of the people at the building watching fireworks said, "This must be the best spot in the valley."

There's a lot of different sorts of lights you can see at nighttime.
- City lights
- Stars
- Airplanes
- The Moon (although its light is really from the Sun)
- Fireflies

The last one, fireflies, is something I can't remember whether I've seen. Maybe I haven't gone out at night enough, or I need to go somewhere with water, like the creek near my town.

And as for meteors and comets, I can't remember whether I've seen those either. I probably haven't. August is a season with quite a few meteors, so I'll have to keep my eyes open then to see them. I wonder if there have always been meteors in the sky and I've simply never noticed them. I've always been indoors, distracted by the artificial (but still dazzling) light of a computer screen.

It's good that I'm leaving for my vacation today, then. It'll keep me away from the Internet for a while so I can spend time actually living instead of wasting away slowly. I'll be gone for the next two weeks or so before returning home again.

Labels: 3, artificial, away, comet, computer, fireworks, independence day, lights, meteor, missed, neighborhood, night, spot, vacation

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

The mention of Saturday school would normally bring a different sort of image to my mind. Saturday school is sometimes given as a punishment to students. Some teacher will be supervising the students attending on a Saturday and you can do homework or read a book or something like that. I have no idea what it's really like, nor do I have much knowledge of detention, but although it doesn't sound too bad, I think it would be a pain to have to go to school on a weekend, and it'd also be a blemish on your record (supposing that you had committed a offense to have gotten into Saturday class, right?).

Well, this was sort of a voluntary Saturday school. It had been mentioned briefly on the school announcements that there were flyers in the office regarding a language arts workshop. At first I had not been particularly interested, because my language arts teacher attended a workshop for teachers, but the info taught didn't really apply to her teaching because it was a little too basic (better for elementary school than the upper grades, anyhow), and this gave me some distrust in the ability of a workshop to actually be a help to me. But at urging from my mother, I dropped by the school office to look for a flyer, and found that there were none.

My mother took it upon herself to look up the workshop, presumably on the Internet, and so she registered me for the workshop. As I have said, I was rather reluctant, but I think my mom has inherited my grandmother's stubbornness, and there is no point arguing with her. She insisted that it would be a good experience, and I had decided to try new things in my life (I am not much of a risk taker, but I thought I would miss a lot of good things out there if I didn't...) so I ended up being won over.

This morning I was still groggy. Waking up around seven or eight o'clock in the morning is not unusual for me, but since I was sleeping poorly lately (due to me being sick with a cold) I would wake up and then go back to sleep until about nine. I have never been one for sleeping in that much. My brain always seems to think it is a school day so I often wake up around eight or so, since my mind must be unconsciously saying, "AHHHHH!!! We're late for school!!!" and forcibly getting me up. And sometimes I have to use the bathroom in the morning. If it is late enough in the morning I will not be able to fall asleep again. (But I can't just not drink water. I get dehydrated easily and if I don't drink water I will wake up with bad breath and an icky feeling in my throat.) I can't wait until we go on vacation this summer. Once I get home I plan to not adjust back to Pacific Time so that I can do what I did last summer after my vacation. I would wake up in the afternoon, and go to bed at midnight or some other late time. In this way I got more sleep than I could ever have gotten if my body was following Pacific Time. I hope I can do this again this summer. I have a small chance of growing taller if I can get a ton of sleep.

For the workshop, you could choose two out of three classes offered in the morning, and everyone attended the same class in the afternoon. I picked blogging and oral storytelling for my morning classes. The afternoon class featured comedy. I suppose I should not reveal too much of what I had heard or else anyone reading this right now would not have much reason to attend such a workshop.

I will, however, say that the instructor of the blogging class, who is a professional blogger himself, says that it's easier to get the attention of people with a shorter post and having the text in the beginning be related to the title of the post, whereas having a longer post is to the benefit of people who are already readers of your blog.

He also said that there are different kinds of bloggers - people who write for the sake of writing (who just have to write, it is their passion) and people who write to get read (because, let's face it, it's kind of rough if you're writing and no one ever cares. It's like shouting at a wall or something.). But there are also a few who are a mixture of the two, who write both for writing's sake and for people to read it. I guess I would be the mixture type of blogger.

The instructor seemed to be much more supportive of Wordpress as a place to blog as compared to Blogger. He said that as Blogger is part of Google, even if you asked them a question you wouldn't get a response, but if you need to know something about blogging, you can just drive over to San Francisco and ask the Wordpress folks. Although I have thought about making a Wordpress blog, I am not sure if I want to switch over because I have kept this blog for such a long time...It would be such a pain to make a change.

Labels: blog, blogger, brain, classes, dehydration, help, insomnia, language arts, plan, punishment, saturday, school, sleep, summer, time zone, vacation, water, wordpress, workshop, writing

Recently, my household had two visitors. One of them was a guy who lives in Shanghai who is here in California on a business trip, and he was a university classmate of my mother. And the other one was my grandma's friend's son, who is currently studying in San Francisco for his master's degree. Both of them came at the same time.

The younger guy, the one who resides in San Francisco, always insists on using an honorific to address my mother. (I guess you would call it an honorific, but I'm not sure what it should really be called) He previously used the title that means older sister, but that seems nonsensical seeing as my mom is the same age as his mom. So he changed to saying a word that means aunt after her name instead. My mom says that he can just call her by her name, forget the honorifics, but he still went with the aunt word.

I remember when I was younger, still in elementary school, my aunt, uncle, and cousins came over to stay at our house during the summer. I was really annoyed by having them around at that time. For one thing, they kept calling me by my name followed by the word that means older sister. I never understood it because I'm not their sister, so I insisted they just use my name, nothing else, but it was pretty hard for them to manage that. I guess in Mandarin and the Shanghai dialect there isn't a way to address your cousin. Or maybe cousins are considered to be like siblings.

Also, there was the time that my cousin was threatening to turn off my Gamecube. I was afraid he would really do it. I sat on him so he wouldn't be able to touch the button. However, this was very traumatizing to him (maybe I was really heavy and cut off his circulation?) and he ran to his mother saying I had hit him. I denied it, but I wasn't able to explain myself since I wasn't fluent enough in Chinese (and at the time, I couldn't speak French; my aunt's family lives in Paris).

My mom said my cousins would grow more mature with time, but they haven't improved all that much. A few years ago, I went on vacation to Europe and visited my aunt's family in Paris. The cousins were irrepressible as always and insisted on sitting next to me in the car and playing my Nintendo DS. (I think they have their own DS now, though) One time my cousin sneezed on it, which was really disgusting. Anyhow, if I didn't sit next to them in the car they would throw a fit. (I didn't want to put up with their antics so I sat in the back next to my grandma and mom, meaning to take a nap, but not managing it)

My family has been considering another vacation to Europe, except we want to see different places there, like perhaps Barcelona, Spain, or Italy (though people say Barcelona is better...Hmm. If you've been there, let me know what you think). We'll probably be taking a cruise since we haven't been on one since I was still in elementary school. It'll be in the summertime, which is best for me, as I won't be stressed from school. Unfortunately, if I go to Europe I will have to visit my cousins. My mom got annoyed and said that I could just go home early and not stop by Paris, while she visited her sister, but then I can't really fall asleep if my mom isn't there. I guess I have a mother complex.

On to other matters. Today, it was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so both my dad and I had the day off. (Most people are still working today, because they usually get Presidents' Day off, but my dad's company is an exception.) We went to various places, like REI, Any Mountain, Jamba Juice, Whole Foods, Petco, and Petsmart. I was looking for a hat to buy for Yosemite because apparently it's going to be cold and the one place you can lose heat the most easily is through your head. I was meaning to get one of those with earflaps because I thought it'd be better for keeping my ears warm. (They have to be fairly warm. When my ears get cold, I get headaches.) I picked one hat from REI and one from Any Mountain and decided I would let my mom make the decision since I have no idea which one I like better.

I haven't been to Petco for a long time because there used to be one in my town but it closed down years back. I noticed that there was a section with animals to be adopted. (Petsmart also has one, but they only have cats...At least usually.) There were two rabbits, some hamsters/mice (I didn't pay that much attention, I'll just call them rodents) and I think probably a cat or two. I was watching a particularly energetic rodent (I'm guessing it's a dwarf hamster?) named Boggle. He was behaving rather curiously. Sometimes he would get onto his wheel and start running, then he'd get off, and get back on and change direction, and sometimes he would run like crazy, but other times he looked kind of bored. Very interesting. I read on his description that he likes to take food, piece by piece, to his plastic castle, and stash it there for later.

Labels: adoption, behavior, boggle, chinese, cruise ship, dwarf, europe, family, friends, gamecube, hamster, hat, honorifics, interesting, martin luther king, name, petco, relatives, shopping, vacation

My mother seems to think all the gifts that I pick out are pretty much useless. I missed some of my friends' birthdays, so I figured I should just go get Christmas gifts for them. I went shopping today and picked out a few things. I think the items were somewhat useful but my mom thinks they are impractical, especially because of the cost (though we had coupons, so it wasn't so bad). When we got home, my mother started digging through our old stuff...The main reason for that was my dad's work - they were having a "White Elephant" event. That's where the workers bring in a gift and the gifts are mixed up and handed out to people. Last year my dad brought in a singing bird (not a real bird!). It was a nice thing that we got from my dad's friend's daughters, but we never really used it, so it was better off in someone else's hands.

Anyhow, while my mom was looking through our old stuff she discovered various things we never even touched again, like goodie bags from parties. She deemed it all useless things that money is spent on. I think it's necessary, though, because for one thing, it's good for the economy (especially in these not-so-stable times), and for another thing, it would be really sad if no one got gifts, right? Even if the gifts weren't particularly helpful, or cost too much to be "worth" it, it's still good that people can give gifts to each other. I mean, a gift isn't only something material, it can also make you feel like people do care about you (unless it's a gift that was insulting or showed no thought).

I really am a packrat, though. Sometimes my family tries to clean things - especially the dining table, which gets heaped with newspapers, random scratch paper with math diagrams, food dishes, and the objects that are always there, like the napkin holder. My dad complained about how he wants to throw things out, but I always insist on keeping them, so he ends up having to stash it all elsewhere. Then when we're actually trying to find something we have trouble finding it. But throwing it away seems like a waste to me. It's better we keep our trash out of the Pacific Gyre. (That's a trash heap in the Pacific Ocean, I believe. I heard it was the size of Texas...Talk about scary.) And did you know what I heard once? The two things on Earth that are visible from Outer Space are the Great Wall of China and a garbage dump in New Jersey. Wow.

On to some other news. Today, since I was at a local mall, I stopped by at Coldstone Creamery. It is still, and will remain, my favorite ice cream store. I heard some noise, so I found the source of it...A band from an elementary school was playing Christmas music on a lower level of the mall. I realized that it could even be my elementary school because my band teacher in elementary school was there. I could recognize the music because I had played it myself, several years back. It's so weird not to be playing band anymore. I know I wouldn't be good at a wind instrument because I can't breathe that well (though I don't have asthma), but still. Sure does bring back memories of the old times.

Lately, the weather has been funny. It's quite cold - in fact, my mother said it was ten degrees colder than it usually is (well, at this time of year, in this area, I would assume). It even snowed on the nearby mountains, which was really pretty. It's been either foggy or cloudy these days and so it rains often. The fog makes me confused about the time of day since it covers up the sun. I end up getting up late some mornings because of it (not schooldays, I have to get up as normal then). I also get shocked at how dark it is early in the evening. I suppose I have to get used to it. The winter hasn't even "officially" started yet, I think. So there are still a few more months to go. I figure the summer will also be extreme to balance out the unusually cold winter. Probably it'll be roasting and no one except for those cyclists in matching suits will even try to go outside.

Maybe I should go travel somewhere in the summer, to get away from the extreme weather. What kind of place would have mild weather? I would like to go to Europe - like Barcelona, Spain, or Venice, Italy - and a cruise ship would be preferred, but we still haven't made up our minds. You always need to book these kinds of things way ahead of time so I suppose I have to make a decision so we can go somewhere in the summer. I decided to stay home this winter break, which is rare for me. But I don't want to spend money on traveling anymore because I end up getting airsick, carsick, or seasick from it. XD

Labels: band, christmas, coldstone creamery, elementary school, europe, gift, junk, mall, music, outer space, snow, summer, time, trash, travel, vacation, weather, white elephant, winter

My mother and I have been butting heads (not literally, just figuratively) over the dilemma of what backpack to use for the next school year. I have the option of my trusty black Jansport roller backpack, or my brown can't-sit-up-straight "regular" backpack, also of the Jansport brand. The roller backpack seems that it would be easier to use, what with not feeling the weight on your back, and thus improving your posture. But roller backpacks cause people to trip (sometimes a good thing, not always, does anyone remember the time I almost killed a PE teacher?), and often get unbalanced so you need to stop and flip it over every time it gets upside down. Plus, it seems that a lot of people are addicted to my roller backpack. If I have it, then they will insist on pulling it, or pushing the handle up and down for amusement. And the roller backpack is hard to use on stairs. I wonder about it myself but I have decided for now I will use the brown backpack since we should not be carrying much in the beginning of the school year (well, except for maybe textbooks, but I'm pretty sure they won't give that to me on the first day...right?).

Other things are also questionable about the next school year. For one thing, I wonder if I will be walking home by myself or with the girl (I guess I could say neighbor since she lives on the street parallel to mine) I walked with last year. I guess maybe my mom or I will have to call them and ask about it unless they do on their own. I heard that the girl (keeping her name disclosed, though I used her initials in some other post) wants to ride a bicycle so I hope she will get to (for her sake and also a little for mine as well). If I am by myself I will not have to worry about inconveniencing her by stopping to take photos with my cell phone all the time. (Though I'd rather use a camera than a cell phone, because my cell phone can't take as good photos. But I'm not sure if you're allowed to bring cameras to school, and even if you are, not a good idea to keep it out since people might want to use it to take photos of me or themselves or even steal it)

I'm going to go back to the subject of my vacation since I'm sure I will forget most of what went on then unless I keep a record of it (if you think about it, my blog sort of serves as a scrapbook or something for me. Oh yeah, I heard one of my teachers last year liked scrapbooking, though that is pretty irrelevant). One of the people, whom I shall refer to as Harry, was with us while we were in Melbourne. He has two children, Lukey and Vanessa, Lukey being the younger one. I am still not exactly sure how Vanessa is spelled. You see, Harry probably liked tennis or something, because he wanted to name his daughter after Venus (one of the two Williams sisters). But something got messed up and an A was added or something because her name is not Venus after all. I thought it was kind of interesting, though maybe my name's reason is more clear, as when I was in elementary school one of the YMCA day care staff liked to called me "Sydney Australia" or just "Australia" sometimes.

Labels: australia, backpack, blog, jansport, middle school, name, pros and cons, roller backpack, scrapbook, sydney, vacation, venus williams

If you think of the summer as a performance, it starts off feeling exciting. You might have a case of the butterflies from stage fright, or maybe you're brimming with confidence and anticipation, or maybe you're hiding in the corner from dread. But either way, the whole performance is ahead of you yet. And then eventually you get to intermission (or if not that, you get halfway through the performance) and you're beginning to realize, "Oh, already that much of it is done, we'll be through not long from now." And then now it's almost time to take your bows. But when it comes to summer vacation, there is no encore. You will not get summoned back to the stage for another round of applause (except for the Staff Learning Days and stuff, but that's different).

I am afraid that my summer is draining away before my eyes. I have not made preparations for school and have basically procrastinated and poorly managed my time a whole lot this summer. Also, one of my friends who was visiting for the summer will be going on back to Taiwan not too long from now. Even the school schedules have been put up on our grade viewer (whether on accident or on purpose, I have no idea) and those are all definite signs that summer is coming to its end. I would like to ask you all, how were your summers? Did you put on a spectacular show? Or are you glad to have it over with? Or somewhere in between?

Now, I don't want to spend too much time dishing out sappy lines, so instead I would like you to take a look at some photos and drawings and critique them. You can find more of them on my DeviantArt account, link at the side of the posts. Click on them for full view.





Eek, I know my drawings are kind of messed up (like how I'm so lazy that I made the person in the first drawing put her - because it is a girl, but dressed as a boy?! - hands behind her back, and how I imitated Arina Tanemura's style in the second drawing) but oh well. Practice practice practice!

Labels: accomplishments, critique, drawing, encore, end, performance, photography, practice, summer, time, vacation

It's a relief to be back home again, actually. Being far away from home can be nice, since it's a way to drag myself away from the computer (ha, ha), but there's really no place like home, is there? Home is where the heart is. Which means home is the rib cage. (Okay, so that was a lame joke from Animal Crossing: Wild World. I spend too much time reading the bulletin board anonymous messages.)

Once, while I was on vacation, I had a dream where I was on the computer and found out Blogger had changed. It looked kind of like Freewebs (they apparently just call it Webs now?) or Photobucket for some reason. And when I tried to find my blog, I couldn't get to it. I'd get an error and it would be like everything had disappeared, all those posts... I was really frustrated and panicky in the dream, but then I accepted the truth and decided I would start fresh with a new blog. So I was going to make a new blog with Wordpress (another site you can use to make blogs, I believe). Then I woke up and realized it was only a dream.

Occasionally, I wonder if I should change the name of my blog. I've had this name, ◆ kaisoumizu, practically ever since I started the blog. I was thinking of something like True Blue or Beyond the Sea (thus explaining that thing at the top of your Internet which says ◆ K A I S O U M I Z U - somewhere beyond the sea, when you visit my blog) but it could already be taken. And anyhow, I'm really used to having this name, and you readers out there probably are too. D: So I suppose this is just another wishy washy time for me, where I will think about doing something but not do it ever, or at least not for a long time.

Seeing as I have a lot to say about my vacation to Australia, anyhow, I'm going to spread it out by talking about some in the future posts this summer. It's not like I really do anything exciting during the summer much anyhow, what with my summer classes being over and me lazing around at home. I figure if I dedicated a whole posts to Australia it would be a very long post. And y'know, my posts are already pretty lengthy on average. XD

I should give you some background information while I'm at it. Here's the places we went to.

San Francisco → Sydney
Immediately after, Sydney → Melbourne
Several days later, Melbourne → Gold Coast
Two days after, Gold Coast → Cairns
Another two days, Cairns → Sydney
And eventually, Sydney → back to San Francisco.

For the entire trip there was my family, my dad's friend and his wife and son, and another of my dad's friends. While we were in Melbourne we caroused around with more people, though... And in Sydney we met some people as well.
Here is kind of a key since I will be mentioning various people in the future posts. It's a bit confusing, so bear with me.

Dad's friend "David" (not his actual Chinese name), his son "Michael", and his wife "Meggie" (not her actual Chinese name)

Dad's other friend "Andrew", his daughter "Whitney" (he has two, but one of them was not with us the whole time), and his wife "Casey" (not sure if I spelled that right, I think so, though)

Dad's third friend "James" (and we briefly saw his wife, "Cindy")

Dad's fourth friend "Harry", his wife "Louis Vuitton bag" (because silly me has forgotten her name, or maybe I never heard it?!), his daughter "Vanessa" (I dunno if it's spelled like that, because there's a story behind it. Will tell later), and his son "Lukey" (we call him that, dunno if it's really Luke)

Dad's fifth friend "Gary"

Mom's friends "Lily" and "Dog Owner" (yet again I dunno his name in English), and their two sons, whose names I forgot, so I call 'em "College Bookworm" and "PSP Final Fantasy Dude", plus the sons' grandparents (because I forget whether it's Lily's or Dog Owner's parents) who I just call, "Old Lady Who Won't Let Dog into House" and "Quiet Old Guy Who Walks the Dog".

Besides that there was my aunt's classmate and her husband, and I don't know their names so they will be called "Guy Whose Face Appears Stressed When He's Not" and "Lady Who Had a Son but Doesn't Really Like Children" (my nicknames get longer and longer!) and their son is who I call "Friendly Megane with Tasty Chewing Gum" (megane being a person wearing glasses).

Phew, there were more people than I expected to write about.

Labels: australia, blog, disappearance, dream, home, ideas, name, nickname, people, post, return, vacation

That's what I'll be doing this evening. I was unhappy by the fact that we are flying United Airlines (I like to try different airlines, especially since ANA, the Japanese airline, was cool) and also that the flight is at 11 pm at night or something. That means I have to stay awake all day and then during the night too. (I'm supposed to sleep on the plane flight but I usually have trouble doing that so when I get off I'm dizzy and jetlagged) But at least we get some good seats. It's the kind of seats which are at the front of a section so you can kick the wall. (But you're not supposed to, even though you'd be sorely tempted) Qantas has cheaper tickets right now but I heard one of the Qantas planes had a problem recently and my mom's friend or acquaintance is paranoid, as she told my mom, "It's a good thing you're not flying Qantas! It's not safe!" I guess my personality is constantly changing little by little since some time back I would be paranoid too but now I just care about the money. Maybe I'm getting more selfish. XD And yet at the same time I'm more generous too. Weird.

Last night I had a dream. Somehow, I was back at Kennedy Middle School. My PE teacher was Mr. Robinson again, and I was wearing a Kennedy PE shirt, but my regular pants. It seemed like no one noticed. Mr. Robinson had us line up in two lines depending on our number (which is, in turn, based on our last name, I think) so I lined up in the first line. Most of the students were lazy and tried to line up in the first line even though they were supposed to be in the second line. Then Shiroi Hime (in place of her name) ran by, gave someone a high five, and ran off again. o_O;; Later on, I went to a shop that sold food. I think it was pastries or desserts or something like that. A lot of people were waiting for it, while me, a girl I didn't recognize, and someone who I'm guessing is probably my friend visiting, were at the front of the line. We argued over who should order first and finally the one I didn't know ordered. You could type in your name so then the clerk would give you a small circular badge with something handwritten on it (I bet this is influence from me watching the movie Up...) and I accidentally entered Sydney Grunge Ji. Everyone gasped. I started panicking since I hadn't meant to write that. Then the clerk said something about not knowing anyone who was emo. I was just very confused at the end of the dream. XD To me, when I hear the word grunge, I think of a style of brushes to be used on computer graphics.

I had my hair cut not that long ago. I didn't think anyone would notice because 1) It was during the summer when I don't see that many people I know, and 2) only some small changes were done to my hair. My dad cut it this time, instead of me going to a barber like I usually do. He just cut it an inch or two shorter, and thinned it out, and that was about it. So you can't really tell the difference since I normally put up my hair in a ponytail...Besides the fact that the ponytail is less thick and less short, and that's something that requires studying me a lot to know.

Anyhow, back to the fact that I'll be gone. I'm leaving this evening for the airport and will not return until around...August 3rd? So there probably won't be any new posts from this blog for a while (unless I manage to get on my dad's friend's computer while his kids are at work - it'd be unfair to use the computer when normally they're not allowed to). I bet probably there will be little to no comments because of that, too. XD Well, I hope you all have a good rest-of-July, and I will see you later!

Labels: air plane, ana, badge, blog, computer, danger, dream, grunge, haircut, line, name, PE class, personality, ponytail, qantas, store, travel, united airlines, vacation

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

I don't remember the phrase exactly anymore, except I know Gill (an angelfish) and his gang (other assorted fish, all of them living in a fish tank in a dentist's office in Sydney, Australia) said that when they were making Nemo (one of the main characters, and he's a clownfish with a mutated fin) one of them. If you've watched the movie Finding Nemo, this may ring a bell in your head. For some reason I kept thinking of it lately. I guess it's because when I'm playing a video game, Animal Crossing: Wild World, I keep on catching clownfish when I'm fishing in the ocean. (It's too bad you can't go swimming or own a boat in that game, but oh well.)

Lately my parents are talking to my dad's friends a lot because my family is planning a trip to Australia this summer. We're going for a pretty long time, a couple of weeks, I think. Though it is shallow to think this, I always wonder if I'm going to get Internet access, because I don't want to get behind on role-playing on one of the websites I visit (by the way, role-playing is kind of like writing a book, except each of the characters is controlled by a different person, so basically it's a group effort. Role-plays can be anything from a pack of wolves running from humans, to vampires mingling with humans - sometimes it's too much like Twilight, so I only join ones that aren't using Twilight characters - to depressed people going to a summer camp). Also, I don't want to miss making money on the Internet, even if it's fake money. I guess I am too used to having a computer around all the time. Or maybe I'm just a worrywart.

Something happened on Tuesday in math class that I didn't expect. On the part of the board where the homework assignments are written, the teacher was writing down "No homework" on our side of the section (one part is for the Pre-Algebra 7, or regular math, and the other side is for the Algebra 1, or advanced math). There was a lot of surprise in general since usually we have homework every day, unless it's the day before a long vacation, or we just took a test. It turned out we were taking a test which doesn't affect our grade to judge how much of the Algebra curriculum we knew. I know I must've failed miserably since I didn't remember most of the stuff. So today my teacher said some people scored really high, but some people weren't retaining the things they'd been taught (she must have meant me XD) and she was worried about it. She started talking about how we needed to remember all these things in Geometry, since Geometry is different from most of the other math courses we'll take, and so on, blah blah blah. (Note: I don't mean to offend anyone with the last three words)

In the mail, we received a letter from the BestFriends Animal Society addressed to my mom. It was saying how they were trying to give homeless animals homes, and they wanted her support to help make their goal possible. My dad and I could hardly believe it since my mom is not too fond of animals. She thinks cats are kind of useless and that big dogs are scary. We get all sorts of other weird things in the mail, especially flyers advertising the store called Express, and how it's having sales on women's jeans and things like that. It's always addressed to some random person called Eun M. Ji. (By the way, please don't Google this person or anything like that, or it'll ruin their privacy) I wonder why we keep getting them. Did this "Eun" purposely ask Express to send mail to us?

Labels: algebra, animal crossing, animals, australia, exams, express, finding nemo, geometry, internet, mail, math, movie, roleplaying, RP, vacation

It's a relatively untested theory, but I have tried it once. I've had a sore throat lately, probably caught from school or some other place. When I was walking home, the mom of one of my friends motioned me over. Due to my bad hearing I didn't understand her at first, but soon I realized she was offering me some gum. I accepted, figuring it couldn't hurt, since school is over and I was outside the fence anyhow (apparently you'll get a "behavior report" and gum-scraping duty every time the teacher catches you). It was minty, and I'm not a big fan of mint, but the taste was refreshing, and it made my throat feel soothed temporarily, kind of like those Fruit Breezers cough drops.

PE in Robinson's has been pretty relaxing for the last two days, actually. I was pretty freaked out on Tuesday since Mr. Robinson was out for the day and the substitute put an X next to my name since I forgot my notebook at home. Then the next day Mr. Robinson looked at the list to check if everyone had their notebooks. I'm afraid he might take off points for this, which is pretty bad, since I'm not that good at PE (especially skills testing). If luck is with me, maybe it'll be okay, after all.

My parents have been planning our summer vacation lately. We're probably going to go to Australia, seeing as my dad used to live over there, and has a good friend whom we refer to as "Pluto" (he has his own minor company called Pluto International). Pluto will act as our tour guide since none of us have been to Australia for a long time (in my case, not at all). I hope he doesn't start patting me on the back. He hits pretty hard, even if he means it as a friendly gesture.

I witnessed a rather unsightly thing in science class. So, today, we were out in the nature center making "molds and casts" out of blue clay and some weird Plaster of Paris (the dust got in my eyes, bleck). You make the clay soft and crush it down so it is kind of flat but still very thick. Then press one of the plastic models (shells, birds, sharks, etc.) into the clay to make an imprint. Mix the plaster and water, and pour it into your "mold". Once it hardens, you should be able to peel back the plaster and have an imitation (I call it that since it might not turn out exact) of the original organism.

Now, during this time, my science teacher was shoveling plants out of the nature center pond, which is getting overgrown with them. As he bent over, a little something could be seen since his pants didn't cover them. (I think you can guess.) It was green with white patterns on it. I'm not sure what it is, probably clovers. Anyhow, I thought it was impolite to look, so I instead shifted my gaze to the paint cans on the ground.

In woodshop, we've been practicing an odd chant to learn all the tools that he sets out on the table. It seems like some people need a lot of help from Mr. M, but some are really fast and accurate, like a guy called Corey Bemis (I hear his nickname is Corelina Jolie, but I wouldn't know since I'm not in any other classes with him, he's in another village). I was pretty disturbed since I thought he wasn't...well...that bright.

Labels: australia, cast, clay, gum, mint, mold, notebook, PE class, plaster, pluto international, sick, slap, summer, vacation, woodshop

It seems like I can never find the "perfect temperature" today. If I put on a coat, I start sweating, but if I take it off, my allergies/cold seem to get worse. I wonder what to do. (I don't want to use the medical nasal spray my mom keeps in the office since it hurts. It's made of seawater or some other weird substance. o_O)

Right now it's my Staff Learning Day, but it seems like some colleges are having their week of spring break now. I guess they don't have February Break (otherwise known as Midyear Recess) like my school dose. I guess that makes sense, seeing as the purpose of our week off in February is so that kids won't miss a week of school just because they want to be skiing in Lake Tahoe or something.

Earlier today, a man (presumably one of my mom's coworkers) tapped the side of the cubicle (since there is no door to cubicles). I thought he had something serious about work to discuss but it turns out he was bringing my mom an advertisement for a good deal on a vacation to Hawaii! First there was pizza the last time I came here, and now a vacation ad from a newspaper?! Does anyone work at my parents' offices?! (My mom sometimes goes shopping during her lunch break, and my dad checks his email and writes on his own blog...Apparently he has some friends who "look forward" to reading his blog)

Anyhow, I've noticed that my mom keeps two of the apples that I brought her from school on top of her computer. One has wrinkly skin because it's probably rotting inside and the other one looks okay but doesn't feel very hard when you touch it. I compared this to my grandma and my mom. My grandma is old, and has wrinkles and a hunched back, so you can tell, kind of like the first apple. My mom looks younger but she's aging, if you look at the grey hairs beneath her dyed head. My mom was miffed when I made such a comment to her. D:

Now, I'm not sure if y'all are familiar with KK Slider or not, but he's a well-known in the Animal Crossing games (now available for Game Cube, DS, and even Wii). He started out as a poor street musician named Totakeke, but now he's famous. In the Game Cube he sits on a crate next to the train station (pretty miserable when it rains, if you ask me) and in the DS he gets to use the stage in the museum cafe. As for the Wii (the game for that is called Animal Crossing: City Folk) I haven't tried that yet, so who knows. (I want it, and one of my friends who lives in Taiwan said she would get it if I got it and liked it, but I don't know...I mean, I might not have time to pick weeds and go fishing every single day.)

Back to my mom's office. Looks like her plant isn't dead yet. I was surprised seeing as my dad has the "greenest thumb" in the family (which reminds me of an inside joke I had with my friend in Taiwan. She used to live in CA. One day she was bored and decided to water the plants herself instead of turning on the sprinklers. Then the plants died. So I say she has a "dead thumb"). I was reading my planner a few years back, and it said in one of the corners, "Never go to a doctor's office that has dead office plants." I wonder if that advice is sound.

Labels: animal crossing, apple, blog, break, decay, free time, health, kk slider, memories, nasal spray, pizza, sick, simile, ski, staff learning day, vacation, video games

All those Ss must make me sound like a snake. Or the Sidney guy in the Neopets Deserted Fairground. Think of it whichever way you like.

I am relieved to be able to get on the Internet. I have been attempting to the get the Winter Site Theme on Neopets, which means I need to get on the Internet everyday. But I have apparently missed yesterday's, which makes me sad. :( So I guess I am probably not going to get it this year after all. Oh well. I suppose life does not revolve around the Advent Calendar.

I must talk a bit about Japan. It is interesting since everyone speaks Japanese (but they can understand a little English because they have to learn it in school). It is actually quite dry and cold at this time of year. My skin is so terrible looking. Earlier it was all reddish and my mom was panicking since it seemed like I had allergies. It's better now, but my skin is still extremely dry.

The toilets are the scariest thing here in Japan. They have two types of creepy toilets. 1) The ground toilets. 2) The complicated toilets. The ground ones are scarier since you have to squat to use them. So basically you never "sit down" when you're using them. And then the complicated toilets... They have buttons next to them. Apparently you can do things like "spray" and "bidet". And some toilets even have a button for playing "flushing sounds". Really, really weird. The toilet seats are warm, too. Must be a waste of energy.

At first, the highways also freaked me out. That's because in Japan, you have to drive on the left side of the rode, not the right. And since we're going with a tour a group (called Signet Tours), we have to ride in a tour shuttle, so it feels like you're going to fall off the road or hit the walls.

That reminds me, I should mention my tour guide. Her name is Namiki Mariko (so we call her Mariko). She actually was born in Taiwan, but moved to Japan when she was older. So she knows both Chinese and Japanese. Her voice is scratchy. Actually, I hear she caught a cold, that's why. (She is a chatterbox, so she has to drink green tea to soothe her throat.) She said she hates it when people call her "Monica" instead of Mariko. She gives us all sorts of strange papers, such as maps and instructions and information, about Japan.

So far during our tour we've visited several temples. Before you go in the temple, you have to put water on your hands using these things that look like a cross between a stick and a measuring cup. (That reminds me, beware of Japanese restrooms because sometimes they don't have paper towels, dryers, or hand soap) Then you can go inside the temple. A lot of people throw money into this vent/box thing and make a wish. Apparently this is how temples get enough money. (Besides vending machines, of course.)

Which leads me to say, there are few water fountains to be found in Japan. Since there are plenty of vending machines, if you want a drink, just use those. I suggest getting hot cocoa if the machine has it. (But I guess I just like hot cocoa, because I don't drink coffee or tea.)

Anyhow, back to the tour...We've also been to this big Buddha statue. The statue's eyes are closed and he seems very weathered. (Kind of like the Statue of Liberty.) If you look at him from the side he seems to have a bent back, like an old man. And he has a strange expression (Although I think he is meant to be praying?). I think that's because people keep burning incense near him and taking pictures of him, so he is tired of it after all these years.

We've also been to Mount Fuji. We didn't actually get to go on the mountain but we had some opportunities to snap photos of it. Basically it is a big mountain with snow dumped on the top. It's hard to believe it's a volcano (unless you look at the weird steamy stuff on a nearby mountain). There is a lake next to Mount Fuji and it is very beautiful. We rode a river cruise on it. Two people, dressed up as Santa Claus and a pirate, took pictures with people if they paid.

Since I'm such a glutton, I shall mention food. So far I have eaten at various hotel restaurants, plus a "soba house". For today's lunch we ate at Hakone Hotel's buffet...
- Two white rolls (You are supposed to put sauce, vegetables, etc. inside it but I eat it plain.)
- Noodles (I guess you would consider it spaghetti)
- Fried potatoes (These are salty and rather filling so don't get too much)
- Croissants
- Strawberries (They are really cute!)
- Strawberry Mousse (This counts as dessert. Comes in long thin cup or shorter fatter cup)
- Fruit sherbet and vanilla ice cream combined (It's like strawberry ice cream! It is very good, you should try it.)

Oh, and I shall talk about the hotels we have visited so far. Hehehehe.
- Hilton Narita (Near the airport. Looks fancy although it is actually pretty old, but has been remodeled. Does not have scary toilet.)
- Hotel New Akao (Not actually new, it is 35 years old. XD Has hot springs and view of ocean. You can wear their sandals and kimonos, and sleep on tatami mat. Has a scary toilet. Small rooms.)
- Hakone Hotel (We didn't get to stay the night here, just ate. Very pretty. Has nice shiny bathroom for visitors. Apparently has hot springs too. You can get married here.)
- Keio Plaza Hotel (Fancy place. I hear it is expensive. Has scary toilet. But not bad anyhow.)

Maybe I had better stop writing...Well, hope everyone has a good Christmas and New Year's. :) Over here we have a 17 hour time difference so it's the evening of December 25.

Labels: blah, food, toilets, tour, travel, vacation, weather

I ended up missing my entry yesterday due to my attending Mars's birthday party. Now her age is the "unlucky number". Since my parents are working and it's hard for them to come home that early, Mars's mom picked me up and took me to her house. Then after a while, we went to the movie theater, which was the party's meeting place. No one showed up at first, so Mars's sister and Mars herself tossed a stuffed dog (Mars's sister bought it from the elementary school flea market) back and forth. We also rode up and down in the elevator at Mars's request. Unfortunately, a weird security guard guy was wandering around, so we quit. Eventually the guests arrived and we watched a movie, Bolt.

Bolt is sort of a cheesy movie, kind of like most kids animated movies, but it was funny nevertheless. Especially the hamster guy, Rhino. He acts like a crazy fan but he's actually pretty wise. o_O While watching the movie, the other party guests were saying it was like a Korean drama, because a cat was yelling at Bolt and Bolt went away unhappily. The cool part was when the "traveling party" reached Las Vegas. It was real pictures, not just animation. So we got to see the Bellagio fountains! (You will probably understand better if you have been following my blog for a while and have watched the movie Bolt.)

I've been watching the anime Koihime Musou, which is a relatively new anime, actually centered in China. It is funny at times, but it seems kind of sick too. D: So I am kind of concerned.

Today there was an assembly where a conversational biologist visited the school, along with a peregrine falcon. Our village has to go, so I ended up skipping third period and a bit of fourth. I am afraid I have to make up the long run we were supposed to be having today. I really don't want to have to do extra running after the winter break, but it can't be helped if I do need to.

It was raining earlier, but it cleared up in the afternoon. Surprisingly, my dad was there to pick me up after school. He was a bit offended by my shock at seeing him there. It is much faster to go home by car, though, so I shouldn't complain.

The good news is, winter break starts after this, so no homework for quite a while. But the bad news is that this means I will go to Japan and then China... I don't like visiting China due to the pollution, time difference, and rude people. (I apologize if you disagree.) Japan is cool, but a lot of people want souvenirs from me now. No way am I going to go there just to stuff my suitcase full of gifts for others. D: Sorry to disappoint people expecting souvenirs.

Labels: anime, birthday, blog, movie, vacation, weather, worry

I'm feeling surprisingly calm this morning. I finished practicing piano, and there's not much else I need to do except take notes for research. (I completely forgot about the essay we'll be writing soon...It's a good thing I still have today to work on it. Vacation is often distracting for me.) I feel like my vacation was too short and too long at the same time. But I'd better stop thinking, and do something mindless. (It'll make my head hurt.)

I must be really bored if I was reading Breaking Dawn. This one was kind of creepy at times. I'm glad I'm more than halfway through with it...I don't think I could stand to read another Twilight series book. (I don't know about you, but I find it dull.) And I still need to read Brisingr (which looks even bigger than Breaking Dawn!) since it just arrived from the library. I have a lot of books to read, so I'd better stop checking out more for a while, until I've decimated the pile a bit.

Anyway, I'll talk a bit more about my trip to Las Vegas. I saw an advertisement for something at the Luxor hotel on top of the taxis. Apparently it was related to the human body. My dad thought it was the same thing as an exhibit the Tech Museum back home once had, and he got really creeped out, saying "Why would anyone want to see that?" I wanted an excuse to go to Luxor, anyhow, since I haven't been there much, but my mom doesn't like it, apparently. (I do, because of the cool pyramid shape. But it seems like it wastes a lot of energy, what with the beacon of light at the top of it.) Oh well, maybe NEXT TIME. D:

Now I want to say something a bit about the title of my blog. It says Kaisoumizu, of course, then it says "where the sky meets the earth". Unfortunately I didn't come up with that part myself. I saw it on a desktop background somewhere. Ha, ha. (I hope it's not copyrighted or something like that.)

Labels: blog, books, homework, vacation

I'm back from Las Vegas. It was quite a trip, and if I gave you all the itsy-bitsy details, you would probably fall asleep. So here's how it went.

It started out with me coming home from school on Tuesday. I just practiced piano and read a book while waiting for the time to go to the airport came. We drove there, I ate bread, and finally we got on the plane. Unfortunately, I started getting dizzy, and had to lay down for the flight. Luckily, it was only a short flight, and we got off the plane. Then we had to go to the rental car place to get a car, since of course we couldn't bring our car on the plane. (We didn't actually use the car much during the vacation.) It smelled sort of like candy in there. At nighttime it looked really shiny. (I wouldn't notice the flaws until daytime came again.)

We drove to our hotel, the Venetian. It's pretty cool since it looks like old-time Italy in there. There are shoppes inside and a "canal" filled with water, which gondola boats cruise up and down on. The rooms in this hotel are all suites, which is good for us, since not only is my family of three people going to Las Vegas, but also my grandma.

During the course of my vacation, I visit various places, my old haunts, in Las Vegas. My mom says that she and my dad actually visited Las Vegas twice before I was born, and then we visited it quite a few more times after I was born. So I have some memories from before of Las Vegas. A lot of the city is the same, and my favorite hotel (though I've never stayed in it), Bellagio, is still there. Bellagio is really nice since it has blown glass on one place on the ceiling, and it has a "garden" of sorts. It also has a shop that sells sweets, and fountains outdoors, which will "dance" to music in the later parts of the day.

If you want to hear more details, I'll put them in future posts, hopefully. But anyhow, when I got home, I was really unhappy. I went on to Nutrinopets this morning since I go there a lot when I'm on the Internet. Unfortunately, I found I had a warning for "reviving a dead topic". I managed to find out which topic it was, and I told myself I'd be more careful. But then it happened again and interrupted my posting in the forums. Same reason for the warning as before. The problem is, Nutrinopets wouldn't let me take the forum quiz now It must be the temporary suspension from the forums punishment. What upsets me is that I won't be able to find out what sort of topic it was that made me slip up. (Was it in the Art Trade? In Role-playing? Or in the General-ish forum? I guess it's a mystery for now)

Labels: childhood, internet, shopping, vacation

*WARNING! POSSIBLY LONG POST!*

That's rather blunt, and it might hurt people's feelings, but it was true. For me anyway. We went to the Tech Museum of Innovation. The first bad thing is that I've already been there so many times, most of the exhibits, I'm already familiar with. It was just the temporary exhibit about Leonardo da Vinci that made us even visit the museum, I think.

All seems to be going well in the beginning, but then when we're walking to the buses, I feel like jumping onto the wooden benches and walking on those instead. Bad move, because one of the teachers doesn't like that. (Actually, last year, when I didn't walk home, I walked on top of the benches. No one caught me) Feeling subdued, I board my bus, but it's really crowded and we have to squish three mostly-still-growing kids onto each seat. The students all talk a lot. Loudly. Even though the teachers stand up to yell at them, as soon as the teachers sit down again, the kiddos return to their jabbering.

I feel more hopeful when the museum actually comes into sight, but after we get off the buses, it turns out things need to be settled (like whether everyone needs the special tickets for the IMAX movie we're going to watch or if just the chaperones need them, for example). So we have to wait outside in the cold watching cars go by until we get let in. Since we're not the only school there, it's pretty crowded in the museum. I end up watching other people make virtual roller coasters until it's time for the IMAX movie. That was one of the better parts, except it made me a bit dizzy. The movie was called Adrenaline Rush and it was about how people like to take risks and such. Mostly we looked at people skydiving or jumping off cliffs. Pretty nice view, but my head hurt from it. And I couldn't look down, since I would just see the rows and rows of seats below me. When I'm in an IMAX theater, I feel like I'm going to fall down and tumble over the seats until I die.

Lunch was okay but I was really thirsty so I had to go to the bathroom to use the water fountains there. The men's and women's restrooms both have fountains, but the women's fountains don't work very well, since the water doesn't shoot as high as the men's. So I ended up drinking from the mens' water fountains since they work far better.

It turns out we ARE allowed to visit the museum gift shop after all. I was really upset because I thought we weren't going to go and ending up leaving my cash back at home. I just looked around until it was time for lunch to end. Ms. Crowe, who was supposedly our chaperone, put R in charge of us. I managed to keep not too far from him to try and not get lost for the first minute or two, but when I was looking at an experiment he went off somewhere. I tried to find the rest of my group but was only able to locate two girls in my group. I couldn't find Ms. Crowe either, so I just paced restlessly back and forth for a while before I found friends who were in other groups. I wandered around with one of my friends for a while and then struck out on my own.

Since I hadn't visited the Renaissance Gallery (a special exhibit, related to Leonardo da Vinci, I'm sure) and had nothing to do, I managed to spot one of my other friends. Unfortunately, she was not having fun either, because she lost her camera. She was fretting about it, so she, her friend, her Language Arts teacher, and I began searching for it. But we didn't find it, so I decided to leave her to go find my group. Luckily, they were waiting by the trash cans in the "lunch area", and at last we were all reunited.

I was glad that the day was over, up until I realized the bus was late while we were lingering on the outside of the museum. My feet started hurting from standing so I just ate sour Skittles from one of my friends and tried using magic to summon the bus. No such luck at first. A rather odd boy (who happens to be my mom's friend's son) was collecting name tags, so I gave him mine. Finally the bus came and we got to go back to school, but by then school had been out for quite a while. I was really upset at being late and I rushed to the classroom to pick up the backpack I had brought (even though it turns out I wasn't going to need it).

Not only was the teacher shocked that we had even brought our bags, but once I finally packed up everything and left the classroom in all haste, the school was even more deserted than before. (Still the odd folk here and there, and some cars in the parking lot, but that was it. No afterschool rush anymore.) I walked home without seeing my grandma the whole time. It's nice to be alone, but that was really strange. When I got home, she said she had panicked when I didn't come (even after she saw three buses come and go; I was on the last bus to come back) and quickly went back to my house to call my mom. I was frustrated because she started scolding me (she said "It was the school's fault, right?" but she sounded like she still blamed me) and called my mom to complain.

It's good that tomorrow is the only other school day this week. The rest of the week, I'll be gone to Las Vegas. I probably won't get to use the Internet during that time, so don't expect me to post for a while.

Labels: family, field trip, school, vacation

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