I caught a cold!

I am not feeling very well today. I think I caught a cold. My throat is sore and my head is a bit dizzy. I really don't get how I can catch a cold when I am sleeping eight hours a day! I should be really heathy and energetic. Plus, I don't think anyone had a cold that I was in contact with. I really dislike trying to work when I have a cold. I can never think straight and my eyes get dry and heavy. I feels as though half of by brain is stopped from normal function. Writing this blog post makes me feel worse because I have to describe how I feel about my cold. Maybe I should stop here, and not think about my cold so I'll feel better. This is an extremely short post, but I'm having a hard time focusing, so I'l be stopping here. 

Sleeping Early

We get to (or more like have to) sleep early everyday this week! I received a pretty unexpected e-mail from Ms. Pamela titled "Please Relax". That might be the best mail I've gotten from her so far. So, starting from Sunday, I've been sleeping at 11:00, giving myself a full eight-hour sleep! It feels SO nice to be sleeping early. Also, with my sister away at camp the house is so quiet and peaceful. I think this is the my first time being an only child for two days. It feels different. Even though two days without my sister may seem peaceful, a few days more without would make staying home extremely boring. She'll be coming back tomorrow, and i can already foretell all the crazy stories she would tell from camp. I can't wait for her to come back, but at the same time, I might miss the quietness in the house, which I think I'll need before the that SAT.
Speaking of which, I got a full score on the writing section today! For the very first time! Although I am happy about this, my reading score had dropped. I really hope that I can do well on the real test! I am keeping my fingers crossed. I will also be wearing green because i believe its my lucky color. Only four days left, and I am getting kind of nervous!

SAT

Yes. I finally came around to write the inevitable blog about SAT today. I’m pretty sure most other seniors have already done a post about it, because it is definitely something that has consumed our minds and lives for the past few weeks to say the least, but today, I hit me smack on the head. We did an (almost) full SAT test (without the experimental), and my scores dropped. By this time, only 5 DAYS BEFORE THE TEST, there can be no space for careless errors, or actually, ANY errors on the math and the writing. If I really want to improve, I would have to by now. Sadly, I didn’t. Even worse, my scores dropped. Unless there is a miracle, my last chance will be tomorrow. If I still do not improve tomorrow, it is highly possible that I would not in the coming test on Saturday and the hard work I have done in the past month would pretty much be in vain. I have set my mind to it. Just wait to hear the good news tomorrow. I can do this. 

Weird Music Videos

I had been watching several music videos this past weekend. They were all pretty popular songs and some of them seemed to deliver a positive message, so I got curious and went on YouTube to search up the music videos. Most of the them turned out to be kind of disturbing. I'm not talking about the Taylor Swift ones, because those are perfectly fine. It is the ones from Lady Gaga and P!ink that really got to me. For example, I really like the song "Born This Way" by Lady Gaga but when I saw the video, it pretty much creeped it out. It was more like an monster/ET invasion than what I thought it should be about: an encouragement to individuality and confidence. The music video sent a pretty distorted massage. Also, In P!ink's "Raise Your Glass" video, there was a scene where a cow was drinking milk from women. I understand that they were trying to make a point: they want to show how it is wrong for human to drink the milk of cows. After all, those milk are supposed to be for the calves and not for us. However, I think that scene is a bit too extreme. All of these music video seem to have similar themese: individuality and creativity. Nevertheless, I feel like they are being way overboard, making it seem as though eccentricity and drastic is the new cool.

Sour Candy

Sour candies are one of the most amazing things ever invented. They are candies that are sour (which is pretty obvious by its name), which means that it is both sour and sweet. The combination of that is just fantastic. There are two types of sour candies: one that start of to be extremely sour and then turns sweet and the one that mixes both flavors together. The best example for the first type of sour candy is Warheads. I would sometimes eat it when I'm sleepy to wake myself up. After the extreme sour taste comes the sweet and fruity taste. The second type is the mixture of sweet and sour. (I don't think I've eaten anything else that has two tastes at once, so when I ate the sweet-and-sour mixture candy for the first time, I just simply adored it.) This type of candies are mostly gummies. I like most of them, but my absolute favorite is the Sour Patch Watermelon. (It is one of the candidates of my favorite food.) Sadly, they don't sell any of these sour candies in Taiwan, so ever time I go to the States, I would bring back 3 packs of candy and put them in the fridge. Over the year, I would go sneak one to two pieces each time and savor the taste. Yes I know I am seventeen going on to eighteen and it is about time for my to end my obsession over candies, but they just taste SO GOOD! Sometimes, when I have gone too long without them, eating them again would keep me happy for a while. I makes me energized like a small cup of coffee would. Now that I think of it, I might have a tiny addiction to it (like some people are addicted to caffeine).

Kindle?

Today, Alyson was reading a book on her Kindle and I borrowed it to take a look. I really liked the screen of the Kindle because it doesn't strain my eyes as a computer screen would. In fact, I have been talking to my mom about getting one. Now that I've seen a real one, I want one of my own! However, there are still some disadvantages in reading on a Kindle, and am now going to weigh the pros and cons of getting a Kindle:

Pros: The more important factor that attracts me to the Kindle is that it can store so many books in such a reasonably light-weight ebook. It is also pretty thin which means its very portable. One other thing is that I heard e-books are much cheaper than normal books! That means I can get more books for the same amount of money, which translates to MORE BOOKS TO READ!

Cons: Its still not a book. There is just this nice cozy feeling when you read a paperback novel on your bed before going to sleep. You would never have the same feeling is you were reading it from an ebook. Ultimately, its electronic, and you don't get to literally turn the pages or mark your book with highlighter to pen (even though you could add marks on a Kindle, I think?) Also, all book would look the same. Same fonts, same thickness, and no book cover. I can really irritate me because I'm so use to identifying books by their covers. (I can even be accused of literally judging a book by its cover. I know its wrong, but some covers just make certain books look more interesting.)

French Royalty

Today, in European history, we looked at the family tree of the French monarchs and I found it be pretty interesting. True, the family tree was pretty complicated. When there were no longer any male descendants in one family, the thrown had to be passed to another family (sorted into houses). No female were allowed to rule in France, probably because of the Roman Catholic religion. (I thought the English were more fair because female were allowed to rule.) The french monarch family tree started off with just one single line of descendants, the House of Caplet, but the thrown had to be passed down to another family because there were no descendants left. One thing that I found strange was the lack of originality in the King's. I don't understand why there were so many Charles and Louis among the names. Wouldn't it be very confusing? There were up to ten Kind Charles of France and seventeen Kind Louis of France! What makes things even more confusing is that these are only the Kings in France. There were probably even King Charles from England or from Spain. Even though Mr. Jones later told us that the Kings adopted these names to honor those before them, I didn't really see why it was so important to name themselves the same name for seventeen times.

Disney Sing-Alongs

I know this may sound childish, but my sister and I were listening to Disney sing-along songs today, and some of them were actually pretty good! I was surprised I never noticed that Disney actually had good songs (apart from Hakuna Matata, which was definitely my childhood favorite). We started out with one of Mulan's songs, and we couldn't stop! I felt like I was re-living my childhood moments. We went from Mulan to Aladdin and then to the all of the princess songs like snow white and sleeping beauty. One thing I was surprised to find out was that some of the princess voices weren't as good as those from less well known movies, like Pocahontas in Colors of the Wind or Ariel the mermaid in Part of Your world. I thought Snow White's and the Sleeping Beauty's sounded kind of bad with a bit of a fake opera voice. We clicked through a few of them and I even found out there were second and even third sequels to some of them. Although I did get kind of hyped up about a continued story, I wasn't exactly thrilled to find out that there were more problems after the "happily ever after". I felt cheated on! They said the prince and princess lived happily ever after! One thing I learned from this is that (even in Disney movies) it is impossible to have a happily ever after. There might be a "better ever after", but not happily ever after (even if they they promised you one).

Facebook deactivated.

Now that is a huge feat to have achieved. It takes courage and definitely perseverance (because you can actually just type in the account name and password and you are reconnected to the Facebook world.) However, this time I am determined. Facebook takes up too much time in my life and recently I've got more important things to focus on, for example, COLLEGE APPS, tons to essays to write, not to mention, the upcoming SAT test. I have not set a date when I would end my escape from Facebook, however, I should do that soon, or else, I would find myself back  within a few days. I would at least want to see myself away from the time consumer for one month, which is how long I stayed away from it last time (before the AP tests). 
During this period of time, I'll need to find something thats refreshing but not time consuming. I might also have to change my daily routines. I'm thinking of sleeping early and waking up very early to do my work. That would mean I get total silence when I do my work, but then my interaction with my family would be very small.

Chopstick Buns!

Recently I have mastered the ways of the chopstick bun. Now, I can get my hair up and out of a way with... ONE CHOPSTICK within 15 seconds! No need for 5 hair-clips stuck here and there on my head in an unsuccessful attempt to placate my tresses. The discovery came one night when I was especially annoyed with my hair getting in the way of my sight. I tried to tie my hair up in a bun (with hair-clips), but there would always be a a few that stuck out. In the end, I resorted to youtube and finally made the amazing discovery of the chopstick bun. According to the youtube guru, there were four ways to tie the chopstick bun. I only learned one way, but I thought it was sufficient. You could also use anything that is long and stick-like to tie your hair up in a bun: they can range from chopsticks and pencils to 14-inch knitting sticks. Anyways, I like the chopstick bun because it not only gets my hair out of the way, but it also somehow make me look like a ninja. I felt like if I dressed myself in all black, I would look like a true ninja (and my chopsticks would be my secret weapon). I have to admit, the idea is pretty tempting, and I might try it once just to scare my family a little. 

What is your favorite...?

A lot of people like to ask about favorites. When I was young, I never thought much about it. Of course I my share of likes and dislikes and things I preferred over others, but I never decided that one color/ ice cream flavor/ candy was my favorite. The only thing I knew for certain was that I detested chocolate cake, which is something pretty weird for a young kid. (My friends would never understand why I refused to eat their birthday cakes, and one teacher even thought I was being rude!) Other than that, what was my favorite food? Uhh... probably candy? Favorite color? Rainbow, if you count that as 'a' color. I later realized that not having favorites was pretty uncommon among young children, so I decided to search for my favorites. I felt that the search of my favorite things is part of a journey of self-realization. So, my favorite things came later in my life. Now I know that my favorite color is purple, my favorite ice cream flavor is cookie-and-cream and my favorite Disney/cartoon character is Winnie the Pooh. Right now, I am still searching for my favorite food and movie. I feel like I have not met my favorite food/movie yet, but when I do it would hit me and I wold know instantly.

Moon Festival

Dear DuDu:

This year's moon festival didn't feel much like a moon festival to me. But then again, it hadn't felt that way for several years. I remember back when I was young, my family would invite my uncle and grandma over to my house and we would all barbecue together. I had always been very excited. The house would be filled with people walking around, brings plates of food to be cooked, to just chatting at the side. My sister and I would peel pomelo and make them into hats. Then, I would go around and make people wear them. My sister and I would then laugh until our stomachs hurt at what the adults look like with pomelo hats on. Sometimes, I would walk over and try to help with the barbecue, fanning at the wind or adding the sauce to the meat. After the barbecue, the moon cakes would be taken out. I am not too much of a moon cake person. Very often, I would take a bite and then decide I didn't want it anymore, but once in a while, I wold get one that I actually liked. My sister wouldn't even look at the moon cakes because she knows that she wouldn't like them. The day would end with everyone sitting on the porch, chatting and looking at the moon. Oh, talking about those times made me miss it even more!

Myers-Briggs

Dear DuDu:
I received my very first official personality test today! I actually did the test a while ago (back in 10th grade), but I had lost my results and so I had to ask for the test results to me sent to me again. I really do hope that the results still apply. From what I learn in psychology, these personality test should be pretty consistent. Anyways, the results showed the I am an EIFP (Extraverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Perceiving).
I didn't know the exact meaning of some of the terms so I did a little research. The first term, extraverted, was the most straightforward. I lean towards the more sociable and talkative side. However, I really do wonder if my results in this category would be the same if I took the test in elementary (I think I was pretty introverted then). The next was intuitive. From what I understand, intuitive people tend to comprehend meanings and pattern more easily than concrete facts and details. Then, I got feeling. Feeling people usually care more about emotions and points of views of different people. I think this was pretty accurate of me. The last one was the most confusing for me. It says that perceiving people prefer more of a spontaneous life and are usually more open to new experience. The opposite personality would be judging, where people like things to be organized. Even though the test says that I am a perceiving person, I am not so sure which category I belong to.

Greetings, DuDu!!

This is my first blog post on my personal blog/diary space! Here it goes...


Well first of all, I would like to start off my blog by introducing my Diary friend, Dudu. This blog post would be the only one in which I do not directly address my thoughts to  DuDu.  (Since it would be very hard for me to make an introduction of a person I'm talking to, I decided against it.) Everything after this post would be me talking to my Diary friend DuDu. Before I go further, I will explain the importance of the existence of DuDu the Diary. The reason I created this (partly) fictional friend to talk to is because I feel like I need an audience to write for. I usually work harder on putting my thoughts together when I communicate to others than when I just ramble on by myself. Next, I will talk about how the unusual name DuDu came about. DuDu is really just the name of my pet dog. I named the diary after my dog because I feel like I can talk freely to my pet without judgement. If there actually were judgements of any sort, I wouldn't be able to understand it anyway. I usually just take DuDu silence as compliance. And finally, I shall formally announce the creation of DuDu the diary!