I think it's something the old President George W. Bush said, but I may have mistakenly attributed to him. Anyhow, I heard that he said this on his 60th birthday when he was still in office. If more people thought like that, you wouldn't be hearing a lot of them complaining about their grey hairs and back pain and how their kids are growing up too quickly or how they want to retire but they need to make more money... Blah blah blah. If only we could all be a little more positive and think, sure, this means another year of my life, and that's tiresome, but there are good things and memories to be made every year along with the bad things. Sometimes you might not realize right away, but you could be having the time of your life.

The reason why I started off my post like this is because my age just changed yesterday. Yep, it was my birthday. More specifically, the 13th one. I hope that age really is just a number since I don't want this to be an unlucky year for me. Judging from my school schedule, which I was able to see from Pinnacle Internet Viewer (thanks Shirayuki no Kimi or I wouldn't have known), it seems they plan to put me in village K. I don't really know the 8th grade teachers, so I'm kind of nervous. I've been looking on a site where you can rate teachers, and it seems my French teacher and science teacher are the ones that the students like the least...I hope it won't be a rough year, then. At least you have a chance of changing PE teachers. My intended PE periods are 6th, 3rd, and 3rd. I like 3rd period PE, so that's good to hear. But it seems like I always get 6th period PE sometime in the year. (Oh, well. I'm glad I don't have 5th period PE. Then I wouldn't even have time to digest my lunch)

Today my mom actually did Wii Fit. In fact, a lot of it. I'm sure it was at least more than half an hour. It's been so long since she did Wii Fit, she seems to have forgotten how to do some of the exercises (like Advanced Step, which is in a way a different kind of DDR) but I hope she'll make a habit out of exercising so she can build some muscle. No offense intended to her, but she's not much of an athlete. She could use it. My dad has not used Wii Fit ever since we came home from vacation a few days ago. It's hard for us to get back into the groove after being away for a while.

For this week my mom has been taking time off work and staying at home, so she can pretend she's still in Australia and get some more relaxation time before she must go back to work and get bombarded by unanswered emails and projects and things like that. It's nice to have someone around so you won't feel too lonesome. (Maybe it's just me who gets lonely. I'd actually gotten used to it in sixth grade, after a good friend of mine moved away in fifth, I think, but eventually I started wanting to socialize again.) During school it isn't so much of a matter but when you're by yourself, or/and something bad happens, you feel like this.

Labels: age, birthday, classes, corner of woe, exercise, feelings, george w. bush, lonely, luck, number, president, schedule, tamaki, teacher, thirteen, time, wii fit

Well, not really. I mean, I'm not really doing much, just lazing around doing whatever I feel like doing. But the point is that in a busy office, the phone rings a lot. And it sure does around here...I've been called by a dentist's office, my dad, and my piano teacher this afternoon. I wouldn't be surprised if a telemarketer or the library or even my friend who is visiting here calls next...

Recently, Rainbow Ranger (you may have seen her on the Cbox...) came over to my house, and showed me a site called Tetris Friends. It's been so long since I played Tetris that I was enthralled by it. I even tried to introduce my mom to it, because she likes Tetris. The problem is, 1) She doesn't have an account and doesn't want to make one, so her scores won't be saved, and 2) She claims that she is too busy to spend her precious time playing Tetris. I was a little disappointed since she used to want to by the Tetris video game from the Nintendo DS (buying it on your cell phone means you have to pay every month) except that game hasn't been for sale for a long time. In fact, the Tetris video game for the DS is no longer even being made, so it costs more now to get a copy than it did when it was new. Lame.

Oftentimes various things can irk me, and even if I was in a pretty good mood before it can quickly turn my mood sour. For instance, yesterday I was playing Wii Fit, doing an activity called Free Run, which means you can run for 10, 20, or 30 minutes (put the Wii remote in your pocket or hold it so it can sense you "moving) and if you want you can change the channel and watch TV. Normally I watch anime while jogging since it makes the time go by faster and I actually run better with entertainment. However, one time I ran inside to get something and forgot to check Video 3 (I keep my Wii on Video 3, my Gamecube on Video 4, and my DVD player on Video 5...) so I didn't realize it had lost connection. So I ran for 18 minutes without realizing and then I thought I was done with the activity. But upon checking Wii Fit I realized I'd just wasted all that time. I was really mad, but luckily I am working on calming myself down.

From time to time I think about making another website which will work in partnership with my blog, but I'm not really sure. I have no idea what I would put on a personal website. Should I put up graphics? Or stories and art by me? Or should I be writing about news on a site (ex Neopets, just because there's always news there...)? But that all doesn't seem right. Because a lot of sites probably have their own news/announcements section and there are other websites like Deviantart, Photobucket, Image Shack, Tiny Pic, and so on to upload images...And then I end up not doing anything since I'm so indecisive.

At my piano class, my piano teacher now has two pianos in her home, a baby grand and a stand-up piano. The stand-up piano is her own piano, and it's pretty nice...I think it's some European brand and it's pretty shiny, since she only got it a year or two ago. And the baby grand is wooden and old-looking, but it's not hers. One of her students was moving or something and they couldn't move their piano or something like that (not sure, maybe I have the story completely wrong) so now she's moved away some of her furniture to put the piano in. It actually makes really nice sound. I really like opening the top of grand/baby grand pianos, so the sound can really move about. By the way, do baby grand pianos come in different sizes? (Not meaning stand-up, grand, and baby grand, I mean just lengths and things like that) I thought I saw a baby grand piano on an interior design show but I thought it looked smaller than ours. (Maybe it's just my imagination)

Labels: anime, baby grand, busy, connection, decision, free run, games, ideas, multitasking, music, office, phone, piano, size, sound effect, stand-up, tetris, website, wii fit

If you have the game Wii Fit on your Wii, you can choose the male or female fitness trainer. (Both are pretty weird. I think the girl is better, since that's the one I picked.) While you do yoga and strength training, she constantly lectures you. She might say "This exercise is popular because it tones your arms" or "You're a little shaky. Focus on stretching your spine" or "Good job! You're pretty strong." It gets annoying after a while, hearing her blab on. They even have subtitles on the screen that you can't get rid of, for people who are deaf. (If you're blind AND deaf, like Helen Keller, then you can't play video games anyhow, seeing as touching the TV screen does no good)

Sometimes, to make the game seem more real...If you have a female trainer like me, once in a while, she'll be replaced by the other trainer, the male one, for whatever your first yoga/strength training activity is. I would assume it is vice versa if you are trained by the guy. The first time this happened to me, I was shocked and laughing at the same time, and then I couldn't concentrate for a while.

If you play a long time, you might unlock the three challenges - Pushups, jackknives, and plank. (In case you don't know, a jackknife is where you lie down on the ground, bend your knees, and then come up in a V shape, then go back down to the ground. Feels like a sit-up.) At first it's really amusing when you beat the trainer. She'll go "I'm not giving up yet!" or "It looks like that's all you can do" or "Still with me? Do 10 more" or "You win this time!" One day I tried to challenge her and she refused, saying she wasn't feeling up to it. I was pretty steamed, since this is the first time any video game snubbed me like that. XD

Anyhow, I ended up doing 100 jackknives and 180 seconds of plank. The plank was especially hard and after I was done, I felt my arm. The muscle in it (is it the bicep? or the brachialis? or maybe the tricep?) was really stiff and hard, since it had been strained. Probably I'll wake up with pains tomorrow, if experience tells me correctly.

I forgot to talk about Friday, so this is a good opportunity. It was a pretty miserable day for me. I didn't have a good test score, due to a lot of silly mistakes in math. Then Mr. Robinson the PE teacher was supposed to do weight and height measuring, but our class, 4th period, didn't get to because he had to leave and buy pizza for his champions (whoever does the most jumpropes and pushups or something. I've always been intimidated by those people). So instead we went over to Ms. Rawson's class and played a weird game. Two people face each other in pushup position. A blue ball is placed between them. When someone gives the signal, both people try to grab the ball with one hand while not falling down. It all relies on whether you have a fast reaction time. This must mean I'm not an old lady yet, so that's a relief.

Afterwards we ran for a bit and then went up to the giant green field. We had to do an odd kind of relay. You roll on the grass from the first cone to the second cone, then run from there to the small backstop cage thing, and then you have to "crab-walk" to the third cone (it's like you go on the ground with your knees bent and hands supporting you, and move in the direction of your back) and finally "bear-crawl" (walking on all fours) to your teammates. I didn't think it was too bad besides being exhausting until it was lunchtime and I was feeling strangely itchy. I couldn't stop scratching and soon the places where my arms and legs bent were pink and funny-looking. On my arm, a tiny circle of skin had risen up like it was swollen. I didn't want to poke it since it looked dangerous. Maybe I'm allergic to grass. (Next time I have to tell the teacher. I'm only afraid they'll think I'm making an excuse, like those boys who go to the bathroom a lot in class to avoid it)

Labels: allergies, challenge, exercise, lecture, missing, pep talk, pizza, reaction, refusal, relay, trainer, wii fit

All folks living in the USA should set their clocks an hour forward, as in 9 am would become 10 am. You could set it tonight, or tomorrow, whatever you prefer to do. I wouldn't have remembered, except I read a forum post about it...Apparently people in other parts of the world don't really know the reasons for Daylight Savings. D: I'd heard it was something to do with energy saving, or whatever. I don't really care too much, hehe, though it would be easier not to have it.

This morning I woke up really early, so I tried to go back to sleep again. I don't actually know if I did sleep, since I'm constantly thinking when I'm conscious. Well, oh well. By the time I truly got up it was around 9 am.

I finally got to go to the Valley Fair mall again. It was quite a while since I was last there. It turns out they opened a new Ann Taylor Loft where the Sharper Image (an electronic store place) used to be. It seems like a lot of clothing isn't cheap even though it's supposed to be a bad time for the economy what with lay-offs. I guess the stores still charge a lot since people still want to shop, judging by how crowded the reduced price racks at Nordstrom are. xD

Anyhow, my mom and I were planning to buy a pair of shoes (or, more like just my mom, since her feet are smaller so the shoes are better for her) but then it turns out my mom's feet are different in size, so one shoe was tight and the other fit?! I guess that must be true, as my mom's legs are different lengths, even. o_O;;

I just heard that my grandparents have been reading the blog yet again...I guess they always do because they have time. This time they said my playlist was too loud. Perhaps I should change Morning Grace back to the first song because that was quieter, at least in the beginning of the song.

If you have a Wii, and the game Wii Fit, you'll eventually unlock Plank, Push-up, and Jackknife Challenges. (All strength exercises you may have done in PE class. Jackknife is similar to a sit-up, except when you come up, you make what's supposed to look like a V shape) What's really funny is how the Wii Fit trainer always gets beaten (that is, if you can keep doing more exercises every time) and how she collapses, then mutters about underestimating your strength or whatever. I am endlessly entertained as every time I do one of the Challenges again, she insists she'll "try her very best this time".

For dinner, we did some shabu-shabu again. It's basically you have some soup being cooked on a burner, at a high heat. So you can practically cook while you eat. You dip various items such as meet, noodles, or even flavorless mochi into the soup until it's cooked all the way through. I first tried this in a Japanese restaurant. (By the way, they gave us vanilla-flavored popsicles for desert. They're small but tasty.)

Labels: blog, daylight savings, food, nordstrom, playlist, relatives, shabu shabu, shoes, sleep, song, trainer, valley fair, wii fit

Yesterday morning, I managed to drag my mother away from her laptop. It's actually not hers, but it's one that my dad got from his office, intended for work, except my mom uses it to watch Asian movies. Normally she gets glued to the screen, so that she doesn't pay much attention to me (which can be good or bad, depending) but I managed to force her into trying some Wii Fit. She doesn't get enough exercise despite insisting that she takes walks with her engineer friends after lunch.

We started off with a bit of jogging. I ran as fast as I could (or more just shuffled my feet very quickly) which made my mom accuse me of cheating. I just shrugged it off and finished in record time. For a few minutes I watched my mom. She jogs really, really slow so it took a while. Then we tried some strength training, since both my mom and I need some toning on our triceps (upper arm). She wants to use the 2 lb weights instead of the 3 lb weights but the 2 lb's are somewhere else. Probably lost, like the majority of my possessions. Then we did some yoga. Kind of like my dad, she can't do the Spinal Twist. Whenever I mention this to my parents they insist it's because of my much younger age.

I spent this morning and afternoon at my mom's office. I was planning to make my blog post there but I got distracted by playing my DS (The game? Harvest Moon DS). I am trying to rescue 60 sprites (little elfish dudes who were sent to another world by magic) so that my game can go on but it's slow work, especially since it's winter. (Funny, since it's winter over here, too.) I can't grow any vegetables or fruits in this lame weather.

Road signs nowadays look very pitiful. One of them was a green rectangular kind sticking over the highway. But the sign was twisted sideways so that it was leaning against tree branches, and a large amount of the hard green part was missing, so that it seemed like someone had mangled it. And then there was this blue sign (kind of like a triangle shape, but not quite) and it said Highway 280 on it. The sign was upside down, though, so it looked like 08Z (a warped z, because it was a 2).

I recently heard from my mom that my grandparents have been reading my blog. I thought this was hard to believe since they don't know that much English, but my mother reminded me that they have a Chinese-English dictionary, and retired people have too much free time (most of them, anyhow). Then my grandparents send me emails, but they're written in Chinese so I just stick them in a folder and forget about them. (Sorry, Gran & Gramps. But I can't read Chinese.)

Labels: blah, blog, computer, exercise, family, harvest moon, nintendo ds, office, road, sign, wii fit

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