Kaoshung Trip

     Today is the last day of the three days Kaoshung family trip. My mother, my brother, and I went to a town called Mei-Nung today and made our own umbrellas. Mei-Nung is famous for the paper umbrellas, and there are various kinds of drawings on each umbrella. After finish making the umbrellas, we went downstairs and shopped for a while. We bought one pretty umbrella, and my brother and I decided that we can take it to Canada. It must be really cool when seeing such traditional stuff in a foreign country. I also got to see many kinds of toys that I played when I was two or three years old, which I seldom see nowadays. This trip is really fun because I not only got to go to the amusement park, but also had a chance to learn how to make my unique umbrella. Moreover, Kaoshung’s weather is always sunny and people are passionate, which make me want to move and live there.

PD Day

  Today is PD day, which usually should be day-off for students, but I still go to school to take the AP Calculus AB practice exam. I didn’t really prepare for the exam, thus I think it’s pretty difficult. Moreover, I think that I wouldn’t get a good score on this exam even though I already tried my best. After around three and a half hour of torturing, I finally got back home. Originally, I planned to stay at school and do some homework. However, I think that I really needed to relax after the long test. As for result, me and my family went to the movie theater and watched “I am Number Four” at night. There are lots of fighting scenes that contain supernatural powers in the film, so I think it’s really cool. After watching the movie, I have only one thought, which is this film is just like the combination of both Superman and Transformers. The whole movie is pretty exciting, and I bet one would never fall asleep. I really recommend people to go watch this thrilling movie as soon as possible; it’s pretty good.

Is this true?

     Today me and my family spent the whole afternoon did the most unbelievable thing, which was preparing for my prom dress. I haven’t worn any kind of dress since I was three years old, and it’s hard for me to imagine that I’m going to wear one in a month. Mom brought me to the wedding store and I tried many different kinds of dresses. Whenever I stood in front of the mirror, seeing myself dressed up like that, it felt so weird, so awkward, and so unfamiliar. The whole afternoon my business was just finding a dress that would fit me, and I finally got one. An exciting news was that I could wear sneakers rather than high heels on that day since the dress is long enough to cover up my shoes. I really don’t know how am I supposed to face everyone when wearing a dress; I wish time could fly faster that day so I will feel less embarrassed.

Almost Blind

     Today when I wake up, the first thing I feel is that my eyes are extremely sore, and I guess that’s because I only sleep for three hours and with lights all on. I could hardly stay awake during each class period, and I easily fall asleep within two minutes. In the afternoon, I stay after school for SPIMUN, and my energy has reached its limit. I couldn’t count how many times my eyes closed, how long I fell asleep, and how many materials I missed. I really do hope that I can stay awake, however, I try my best and I failed. My eyes are so sore that water soon come running down from them as I close my eyes. This uncomfortable feeling makes me think that I'm going to be blind if my eyes were open for one more second. Sleeping in class publicly and showing disrespect to teacher are the least things I want to do. I only have one homework for tomorrow, and I can finally go to bed early today.

Not my Day

   Today isn’t a smooth day for me. In the morning, I feel annoyed by the notion that I might have to wear dress on prom. I haven’t worn dress since three or four years old, and I know I would feel extremely uncomfortable. I really do hope that I can wear suit rather than dress, and I don’t know why this is forbidden since both suit and dress are formal clothing. The idea of wearing dress only lessens my will for going to the prom. In the afternoon during the basketball practice, I’m not able to shoot in points. There are lots of chances that I’m right beside the hoop where they are great shooting places, somehow I just couldn’t get the ball in. I’m surprised about this and feel depressed. How is it possible that I let so many chances to pass away? What am I doing? Mr. Li tells me that I have missed too many practices, which is the reason he didn’t put me as one of the first five players on the game because I’m too instable. I feel sorry for my teammates today that we should have earned more points if I focus more.

A Mess

        Today, the whole school is in a mess during club time because there is basketball game going on, guest speaker for musical production coming, and students don’t know whether they should go to their new clubs or old ones. I’m in the yearbook club, and only three people show up today because others are in the musical meeting. Others are those who are responsible for the layout part, but their all gone, and Ms. Mei-Ling is worried because she has no one to talk to for keeping track where we’re at. In addition, the cheerleading club doesn’t have practices today because most of the cheerleaders also participate in musical production. I think the school should manage a time when most of the people can attend as many activities as they want.

Reversing ZZZ

   Today is Antony’s birthday, and he held a party yesterday. The party started from Saturday, and ended in Sunday. In addition, we didn’t have much sleep for whole night because most people were having pretty much fun and didn’t feel a sense of tiredness. The time that we start sleeping is around 6:00 o’clock in the morning, which should be the wake up time rather than sleeping time. Again, we stay over at Antony’s house, just like last time when celebrating New Year’s Eve. Staying up all night makes my eyes feel extremely sore, which is uncomfortable. However, I feel a lot better when waking up at noon. This kind of life-play hard at night, sleep lot in the morning, is exciting when experiencing for first few times. But it can’t definitely be done too often, or else people would get sick and tired of it. Although the sleeping time is reversed today, I’m still glad to be able to celebrate the birthday party with friends.

Grill!!

    Today my dinner is special-grilling food. There is a new grilling shop at the China-Da night market, so I join with Allen, Mindy, Sylvia, Antony, and Claire to go try out the new restaurant. While choosing food to be grilled, my hands couldn’t stop because my eyes shine as I see food, and I become a greedy person. When other people see this, they’re all shocked because my basket is already full and I’m putting more food inside. In the end, I have 15 grilling, which is the most amount and the most expensive. There is no vegetable in my choice, only meat, which is pretty unhealthy. In addition, the meat quality is overall good and delicious. While waiting other people’s grilling to be done, I finish my pack when standing outside of the restaurant talking to others, which makes me feel so full.

Frankenstein

   Today I watch the film “Frankenstein” from 1994. Originally, I thought it would be boring, but I think it’s the most enjoyable one of the five movies after watching it. For many years, I have been thinking that Frankenstein is the weird looking guy. Until today, I finally realize that Frankenstein is actually the scientist who has great ambition of trying to bring death people back to their lives. To me, I don’t think that Frankenstein is a horror movie; it’s pretty touching and melancholy rather. Although Frankenstein’s motivation is really good, it’s far beyond his capability. Also, I think it’s irresponsible of him to just leave his experimental product alone after he creates it. I like the film pretty much because there are lots of epics, which rouse my interest constantly. In addition, I learn from the film that people shouldn’t set goals that are too unreachable, or else it would have sad or unhappy results.

Winter Dance

   Today is the last day of school, and also the Winter Dance. This year, I’m a waiter, so I have to dress all black. I decide to be a waiter this year because I found out it was boring when I came to the dance last year because I didn’t know how to dance. In addition, I was even washing the cups at the back, which I found more interesting. This year, I think it’s pretty fun to be waiters because we can mix different kinds of drinks with various colors of syrups by using the shaking cups and come up with specials. At first, I don’t know which drink should mix together with which syrup, and Julie teaches me. After several try outs, I become more familiar and use my creativity to create new products. I really feel like I’m a bartender, and people say I can work at night club as a second job. When everyone rushes to the table ordering drinks, it’s a time challenging us how fast can we make one drink. We have to make tasteful drinks fast so that customers wouldn’t be irritated. Almost everyone orders Julie’s Special, which is really delicious.

    Although I didn’t dance much this year, I still think this year’s winter dance is greater than that of last year. When I go down to the dance floor during fast songs, people pull me in and tell me to dance, but I just don’t know how to. I just stand there and smile, which I think extinguishes people’s hyper emotion, and I feel kind of sorry to my friends. During slow songs, I get to dance, and it’s pretty memorable because it’s my first time. My feet are sore due to standing too long, but I think it’s worth it since the dance is so perfect.

Rush and Busy Day

    Today is a rush and busy day for me because I have basketball game, final exam, and Christmas performance. Right after the school ends at 11:10 pm, I run to the cafeteria and finish my lunch hurry because I have to take the AP European History make-up final exam. Although Mr. Jones will be in his classroom for whole day, I only have limited time to do the exam since I have to catch game with the last basketball game that starts at 1:00 pm. I couldn’t really focus while doing the exam because my heart is thinking about the game. When I finish the exam at 12:15 pm, I quickly head to Frank, who is going to drive me to the competition place, and I have a chance to sit in Ms. Sherry’s sports car.

    After I get to the location, I do some warm up, and the game against Peng Shi starts in 5 minutes. I am the first five players, but Mr. Li didn’t send me to the court because he wants me to do some more warm up. After several minutes, Mr. Li calls Wan Yi down, and I go up. However, I’m replaced again 2 minutes later because Mr. Li thinks I’m not ready yet. I want to play, I want to go on to the court, so I tell myself to wake up. For the rest of the periods, I stay on the court longer, which I’m satisfied. Another thing that I’m happy is that when we use the Typhoon strategy, which is two people defensing one person, I successfully force the other team to drop the ball. No matter how good a team is, they would always be nervous when facing Typhoon. Also, the final score is 12 to 23, and we finally get a non one-digit number. Today, I didn’t shoot in baskets as I did yesterday, and I have to work on that. In addition, I learn that lay-ups become extremely hard while on the court because I didn’t count the steps correctly thus not able to get the ball in. Mr. Li tells us that in the future that practice will change to a new direction: more physical training, more offense, and we have to play hard as we’re against our own teammates. I fell down on the court again, which I lose the ball, and I should that my arms be stronger so I can fight for it. After playing today’s game, there are lots of bruises coming out of nowhere on my body, and this is probably the first time I get so many injuries.

     When the game is done, we head back to school and prepare for the Christmas performance at night. I hear lots of parents say that this year’s show is much more better than that of last year, and the senior performance is a big success. Although there are some mistakes during the basketball dance: some people don’t get the ball and the floor is too slippery, I think everyone does a great job. The most interesting part is when Victoria imitates Ms. Pamela, and all the people say that she looks 100 percent like Ms. Pamela. After the teachers finish singing, all the PAS students go up to the stage, which is a surprise because we don’t know what to do on the stage, and sing songs. At that time, everyone is so organized, singing Christmas songs, making the movement, while having no rehearsals. This really amazes me. The whole show is excellent, but there’s one part that’s a pity, and it’s I don’t have any prizes. I really want to have one, but I guess I’m just not lucky enough. Tomorrow is the last day of school, and I have to rest since my body is so sore, so tired, and so painful.

No more sleeping in class

    After the third period ended today, I was excited because I survived through the whole AP European History class. The class time is after lunch, so I would always fall asleep around 12:30. In my heart, I knew that it’s bad to sleep in class because I would miss what Mr. Jones were talking about thus couldn’t write down the notes, which resulted in low grades on test. In addition, Mr. Jones is really a nice teacher, whom I also prefer his teaching method. In the class, we could not only listen to many interesting stories, but also acquire lots of knowledge. By not letting myself being so irresponsible, I decided to bring computer to class for note-taking rather than writing them down by hand. Surprisingly, I stayed awake for the whole class, and I even asked questions. From now on, I decided that I would bring my computer to class every time, so I could actually learn stuffs.

TV Day

      Today I am so lazy that I couldn’t believe how did I become like this. When I woke up around noon, the first thing I did was watching TV. I told myself to go do homework right after lunch, but I was still sitting on the couch and playing with the remote. Time flies faster when people are doing entertaining stuffs, so it was night when I opened my eyes again. I fell asleep while watching TV, and when I woke up it was dinner time. Although I kept telling my brain and was trying hard to pull myself out of the strong desire of watching TV, I just couldn’t get off the couch. Again, I watched for several more hours. There seemed like a magic power coming out from the TV that attracted me deeply; I’m just a TV person. When I realized that I had to finish my assignments for tomorrow, it was already late at night. I don’t know whether I can go to bed tonight; I just hope that I can be able to turn in everything on time tomorrow.

Indian Restaurant

     Today is the Professional Teacher Development day, so all students have a day off. At lunch, my mom brought me to a new restaurant that serves Indian food. The walls of the restaurant were painted with bright orange with green on the side, and they were playing Indian music. Indian food is famous for its curry, so we ordered curry-related food and tasted two different kinds of curry. One is spicier, and the other one is sweeter, which I prefer more. Also, we had baked pastry, which is another kind of Indian cuisine. Although this is my first time trying Indian food, I think it was pretty delicious. After the special lunch, we had a walk. Due to yesterday’s exciting games, my arms, my legs, even my butt were extremely sore that I had to move slowly so it would be less painful and tiring. Thus, I wasn’t able to walk for long distance, so we headed back home with only 10 minutes of walking.

Take a Walk

   Today after dinner, I went out with my parents to the Central Park and had a walk. Every night, my parents would go outside and walk for at least 30 minutes. I usually won’t go with them because of heavy load of homework, but I changed my mind today. The reason I chose to walk was I ate too much for lunch and dinner. The meals were extremely delicious: there was chicken, seafood soup, noodle, tofu, and vegetable. I rarely have such various kinds of food, so I couldn’t control myself from eating too much. Thus, we went to the park and walked for 5 circles, until my back was full of sweat. In order to have a healthy life, it’s important to exercise often, especially after big meals.

Translate

     Today is the second and last day of Parent Teacher Conference, and I help some parents to translate. Not all parents can speak English, so seniors volunteer to help translating so that the parents could understand what teachers are talking about. Although these parents have limited English ability, they still try hard to talk to the teachers in English, and I’m touched by this. This action shows that the parents really love their children, and the parents just want to give them the best.  

I think translating is like a time testing my English and Chinese ability and whether I could totally comprehend the message and deliver it clearly. Despite this, it’s actually pretty fun because I can hear what teachers say about the student.     For the first time translating, I think I’m a little bit nervous. However, I get more used to it and start doing a better job. Some teachers even say that I did well and recommend me to do translating as future career, which I can earn lots of money.

The Longest and the most Tiring Test

   Today, I have the longest and the most tiring test in International Relations class. The test is mainly about the book that we are reading recently, Stones into Schools by Greg Mortenson. Even though I miss some chapters in the book, I can still answer all questions because most of them are opinion ones. Although there are 16 questions only, there are follow ups, and all of them are short answers. There is no single multiple choice question on the test, which I find hard to believe. Mr. Wahlgren allows us to use the book and to have the whole period to test, but I’m still not able to finish on time. I spend about 2.5 hours and finally finish the test, and Mr. Wahlgren even jokes about that he can publish a book just with my answer. My hands are extremely sore after writing for 3 pages long answers.

First lunchbox

    Today is unusual because today is the first time that my mom makes me a lunchbox and directly delivers it to me. Also, I never stay after school on Monday, but the situation changes today. Whenever I stay after school, I always go out to the Chin-Da night market to eat. The night market isn’t a big one, so there aren’t lots of food choices. Thus, my mom decided to make special dinner for me every day since I get used to the food in the night market and the food is unhealthy. After I finish the basketball practice, I directly go to downstairs and get my dinner. Today, my dinner is fried noodles with lettuce and slices of meat. Although I don’t have much of it, I still appreciate this meal because it is very delicious and full of mom’s love.