No parents

I feel like an orphan. My parents are both on business trips; my mommy is in Canada and my daddy is in China. I do hope my mommy brings back maple cookies and my daddy brings back panda chocolates :D Then I can feel so much better about missing them hehe.

Placement test for AP Chinese was today, it was simple enough but I don't want to jinx it. I really do hope I get in AP Chinese, even if it means 4 hour classes on Sundays. I must pass!! Any score lower than a 5 on the AP test is considered Asian Fail for a Chinese person.

OMG you have to watch the Grey's Anatomy season finale!

Oh, and I love this music video (Paparazzi, by Lady Gaga). I am beginning to love Lady Gaga as well, she is really gonna be infamous one day.

End of the year introduction

Today was Kayjing's last day at MTW before she goes to MSJA. She was our young prodigy because she was crazy fast and not only that, she was one of my closest friends on the team. And I bet the next time I see her, she will be insanely buff and faster than ever. Nonetheless, I will miss her greatly and am very proud of her. MSJA practices are intense, people throwing up on deck is apparently quite common. On that note, I wish her good luck and a healthy stomach, haha.

I feel like writing an about me, like I did back when I was addicted to myspace. Everyone knows now that Facebook > Myspace duuh! :)

I notice the little things and often forget to see the big picture. I would much rather walk barefoot everywhere. I love my brother, swimming, and food more than anything else in the world. On a less intense note, I like gmail, jumpshots, science, and organized binders. I hate slow computers, ants, trashy girls, and waiting in line. I love knowledge but I don't especially like the process of learning. I get nervous and embarrassed too easily. I love risks and thrills, within certain limits. I am a hypocrite and you probably are too. Motivated, ambitious, priorities straight, what's important to you?

End of the yeeeeear is almost heeeeere! 9 days left (now a single digit number). Countdown to summer: 23 days!

Satisfaction

MVP!!! :D And suddenly, everything was worth it. Just for that trophy. The friends I couldn't hang out with because of practice, the events I missed, the all-day all-night whole body pain, the after-practice fatigue and exhaustion, Pagan punishments, morning practices before school, the stupid 500's, sunburns, dry skin, tanlines, EVERYTHING... because it got me this far. And I am happy happy happy :)

Also, "Most likely to be on Ripley's Believe It Or Not for her tanline" hahaha. Dude I am gonna miss the seniors like craaaaazy! It's really hard to imagine a team with them gone. The WERE the team, the soul and essence of it. And with them leaving, its like the energy and life is just being sucked out. A bit dramatic I guess, but very hard to deal with.

But on the bright side, Coach Pagan said we ARE gonna have a swim team next year, we just need to find a pool to practice in. So our future as a team is safe! And now the seniors can visit us whenever they want (if they want... lol)

^ Yay, a CCS team picture with Coach! Why the hell am I the shortest?!

"People always leave"

In a lot of ways, I think I am cold-blooded, cruel, mean, heartless. But in a lot of other ways, I think I am sticking up for myself and for my heart. Maybe I am just throwing back the world what the world threw at me in the first place. I need SOME kind of a defense right? Defense from being let down, from disappointment, from false promises. I wish I had a stronger wall to weather all of that. Actually, a part of that barrier was built up roughly 2 years ago as a result of a huge learning experience (the way I see it now). Being displaced at a faster rate than I thought is rather difficult. But maybe it’s just another chance for me to grow up and to realize that I can’t depend on anyone except myself. "People always leave," right? It no longer sounds like a depressing and emo line from One Tree Hill. In many ways, it’s reality. People leave, for different reasons, lying about different excuses, going down different paths... but in the end, they are still gone. I have always been independent, no doubt about it. I hate being dependent or clingy, and it bothers me when someone is so dependent or clingy on another person. It annoys me and kinda makes me want to scream at them. After all, it’s just another sign of weakness. I really wish I could respect you more, I think it’s all your fault things are the way they are. But I can’t, because we are such opposites. Maybe not in appearance or words, but definitely in outlook and attitude. But then again, I think I am too hard on people and maybe I am too ignorant to realize it. I think I am too hard on myself and maybe I am too busy to stop and think about it. I think I changed too much but maybe I just never realized what I realize now, maybe the problem was always there and I finally see it. I think this change makes me happy in some ways but disappointed in other ways. I think I need to stop thinking about the big picture and maybe I should focus on the little things in life. But then again... that’s pretty much the major change in me. I have realized there is a future, but a limited future to those who work hard enough. Therefore, I must do everything I can to guarantee I grow up to be successful. Everything else just seems so trivial to me now. And maybe that is not a good thing at all. But maybe, when I am 70 years old and looking back on my high school years, I will laugh about how stupid all those high school matters were. Laughing all the way to my grave about how I could possibly even consider wasting my time on something so stupid and unimportant when I could be focusing on something that will stay with me for a lifetime, my education. Because, in the end, people always leave. They leave behind a trail of disappointment, regret, frustration, and confusion. It’s always a matter of time before someone is nothing but a faint memory.

Don’t get me wrong, I am thankful for everything I have. I really am. But sometimes, my small problems seem to really paralyze my brain and get me into thinking that they are bigger than they actually are. Only this time, it’s more recurrent than usual and less sporadical.

Long weekend, short temper

A craaaazy ass weekend. One that makes you tired but happy and thankful for everything you have. I wish I had more pictures though.

Friday: bruises all over from brutal games of animal ball, tanning, schmear, cannonball competitions, racist jokes.




Saturday: Kelvin's surprise party at Jason's, Zach's cupcake video=instant LOL, possibly poisoning from my stupid dare, guy-on-guy action/foreplay, drove to 3 different parks that all had families in it, ended up at Pomeroy playground, Monkey boy on monkey bars, hand calluses.



Sunday: Tram's birthday, XXI hot pink bag, red mango froyo, new shirts & bag, Cheesecake Factory, Disney Channel.

I don't know why my mom has such a short temper lately, but she takes it out on my and my brother. She is so naggy when she is moody! She won't even let me go to someone's birthday or do anything! It takes too much time and energy to reason with her. She pretty much wants me trapped at home being the perfect asian child. Well fuck that, I'm not. Ugh, she makes me so frustrated!! I wake up, expecting a relaxing weekend, but apparently, that is such a stupid and horrible thing to expect. The little things I do wrong, the big things I do wrong; what in the world do I do right then?! She really needs to calm down, stop yelling, stop worrying, stop nagging, stop hovering over my life, and stop ruining people's good moods.

*It's funny just how much you sound like me a few years back. A person doesn't change. It took me a while to learn that lesson.

New moon

Tram sent me the New Moon movie poster. The movie releases in exactly 6 months! Team Edward/Robert Pattinson<3

Whether I like it or not, test grades can really make or break my day. Everyone tells me I need to stop being so serious, but I can't help it. There are times to be silly and times to be serious and for me, school is where I really need to step it up. I bombed a Chem test pretty badly. I thought it was relatively okay but I ended up getting one of my lowest grades. This Redox chapter is even harder, I must focus!

Drama with Vincent and Amy, but they are back together now. I swear, they are one of the cutest couples I know. And even though they are incredibly young, they have been through so much... I am glad you guys are back together :) It really saddens me to see both of you guys so depressed.

Losing hope with you, but I want to stay.

I voted

Election poll working was BOOORING as hell! 15 hours!! Of just sitting there doing nothing. I even read ahead in Chem notes, something I never do! But the other student officer, Sophia Lam, is mean and weird. Hooray, we have those things in common! Turns out she is a friend of a friend, what a small world.

Mommy and me lunch today... I may not show it, but I am extremely grateful for a Mommy like you :)

Almost 4 days of class work to make up. Thursday = gone all day, Friday = gone 4th-6th, Monday = gone 1st-3rd, Tuesday = gone all day. Haha, at least they even out.

F-troupe

I found the website of a pair of shoes that I have been wanting for quite a while now... but I can't find the place that sells it. I really like it, it's both unique and cute. It was even on a Teen Vogue spread twice! The first time I saw it, I let myself forget it but the second time, I told myself I had to have it. Oh well, it's for the best anyways I guess. No money anymore, swimming stuff (gifts, CCS shirt, team jacket, team suit) has really been draining my wallet.

My 3rd period teacher was a being a beezy today. He caught me in another class when I was supposedly excused from his class and said he was gonna report us to admin. What the hell! AP testing is over, calm down.

I received the candle of... enlightenment? wisdom? authority? (I have no clue, but it was a real lighted candle) during Science Olympiad. Ivy is stepping down as captain and I am supposedly gonna be her protégé (The accents make the word look cool hehe). The thought scares me out of my mind, I have a huge ass pair of shoes to fill. Another load of pressure, BAM. But... another chance to fail? or another chance to succeed? Let's be positive :)

On the brightside, physics this summer at Mission is confirmed! Now I just gotta work out the 4-way carpooling schedule (I <3 carpool lanes) and hopefully physics online at Deanza. Still undecided about SCSC though, can I really deal with all that intense practice?! MTW practice today made me sore! I'm not used to all that weight-lifting and streamline kicking. Yeah, Pagan is to blame for that. Jamie seems okay as a coach though, I am kinda relieved Alex isn't coaching us. He was too much of a pushover. She is demanding, like a real coach.

My taste in music seems to be changing very rapidly lately.

Liberation, to an extent

AP World History testing on Thursday, May 14:
- My first AP test... ever. And probably the beginning of more to come.
- World history test was easier than I thought, but I had to do some insane studying.
- Test period was boring as hell, a lot of personal information had to be bubbled in. Waste of an hour, doing basically nothing.
- 3 essays within a time period of 2 hours! Finished in time, phew.
- I had Diana's Chinese dynasties song stuck in my head the whole time! Wanna hear? I can sing it to you if you need help remembering the dynasties :D

Shang Zhou Qin Han, Shang Zhou Qin Han,
Sui Tang Song, Sui Tang Song,
Yuan Ming Qing Republic, Yuan Ming Qing Republic,
Mao Ze Dong, DENG! Mao Ze Dong, DENG!

CCS on Friday, May 15:
- My first CCS ever too. And who knows, hopefully more to come.
- Subway during 4th period with Ronald, Thi, Gideon, and Brian to get some healthy lunch into my system.
- Afterwards, the CCS kids (Me, Kevin, Kelvin, Tung, Gideon, Zach, Vincent) skipped 5th and 6th period to get to George Haines International Swim Center early. Hung out at the nearby library and played 10 fingers, then Truth or Dare. Learned some very surprising (and pretty nasty) things about those guys, but you gotta give them props for their honesty. I won't judge or love these boys any less, haha! It sucked being the only girl too, targeting people isn't fair!
- When we realized we could not avoid Pagan any longer, we went to get our deck passes (it feels so cool and official-like to flash a deck pass to the guy at the gate!) and CCS t-shirts.
- First reaction: OH MY GOSH everyone at CCS is freakin' HUGE!!! And WHITE! Barely any asians. I swear, I did not look very tall there and in terms of muscles, I had none. Even Gideon looked like he was average height compared to them, haha. Everyone had body-length fastskins too while I looked pretty dumb wearing a normal suit. I was nervous as hell and felt like I was about to throw up. I seriously contemplated hiding in the library until it was all over.
- Surprisingly, Coach was really supportive and I think that really helped me calm down a little. He was telling me all these little bits of technique I had to remember, then suddenly, "OH YEAH, and don't forget to have fun! And breathe." Afterwards, "Good job. You had a great season, most definitely." WTF who is this man?!?! He used to say, "Breathing is overrated!"
- My 100 back time was 1:06.18, the EXACT same time (even the milliseconds) as the time I got at League Finals. Kinda disappointed, but it's whatever. At least I didn't get last.
- Saw Michael Ngo, who I haven't seen in 4 years and now has CRAZY muscles and is super fast! Also saw Mr. Miyagi and his Olympic-qualifying buddies in their 400 relay. Seriously, his friends qualified for the real Olympics! Probably my last time seeing him, as he is about to graduate. How I will miss him...
- Went to dinner at Pasta Pomodoro. More exposing of secrets and discussions of how we might do SCSC this summer instead of MTW.

*Happy birthday again! Only 2 years of having almost every class period with you, and look how far we have gotten. I call you lots of things but it's all out of love and respect. You already know! So fuck you<3 Haha! When is that dinner that you did not invite me to? (;

AP Testing and CCS is over. Possibly the most stressful week of sophomore year is over. Finally time to get some real sleep in. After all of this, I kinda feel like I can take on the world.

In one breath

I have TONS of pictures to upload here, TONS of things to say to people, TONS of memories to jot down, TONS of feelings to express. This week = extremely stressful!

League Trials
- Qualified for 100 Back, 500 Free, 400 Free relay, and 200 medley relay (I wish I could have done more, but max. is 4 events)
- Volunteer timing at Boys trials. Sunglasses come in handy, hehe.
- Mr. Miyagi, daaaaamn. You got all the girls hooked! Too bad you have a girlfriend... how depressing ):

League Finals
- 2nd place in 100 Back! (but no PR, 1:06.18)
- 8th place in 500 Free (but no PR, 6:08)
- 30 second split in 50 back for relay (my PR!)
- 59 in 100 free!!! (my PR!) Woohoo, Junior Olympics time too :D
- Kelvin and Zach's pole dancing while counting for MY event, hahaha.
- Vincent's creepy face and announcer voice makes me laugh every single time, YOU are a funny boy.
- Insanely fast and tall superhuman (Nick Trowbridge) with a 50 in 100 back, HOLY &@#$!

Pictures from Finals and Trials:















Red Robin's
- Time to gain back all the fat we lost from hard practices!
- Kelvin's lap dancing for $1 (see video on Facebook, hahaha)
- Gideon eating everyone's leftovers (his own burger, plus half of 3 other people's burgers!) I don't know how he does it...
- An and his prom date (: A+G prom pictures, haha!
- Helium balloons! This is so much fun, this is so much fun!







Mother's Day
- My favorite person in the whole wide world! (Along with my brother and my daddy)
- Red iPod nano! She loved it (:

Wild turkey/chicks
- They hatched! But they lost their mommy, apparently she got attacked by some animal so she couldn't protect them and they scattered. My dad found 5 turkey chicks and 1 chicken chick (our experiment, putting a chicken egg in a turkey nest! haha) and we are now raising them in a box.
- They chirp a lot, I think they miss their mommy. But the sad thing is, we can't find a wild animal. That is just impossible.
- Wild animals grow a whole lot faster than domestic ones... interesting. They are a barely a week old and all their feathers on their wings have grown out. Hello there evolution.


Random
- I passed the written portion of CM testing for piano! 1 more level to go until Advanced (level 10)!
- My brother has a fever, I feel so helpless when he is sickly and weak. But don't worry, the doctor said its not swine flu.
- Practice this week is pretty painful, but very short. And I am the only girl stuck with 6 other guys in one pool. CCS IS IN 3 DAYS, omg omg omg fuck fuck fuck.

For YOU
- And like always, please do not ask me about these or try to guess who it is. Most likely, you will be wrong.
1. Yes, I noticed. But as I have said before, there is no point putting in effort if I don't see any in return. Lost some, gained some.
2. Why do you have to be here? It was fine not seeing you around, until now. Makes me feel like everything I do is awkward.
3. Shoot, I think I might like you. But if I admit it, it's kinda like I am trampling over a major friendship.
4. We have always been good friends, but I think a little too close and too clingy for comfort.
5. It surprises me that I look forward to seeing you everyday.
6. Thanks for putting up with me (and your welcome for putting up with you! lol!), but why the fuck does your birthday have to be in one of the most stressful weeks of sophomore year?!?!


Back to AP World studying... (Countdown: 2 DAYS!!!) I have an okay feeling about the test, but I am extremely nervous still. Wish me luck!

End of an era

Last day of practice. It's not even bittersweet, it's just totally bitter ): The beloved seniors... they make up half the team! And they are pretty much most of the team in the area of SPIRIT. All 3 varsity team captains will be gone! We will be so lost. At least practice today was fun. Overall, we had an easy practice today cause of League trials tomorrow. Pagan (our coach) actually jumped into the pool for the first time in years and beat Loomis (JV coach) in 25 free, heheh. Afterwards, we did whale dives (the video above) and more dives/flips/flops off the diving board. But the whole time, everyone had a sense of THE END... it was quite depressing to think about.


The red iPod nano I bought for my mommy had arrived! The red is so puuurty, just like her blackberry that she loves. The poor lady had hers stolen at the gym. But shhh, don't tell her! Mother's Day Surprise (: She actually believed me when I said I had no money to buy her anything, that silly lady, teehee.

1. Maybe ignorance wasn't such a good idea, but tough walls are hard to tear down. Built tough to last long, as a matter of fact.
2. We didn't get as close as I had hoped, but it's a start. We've got plenty of time.
3. Oh I love you guys, so funnaaaaay. Yat yi sam sei CHAI DUCK EYE!
4. Ew ew ew not interested, go away.
5. Hi there, how you been? I wish I could say that to you in person...

1st 6 weeks of last 12 weeks

^ Confusing, no? (;

A <--PE (yay for rugball! yay for osbourne!)
A <--Honors Chemistry (barely... 93.01%. the tests kill me.)
A- <--AP World History (a stupid, useless class)
A <--Precalculus (almost complete flexibility on homework haha)
A- <--English IIA (0.4% away from a solid A, damn)
A <--French II (only half participation points cause of swimming)

Another 6 weeks and sophomore year will be overrrrrr! Almost halfway through high school, hello junior year!

Corsages and peonies

I got home yesterday to discover a dozen or so beautiful couples in my front yard. Turns out, I had forgotten that I let the seniors take pictures at my house for their senior ball! Hahaha, told you my memory is bad. Anyways, they were totally nice about not intruding on my family and they weren't strangers or anything cause I knew most of them. I got a picture too but it looked weird cause I wasn't dressed up. Our senior ball is in exactly 2 years!

So anyways, my family drove deep, deep into the hills today to find this supposedly magical peony farm. My parents love peonies cause they were the flowers of the royal Chinese family thousands of years ago. Actually, scratch that; all Chinese parents will instantly recall stories about the flower, even I have heard stories from my grandparents. It's actually a very beautiful flower, more so than roses. The lady (after hearing stories about this asian flower, I was surprised to discover that the lady who sells them isn't asian, she is white) that sells it has like hundreds of varieties she imports from China with her very own importation license (I didn't know that a flower importation license existed). Her husband raises 16 llamas that just lounge around and eat hay, he told me he used to raise 42! How cool would that be... to be able to say, "Hey guys, guess what? I live 30 minutes away from civilization, deep in the hills. Also, I raise llamas and my wife sells Chinese flowers. What do you do?" Haha! Below is a picture (not taken by me) of a peony called Caroline Mather. Ain't she pretty? :)

Materialistic

I got a new queen-sized bed, finally! It was a Christmas present my parents promised to me when I said my bed was too small, then I changed my mind when I realized I would be leaving for college in 2 years anyway, then a week ago, they convinced me to get it cause it was like 70% off and SUPER COMFORTABLE. I really could have fallen asleep in the middle of Sears in Newark. I am so excited to starting dreaming in it! (Hopefully it will be set up by tomorrow night)

I am considering getting an iTouch, with my own $$. The Apps are so awesome and I absolutely love anything touchscreen. But mostly for the reason that my mom lost her nano (actually, she left it at the gym and the guy who said he found it ended up denying its existence, STUUUUPID!) and doesn't want to buy a new one, so I am giving her mine. I am possibly even considering an iPhone to replace my LG Shine that I am beginning to hate. I use the internet on my phone almost daily but it's so damn slow. And texting too, ugh.

Other than that, TGIF definitely. My eyes were fluttering in every class (especially 6th with Mollot!) from sleep deprivation. I desperately need sleep. But... life goes on. No sleeping in tomorrow, gotta wake up early to get those 8 hours of community service time.

I swear, my memory is getting worse and worse.