Mystery so Deep, I Can't See The Bottom

"Why does the line look so short in one light and so long in another?" -JJS

Sliced Bread and Slices of Life

Strange. A moment ago, as the laptop screen light flickered (It's my sister's old laptop, and it isn't a joke when I say "old". Even the wires of the charger is loose, so sometimes power doesn't even get through to the laptop, which is bad because this laptop's life-span lasts to about 5 minutes now without it being plugged in. Besides a little battery light on the laptop, the other way of me knowing if the laptop is charging or not is if the computer screen is bright or not, which is what I was referring to a moment ago.) I felt like it understood how I felt. Unstable, wavering, jumping back and forth from light and dark. Jeez, I feel like I'm trying to host my own drama series. What's my deal anyhow? I act like nothing good in my life is happening. Why are those simple happy moments in my life not worth of me recording? A good laugh with my parents, eating dinner together, waiting for the night breeze to finally come and cool down the house. Why do I feel like recording ever single enjoyable moment isn't worth it, that it's a waste of time and foolish, but I want to elongate on my "so-called-pains-of-life"? Crazy. Sometimes I feel like I do things just for pity.
Huh, my life. Well I've been waking up around noon pretty much everyday. I've decided to stop going to cross country early this year for personal reasons, I don't feel like talking about it at the moment. Oh, and my family hanged up my larger paintings on the wall. I can't help but to feel like they are just the slightest bit proud of how my paintings are progressing, of course they won't admit it though, but hanging up my paintings was a nice gesture. What else has been happening? Oh, I've decided to rewrite my main project, Daemon's Children. Why? It's sad, really, but after reading my own story several times while trying to edit made me feel bored. [As I wrote that, the sarcastic sentence, "The future readers of the world with be thrilled." scrolled through my mind.] Which is exactly why I don't like reading the same thing over and over again. I know what's going to happen next and I'm just like, "Yeah, what else is new?" If you're like, wait a minute, you're writing this thing, so shouldn't you know what's coming next? Well when I'm writing, I have a plan for what's going to happen, but it always changes, so it's an adventure for me, too, as the writer. And so, after reading my story over and over again, I've decided that it's a big dull dud and if I'm going to have to read Daemon's Children another million times, I'm going to do some dramatic changing. Then I thought, it's such a huge pain to massively change what you've already written because you don't really know if you want to change a certain part or if you want to interject an event here and there because it's already this one solid thing already. So instead of ripping pages out of the book and adding new ones, I'm making a whole brand new one.
Yeah, so I suppose that last part was pretty much the biggest change in my life since the last time I've posted about my daily life (excluding my depressed talk, of course).

Call Me Weird Once, Call Me Wacko Twice

I feel . . . unsteady. It's like I can't really control my emotions anymore. I don't even know if this is normal. Is this what females are supposed to experience from time to time? These "emotions like rollercoasters". It's not hard for me to imagine that there's something off with me, this isn't the first time I've questioned my sanity. Lately, I feel like everytime I smile or laugh that I could cry. People may laugh so hard until they have tears in their eyes, but is it normal if you start to chuckle and you already feel tears welling up. As though there were something sorrowful about the topic you were talking about, but you felt like you had to laugh it off. I guess that could be the case, but I don't know what I'm sad about. I see my friends rather often, my family members are in good health, and I don't feel particularly lonely or depressed. I'm starting to think that the answers may lie with school. All this test preping for the SATs is just so stressing. What if I don't get high marks, or get the score I need? Studying mathematical formulas, vocabulary words, writing techniques, I just- Feel overwhelmed, I suppose? If I think about it, if this is the reason for my uneasiness, it's rather dumb. How many people, over the years have studied, studied, studied, and crammed for the SATs? But, as I look at the stack of SAT and AP books (passed onto me from Tanya, a beloved family friend who has finished with high school and is off to MIT on the East coast to persue her dreams in becoming an engineer) and my heart aches. Call me childish, but I don't want to grow up. I have high hopes for my future and I dream about it all the time, until I realize I do nothing for them. I try studying but my mind wanders and I feel dazed. I try to focus in school, but my head turns away. I do nothing for my grades when I tell myself if I keep trying harder, I'll do better, but my heart turns aganist me. I don't even pursue my own dream by writing. It's always just an opened document left untouched. I can't even follow my sister's footsteps, ones that I've avoided so much in detest. I can't even follow Tanya, who, in the end, wound up behind my sister. I feel like I'm running in cross country; everyone passes right past me, getting perfect grades and getting accepted to great schools, but I just hang my head in shame because I know. I know it's my fault for being in the back. I'm always dreaming, planning, and doing nothing. I ran away from becoming an engineer like my dad and my sister, because I knew I wouldn't work as hard as they did. What they lacked, they worked on. What I lack, I cry over. I chose to follow my hobby, writing. In the end, even if I do enjoy it more than math and science, I do nothing. And it's always someone else getting the gold medal, and it's always going to be my sister in my eyes.

Home Sweet Home

August 17, 2009
So, without really telling anyone (it slipped my mind, really), I headed off to San Diego yesterday afternoon with my family. I was kind of queasy during the ride, but I survived. I took a bunch of naps, so I wasn't all that miserable during the drive. Anyhow, we then finally made it to the hotel, Sheraton. Our room's baloney had a nice view of the nearby cay and faraway city of tall buildings. Yesterday, my sister and I just vegetated around the hotel room. My dad had a meeting--since, after all, the reason why we're here is because he has a business trip and it's not like he needs two large beds--and my mom was snoozing. On my sister's laptop we played The Game of Life (it's like the gameboard). Then night fell and my sister was dragged off by my dad to go to this dinner party. My mom and I had pizza that was being served in a restaurant downstairs. It was a pretty interesting pizza, it had some herbs in the cheese that made it taste really unique. We also had some instant noodles that my mom brought along for the trip. They were good, almost better than the pizza, if I do say so myself (I'm a noodle when it comes to noodles!).
Today my mom, sister, and I went to the San Diego Zoo. Unfortunately a business trip is a business trip up to the very end and my dad was off at meetings almost the entire day. Besides facing some occasional nausea, it was pretty fun. I saw flamingos, pandas, orangutans, lions, elephants, giraffes, koalas, polar bears, and loads of other animals. During our little adventure, we got lost. You'd think with three heads (two that are more intelligent than my own) and a map, we'd do better. But instead, we looped around the same place three times. However, if you've ever been to the San Diego Zoo you have to admit that the place is huge! Do we turn here or do we turn there? It's a maze there. Granted, I suck at reading maps and have a poor sense of direction, but really, it's not a small world after all.
August 18, 2009
show. It was entertaining, even though the sun was crisping the back of my neck. You know, I never did figure out which one of the whales were We went off to the World of the Sea today. Yes, I mean Sea World. And by "we", I meant my sister and I. According to my family, we've been to Sea World several times before, but being the nutcase I am, I have absolutely no recollection of being there. Generally, if I see a place I've been to before, even if it's been a long time since I've been there, a lightbulb shines over my head and I'm like, "Hey, this place looks familiar!" Not with Sea World, though. It was like it was my first time there. Anyhow, so on impulse, I made my sister to buy us churros and we ate our cinnamon-y treat while watching the dolphin show. Since we got there around 10-11AM, my sister decided that we'd have lunch after the show. I ended up dragging us to this Italian place. I had some tomato sauce over penne pasta with chicken and sausages flanked with a breadstick. It was pretty good, ignoring that fact that it was overpriced and the meal overall was small. Well, it was simple pasta (no spices and herbs that some restaurants like to go crazy with), the kind I like best, so it's not like I have any big complaints. Then we went to go watch the ShamuShamu. Is Shamu one of the current whales there? What if Shamu died? I mean, will the show still be called Shamu? Yeah, I had no clue what the deal was with that. Anyhow, after the show, since that one rapids ride was right there (the one just like the Bigfoot Rapids ride at Knott's Berry Farm), my sister and I went for a spin. Since I was feeling adventurous, I wanted to go ride of the Travel to Atlantis ride. Of course, my sister who has a fear of heights and rollercoasters waved me goodbye as I went in line by myself. The ride was fun. What I like about rollercoasters is that they scare the heck out of me. I mean, what's the fun of rollercoasters if there's no thrill in it? It's like watching a horror movie (which is ironic because I just can not watch horror movies, because I'll probably kneel over and die). Some people prefer to cower away and not face the fear. Whereas others go on and be a masochist so they can pee in their pants during the ride and come off saying it was the funniest thing ever. Except there are those people who just aren't afraid of the speed or drop, and they just go crazy during the ride just because. And before I continue on, did I mention there were a lot of Caucasians around? Yeah, well there were. Since I live in a place where there are a bunch of Asians haunting almost every single corner, I thought it was really strange that there were so many of them. Since I was just one person riding and I obviously can't have the entire "boat" to myself, I sat in the back of a group of Caucasian buddies. If you ask me, it was pretty awkward. Not only it was really obvious to outsiders that I was not part of their group, but they kept turning around to look at me. Was it because they splashed water on me on accident while they were messing around amongst themselves (even though it's unsafe to put your hands outside the boat!) or was it because they suddenly realized that a stranger was hitching a ride with them? Regardless of the reason, I felt very self-conscious the rest of the day. My sister met me at the end of the ride and we continued walking around, looking at the animals and such. My sister wanted us to go feed the dolphins or at least the mantarays, but being the bum I am, I complained about being tired and that I have a low endurance for walking (although I suck at running, my legs and muscles are more adjusted to running more than walking). We browsed through some gift shops while waiting for our mom to drive by and pick us up, then we left. My dad's company once again, had some kind of dinner party, but this time, my mom was picked and dragged away to the social gathering. My sister and I had some American-Japanese food. My sister had some caterpillar sushi and I had udon (ah, yes, maybe one of the best noodles of the world). After eating, my sister was gracious enough to let me steal her laptop to play Plants vs. Zombies. Yes, it is a stupid sounding game, and depending on who you are, you'll take one look at the game before saying, "It looks like a stupid game". You have to plant these plants in order to protect your house from the brain-eating zombies and stuff. Personally, I think it's a very amusing game with cute graphics when you ignore the zombies, whose limbs fall off after attacking them a lot.
So that's pretty much all the excitement that has been going on with me. Besides the ride home, but that wasn't all that fun. We drove and drove, I napped, my sister read. My sister just had to order a smoothie from Starbucks before we left the hotel so we had to stop at Jack-in-the-Box to use the bathroom because she didn't pipe up about needing to go to the toliet until after we passed two reststops. Well, since it was near lunchtime, we just ordered food there and then we ate on the rest of the way home. Back to our sweet little home.
Did I mention that I disliked staying at Sheraton? Okay, so here's the deal. It's 4AM, and the fire alarm goes off. To my family, we just heard a really annoying siren and we didn't know it was the fire alarm until my sister went out into the hall to check what was going on. We all rolled out of bed to evacuate the building when the announcer came alive and said it was a false alarm. Earlier that day there was an unpleasant small of cigarette smoke that rolled into our room through the vents. And after the announcement, the disgusting smell visited us once again. I think that our room neighbor was a crazy smoker and his thing set off the alarm or something. It wasn't just that. The next morning I had to get up to buy a stamp for a postcard and send it off on it's merry way when the alarm sounds again. My mom asked the lady at the front desk about what the heck was going on, and according to the lady, their alarms are very sensitive. Burning or small smoke could set the place into chaos. I guess it's better than the alarms not being sensitive at all until the third alarm came. There's only so many "false alarms" a person can handle. I swear that it's our neighbor because my family's always smelling cigarette smoke and I just roll out onto the cold balconey. I have enough trouble breathing without secondhand smoke! I hate smokers, they ruin everyone's life and they are ruining mine. I'm glad that my dad aren't like most smokers. Yeah, he smoked, he smokes. But he only smokes once or twice in China with his old Chinese buddies (peer pressure is bad!). Except what makes him so different is that he doesn't get hooked on it. He could smoke one cigarette and push the rest of the box away. There won't be any mood swings, no need for nicotine, nothing. Even though I really wish my dad wouldn't smoke at all (but in China, almost everyone smokes. I really hate it there, sometimes.) but I can't have the whole package, now can I?

Cramming in Words

I haven't been on here a while. The last few days have been crazy. Waking up early in the morning but ended up walking around neighborhoods, taking pictures of stuff with my cell phone. Running off to watch G.I.Joe at the movie theaters after waking up fifteen minutes before. Came home and moments after getting into the house two firetrucks park promptly in front of my neighbor's and my house (still don't know what happened up to this day). Playing World of KungFu until unloving hours of the morning (I've suddenly found an interest in the markets. I've been running around in WoKFu visiting the shops and checking out prices, selling my stuff, while rolling in good profits . . .). I went to the optometrist to hear that my eyes and contacts are still in decent condition. I also picked out some new glasses (so if I can't wear my contacts for some reason, I'll still be able to see perfectly well the next day), since my old ones broke. And yeah, that's pretty much a quick summary of my life right there. Oh, minus the tutoring session I have with my sister and such. It's okay, except my mom constantly demands my sister to give me more homework and SAT prepping whenever I've already finished the one my sister assigned me, so that's been kind of a bummer for me. I am starting to get worried about them, the SATs, so I guess this will do me some good. Except I still have to do my summer math assignment for school, so I need to get working on that soon, too. Life's been pretty exciting-boring everyday. Everything's neutral.

All Students Take Cookies

Huh, I haven't blogged in a while. I've been trying to minimize the amount of time I spend on the computer because, one, it's hot and my computer is just radiating heat. Two, the bill has recently increased on only our house, I don't even know the details, but my mom has been everyone's case about stop wasting stuff. Yet she's the one who turned on my fan when I said I didn't need it. Oh well, I'll just turn it off after I'm done typing this. Anyhow, yeah, I've been humoring my mom by drawing and writing in my notebook since she thinks I've done nothing but sit in front of the computer all summer (and go to cross country). I sometimes think that she can't see me when I'm reading a book or when I'm doing my math homework. Three, I do have math homework and recently, if I'm not listening to my sister explain triangles to me or I'm not doing the homework she assigned me, I'm sleeping. My mom thinks I'm sick because I've been sleeping maybe over 12 hours a day. So yeah, I'm supposed to be doing my math homework right now, but I felt like typing stuff today. Since I'm talking about math, I'm going to teach you guys a nifty math trick my sister showed me.
Ever heard of quadrants? Trigonometric functions (sin, cos, tan)? No? Well you might not get this then. So there is quadrant I, II, III, and IV. It'd make more sense if I drew a diagram so bear with me (or not read this and go on with your lives).
Imagine this as a graph that you'd normally graph your lines or whatever functions you graph on (ignore the "----"s, they're just to keep the "|" in place):
--------------| y
Quadrant II | Quadrant I
--------------|
--------------|
____________________ x
--------------|
Quadrant III| Quadrant IV
--------------|
--------------|
So if you ever need to determine what sign (positive/negative) a trigonometric function is there's something you can use to help you remember it as long as the quadrant is given. "All Students Take Calculus", or the one I liked better, "All Students Take Cookies". So "All" is quadrant I and it means that sin, cos, and tan, they're all positive. You could probably tell since quadrant I is where the x and y are both positive. "Students", the S symbolizes that only sin is positive, the rest are negative. "Take", the T means that only tan is positive. "Cookies", the C obviously means that cos is the only one that is positive.
Well that was a really bad explanation, but hopefully I'll look back at this when the school year starts again and be able to understand what in the world I'm talking about.
Because I have three lessons of math to do (and no, I didn't procrastinate and the homework piled together, my sister assigned all of it today), and since my sister is threatening to make my homework due tomorrow, rather than the day after tomorrow, I should go now. Bye guys!