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x0Xo_starz
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Interests: God, Family, Friends, ACCC, Academic Bowl, Asian aromatic tissue paper, Asian pop music, ASYO, Blonde jokes, Books, Brewster Rockit: Space Guy!, Calvin and Hobbes, Charades, Classic Architecture/Mythology, Classical Music , Collective Soul, Comedy/Comics, David Tao, Disney Classics, Frogs, Google-ing, Hayao Miyazaki, Hello Kitty, Hong Kong movies, Inside Jokes, Japan, Ji Seong, Korean drama, Leehom Wang, Lavender, Movies, Music, Pearls Before Swine, Piyodamari, Pooh Bear, Reading, Rimsky-Korsakov, Shinzo Maeda photographs, Sibelius, Singing, Soundtracks, Utada Hikaru, Visiting Taiwan, Writing
Expertise: being ME
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
7/20/2004
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| that's not really a lie. it's just changed so much since last august. i'm unused to the layout, all the people are different, and the new links confuse me quite a bit. in short, this is a very different world than the one i remember exploring since 6th grade...
i also thought it was silly that people still caught my site on RSS even though i never update. so this is for you, people who apparently faithfully read my nonentries! thanks for promoting this poor excuse of a blog!
i wouldn't say that i'm a completely new person with new priorities and feelings and philosophies... but senior year has changed me quite a bit. i look back on my really really old entries and have a great time laughing. things are just much, much different now.
i may or may not come back to write. i still read occasionally. i just don't know how much i love blogging on xanga anymore.
but i just wanted to say hi.
hi.
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| i'm not doing laundry tonight like i used to, hahaha. but spending all my time online is probably just as sad:)
it's definitely a crisis when my internet doesn't work properly the one day i finally get online with the intention of spending lots of time online.
after writing my tree metaphor for lit, i feel like i've finally returned to the grooves of something i'm used to, though this week has certainly been more busy than i expected. but now i'm in the mood for rambling.
art history and math today made me feel okay. i need to start getting over the cyclic apprehension-relief times whenever tests come up. i really need to reread Elements of Style. finishing it before july is really not enough for retention. well, i should just reread everything anyways. boo.
i've been thinking a lot about priorities this year.
it's getting filled up so fast. i'm afraid that i'm doing too much. it's only been the first week and i fear i'm getting tired already. only 17 more weeks like this for the present?
also, prioritizing is something that i feel isn't accomplished well on the AJC. i'm disappointed that there's fluffy news on the front page when so many more things should be occupying our minds. if not for the grace of wikipedia, where would i have heard about the multiple earthquakes, suicide bombings, floods, etc? i had to SEARCH in the newspaper for this later, too.
it's still summer. outside, the sun bakes the world so much that classmates have questioned if it's enough to boil eggs in cars. inside buildings like school and home, the A/C is turned up too much. now it's COLD in august.
oooooh reight. i'm getting more into pop culture, sort of. i've been going around the internet lately. and today tori gives me two albums of emo music. whoot. LOL.
mm... one week of school. let's see, shall we? i know you care lots.
1. chinese prawns me. sort-of. the teacher thinks i'm slightly stupid because i can't recognize simple words in simplified chinese. i wrote today's paper in traditional, too. ah, we shall see, we shall see...
2. french is fun. as it's always been. un, deux, trois, cat sank! i have a feeling monday the class will be talking about HSM2. hahahaha
3. english is awesome. so i didn't really participate that much in EoS jeopardy, but it was fun to watch. btw, congrats scott, amy, ann. but he's soooooo cool!
4. orchestra. hm. actually, this class has been on my mind for a bit. i don't know what sectionals or leading are going to be like this year. i've always wavered between the extremes of 03-04 and 04-06.
5. micro. this class has magical sleep-inducing qualities, and i feel bad about that. after lunch, lights off. et voila. i've never considered finding money in the woods, though...
6. art history. an hour freaking out about how amazing every picture is. SO much fun.
7. multi. this class pretty much prawns all others in terms of ADDness. "are you REALLY going to grade these quizzes?" but hey, not complaining. math class has never been this fun before.
8. chemistry is ok. i still don't know how i feel about it. i've certainly forgotten a lot, and so far i can still keep up.
9. academic bowl is just hilarious. i definitely forgot all my physics/calculus especially for the placement test. two years and i still don't know any pop culture answers.
10. NHS. yeah, it probably is all my fault we have 7am meetings. all my love and sympathy.
11. math team/fest. it's going to get intense. today's meeting was a little odd. something just wasn't right. maybe it was the number of people we got. mindblowing.
wow this is long. and i had to cut it down, too.
it's going on xanga now.
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| I think it was last October
when it felt like everything was broken. Everything went wrong. School was
going poorly. I was scared about ASTA, the PSAT, and GHP. I don't even remember if I wrote online about it. But I have it documented. Anyways.
Today, going through my stuff,
I found a note that I wrote to myself at the beginning of last October. It
starts out: “Dear me, quit being so anal-retentive,” and ends, “The next two
weeks will be a living death for you. Trust in God.” I scroll past days’ worth
of entries and I realize how little effect that note had on me, because
everything played out the way I wished it wouldn’t. School was still going
poorly. ASTA results weren’t so bad, but I felt really uncertain about the
PSAT. GHP was pretty much the last thing that I could have leaned on to give me
hope. And even that went through. I didn’t even make it through the
departmental interview. No mind that I had gotten through county last year (two rounds more). No mind
that I had written a (IMO) pretty decent abstract. Smyser’s answer about me not
getting through was disappointing; she told me little about what I could have
done better. To be honest, she made it seem like there weren’t strikes against
me, just that I hadn’t been picked.
Very, very let down.
So at this point, I’m a
junior whose future has all been marred by months’ worth of school. My GPA is
likely to go down, my PSAT will probably disappoint, and my summer plans have
been laid to waste. What am I going to do with myself, then? Because the only
saving grace I’ll have will come through next semester’s grades and whatever I
do in the summer.
I start searching. At
first, I have no ideas. I can’t do GHP. I’m not doing a music program. I’ve
already done summer school (okay, I didn’t really consider that as an option). I
can’t just do ACE camp this year, but would I want to follow up on last year’s
act, which was amazing? I probably searched all the way through the end of the
semester, when my grades actually turned out to be not so bad and I felt much
better. But still, what to do with my summer?
Second semester
arrives; PSAT scores return and they don’t disappoint as I thought they would
have. Random college letters come as always. RSI sends me something. I look
through that. I keep searching because I am a person who likes options.
I search a lot. I find TASP, which I think sounds amazing, but I don't feel like writing five essays and begging two teachers for some recs because the day I find out about this program is the day before applications are due. But
then one day on a random forum, I see that some mother has written that her son
had a great time at the University
of Pennsylvania. I search
a little more. The program description looks amazing. At this point, I am sick
of searching. I say that I’m applying to two programs and that’s all. If all
else fails, I’ll bother a professor at Emory to let me take out his or her
trash from a lab for the summer pretty pretty please with lots of cherries on
top.
I apply. Then one day
at church, they talk about summer missions for the youth. One to Arizona (experience
please!) and one to Woodgate (which I’ve heard nothing but amazing things about).
I want to do Woodgate, but I’m applied to two camps that will run into that time! In the case that I get
into one, I AM going to camp! A lot of effort has been put into this camp thing, and I'm making the most of it. I think about missions and decide that, however, it’s also
something I want to do. But at this point I am still waiting for replies. I figure God will tell me what to do, as always. Spring
break, I go to Europe. Mom tells me that RSI
has rejected me but Penn has accepted.
I accept going to Penn. I ask Jonathan to
please let me go to Arizona.
Please. After a process, he says okay if I do VBS. Why not? After all, I had
nothing to do in the summer, and now it’s filled up.
VBS. I discover that I
really have the mindset of a much younger child. And that I can still mediate
Asian girl drama. And that there really is a better joy from working with kids
than working with peers. I learn to have energy and love people.
Arizona. The most mind-flipping
experience ever. I learn not to complain, I learn to communicate, I learn to
love and love more. I learn about a different culture. I learn about kids for
who my heart breaks often. I learn how to teach and how to give lessons in the
most subtle of ways. I learn to be myself and be more sunshine. I learn to rely
on God all the time and understand that He is always working there. I come home with a family of 25 people, all of us first-hand experience-rs of His work and His mercy during that week.
UPenn. The most nerdy
fun I will ever be allowed to have. I learn so much about people. I learn how
to adapt to a very different environment. I learn to love and accept more. I learn
more things about myself from seeing how people and I work together. I learn
more about things I enjoy and people I like. I come home with a family of 9 people who know so unbelievably much about each other.
I learn how many new
good friends I can make in a summer. I learn to be more sunshine. They are all
good lessons before I start my senior year, what should undoubtedly be the most stressful of all
my high school grades.
Now looking back, I see
how God really set me up for this summer. I do really believe that my path is already
laid out, but now I see it in action. Finally. I felt so devastated when I lost what I thought I’d gain. But God
already had a path for me; He just didn’t let me see it at first. If I’d made
GHP... what a world I would have missed out on.
This summer has had the
most fantastical, eye-opening few months of my life. To think that everything
that’s changed and taught me this summer happened in 8 weeks and less... what a
difference it’s made in my life. What a difference from what I thought it’d be.
Look at what it became.
I stand in awe of His
awesome power and His plans. Now it is August, 10 months later, and I start to realize the brilliance of His ways. This is small fish compared to what He usually does, too! He is too awesome.
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| 1.
Random camp memories flood back with an intensity sometimes.
Keeping in touch is still good. Hopefully Nathan doesn't get home too late tomorrow or anything so I can call. Maybe I'll call the rest of them because not hearing their voices for days straight is just weird. I will admit that their voices will be hard to forget. Too many things are ingrained...
Today, quite sarcastically, I told Chi-ted that I'd compromised a lot of things at camp.
Like what I saw. Too much PDA at a camp, and then that one episode of "Wow, you need better health services!" with Sofia, Edward, and Nathan.
And what I heard. I watched Transformers last night. It may have been even more awkward if I watched it with the four guys. But probably still worth missing curfew for. Ah, well, that's too late.
And what I listen to. Edward's hilarious Deathboard emo music, singing along to Christian rock & Disney & other random favorites. I even downloaded a bit of High School Musical for them. Oh my, where did my morals go (if you were wondering, I'm really not a fan of the movie...) ?!?!
I wish I had gotten my camera before camp. It would make missing them on a whole new level of desperation, maybe, hahahaha, but it would be such a good balm as well. They're having a semi-reunion on Sunday in Cali before hopefully a big one on Skype for everyone. Aaditya and Chited. Maybe Nathan. Maybe Sofia. Probably at In-N-Out. Which means they really owe me pictures because I didn't even get to see one when I was in Arizona. Speaking of which...
2.
The Arizona team comes tomorrow! I'm excited to see this family of brothers and sisters who have shared so much with me. It's been great keeping up with them and just getting to know them, however impersonal email and chatting is. It'll be a fun-filled reunion.
I am excited to do Baby Shark and sing songs together again. Share Arizona memories. Think about no humidity. Think about piggyback rides and the watermelon game. Ridge run. Chores. All that dust. Think about all those kids. Think about where they live and what they're going to be.
OHhh.
3.
Then the family goes on a trip. Planned pretty much at the last minute, which should add to the AWESOMENESS.
Last burst of sunshine in this summer. Let's GOOO.
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| mom and alex come home tomorrow. YAY.
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