My Past in a Costume Chest

Now that I've gone further into the college app process, I've developed a new perspective. Even though the application deadlines and and testing are still a constant pressure, I found that thorough racking our brains for essay topics, the college essays is sort of a recollection of our life until now. Living in this fact-paced world, we are constantly bombarded with new information and always get a feeling that we have to catch up. Since my high school years, I didn't have much time to look back and look into my past. I lived life as it came to me and had always been chasing after a goal, a trend or a deadline. Writing the college essays forced me to pull out my old costume chest, dig out and try out each phase of my life: a significant event, the start of an interest, or describing a personality trait. As I try out these old costumes, I have to analyze my own feelings and organize them into words. This part of the process is probably the most difficult. This involves critical thinking and good writing skills, which is something I am not especially proud of. As I have mentioned in my english narrative essay, my bilingual context have caused me to loose focus on either language.


SAT word of the day:
pensive: dreamily or wistfully thoughtful; deeply thoughtful, often with a tinge of sadness

A Cup of Cappuccino

Now that the warm weather is ending, it is time for me to change my blog template: I've replaced the beach-y background with a cup of cappuccino. Just the sight of a warm cup of coffee gives me a cozy and peaceful feeling even when the wind it howling outside. Although I rarely drink coffee because I get palpitations from too much caffeine, I still do love coffee very much. I've loved the smell of coffee since I was young. The rich and slightly creamy aroma sends my senses to wonderland. Whenever my dad brewed coffee, I would beg to a take a sip. However, I was banned from any coffee until the age of fourteen, because, apparently, coffee makes children's bones brittle. I can still remember when I had my very first cup of coffee. It was and ice-cold latte on one summer day. I was thrilled with every sip I took, totally wrapped up in the moment. My mother was very smart in letting drink latte for my first cup of coffee because if I had gotten the bitter black coffee my dad usually drinks, I would have been extremely disappointed. After a while, I learned that I cannot share coffee with my dad. He refuses to add any sugar to his while I like mine sweet and creamy (which makes latte the best choice). Yet, after the first month of coffee craze, I've learned to limit myself to coffee because the palpitations after the coffee stops me from doing anything productive.


SAT word of the day:
assauge: to sooth or calm

Emotional Effects of Blow-Drying Hair

Personally, I think it’s annoying. It feels uncomfortable to blow warm wind to your hair (and face), especially during the summers. I feel hot and somehow confined and always just want to get it over with. The constant ringing sound of the hair dryers is a pet peeve of mine and I sometimes even get grumpy after I blow-dry my hair. I also feel like it is a waste of time. I can't do anything else when I blow dry my hair. I guess I am supposed to comb my hair, but I never actually do that. I would try to watch TV, but that ringing sound block all the sound away. I can't sing or listen to music. I can't even think to myself because that ringing sound is just too distracting! I wish somebody can invent a silent blow dryer. Maybe I'll be able to tolerate it more.

My opinion doesn’t seem to concur with many others. I remember talking to Maxine and Judy once about the subject. Both of them said they liked blow-drying their hair. They agreed that it makes them relaxed a sleepy! How does having a loud ringing sound beside your ears made you want to sleep? I really cannot understand. My sister once told me about a friend enjoyed the sound of a blow-dryer and would even turn on the blow dryer to help them concentrate on homework! How in the world an anyone concentrate with that sound? Maybe the reason for the lack of silent blow-dryer is these people that love to use a loud and obnoxious drying machine.

SAT word of the day:

unpalatable: disagreeable or unacceptable; obnoxious; unpleasant to taste

One Pacman, Five Ghosts, A Grape and A Gamer

I stayed after school yet another day. Today, however, for a much more pleasant reason: to finish up out halloween costume! Our lunch table group decided to dress up together as pac man and the ghosts. The main character was Victor the pac man. The girls were various brightly colors ghosts. Vivien was the red ghost. Her piece of cloth was too short for the costume, so Alyson improvised and created a stylish short version of the ghost costume. I personally think that it makes Vivient look vey much like Little Red Riding Hood. Sarah is the pink ghost. Her eyes are heart shaped, probably meaning that she is the lovey dovey one. Alyson's was light blue and her cloth is also a little on the short side. If I remembered correctly, her costume is probably the fat one. I didn't stay long enough to see Wan-Yi's costume get done, but her's is orange. My ghost was dark blue. It is not one of the ghost in the actual pac man game. (We had one extra girl). My favorite part about making the costume was when we stuck the eyes on. According to Alyson (and I absolutely agree with her on that) her eyes seem to bring the ghosts to life. 
We have two more characters in our group: Maxwell as the grape (that gives bonus points) and Sam as the player of the game. Maxwell's costume was made out of balloons and it looks extremely cool. I didn't get to see Sam's costume, but I hope its good!


SAT vocab of the day: 
convivial - festive, lively

First Impressions

Today, I stayed until 8 o'clock after school to study for the AP Chem midterm tomorrow. Somewhere along the lines of studying chemistry and eating our dinners, the study group (consisting of Alyson, Maxwell, Victor and Forence by that time) digressed to the topic of first impressions. Florence and Victor, being the new students, were the targets of our questions. We asked them what they thought of us when they first saw us. Florence's answer to her first impression of me was "one of the Plastics from the from the movie 'Mean Girls'". Victor's answer was similar: "one of those popular and flirty girls". I was pretty surprised by those answers to say the least because I never thought of myself as a someone like that. It turned out there was a misunderstanding/ reason behind those first impressions. Because I was only student who did not take the Reading class, I went to class in the afternoon, (hence Florence thought I skipped the whole morning section of the class). Also, when I walked in the room, I was greeted by many people (mainly because I joined later). However, after I got to know them more, (I hope) they found out that their first impressions of my was not quite accurate. What I got from this was that, even though many say that first impressions can be accurate, we have to take into account of the conditions of the situation.


SAT vocab of the day: (x2!)
specious: something that appears to be true but is actually false
impugn: to challenge as false; cast doubt upon

iProcrastinate

No, there is no space between the 'i' and the 'Procrastinate'. Even though I do procrastinate, that is not the point of today's blog. iProcrastinate is a application I was told about just a few minutes ago. Its a totally cool app that helps you organize homework. It kind of similar to what I already do, but on the computer. It helps you countdown on due dates and allows you to sort homework through subjects and label them with color. Its not too complicated and has a cute design. Another really great part about it is that I can sync it with my iCal (the mac calendar) so that I can see the due dates there as well. I'm really excited about trying it out. If I really get around to use the system well, I might procrastinate less! Now that I am done writing this blog, I can go over to my iProcrastinate and put a check mark beside this task! 


SAT vocab of the day:
utilitarian - designed to be useful or practical rather than attractive

Delegates, laughing is not in order.

Even though it lasted only two days, chairing HsinMUN is definitely one of my most memorable MUN experience. It felt like a revisit to my very first conference of MUN. I saw delegates that were just like me when I attended my first conference, shy, reserved, and dreaded talking in public. By chairing, I got to see MUN in a very different light. I watched as delegates debated fervently, cooperating effectively, and made new friends. It felt great to be there to guide them through the procedures. 
However, there was one embarrassing/ funny moment:
Chairs are not allowed to laugh during debate and are supposed to make sure the house comes to order whenever something happens, but today, I broke out laughing and couldn't stop. At the same time, I tried to tell the house that laughing is not in order. It took the other chair to finally retain the house back to order.


SAT Vocab of the Day:
flippant - not showing serious or respectful attitude.

The Pressure is On

Today is an important day for the seniors. It’s the day SAT scores are out. Some were exhilarated while others were gloomy. Even those that didn’t take test in October (like me) were affected. For the people that received their scores today, I was a relief (or a dread). For me, things have just started. So many people improved today and some even broke the school SAT record! Ben Lee deserves a CONGRATULATION because he got 800 for the critical reading score – that is the full score, FULL SCORE! This has never happened before in our school, so today is PAS history in the making.  As for me, seeing that everyone did so well, I’ve really got to work hard! Every year, the SAT scores of accepted students in the top schools are increasing exponentially. If I want to stand any chance, I will need a better score. So, I’ve decided, probably just for the sake of it, I’ll be doing one SAT vocab of the day until the actual test day.

Today’s SAT Vocab of the Day:

Auspicious – promising success; propitious; opportune; favorable

The Soup Thief

I've noticed that I blog a lot about food recently. I guess its probably because theres no one around and no action about when I'm writing my blog this late into the night. Its just me and... the ice cream (yes, I eat ice cream late at night) or my bowl of soup that I am eating, so food has become an important muse for my blog posts. 
Anyways, because of the cooling weather (or maybe just my stomach's wishes), I've developed a craving for warm soup in the past few days. It is also one of the easiest thing that I could prepare: just dump a few spoonfuls and put it in the microwave, set a time of 40 seconds, and in no time, you get a bowl of wonderfully warm soup. I've been slowly depleting the supply of soup and today, my mother finally noticed. She was opening the fridge to get us soup for dinner when she exclaimed, "Where did all the soup go?" She began to blamed my father for the disappearance of the soup and started to complain about how he is eating to much when I told her who the the true soup thief was... me. Not only did she stopped grumbling about my father, she even prepared more soup for me tonight!

Officially Out of Ideas

At 2:00 am in the morning, my mind is filled with homework I just finished and college essays. I have no idea what to blog about except complain about senior pressure and sleeping habits, which I really don't want to do. Therefore. I am out of ideas. 

So. I went online and searched "creative blog ideas". Most of the had very general suggestions that I didn't have much interest in. I finally saw one that said "free write about ____" and so this is what I will do.

I will free write for 3 min about my room:

It is purple. i have a bunkbed with many colorful (mainly blue) pillows and blankets. i also have a huge teddy bear that I got for a birthday present a long time ago. I still life it very much but it might have to be washed soon. I hope i can bring it to college, because it would remind me of home, but I is impossible to fit the huge teddy in a luggage. Too bad, I'll have to say good bye to my giant teddy when I leave for college. 

I have bird stickers/decorations on my wall. They are also colorful. I also have a desk and a bookshelf which is full of books, of course, but is very unorganized. I think i'll have to do that soon, when I have time. I have so many stuff in my room I don't know how i will be able t pack them. okay never mind i wont be bringing most of them. 

Sit down!

I guess I haven't talked too much about my dog on my blog posts, but I assure there will be a lot more to come. I have, in fact, tried to name the blog after my dog until the unfortunate requirement of having a straightforward title for our blogs. Anyways, today is a day of celebration for our dog Dudu because she finally learned to sit on command! After a year at our house, the only she has learned was to not pee everywhere in the house (which she still does from time to time). I guess our previous failure resulted from a lack of experience in training dogs. We would ask her to sit down right before we give her the treat for peeing in the bathroom. The commands were commands were confusing and the treat given at the wrong time. We tried a different method this weekend and gave her small treats for sitting down on command. Today, we continued the training, AND SHE DID AS SHE WAS TOLD!!! The whole family got very excited and Dudu was extremely happy when we all clapped for her. She literally jumped around with joy. It was so adorable! <3

Pressure Food

Constantly under the pressure of SATs, schools grades and a larges piles of application essays, seniors need to find ways to release their stress. For me, ice cream and other deserts do the trick. It is scary how often to resort to ice cream in the wee hours of the night to boost my energy and continue working on college apps. I am very aware that eating ice cream at night is unhealthy and would most likely make me gain weight (which isn't too bad a thing as of now, but would become a problem if i continue this habit). However, ice cream is just so refreshing! The coolness wakens me up and the sweetness gives me energy. Every bite of ice cream boost my energy up a bit until I am satisfied and ready to continue the endless work load. I might have to find new sources of stress release as the weather gets cooler, but for now, I will not be giving up on my ice cream addiction too soon.

Be Careful With Those Pretzels

They can and WILL make you bleed. Those peanut butter pretzels. Today was the first time I ate one. They tasted nice, but they have their sharp edges. Within a few bites, they had me screaming and jumping in pain. Okay this maybe a little dramatized. But. It did hurt and I did bleed. It took me up to ten minutes to get the bleeding to stop. Yes, it was that bad. I didn't know pretzels can be so dangerous before this. I use to think there were small crunchy and harmless little bits of cracker. Well, apparently I am wrong. Next time I eat one of those, I will definitely make sure that I bite them curefully. I do not want another pretzel scar in my mouth. 

Google Homepage

The Google homepage has started to get really creative recently. Today, the Google homepage featured Art Clokey and his gumbies. Although I've never known of these clay dolls before I saw them today, they definitely made an impression by appearing as animations on google's home page. I spent a few minutes clicking on to each clay ball to watch the animations. The last time Google did something similar was on the 75th birthday of Jim Henson, the creator of my childhood favorite TV show, the Sesame Street. I was so excited when I saw them on google. There were also secret clicks (you had to wait for a period of time) that had special animations in them. I really wonder who are the great artists behind all these creative google titles. One thing I have to say to them is that the creations have significantly improved. It started from the decorated Google sign, to several logos of the same theme, to the recent animations. 

For me, the really wonderful part about all this is that we can revisit these creative headings whenever we please just by clicking on the "I'm Feeling Lucky" bar on the google homepage. There are even additional ones that were shown in special regions of the world that we can access to. Sometimes, when I'm bored I'll just scroll through the many inspiring Google logos from the past.

MUN Resolutions

I have been sorting out and editing resolutions for the coming HsinMUN today, and I realized how little I knew about the job of a chair before I actually tried to be one. I've always thought being a chair is easier than being a good delegate because whenever I attend the conferences, the chairs are just the ones that coordinate the conference. Yes, they are very knowledgeable about the procedures, and they are indeed very experiences, but they didn't seemed to have to go through the turmoil of writing a resolution. Well, I was wrong. After I have been accepted as a chair this past summer, there had a constant pile of work that I had to do. The first was the chair report. This was extremely brain racking. I basically had to start researching from point zero. After that was done with, we have several practice chairing do and chair letters to write. Then finally we have to edit the resolutions of our delegates. Chairing an MUN conference is definitely more work than I thought it would provide. 

Steve Jobs

October 5, 2011. The death of Apple's legendary CEO. Over the Long weekend, I saw reports after reports of the his death and a short documentary of his life. He was definitely a man creativity and intelligence. However his life was full of hardships and battles that he eventually won over. Another college dropout, Steve Jobs founded Apple with 2 other college friends in a garage. The apple slowly climbed to success. Yet, as the company grew, a hard blow in his life came. He was fired from Apple. This is the part of the story that shocked me as much as it angered me. He was an important co-founder, yet he was fired... as an CEO! The next part of his life is the real lesson. He did not give up, but continued to utilize his creativity for other purposes. He bought Pixar and brought it to fame. (Before this, I never knew Steve Jobs was part of Pixar!) He was later hired back into Apple and started the revolutions of music players by creating the iPod. Apple once again rose to popularity and more and more apple products spread throughout the world. Yet, Steve Jobs was diagnosed with cancer. He battled his disease as he continued to create incredible developments to the i-products. On october 5, 2011, at the age of 56, he died after fighting with cancer for 8 years. His death caused a sensation in the world. Documents were made of his life. And this is how a girl learned about his story and typed to write a blog (on her macbook) in memory of him. 

..........
I was searching a picture of the apple logo a few minutes ago and learned some pretty shocking news. The article discussed Steve Jobs as a person instead of a legendary icon. It described his personality, and to my surprise, he was portrayed as rude and disparaging. He also have no public record of giving to charity.


Moral lesson: there is always two sides to a story.

Colleges and Sleeping Habits

Its 2:55am right now and the rest of the family are already sound asleep in bed. I just woke up a few minutes ago, starting my day at night. I feel very much like a nocturnal animal, waking up after everyone as fallen alseep, foraging in the night and rummaging for food (in the fridge). This feeling is quite exciting, even though I though I am pretty much still half asleep.

Anyways, I wanted to talk about my day. We had 3 topped ranked school come over for college fair in PAS: UChicago, Rice and Vanderbilt. All of those school are prestigious and as they had explicitly stated, selective. I was really nice that they could come over and give us some background to the colleges. After attending a few college fairs, I'm starting to get a better understanding of the differences of each school, but each time, I would come back feeling that I learned something new. 

Later that day, I went with Alyson to an interview with University of Southern California in Taipei. (The traveling was very exhaustive and time-consumering, but we had good time nonetheless.) This was my first college interview and I was pretty nervous. Thankfully, it was a group interview, so I had a chance to listen to different point of views and get some time to think over my response. I thought it was a great experience. One thing I think I gained from the interveiw was that it got me thinking about some questions about myself and my goals in the future.

Ants Invasion

Just a few seconds ago, I almost drank from a cup with up to five dead ants floating in the water. I don't know whats up with the ants in my room recently. They have taken a special interest with my water these past few days. I have a bar of snickers on the table and they would pass chocolate for water (that drowns them)! I really don't like killing ants. It makes me feel like a murderer because I there are usually hundreds of them gathered together. If I want to get rid of them, I had to kill them all together. But these ants in my room are either extremely thirsty or suicidal. The chain of ants keeps coming. If I leave my cup down for five minutes, there would be two more dead ants drowned in my cup of water. Sometimes I would forget and almost gulp down some ants while I drank the water. I actually suspect that I did drink some of the drowned ants, which makes me not only an ant murderer, but also an ant-drinker. If the ants don't mind, I really do prefer not to have any extra ingredients added to my water; I am perfectly fine with drinking pure water. 

Time-Consuming

As I grow older and into my high school years, I began to understand and fully concur with the phrase "Time is money". ( I know I might come to an even more thorough feel of the phrase when I start working, but my belief in the phrase has increased drastically throughout the years.)  This long-established phrase has proven itself to be very true. Time is money, maybe even more valuable than money. There is a similar phrase in Chinese that further illustrates the importance of time. It goes something like this: an inch of time is like an bag of gold, yet you cannot buy time with a bag of gold. (I know this is badly translated.) It means that time is as valuable as gold, but you cannot get time back once it is gone. This further shows the fleeting character of time. 
As I have said earlier, the impact of ephemeral time had hit me the greatest in the past few years. As I elevated in high school, my sleeping time has decreased each year. Now, I often feel feel drowsy in the afternoons during school. I sometimes even zone out because of this lack of sleep. I really have to take actions to secure my sleeping time so I can focus in class.

Tennis in the Rain

It was drizzling the whole day today, so most of us tennis team members didn't think that we'd have to go to the tennis court. However, the tennis coach was especially insistent that we go play tennis today. He even had to call the bus driver, who apparently thought it was too wet for outdoor tennis today, to come pick us up. I am surprised by the tennis coach's determination, because he is usually the one that called all the overly enthusiastic boys to stop playing when there was rain. But today, things were different. He didn't tell us to stop when the rain started again when we played, so everyone continued. Today marked my first tennis match in the rain. I guess the rain wasn't too bad today, but I am still extremely thankful for the big jacket that I borrowed. Otherwise, it would be quite certain that I would catch a cold again. Still, I think I got a headache from the rain and wind (which is why I am wearing a winter hat as I type this blog). I think my head tends to get a headache more easily than most other people. Everyone else had no problem playing in the wind, but I had to quit midway, because of the headache. I am also the only tennis team member that has to wear a winter hat while I play tennis in the winter. Anyways, I hope my headache won't last!

SAT postponed.

After one whole month of hard work on the SAT, I decided to postpone it. The decision came rather intuitively for such a big decision as that. In the beginning of the week, I would never have dreamed of the idea of postponing the test, but on Tuesday after looking at the second full SAT practice test results, I had an uneasy feeling that might need more time. The second test would be my last chance, so I can't take any possibility of mistakes in the test. Then on Wednesday morning, Ms. Pamela called several of us to the office and offered the suggestion of postponing the test. Most people didn't like the idea very much. After all, we have practiced so hard for one whole month and are all worked up and ready for the test. I took the suggestion, which surprised many people, including myself. Yes, it is hard working on SAt problems everyday. It definitely is a lot of pressure, and to have the SAT over with (as most people would like) seemed great. However, I want to be able to do my best. So, I've decided n Wednesday morning that I am going to take the challenge. Another month of SAT prep and intense pressure, HERE I COME. (and please wish me the best of luck in my test next month!)