New Game

At rehearsal today, I learned a new game. It's one of those games you play during parties or something, kind of like truth or dare.

The game? It's called 10 Fingers, or "Never Have I Ever". Most of you probably has played it. I have heard of it, never played it. And like all teenage games, it gets sexual.

But it's a great game to learn more about someone, an "icebreaker" sort of game.

How to play: Everyone has 10 fingers. (I sure hope this is true! ;D) Someone starts off saying, "Never have I ever...." and they can say something they've never done, like: "Jumped off a car roof". If someone has done that, they will put one finger down. The game continues with everyone taking turns until the game ends with the winner with the most fingers still up (or you can end early, if it gets boring, and restart). It's easy, fun, and quite the shocker, especially when some people reveal what they've always kept quiet about.

Be sure to have fun with it and come up with new ideas and twists!

Junior Year Memoir

Senior year is about to start. I thought that maybe I should post something about my junior year before it is over forever. and ever and ever and....

So, here it is:

Junior year. The worst year of high school. Why? Because it’s the year before all the fun and the year after all the innocence.

The year of AP tests. SATs. More tests. And finally, the fall: college applications.

By the time most sophomores reach junior year, in the beginning, it is a pleasant journey. I know because I was one of them. I went into junior year thinking it was going to be easy because the only hard class(es) I was taking was APUSH. The other possible hard class I could have is physics. None of my other classes were all that tough. So I thought.

I had some friends who had basically whizzed through sophomore year, taking AP calculus, chemistry, whatnot. But junior year, they too had some struggling. Maybe it’s the overwhelming of tests and quizzes. Maybe it’s the pressure from parents, teachers. Whatever it was, the stress was there. It was bearing down on us. Hard. Each one of us felt the pressure, felt the weight. And the only thing we could do was struggle to not go under.

I struggled. A lot. So did many of my friends. Whenever someone asks me, “how was school?” I’d usually reply with, “okay.” I couldn’t explain to them that I was struggling because they wouldn’t understand. (Note that mostly adults ask this). And if I do reply that it was hard, they would immediately become concerned, asking if I needed help or tutoring. Then as the questions become more insistent and seeking, I would flip. I would lose my self-control and snap at them.

I don’t know how many times I lost my temper at someone I cared about, whether it be my family, friends, or even my beloved baby. The need for independence was great. I wanted to be able to succeed on my own. To be able to overcome the challenges and show the success to my parents. But whenever I hit a wall or fell, I struggled to go on. I was proud; possibly too proud. I didn’t want anyone’s help. I refused to challenge myself further and I lost motivation and will to move forward. Nearing the end of the school year, there was a month of ongoing testing. AP tests. SATs. Finals. ACTs. It never stopped. At one point, I just gave up. I went home one day after a full day of testing and I just left everything. I didn’t open a book. I didn’t look over notes. I ignored all invites for a group study. I locked myself away in a place of nothingness. And I regretted it the next day.

My word of advice for all you incoming juniors: never ever give up. Once you let the control slip, it’s over. You can’t reverse time and redo it again. Keep pushing yourself, motivating yourself. Don’t procrastinate. Skip the fun and do the important things first. Or even better: incorporate the fun with the work. My APUSH project was to make a skit about a time period. The ending: we had created a rap about the entire period we were covering and it was a lot of fun. Definitely helped me study for my finals because it was an easy way of remember what went on in that time period.

I know this is sounding so dark and depressing. It actually isn’t all that bad. I was able to pick myself up after that one downfall and I made it down the final stretch. I finished my tests. I checked back into the world. I moved on.

Sometimes you wish you can go back and redo something. So did I. But my dad taught me something: “Whatever you did in the past is in the past. move on and think about the future because that’s where the present will be and that’s what you should think about instead of worrying about what you did wrong earlier.”

his simple advice helped me move from worrying about how I did on my physics final to studying for my APUSH final. Move from the spat I had with my best friend to organizing our next outing.

Most importantly: never ever try to pull all-nighters or cram in an extra hour of studying. Make a study schedule and start at least a week early. I tried doing the day before test: no workie. In fact, it made me even more nervous because I didn’t have enough time. Go over everything slowly, spanning over a few days and the last night before the day of the test, scan everything. At school, run a few things over with a friend to clarify or maybe quiz each other. Then the period before the test: forget about it. Do not look over any notes. Because then, all you would remember is the stuff you looked over right before.

Now everyone has their own method of studying. The said above is just my advice for you. You can chose to follow it or not. It doesn’t matter to me. Do what you feel works.

Now studying. It doesn’t sound all that fun, right? I know. But for me, there was a time where I really enjoyed it: 4th period pre-calc. it was the “study time” for APUSH. I had at least 5 other APUSH students who were in the same class as me. We threw nuggets and quizzed each other, pulled our desks in a circle, and received dirty glances from our math teacher. It was lots of fun.

Speaking of fun, between the hard work load and month of testing, prom. I wrote a commentary about this for my radio show. That is another story for another day, but prom is definitely a lot of fun. a relief from the school work. a day to hang out late with your friends. And of course, the date.

I definitely have much more to say but let me say this: no matter how hard it gets, there is always a fun side to something. “When you are at the bottom, there is no other way to go except up. And up you go.”

Final advice: organize outings with friends every month or so as a stress reliever. Seriously: it really works.

I'm Alive

Hey, nice to see you all again. Guess what? I'm alive. I know. Shocking right?

It's been about a month since school's been over. Life is so mellow...but there really isn't enough time. So why am I even wasting more time? I dunno...maybe because I'm a NORMAL person?

I have a few works I'd like to show everyone. I'm just not sure where to put it. Here? Or somewhere else? I did have blog JUST for stuff like that....what happened to it?

So many things have been going on. Come romance, go romance. Come school, go school. Currently I'm playing a courtship dance. Isn't that exciting?!?! :)

Sorry. I was lying. There's no courting and no one's courting anyone. I was just playing. Which brings to what happened today: The security guard at my work place was like "Are you waiting for your boyfriend to pick you up?" Uh...heh, no. I wish, but no. And he was all like, what? You don't have a boyfriend? It was pretty funny. Awkward, but funny. Oh! Just like the awkward funny blurb I wrote for my radio show. Yep, now that's another story for another day.

That's all for n o w. I will now go and do some actual work or else this "I'm Alive" will turn into "RIP me". So, peace and good luck.

Time flies

School year's almost over. Junior year is almost over. My high school life is almost over. Time flies.
It's sort of shocking how quickly it goes by. Seems like just yesterday, I was still watching Pokemon at 10 in the morning before my mom dropped me off at preschool. Yeah, those were the days.

It's quite fascinating about how things go about. Sometimes it's just all so random. But all the actions, every day movements, they are almost always the same. Like robots. Clones. Get up, go to school, come home, do homework, sleep. And repeat. But the weekends: nearly every weekend is slightly different than the last. And when I get out of this school life and into the real world, the day to day life is going to change. A lot.

I haven't spent a lot of time blogging or even actually doing anything productive. It seems like my body has gone in the time machine, doing everything slower and much less proactive and the rest of the world goes on as usual. And I am left in the past. I n t h e t i m e m a c h i n e.

I wish I can say it doesn't really matter, but in realty, it really does. If I don't get started and I don't get serious and I don't actually go and do anything, my dear lord, my life is going to fall even further apart and I cannot manage to salvage all the itty bitty pieces that are flung all over the place. Thank you very much, I know, I'm a dramatic person.

But seriously, I need SOME type of motivation that needs to make me move. Any forcible acts. Any threats. Death notes, whatever. Something that gets me moving. Gets me up and about and everything. If not, well, I believe this may be the last you hear from me.

Whew, whattaweek

It's been a long, long, hectic week. Been all over the place. No, not really. Just LA. Had much fun. :)

Now, if you going to one of the main "movie" places in the world, you MUST go to one of their studios: Universal Studios.

Now, I have to admit, it's nothing like Disneyland or Six Flags. There's like two roller coasters, tops. And they aren't the full out, into-the-sky-and-upside-down kinds. They were more like simulations that last 5 minutes, maybe and wait for about 5 minutes to ride. Short and quick.

They had PLENTY of behind-the-scenes movie thing. Duh, it's Universal. What else would you expect? It's movies. TV shows, whatever you see on TV, it's probably done at Universal Studios. Maybe not everything, but y'know, most of it is.

Went to Waterworld, great show. Be prepared to get wet though. :) Here's the cast:

Quite a crazy show; really exciting. I seriously had a lot of fun booing the pirates and cheering on the good guys. Of course, if you didn't, well, you kinda get soaked. :P Yeah, they pull out "guns" and spray you til you're soaking wet. And then they light planes on fire, throw people into toxic stuff, great show. You'll totally enjoy it.

Universal Studios, famous for movie sets, all that Hollywood schadaddle. Now here's a few pics that I think you'll enjoy. :)


(^This guy, he's real. No kidding. I saw him sitting outside a cafe in Universal, still doing the creepy still thing. But he's real. He waved and nodded. O.O)

Now, I didn't just go to LA for the fun stuff. You need to balance a happy and carefree time with the dreaded school necessities. Yes, I know. I wasn't all that happy (actually, I'm lying. I was pretty excited. :D) But it was totally worth the trip.

UC Irvine

Irvine is a really pretty pretty school. New buildings, big campus, secluded in a way, but open to the wilderness. It's kind of on a "cliff", if I may say, overlooking the highway. Nice, fresh air, comfortable surroundings, gorgeous sunlight. Wonderful.

Their buildings were absolutely unique. Each building was different. They had this engineering building that was built by the students themselves. It had an inverted pyramid and was a clear glass building. Absolutely gorgeous in a sunny day. And if it's not sunny, it gives a mysterious/spooky feeling - imagine on a cloudy/rainy day and you're inside the building. The rain splattering against the glass, the wind howling as you are huddled inside. Oh yeah, I should be writing horror/scary novels. :)



Here are a few more random pics from Irvine. The residences around UCI had very strange names. Or rather, they had names of other unis, such as Dartmouth, Harvard, Stanford, Oxford.



Well, the main point of the trip was to visit colleges, but if you're going down to LA, you can NOT miss out on Hollywood or Disneyland. Except I kinda did. :'( I fail at directing or even using a GPS and we went to Universal Studios instead of Disneyland. I prefer Disney over Universal, but since the tickets were free, I can't really complain.

And something else? LA traffic is HORRID. And their carpool lanes are weird. Their signs are weird. "Humps ahead" instead of "Bump ahead". *smirks* I'm so immature. :)

Carpool



And that is all I have to say. Here's some random pics of LA. I really like it there. :) Maybe I'll go there and then I'll be hanging with the profs during the day and getting groovy with the stars at night. :) Who knows, a girl can dream can't she?

On Border of Insanity

Like really. I mean, I had a great time and everything, but where do I stand now? What comes next? What should I do? I had so much fun. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and I'm glad I decided to go. Sure, there were awkward parts, but I definitely loved it.

Problem now, what's next? I'm waiting patiently...well not really. But as patiently as I can get. If I seriously have to wait any longer, I would jump off the roof. Probably not. But I'm seriously considering it.

*face palm* This sucks. I've never been really patient. Maybe this is when I start growing up. Start maturely and learning to wait.

Wait, let's back track. I'm deciding...nope. I don't want to grow up yet, so people can suck it. I'm going to be who I want to be. Do what I want to do. And most importantly, with WHOM I want to do it with. So there.

Screw it. I'm doing things my way. And there's not stopping me. HOLLAAA~

Transformation

Continuing with my drastic changes...not really. Lol. :D

It's a new Lunar year and to me, this may be the biggest change yet. I've chopped my hair short. Like from down my back to above my shoulders. Yeah, shortest I've ever done. But I love it. It gets annoying at times, but I feel wonderful. SO much lighter and easier to handle.

Junior Year Second Semester. High school's almost over for me. Look at me, I'm only 3/4 done, and I'm already talking like it's the end. Maybe it is, because May is the supposed end of the world. Before it was December 21, 2012, now it's May something 2011. Sucks, doesn't it? I spent my whole life in school.

I really got started on thinking about my future. Sure, I still have times where I just daddle and not do anything really. But I'm starting internships, programs, volunteers, and really just pointing me in a general direction for where my life will head when I leave the sheltered roof of school and into a world where I have to fend for myself. I never really knew where I was going; I always kind of just went with what came my way. I did things on impulse. Even now, I still don't know what specifically. Maybe it's the same for everyone. Maybe not. It sucks not having someone to lead you, but independence is the key to surviving the "jungle" out there. Life is cruel. :(

But next on my transformation: contacts. So close, yet so far! Can't wait. :D