Lessons of the Day

- Have high standards, don't settle for anything less than the best. We all deserve more than what we set ourselves up to be. Do not expect flaws to suddenly turn into perfection. Do not keep reassuring yourself that you are not worthy of something, because you are. I am.
- You are alone. Sure, we have best friends for certain things. But in reality, it's just you and the world. Don't depend on anyone, because it only gives them power. And placing too much love and dependence on a friend only gives her more power to hurt you. But complete independence is very hard to achieve, you learn from mistakes and being hurt along the way. And courage is a must, but I am far from being courageous.

Today, these just really hit home with me. & I think I should record my lessons of the day more often. I tend to forget and I am forced to relearn the same lessons.

I really wasn't looking forward to Halloween. I hate to say this, but candy doesn't have the same appeal with me and dressing up... not so much anymore. I wish I could love Halloween cause I don't want to grow up. I don't want to be where I am. I want to feel the same way about things I used to love, kid things from not long ago. Instead, I'm turning into an old lady. I still went trick-or-treating but (& I hate to say this) it got boring after a while. Didn't feel like I was in the party mood or any kind of festive mood. Just tired, the usual tired. I'm always tired nowadays. I hope you guys had a Happy Halloween though. Maybe next year for me.

^ Buy Sees candy from me! It's for Camp Everytown.

On the block

You know, I think it's time I dove headfirst. Jumping is fine, entering feet first is even better. But diving? Oh my gosh, it is just plain scary. I love taking risks, physically. I love heights and roller coasters. Adventure sports totally turn me on. But it's not that kind of risk. It's the emotional risks that are the ones I worry about. You would think it's the other way around cause a physical risk could mean death, while emotional only would mean, well... sadness. But not for me. Fearless in one sense, but completely fearful in another.

The perfect metaphor is swimming. Before a race, I know exactly how I am planning to enter the water. Arms in streamline, legs together & straight, head down, body in a perfect line, and a beautiful jump for plenty of height and distance. That's how I want my dive to be. That's what I tell myself what I am going to do. And I assure myself: remember it, no mistakes, you got this. & I am not nervous but at peace with the fact that everything will work out. So I step on the block cautiously, (obviously as to not fall onto the concrete pool deck) and I do a quick run through in my mind. I know what I want, down to the last detail. Every movement has been repeated in my head more than enough times. "Take you mark, BEEEP." & what happens next? My mind clears, everything gone. In the air, I suddenly feel everything just slip out. Streamline? Yes. Head down? Yes. Legs together? Almost. Beautiful jump? Not really, but close. Not everything went as planned. & that is exactly what I am afraid of. Entering a situation with a clear mindset and plan outlined, but in the spur of the moment, it all disappears. & I think to myself, how could I be so stupid? Perfect plan = perfect actions, right? Then how could I mess up so badly when I wasn't even supposed to in the first place? How could I plan every detail, but manage to leave out the part where I mess up? How could I forget something so important? How could I have so many regrets?

Come to think of it, maybe I just gotta remember to keep swimming. Maybe I need to keep reassuring myself, I have to give it what I got but sometimes, it just doesn't work. Maybe beautiful plans don't happen all the time. Maybe it won't affect me all that much. Maybe it's just a dive, there has got to be more opportunities. In fact, I have the whole race ahead of me. Maybe I can recover, enough to not only finish but to win. & maybe, being on the block isn't all that scary after all.

Proposition

NO on Prop. 4 and 8. I believe both deny people the right to choose, which is our most important right as citizens of a free country. Whether to CHOOSE if you want to tell you parents about your abortion, or CHOOSE to have a gay wedding, I fully support the right to not only equality, but the choice. & I received my Obama pin today in the mail, maybe I should start using my backpack more so I can pin it on. I did mail-in voting for both of my parents! Yaay! Did my research, connected the arrow, and mailed both in. I feel so accomplished, no kidding.

I pulled my calf muscle today... I had to bite my lip to keep from screaming. Like Eddie would say, I "look like a tard" limping around. Chinese medicine has been applied! So hopefully it will be better by 1st period rugball tomorrow.

Clarity

I don't exactly know what that was about, down there. Woke up with a bad mood, I guess. I'm better now. Distractions worked. Imeem playlist on repeat, I feel cured.

No fright fest for me. Ashley isn't going either. Everyone else has their friends, and I will just be like the millionth wheel. Maybe next year (: On the bright side, my mommy is bringing home pizza for dinner.

Thanks Ashley & thanks Victoria. For our conversations today. Exactly what I needed.

Cycles

Why am I human? I don't deserve to be one & I definitely don't want to be one. Feelings, emotions, all bullshit. Makes life complicated, life never used to be this complicated. Life wasn't a word that used to bring up so many feelings. But it's inevitable, life is. You don't think what you want your mind to think. Don't know how to control. My brain doesn't even listen to my beating heart. Sometimes I just want to feel numb, even for a split second, just to know I can escape. I want to get out of this time period, get out of this place. Past teenage years, rise above, gain wisdom & perspective. Cause right now I have none of that. No wisdom, no perspective. But instead have emotions, but where the hell does that get me? I want to know things will be alright, fuck uncertainty. Everything is too hard. Why is everything hard? I want to experience new things. I want to go to college, go on to my life. I'm stuck in high school. Same old people, same old loneliness. Loneliness, what a sad word. Fight or flight response, I pick flight. No energy left to fight, no point. I never had anything to fight for anyways.

Sick of everything. Ungrateful? Yes, but don't you dare judge me.

I hate irony. So its grossly unfair how ironic everything is. This song is perfect.

Side note;

I just realized, my blogs are starting to get boring as hell. I do still have deeper things to blog about rather than how my day went, but I am starting to get shy again. Maybe I should have just kept my blogs on private. Reconsidering it.

FFF

Today was heeeectic. Figuring out weekend plans & shit. HSM3/Saw5 or Fright Fest tomorrow? No way am I gonna ask my mom to take me to both. I AM NOT STUPID, haha. So I chose Fright Fest, I really wanna go. For a few reasons: its only once a year, I get to use my season pass, & it sounds like the bomb!!! All the scary things Cecilia said just made me want to go even more. & Guess what? My mom actually said maybe! NO KIDDING! As long as I finish my homework (easy peasy!). Hopefully she doesn't bail on her word like Homecoming, but eh. At least I have a maybe :D Which is totally good enough for me. I can't wait! As for HSM3/Saw5, I can just watch that online or some other day. Heeeella people are gonna be at the theaters today anyways.

Wendy brought her camera to practice today, but we didn't even use it! I wanted to catch an action shot of my dive so I can fix it. It needs some fixing forsure. But we didn't have time, I was helping with the Spooktacular setup decorations. Conditioning was easy but I wish we played more volleyball. I brought my ball for practically nothing!

My room is a complete mess, can barely walk through it. Am I gonna clean it? No thanks, I wanna watch some TV for now.

Sweet

So yesterday I was all moody. No real reason, just one of those days. I would get annoyed really easily at the smallest things at school. But that's when I turned to my hobbies outside of school. Made me realize the real ME time is when I'm swimming and when I play piano; two things that I used to dread doing every single day. But now, a part of me realizes that its a time when I can really escape. I have a chance to clear my mind of the day and rid myself of anything else that is bothering me, at least for an hour or two. I love my swim team buddies, they can always manage to make me laugh & make a hard set a lot less hard. & I'm not afraid to look stupid in front of them, so I just give it my best and because of their support (& very useful criticism), I can accomplish things like how improved my dive!! & Piano... is still tedious. Especially earning new songs and trying to achieve some really complicated fingering. But there are a few songs that really calm me. Apologize (by One Republic) is the best. Mariage D'amour is another oldie-but-goodie. & Right Here Waiting is so simple but lovely. So today, I am thankful for receiving the opportunity to do what I love to do. & I am thankful for my parents for allowing me to pursue ANY (& pretty much EVERY) single hobby, even though I quit most of them. But I am very, very appreciative for having the choice & the chance. Just thinking about the recent car accident made me realize how lucky we ALL are.

Today was better. My pecs hurt, for like the first time ever. All because of Pushups + Butterfly drills. Tomorrow we are running for conditioning, yay! Reminder: Need to buy a new suit. Axcelbacks<3

I am getting worried about a friendship. Kindasortareally bothers me now. But I will remain silent, which I am getting better and better at.

Reaction

Sophomore planning stuff today, talked about the future & especially college stuff. Didn't really learn anything that my counselor/mom/books/friends haven't told me. I was rather surprised when that person decided that he/she wanted to go to medical school. Hm, very surprising. Honestly, I doubt it.

Nominated for Camp Everytown. Sounds like fun, I hope I can convince my mom to let me go. I should probably research the pros of going, just to be safe.

71% on my Quantum Mechanics test got me scared for my Honors Chem grade the whole day. Turns out it only lowered my grade 3% so I still have a B+. Yes! And my AP World grade went up to a B+! I guess its not such a bad day after all. B+ is not the end of the world, I guess.

Lately, I have been freaking out about my grades. B or lower on a test? Kills my entire day. People keep telling me to chill out, stop taking it so seriously, no big deal. But how can I not take it seriously?! Idk, I just do. I KNOW they are right, it's just hard to change my attitude about it. I'm not used to getting those grades so it's a big shock. Come to think of it, I blog about school too much.

Nothing to look forward to except my birthday, which is 2 months away. My Sweet 16! Me & Victoria are starting to plan things out, and we got a lot decided within like 5 minutes. Oh my gosh, I am so damn old.

Shanghai Nights

Blogging feels like a chore now, but I think it's important to keep track of things. So for the sake of my future, I will talk about my first dance of sophomore year, HOMECOMING!

BEFORE: HOMEWORK ALL DAY, finished all of Chinese and English except Chem Lab report. Met up at Ashley's house to get ready at like 6. Wore liquid liner for the first time! My mommy was like... next time I should get someone to teach you to put on make-up. Ouch. So anyways, Ashley, Cecilia, Vy, Victoria, Tram, and Lynn were there already. A mess of curled hair, people putting on dresses, make-up, & other girl stuff. Lynn did my hair, reminded me 8th grade promotion, and red nails by Vy. Tyler arrived first, kinda awkward cause we weren't really ready so he hid in the bathroom, lol! Almost had a big scare there cause I forgot my ID at home but I called my mommy to come and drop it off so it's all good. Rhodan came at almost the exact same time as my mommy, but I told him to pretend we don't know each other. It worked! So we all piled into the cars (2 of them), danced to the radio and practically screamed cause everyone was so excited haha. Got there, most of the sophomores were there already. First in line! Waiting: coat check, faint music from inside, group & couple pictures outside, DOORS OPENED, breathalyzers, empty dance floor.

DURING (PICTURES): First thing: PICTURES! I matched the background: gold & red. Me & Rhodan were like second in line for couples pictures cause we ruuuuushed there and filled out the form pretty fast. Didn't know what pose, so we asked photographer. Afterwards, "We should have researched our pose!" Haha! Group picture had like 40 heads but they said it was actually like 38. It was simple, just standing there with our partner. Then we took what Rhodan called the Asian Picture, with our Six Pack group + their dates and Courtney and Lynn. I really want pictures like NOW, but I'm worried how it will look. What if I blinked, ahhh! & NO, NOT CAUSE I'M ASIAN! Haha. But it's a really loooong ass wait for pictures to get printed, 2-3 damn weeks.

DURING (THE ACTUAL DANCE): The kinda lame songs and the constant nagging of NO BUMPING OR GRINDING got annoying. I'm glad they played Ms Officer though, me and Vy were humming that before the dance. Wee Ooh Wee Ooh Wee! :D They didnt turn on the lights this time like they did last year so I guess its an improvement. Hella freaking going on but the guys were like forming a human shield w/ their hands in the air so the teachers wouldn't see us. Drama with the asian mamas, but it's all good now. 3 or 4 slow songs, me & Rhodan always ended up next to Vivian & Gregory so we swayed with them. Dance ended at 10:30ish.

AFTER: 7 missed calls, 3 new voicemail, and 4 texts, all from my mom. UGH! Turns out she was waiting in the parking lot and said I needed to go home now. She promised me I could go to Denny's! But she was like, I didnt know it was gonna be this late. I FREAKIN TOLD HER IT WOULD BE TIL 12, at least! But whatever. After 15 minutes of arguing, there was no point. Said goodbyes & hugs only to Tram and Rhodan cause I was in a hurry, silent car ride, "Do you want me to make you something to eat? Since you really wanted to go to Denny's", got home, shower, set my alarm for 7:30 for Chinese school, then sleep.

.

Cannot talk in complete sentences, must finish! Update later, bye!

Cheerful

I like all this spirit stuff for our class. You gotta admit, our class is gooooood! Ms. Meyer even said, “Your class brought spirit back to MHS, finally.” Feels great to be a part of something bigger than us, and I keep having this feeling that when I look back to my high school experience years and years later, I will still feel a sense of pride for our class. We are winning! After all that we have done, a Trojan Olympics win will make it all pay off. (but let’s not get too cocky here, haha.)

Chem test tomorrow, + French homework & that’s it for today. I really wanna put off my math and history homework for the weekend b/c its due Monday, but I know I shouldn’t. I have too much to do this weekend. Ahh everything is piling up.

I am so damn sore, barely walking. No pain, no gain I guess. But how will I be able to dance at Homecoming?!

Stopping

I keep sneezing today, a lot. I think I'm coming down with some kind of sniffles.

Class color day tomorrow will be fun! Since our class color is purple, I get a feeling of excitement everytime I see someone wearing purple. I probably won't go to the carnival, just the game to play it safe with my momma. I have to sacrifice SOMETHING, cause it's too many activities in one weekend. Homecoming in 3 days!

Okay, enough distractions. According to my calculations, I will be done with homework in... 2 hours. But I am on AIM, so who knows.

Oh yeah, and stop avoiding me. Get over yourself.

You

Don't say I handled it badly, cause I didn't. I would be lying if i said that I tried my best, but you know what? I wasn't mean, I wasn't harsh. I went into the situation with my head straight, and it still is straight. Never faltered. Don't you dare accuse me of ignorance, when I wasn't even into it in the first place. I was forced into something but I made the best of it. You should too. Someone was bound to get hurt.

No tape

Suspenders gave me a constant wedgie. Long socks kept me warm during rugball. I don't like my rugball team. I forgot to give Victoria her camera to upload pictures. I wish there was a really good tasting Powerbar. I have a banana nut muffin that I bought at a gas station for Tram, just for fun. Me & Rhodan matched today. I just got a really weird text with a really weird picture. I can't think of a sentence for cognition. Grades were due today. My new Precal book is fucking huge, but hella easy. I have an 89% in Chem, ugh! La Vie en Rose is a sad movie. Marion Cotillard is pretty. I left my sweats in my locker. Can't wait for homecoming! I have homework in every class except PE. I have to practice piano later. Practice today was pointless, & very dangerous. 33.58! I'm excited for conditioning soon. I'm on Facebook. It's annoying when she talks like that. I should update my iPod. There are a lot of possibilities, now I see them. JSA meeting tomorrow, idk if i should go. I miss when my brother was just 2 years old. I dont really like being totally random, but I can't seem to connect all of these thoughts together into a organized blog. Bleh.

Hungry

Ramen & coke. Oh god, that is so horrible. I am too lazy to go to practice and I'm at home eating ramen and coke. I swear, I have no self-control whatsoever.

Anyways, yesterday was fun. Met new people (my friends' homecoming dates) and I finally got my dress. & then I went home and watched 27 dresses, which is such a meaningless and pointless movie but james marsden is really cute in it. Who would have known!

Regular precal is so easy!!! I love it! I said I'm sorry like a million times to Ms. Sherbakov, I hope shes not that disappointed in me anymore. But my new class is cool. Pretty much all juniors... Thi Van, Ronald Manuel, Bryan Ngo, etc. Well those are the people that I actually know. I think it will be a very interesting year :D

My mommy bought this new soy sauce. It's so yummy, I don't know how to describe it though. It's like soy sauce... but a fancy version of it. Not the kikkoman (sp?) one, which is alright. But this one is better! Totally makes me noodles so much yummier, and other things too. Oh the possiblities!

Here Comes the Flood

"Yes, horrible things do happen. Happiness in the face of all that, that's not the goal. Feeling horrible, and knowing that you're not gonna die from those feelings, that's the point." -- From Grey's Anatomy, one of the best shows ever.

So anyways, I'm not tired but I should be sleeping. I love catching up on TV episodes that I missed over the week, but my eyes are exhausted. Tomorrow: Chinese test, tennis lessons, then gmall & eastridge.

Goodnight!

"

I love looking for and reading quotes by famous people or even not-so-famous people. Good quotes are surprisingly hard to find; it must be hard to make simple words sound elegant when arranged in a sentence. & that's what a quote is: simple words combined to create a powerful or influential message. Here is one by Eleanor Roosevelt, an inspirational lady. It seems everything she says is memorable.

"One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility."

I actually have a lot of favorites, I'm just really bad at trying to remember them.

So the other day, Mrs. Mellera said something that I had a vague impression of hearing before. I probably did, but it stuck this time. "The only thing you learn from high school is how to find the answers." But I don't think that's true, because high school is way too short to teach you how to find answers. & isn't that what we all want? I want answers. I want a lot of answers. You want answers. We want answers. But answers... is what we won't get. Only questions. We will spend our entire life chasing answers that don't exist. What will I become? Will I be truly happy? Where will I go with my life? What happened to Amelia Earhart? (Haha, jk) But the only thing that comes with these questions, are more questions. Not answers, not even close to answers. My theory is that as I start finding little clues to these questions, I will understand a little more about the next question, and the next. & pretty soon, I will have a lot of clues that I have to spend my entire life stringing together. Not to create an answer, but to create another question. Does that make sense? Probably not.

Anyways, my mom is surprisingly bright today. She said it was because she finally took a nap. & now she is making me lunch. I miss my mommy's cooking. To me, its always comfort food. Today was Rhodan's birthday party but I was too scared to ask my mommy to go. Right now, I should be doing homework instead of sounding like a wannabe philosopher but... I don't know. I just had something to say.

1010

Tram, you're probably gonna read this cause you have nothing else to do. Or you got bored taking pictures of yourself, haha. But thanks for today, & i love you (=

I have decided, I'm gonna drop Honors Precal. I am so sure on that decision, that I am not gonna do my math homework for the weekend, because I will do whatever it takes to get out of that class and not return. (except senior year when I take AP stats) END OF STORY.

Today was Rhodan's 15th birthday. Makes me feel old, cause I'm already 15 and 10 months. It was so fun doing the clues! I think I should do that more often for my friends' birthdays. It just takes a lot of work and planning out beforehand, but I think everyone deserves knowing that someone spent time on their birthday present. & I am pretty sure everyone loves a good surprise (=

Weekend is heeeeere! My mom agreed to let me go shopping for my homecoming dress on sunday, for the plain and simple reason that I asked at a good time. Timing is key! But I do have to compromise and say that I won't buy anything. Which is not much of a compromise, cause I can just leave it at someones house until homecoming. Yeah, I guess I have much experience in this. Trynna learn to adapt and work around annoying obstacles, which you get better at if you have extremely asian parents. But still, there is always the risk of getting caught and that scares me to death sometimes. But hey, who doesn't have to take risks? Even life-threatening ones, haha.

My teeth still hurts!!! I'm still chewing my food on only one side of my mouth. I can't wait to get these nasties off my poor, crying teeth.

CHAI DUCK EYE, MICHELLE! ni feng le<3

C for CRAP!

Who the hell gets a fucking C+ as a six week grade? Oh wait, thats me. Fuck fuck FUCK. That is so bad bad bad!!! No kidding. I am reallyseriouslydefinitely considering switching to regular Precal. Oh my god, I don't know whats gonna happen when my mom finds out...

reality

I'm craving adventure. like... a safari adventure to somewhere far far away. africa would be cool. china is always fun. europe, most def. but the more i think about it, it's not like i can go now anyways. even if i got the offer to travel, i would *sigh, DECLINE, because i wouldn't want to miss any school. priorities suck. so instead, i will find happiness in the crazy jungle of high school. i guess that's exciting enough, for now.

when i turn 50, i will no longer have an address. i will be in any one of the 4 corners of the world and no one will be able to track me down. one minute here, next minute there. oh gosh, what a life (:

Enough

So last night kinda sucked. It started off okay though: the 4 of us walked from the sports center to safeway. Got some jamba juice, walked around Safeway, then walked over to the community center for the swim banquet. ATE, ATE, THEN ATE SOME MORE! Took some jumpshots outside with the sprinklers (*reminder, i need to teach kayjing how to take a jumpshot) and some still shots w/ the group. then went inside for the awards stuff. I didn't win anything, but then again only ONE person from the senior group won a trophy. But my mom gave me crap about it on our way home. How I don't work hard enough, how I don't swim fast enough, how I don't try my best. That fucking blew me up, cause I DO try my best. I AM one of the 2 fastest girl swimmers! And then she started insulting Coach Alex. UGH! I felt like crap right there. It took me a few hours later to realize I'm not someone that can be insulted that easily. I AM worth something. I have a date to Homecoming and I have 6 best friends. That thought made me feel better, NO ONE should be able to bring me down and I'm not gonna let it get to my head. I'm just gonna keep doing what I gotta do and see this situation as just a bug on a car window. So I mass-texted a few of my friends just to talk about life and school. Just getting my mind offa it can really help.

Homecoming update: He got our tickets for $12 before it went to $14 haha. We decided on the colors too, thanks Jonathan Quibuyen. Shopping next weekend! Oh my... 2 more weeks!

Yes

Part 1





Part 2



Guess what!? I'm going to homecoming w/ a date! :D Rhodan asked, even after all this time that I didn't think he was gonna. But yeah, I love love love how he asked. Hella clever & creative. So at brunch, I found these things in my locker: A picture of Will Smith (WILL), a letter U (YOU), a green stoplight (GO), a long math equation w/ the answer as 2 (TO), and a house with the word coming at the end (HOMECOMING). I spent 3rd and 4th trynna figure out who it was and finally at lunch, I get a heart with numbers on it. Six pack +Tram helped me solve it, and it said WITH RHODAN MUYOT. So yeah, I'm happy now (:

Swimming supposedly starts today, but I can't go. No ride. I really wanna get back in shape too, and lose the fat that develops as a result of me not exercising. My momma warned me that since I have been exercising (swimming for 2 hours) everyday since I was 8, I have to continue that trend into my adult years cause my body isn't used to not exercising. I like swimming... but that's a long time! Oh well, healthy habits. Haha look! --> “Backstroke, breaststroke, stroke of GENIUS!” -- from MoneyMaker, by Ludacris.

Let me elaborate on my last post, which I didn't finish. So my daddy is home from China/Canada! Finally. Mixed feelings, cause I missed him a lot. But since he is back, I have two pairs of eyes watching me and double the supervision. Yeah, the selfish side of me is coming out. I am glad he is back, honestly! I am. My daddy is the coolest (: We were talking for like... an hour about the current economic crisis and the presidential debate that was on TV. I hope he was impressed by how much I grew up since he was gone. I think in my entire life, I did the most growing within this period of the last month. I just hope he is proud of me.