E is for Effort

Day 30 :: Triple Challenge!

2010-07-31T23:49:00.000-07:00

Note: Your reflection in the mirror
If this wasn't a mirror, I could look down on you. I'm not going to look up to myself. You have a backwards perception of what is right. You're always copying something else.
Maybe not quite that pessimistic at the moment, but I don't want to become satisfied with myself, so that I can always strive to be better. People talk a lot about "identity". I suppose I believe in identity. In a Christian sense, its what God wants you to be. Right now our identities are distorted and jacked up by our environment and own problems. We have to figure out what we're supposed to be. "Being yourself" is surrendering the sin you accept as "yourself" to find your true self. And in doing so, you'll be free, not a slave to sin. I'm working on it.
니가 한국인 아닙니다. 하지만 괜찮아요 ㅋㅋ.

Picture: A picture of you and your best friend
One of my best friends ;D Being consistent with first post haha;;
I don't really like to call anyone a "best friend" because it puts everyone else down that is really wonderful to me :( But Ima miss you shelley because you're going to that white people catholic school;;;

Day 29 :: Triple Challenge

2010-07-31T23:39:00.000-07:00

Note: The person that you want tell everything to, but too afraid to
당신이 내 이야기를 듣고 싶어? 누가 당신에게 내가 무엇입니까?

Picture: A picture of yourself

Day 28 :: Triple Challenge!

2010-07-31T23:14:00.000-07:00

Note: Someone that changed your life
Dear People in my life,
Without you I would be different.
Kind of generic, but besides the obvious choices of like parents/brother/people I've known for a while, there have been tons of people that have made me feel strong one way or another about certain issues. For example, if it weren't for Jesse Pak, I'd be a lot less Asian now ahaha ;D

Picture: A picture of what you wore today
Thanks Dean ;D

나는 누가 내 블로그를 읽는 모르겠어요.

Day 27:: Triple Challenge!

2010-07-26T23:50:00.000-07:00

Note: "The friendliest person you knew for only one day"
People I met at USC orientation;; I didn't know you very long, I'll probably get to know some of you better later, but you were all pretty friendly :o!!

Picture: Me more than 10 Years ago
Ahahaha;; too lazy to go scan now. I remember submitting a bunch of pictures for my mother for Senior reflections, and not a single one was included. But they had like 3 photos I took of other people;; Whether or not that had anything to do with this topic, I'm not feeling motivated to go dig up a picture of me more than 10 years ago.

I will however give a little bit of history about myself. At age 9, I, and my brother, taught ourselves how to juggle. Viewed as "talented" (although I feel that we didn't have any juggling talent, just had raw investment of time), I got a little ego boost at an early age. But this didn't really matter. At age 8 (10 years ago), I was a very happy kid. I had Legos, wonderful parents, and food. A picture of me form this age would be either smiling, a funny face, or if I were a baby or something, some candid clueless expression.

내가 하루 이상 당신을 알고 싶어요.

Day 26:: Triple Challenge!

2010-07-26T23:39:00.000-07:00

Note: The last person you made a pinky promise to
I actually don't remember the last person I made a "pinky promise" too. I tend to not promise things easily because I don't want to go back on my word. That may be a bad trait, perhaps I need to be more prepared to dive into and commit on the things I find important to me. The thing is, I don't want to dive into and commit to things that are ultimately superficial or unimportant. Perhaps I need to once again examine what I believe is important.

Picture: A picture that makes you angry

Ahahahaha next year's class schedule. Kind of jokingly it makes me mad, because its going to be a ton of work. It'll also be really interesting, but yeah. It's going to be a lot of work;;

그것은 약속에 큰 힘이됩니다.

Day 25:: Triple Challenge!

2010-07-20T17:11:00.000-07:00

Note: The person you know that is going through the worst of times
Can't name a specific person at the moment. I'm ignorant and selfish. Life has been easy on me thus far. You know more than me.

Picture: That you edited

Being a nerd;;

모호한 메시지가 전송 및 수신

Day 24:: Triple Challenge!

2010-07-19T11:15:00.000-07:00

Note: The person that gave you your favorite memory
Picking favorites now? I don't know about having a favorite memory now. Lots of nice things have happened, life has been really easy on me. Childhood was a happy blur. My parents did a good job giving me a happy childhood. In the short term, those who have made me really happy lately know who they are.

Picture: what you did today

Epik High 'Run'

작곡: Tablo / 작사: Tablo, Mithra / 편곡: Philtre
뮤 비감독 : Hong Wonki

Everybody run, run, run away... 아무리 도망쳐 봐도 벗어 날 수 없어.
Run, run, runaway... 달리다 뒤돌아 봐도 넌 그대로 있어.

You got me runnin' runnin' runnin' around. Down, down, down.
Away... 아무리 달려 봐도 제자리에 (한 없이 달려가는 너를 위해).

하늘에 손이 닿을 때 까지 달려가.
가슴에 꿈이 찰 때까지 달려가.

[Mithra's Verse]

눈앞이 검어. 세상은 너무나도 빨리 걸어. 나만 두 다리 절어. 갈 길이 한 없이 멀어. 이 길의 끝엔 뭐가 있을까? 넌 알고 가는 가? 그냥 눈 감은 채 이끌려 간다면 답 아는가? 이런 나의 질문엔 늘 답이 없는 하늘. 일상속에 묶인 두 팔은 꿈조차도 못 잡을 만큼 무거워. 겁이나 갇혀져 버린 나. 오늘 하루만 미친 척 달려버려 어딘가.

[Tablo's Verse]

내 삶은 365일 비가 쏟아지는 밤. 24시간속에 좁아지는 마음. 작은 여유의 쉼표도 그 꼬리를 감추고, 날 마주보는 미래는 마침표가 되지만... 아침을 짊어지고 달려. 뭘 향해 뛰는 건지? 해가 지는 건지, 내가 지는 건지... I don't know. But I go. Keep on runnin' runnin' runnin' high. 거대한 은하수가 버린 어린 별인 나.

'Epilogue' album available worldwide 03.09.2010

Day 23:: Triple Challenge!

2010-07-18T23:01:00.000-07:00

Note: The last person you kissed
My family has always been good to me. I don't remember when the last time was.

Picture: Describes your life

Not being too productive on a global scale, lots of potential, a tool;; couldn't think of anything really clever at the moment, maybe I'll get back to this later and do a better job.

일부 구성 요소가 누락되었습니다.

Day 22:: Triple Challenge!

2010-07-18T00:22:00.000-07:00

Note: Someone you want to give a second chance to
I think I'm fortunate to be a person that doesn't really hold grudges and is fairly patient. I don't think that there really is anyone right now that I'm not giving a second chance to that I would want to.
Picture: A picture of yourself

Photo by Dean Shu :: What am I doing with my hands? It is awkward cow.
This was taken at a Keyclub beach event I went to. I'm glad I went, had a lot of fun :) Dinner, yogurt, etc. after was nice as well. I parked like a mile away, and was like 20 minutes or so late getting back to my car, to miss the 8 pm limit. My first ticket. $58 (+$3 for using a credit card) payed out. I'll be disgustingly optimistic and say it was worth it.

나는 누구를 다치게하고 싶지 않아요. 내가지고 싶다는 욕구에서 고통을 느낀다.

Day 21:: Triple Challenge!

2010-07-16T23:49:00.000-07:00

Note: Someone you judged by their first impression
Confirmed for better or worse.

Picture: makes you think of your loved one
I don't know what the challenge meant by "loved one";; as in special girl, or as in people close to me, or what? :o I guess I'll have to pick something kind of generic.

I think I've been to the beach at least once with all the people I consider close... ...perhaps.

당신이 바다에 무엇이 보이나요?

Day 20 :: Triple Challenge!

2010-07-15T21:52:00.000-07:00

Note: The one that broke your heart the hardest
Ambiguous Poem -- By Me
"Bros before Hos"
Friendship Forever
Doors Open, Doors Close
Sometimes say "Never"
Build bridges, don't destroy
And hope they don't rot
Best of abilities, hope to employ
Is this the right lot?

Picture: where you want to honeymoon

대한민국! 예쁜! 햇빛과 자전거 한국 드라마 처럼!

Day 19:: Triple Challenge

2010-07-15T00:13:00.000-07:00

Note: Someone that pesters your mind—good or bad
잘 생각해.

Picture: your favorite musical instrument(s)
클래식 기타! 사진은 몇 개월은 오래된 버전.

Day 18:: Triple Challenge!

2010-07-13T22:36:00.000-07:00

Note: The person that you wish you could be
Less wishing, more doing-!

Picture: Your room
지금 카페트를 대체 해요. 나는 내 방에서 거의 전부를 이동했다.

Day 17 :: Triple Challenge!

2010-07-13T00:20:00.000-07:00

Note: Someone from your childhood
언제 내 어린시절이 끝났지 내 성인기 시작했다? 나는 잘 나의 어린시절을 기억하지 않아요. 행복 했어요. 고맙습니다, 내 친구와, 가족. 어린시절 아픔 없이 있었어. 혼자 사랑과 재미. 왜냐하면, 내가 이해를 못하는 많은 것들이 있어요.
Picture: Your MP3 Player

Day 16 :: Triple Challenge

2010-07-11T22:49:00.000-07:00

Note: Someone that’s not in your state/country:
Catherine Yang---!!!!!! ㅅ_______ㅅ 보고싶다! 그러나, 니가 나에게 아마 안 보고싶지요. Its a mystery how you stay so light in such a hot state. Now you are in corea I think;; Anywho, I don't get to see you that often, but whenever I do, I get really really happy for some reason :D Don't sleep too much!

Picture: Your dream cell phone:
I actually don't want a cellphone that is too cool, since I'll be going to USC, and things get stolen pretty easily there haha;; But

one of these would be pretty cool :D

Day 15 :: Triple Challenge

2010-07-11T08:08:00.001-07:00

Oops! missed a day on accident.. I guess the morning of the day after will have to do;;

Note: The person you miss the most
Hmm don't know about a person in particular, but I'll write about a sort of group of people. I miss my good Chess/Shogi/Xiangqi games. From the trio in Mintz (Now "Club Cinco"?) to the Quonarch asking me n times a day where n is an integer greater than one, to play Shogi, I haven't had many good chess(and variant) games this summer. I know I can easily find a good game online, but there is something more interesting about playing people in real life, or people that you are already friends with.

Picture: Yourself

어제 취침하기와 읽기 많아요. 아직 Prime Obsession를 읽고 있어요. 이 책은 읽으로 어려워지만 잘 관심을 끈다.

Day 14 :: Triple Challenge!

2010-07-09T16:35:00.000-07:00

Note : Someone you’ve drifted away from
Situations change, people change. What once was is often nothing more than a memory. Or sometimes not even remembered. I hope the people I was once close to, even if I do not talk to them as frequently, are still open to reestablish, or rather re-recognize strong bonds formed in the past. Distance and separation is quite often inevitable. But we most nearly always have a choice whether or not we will allow this distance to be something that sparks new and interesting conversation, and intrigue and wonder into people we thought we knew so well, or just an invisible wall of separation.

Picture : Your favorite teacher(s)

So nerdy.. haha

지금 나는 Panera에서 김예지 함께. cinnamon roll을 먹고 싶어, 그러나 국을 벌써 먹었다. 여름 읽기 재미 있어요. 이제 Prime Obsession을 읽고 있어요.

Day 13 :: Triple Challenge

2010-07-09T00:42:00.000-07:00

Note: Someone you wish could forgive you
Hopefully there isn't someone like that out there. But if there is, I'm sorry and hope you will forgive me.

Picture: Your friends

Deaner-day at Souplantation! Today was the long-awaited trip to Souplantation with Shelley/Jimmy/Dean. I was so satisfied afterward, I didn't even grab free Chik-Fil-A. We also checked out the Tustin OCPL. I checked out Death Note, and we made like the closet weaboos we all hide within ourselves, and watched some episodes.

수영.. 달리기.. 자전거.. 큰 점심을 먹어 때문에 그 밤에 나는 운동을 많았다.

Day 12 :: Triple Challenge

2010-07-07T22:25:00.000-07:00

Note: The person you hate most/caused you a lot of pain

I forgive you, do you forgive me?

Picture: your favorite food

비빔밥은 맛있어요 :)김예지야!! H-Mart에 가자 :D 나는 무료의 비빔밥 아직 있어.

Day 11 :: Triple Challenge

2010-07-06T23:04:00.000-07:00

Note : A Deceased person you wish you could talk to
Same as "person you wish you could meet", that is, the Apostle Paul. What a life. Makes me feel so shallow.

Picture : Favorite Drink

석류나무 알로에 맛있어요! H-Mart에 사다. 지금 자동차에는 이것이 있어.

Day 10 :: Triple Challenge!

2010-07-05T22:19:00.000-07:00

Note: Someone you don’t talk to as much as you’d like to
Hay beautiful girl. Looll jk maybe;; For a second I read this question as "someone you don't talk to as much as you should. I don't really feel obligated to talk to anyone at the moment. So I guess I'm not entirely kidding on who I'd maybe like to talk to hhahah. But really, chances are if you really want to talk to me, no matter who you are, I probably want to talk to you too, because when both people want a good conversation, it will likely come.

Picture: What you had for lunch

For dinner, I went to this Brazilian BBQ restaurant called Rodizio. It was a fine day to not be a vegetarian.

오늘 아침에 시장으로 갔다. 점심에 국을 먹다. 하이킹 후에 집에 나가오다. 지금 자고 싶어.

Day 9 :: Triple Challenge!

2010-07-04T21:59:00.000-07:00

Picture: What you had for lunch

피자는 맛있어요 :)

Note: Someone you wish you could meet
Apostle Paul -- You have a lot- of things to say;; I wonder what you would have to say about many of the moral issues of the twenty-first century.

Day 8 :: Triple Challenge!

2010-07-03T23:24:00.000-07:00

Note: Your favorite internet friend
I don't know about picking favorites, and I don't know what qualifies an "internet friend". So I guess I'll do a general post of appreciation to all the people I do chat with on the Internet, or used to a lot. I think there are only a few people I talk to online that I haven't met at least once in person... John-Peas-and-Carrots, haven't been able to talk to you for a while, but you've been Matt and my "internet" friend for quite a while now :o I guess Johnny-future-roommate you could count as an Internet friend since I haven't actually met you yet. Thanks everyone! :D

Picture: Yourself

지금 조부모 함께 방문해요. 삼촌과 사촌들 함께 우리는 불꽃놀이를 했다. 재미 있어 :) 그러나 이제 피곤해. 안녕히주무세요 :)

Day 7 :: Triple Challenge!

2010-07-02T23:34:00.000-07:00

A Note: Your Ex-boyfriend/girlfriend/love/crush
살며 배우십시오.

A Picture: that makes you cry
Okay maybe not quite a picture and maybe not quite crying, but soooo dramatic... Something that "makes you cry" isn't specified to be something incredibly sad or what-not. I'm sure I could dig up some really sentimental picture or something, but not really feeling it now. Anywho, for all the Naruto nerds out there, they all know this story and why it is so beautiful and sad at the same time.

햇볕에서 달아나다.

2010-07-01T23:52:00.000-07:00

크게 재킷을 입고 햇볕에서 달아나다. 아침에서 달리다. 밤에서 달리다. 피곤해.. 자전거로 타도. 나는 부모 함께 저녁을 charo chicken에서 먹었다. 김예지 함께 panera에 가도. 나의 문법 나쁜 :(

Day 6 :: Triple Challenge!

2010-07-01T23:25:00.000-07:00

Note: A stranger
If you have something you need to say, I hope I have the ears to listen.

Picture: A picture that inspires you

왜 우리는 인생이 있어? 그것이 우리는 종종 잊어요.

Tea Station etc.

2010-06-30T23:38:00.000-07:00

Lots of reading, running, eating, and sleeping today;;
Not wanting to put on sunscreen, I went running in the direct sun in a huge sweatshirt with a hood and sunglasses. Its actually kind of cool and refreshing after a while... ...in my own sweat haha...
Thank you to Jesse Pak and Family for a nice lunch at Tea Station. Feel a bit more Asian... ...and want to go back...
I dragged Shelley shopping with me. I got some ankle weights and new running shoes. And then went for another run at night to try out new stuff.

Day 5 :: Triple Challenge!

2010-06-30T22:37:00.000-07:00

Note: Your Dreams
Usually my dreams of are everyday events and realities. My dreams are very much unlike that "Billionaire" song that is popular now. Maybe they are a tool for exploring alternative paths, and reasoning? Some people talk about lucid dreaming, in which you can control what you do in a dream. I think I do that fairly often. I haven't really had many fantastic dreams of flying or having powers or what-not, but I have had many interesting dreams. Maybe a topic to elaborate on more later...

Picture: Your morning

달리기, 읽기, 먹기, 잠;; 여름은 재미 있어 :) 그 책을 나의 아빠가 나에게 빌려주다. 오늘, 나는 경제에 관한 읽었다. 그 여름에, Ruby과, 수학과, 물리학, etc.를 공부하겠어... 아ㅏ 피곤해

Day 4 :: Triple Challenge!

2010-06-29T22:36:00.000-07:00

A Note for: Your sibling (or closest relative)
Cool story bro. We've been going to the same schools for a long time. Now we're going to go to the same school again. Brothers for life, whether we like it or not :D

A Picture of: where you went today

나의 뒷뜰에서.

오늘, 나는 뒷뜰과 Peters Canyon에서 걷다.

Day 3 :: Triple Challenge!

2010-06-28T22:23:00.000-07:00

A Note for: Your parents
Thank you for everything you've done for me. Your good intentions and tireless efforts are undeniable. 고맙습니다. 영원히 사랑합니다. 나는 무엇이 줄 수 있습니까?

A Picture of: What you did today

오늘 12시에 잠이 깨었다. Albertsons와 $1책방에 자전거로 타요. 포커 하고 운동한다.

Eventful Sunday

2010-06-28T00:44:00.000-07:00

I slept in for a bit, but left the house a little past 10:30 AM to go to Onnuri. The usual bike ride was pleasant, and I had time to stop at H-Mart before service to do some grocery shopping (김치 라면 먹고 싶어!). The message was on John 3:16 and the basic tenets of Christianity today. After church, I got to grab cake and nachos with Sangho (and drink some pomegranate aloe :D).

Following church, I went to the bonfire Gene and Brian planned. I picked up Natalie, Jimmy, and Jesse. If Jimmy had driven, we probably have arrived at our location significantly faster. Feeling generous, we parked in the $15 parking lot, not in some free walking distance. Gene brought a stuffed puppy and a doll (he bought it for $8 specifically for this) to burn. What a character. What a hazard as well. The hot dogs were strange, there wasn't nearly enough pizza, and we burned random stuff that shouldn't be burned. But overall I had a pretty swell time. Too bad I didn't have a few quarters this morning. Then Glara and I could have burned Korea Daily again to start the fire. I tried to play Canon with Tom on guitar, but I rhythm failed and ruined it :(. The bathrooms at CDM have a little metal plate for a mirror, which is more than Beckman. It was nice getting to know people better, its a shame many people took off way early. I failed at freestyle rapping. Landon made people make some weird square formation with hands. He also talk about da vietnam. Later in the party, the legendary David Tran arrived with his guitar. Gene leaves his own event without cleaning up. The rest of us regroup at Diamond Jamboree. We eat good food at Diamond Jamboree. Okay maybe later I'll revise this, kind of a boring reporting of events haha

Day 2 :: Triple Challenge!

2010-06-28T00:31:00.000-07:00

A Note for: Your Crush

Ignorance is bliss.

A Picture of: What you wore today

나는 사진에서 CDM 해변에 이에요. 나의 반바지가 슈퍼 섹시.

Day 1 :: Triple Challenge!

2010-06-27T00:08:00.000-07:00

A Note For: Your Best Friend
김예지! Platonic (she's quick to emphasize this) partner in crime... We've known each other since elementary school. You´d think we'd be pretty close since I claim we're best friends and we've known each other so long. But she won't let me get within a 3 feet radius of her. Through 5:30, fire, and flames, I've always trusted her to be an awesome friend and she's always followed through (though sometimes on tiempo dominicano)
H-Mart에서 비빔밥을 먹고 싶어 >:D 무료의 식사 있어 가자!

A Picture of: Yourself
Killing two birds with one stone (sorry animal rights activists!). Best friend and picture of myself. And on top of all of that, dreaded flash photography! Taken at Grad Night Beckman 2010 at Adventure City.

A Challenge?!

2010-06-26T23:43:00.000-07:00

So the text below I took from Glara's blog. Cool girl and cool blog;; I think I'll do the same thing she's doing. I usually claim I write my blog just cause I like to, but I can't deny being happy with positive feedback. In any case, I'm hoping by expanding beyond a regurgitation of my weekly activities with an occasional ill-supported rant or artwork/poem/etc., I'll be able to provide a better blog here.

So doing two daily post things is double the challenge. As if doubling the challenge wasn't enough, I'm going to triple the challenge. Well not really, but at least something to make myself feel cooler than I actually am haha. I'm going to try to also write at least a sentence or two in Korean for practice. Okay lets see how this goes :/

Thank you Glara for idea :) copy/pasted text below from your blog:

Notes: (taken from sara)

Day 1 — Your Best Friend
Day 2 — Your Crush
Day 3 — Your parents
Day 4 — Your sibling (or closest relative)
Day 5 — Your dreams
Day 6 — A stranger
Day 7 — Your Ex-boyfriend/girlfriend/love/crush
Day 8 — Your favorite internet friend
Day 9 — Someone you wish you could meet
Day 10 — Someone you don’t talk to as much as you’d like to
Day 11 — A Deceased person you wish you could talk to
Day 12 — The person you hate most/caused you a lot of pain
Day 13 — Someone you wish could forgive you
Day 14 — Someone you’ve drifted away from
Day 15 — The person you miss the most
Day 16 — Someone that’s not in your state/country
Day 17 — Someone from your childhood
Day 18 — The person that you wish you could be
Day 19 — Someone that pesters your mind—good or bad
Day 20 — The one that broke your heart the hardest
Day 21 — Someone you judged by their first impression
Day 22 — Someone you want to give a second chance to
Day 23 — The last person you kissed
Day 24 — The person that gave you your favorite memory
Day 25 — The person you know that is going through the worst of times
Day 26 — The last person you made a pinky promise to
Day 27 — The friendliest person you knew for only one day
Day 28 — Someone that changed your life
Day 29 — The person that you want tell everything to, but too afraid to
Day 30 — Your reflection in the mirror

Pictures: (taken from kelly)

Day 01 - A picture of yourself
Day 02 - A picture of what you wore today
Day 03 - A picture of what you did today
Day 04 - A picture of where you went today
Day 05 - A picture of your morning
Day 06 - A picture that inspires you
Day 07 - A picture that makes you cry
Day 08 - A picture of yourself
Day 09 - A picture of what you had for lunch
Day 10 - A picture of what you like to do
Day 11 - A picture of your favorite drink
Day 12 - A picture of your favorite food
Day 13 - A picture of your friends
Day 14 - A picture of your favorite teacher(s)
Day 15 - A picture of yourself
Day 16 - A picture of your dream cell phone
Day 17 - A picture of your mp3 player
Day 18 - A picture of your room
Day 19 - A picture of your favorite musical instrument(s)
Day 20 - A picture of where you want to honeymoon
Day 21 - A picture that makes you think of your loved one
Day 22 - A picture of yourself
Day 23 - A picture that describes your life
Day 24 - A picture of what you did today
Day 25 - A picture that you edited
Day 26 - A picture that makes you angry
Day 27 - A picture of you more than 10 years ago
Day 28 - A picture of what you wore today
Day 29 - A picture of yourself
Day 30 - A picture of you and your best friend

Week: May 17 - 23

2010-06-26T23:10:00.000-07:00

Thus ends AP and begins a bunch of end of the year activities and projects.

Being a nerd:

If you put in a lot of effort, you can probably make an analogy with this and me beginning to play "halflife", because its like the halflife of Senior year. But I currently lack the scientific knowledge and motivation to continue to elaborate on that metaphor. In any case I started playing Halflife 1 for some reason. Actually at this point (June 26), I have still yet to complete the game. I tend to play through games (and watch shows etc.) really slowly, but thoroughly enjoy what media I do consume. Its an interesting experience. Because its a rather old game, you can't really think of things too realistically when playing. I feel like I'm figuring out abstract puzzles, when indeed it was once considered pretty high end realistic etc. And I typically just suck at FPS games in general. In any case, even playing on normal is pretty challenging for me (its easy to get lost in this game, that's probably harder than the fighting), but thoroughly enjoying the game, and will probably very slowly play through Halflife 2 and the sequels once I complete this game.

I read the manga Uzumaki (Junji Ito). Just in time too, because now I see that it has been removed from One Manga. Spirals! Spirals! If anyone here has read this they know what I'm talking about. This manga partially inspired my Biology end of the year project on the Fibonacci sequence and the golden ratio.
Like I said, spirals!

The Senior Disneyland trip was on Wednesday. Photos can be found in my Senior Year (Part 5) album on facebook if you're really interested. I'll just upload the end of the day one for kicks and giggles.

Other interesting things:

In Spanish class, we had to write a letter to ourselves that would be sent years in the future, like some of us did in Mrs. Prell's class at Pioneer Middle School. Starcraft and Chipotle with Jesse and company. Panera with Matt. Currently reading through the tutorial in ruby pickaxe. Wow I'm starting to sound like I just play games and do nerd things all day haha. Well to end all that stuff, here is a statistics joke I might have posted earlier or somewhere else:

Why do you not need to bring extra batteries to the AP Statistics exam?

Because if you need more power, just raise alpha.

Week: May 10 - 16

2010-06-21T22:53:00.000-07:00

AP Testing Week 2. At this point, I have gained sufficient momentum such that another AP test doesn't feel like much. Monday was the AP Bio test. The content covered itself seems quite extensive. But I've heard many encouraging things about the way this test is graded. Things about people leaving whole FRQs blank and walking away with 5's. My Stanford Admit comrade left a whole FRQ blank and walked away confidently. So I'm looking up on this one. Econ AP wasn't bad either. They give you a ton of time. On the last FRQ, we all thought of that little trick, we were just unsure of what the graders wanted us to show;; -__- I hope it isn't graded too harshly. So this year I ended up taking 6 APs. It may seem like a lot, but for a Beckman student with sufficient motivation, no sports, and experience from last year, it is very very do-able and actually something I recommend. Make the most of your public school education, no?

But enough of all the academic dullness. It was prom week! Overall a fine experience (and an expensive one keke). Oh, and I still need to get those pictures from Joyce... That meanie said I suck at posing. I'll agree that I haven't really got that clear of an idea of what I'm supposed to do, but I don't think I was that bad. Oh well, learning experience right? D: However it went, I hope everybody else had a good time. If nothing else, I got to sing "I believe" with KLee at Plush ㅋㅋ. I have confirmed, however, that I have no natural singing/dancing talent though, so some useful skills to work on;;

Portal for free download on Steam! It's been a while since I've played through a game. Typically, I only play games that are really well reviewed since they take so much time investment to play. I must say, I was no disappointed in Portal at all. It made me feel smarter than I really was, completing those levels. Such style! Such brilliance! Such beauty!

Got my PC Laptop in the mail. Great machine! Not a mac!

Matt returned from USC. On Friday, one of his friends spent the night over here. Its feeling like back-in-the-day. I walked over to Peters Canyon Elementary with Jesse, and found Nicole there-- just so happens it was the Pioneer Days Carnival. Elementary school... good times :) Everything looked so small. Speed closes distances. Its interesting because back in the day, I would ride my scooter or bike to elementary school. Then in middle school, I'd have to go around half a mile further to get to school. Add 2 or 3 miles for high school. Suppose I went to UCI, it'd be like another 7 miles to get to school. Symbolic adding of distance? Coincidence? I think not!

mobile posting

2010-05-25T06:43:00.001-07:00

So I hear this is what all the cool kids can do... Just testing

----------
Sent from the Verizon network using Mobile Email

Week: May 3 - 9

2010-05-20T23:27:00.001-07:00

AP Testing, week 1. This week I had 4 tests: Government, Statistics, Spanish, and English. Following government test, Mr. Bowman bough all his students pizza. Forty-five pizzas. Big, Costco pizzas. Unlimited pizza, so delightful! Thank you good sir! On Tuesday, I had two exams, Statistics and Spanish. Spanish was in the morning and unfortunately went a bit overtime. The school was nice enough to delay the starting of the stats test a few minutes so I didn't have to take a retake. Thanks for waiting everyone! Following these two tests, I went with Jeff Wei to Guppy House. The weather was warm, and a peaceful sentiment enriched our Salmon fried rice and fried chicken. This year I didn't even plan on taking Statistics; I had signed up for Art History and Studio Art, but got neither. Perhaps my path is destined further away from the arts and closer to math and science. As of now, I'm liking math and science a good deal more than art as far as studying the subject matter goes. On Wednesday I went to Barnes and Nobles with Shelley. Midway through, I got to go grab a hot dog with Matt Kim. 홋 도그를 먹기, 개를 먹기 같은 ? ㅋㅋ Thursday, following the English test, I went to Chick Fil A with Jeff Wei. I don't think any food was free, but the chicken sounded so good. Also did some Maple Story playing... gunslinger... luck-less fire mage... so fun... On Friday I leeched off the APUSH breakfast and wished my Juniors good luck :D Mr. McGill has such a cool class :( Miss going there. Friday I also went to Mitsuwa with Jimmy, Kenny, and Shelley. Chopsticks of ill omen in ramen bowls did not bring misfortune... ..yet? Mom and Dad wanted to eat out, so we went to On the Border. Saturday was quite interesting. Mr. Bowman had given me a free ticket to Pancakes for Patriots. I woke up a bit late, and arrived there... ...right as they were closing. I got to say hi to Glara and few others, and get in a good bike ride, but no pancakes for me. I went to Art Institute for Jesse's victorious receiving of a scholarship. Not to mention getting myself a free bag. Pretty nice place, pretty computers :) Danel's surprise birthday party was also on this day. He did not appear to be too surprised. Brawl not on final destination? What is this? Overall a pretty nice Saturday. On Sunday, it was Garret's graduation and dinner at Aunt Vicki's. Also we went to help Matt move out of USC. On the way, we were going to eat lunch at Red Lobster because we had some gift card or something. But we ended up eating at Outback Steakhouse because the line was too long at Red Lobster. All the way to the Garden Grove, no eat the pho? I still haven't eaten Pho yet. Gotta make things happen. Wei shen me mei you bao zi? Also, throughout the week I finished up the drivers ed CD thing which was quite bothersome and made Mom a card for Mother's day. Still doing USC paperwork and stuff too... it doesn't stop. Most pictures from this are on facebook, but if I feel especially inspired, I'll post up the top ones here.

Cuántos días de soledad

2010-05-02T16:54:00.000-07:00

Estoy escribiendo en español porque en dos días tengo que tomar el examen de AP y necesito practicar jaja...

Iría a publicar las mismas mensajes que ya he publicado en mi tumblr, pero creo que no es necesario. Puedo tener dos existencias por Internet. Ha pasado mucho en las semanas pasadas. Visité Onnuri dos veces. Preparé para prom. Almuerzo con amigos casi todos los días de la semana. Decidí a asistir USC. Leí Cien Años de Soledad por Gabriel García Márquez.

Hay algunos filosofías que me cansa. El posmodernismo me cansa. Seres humanos les gustan mucho los absolutos. Cuando nada es un absoluto y todo es relativo, existen demasiados preguntas para nuestro energía limitado.

¿Qué es lo que he aprendido en estés semanas pasados? Con menos sueño, más tarea, y menos drama, es como empieza el año pasado un segundo vez con variación pequeño. Pero no hay comodidad entre este pensamiento porque es como en Cien Años de Soledad. Y "las estirpes condenadas a cien años de soledad no tenían una segunda oportunidad sobre la tierra". He adquirido varios habilidades nuevos y mejorado a los que ya tengo, he conocido a más personas, etc. Pero continua las mismas problemas, las mismas luchas, y las mismas preguntas. No sé.

Siento feliz, y muchos veces cuando pienso más, siento más feliz. Creo que es bueno. Siempre existe algunos cosas que queremos cambiar, y estoy tratando de cambiar muchos de estos. Creo que es la razón de mucho de mi felicidad. Pero también creo que siempre estamos viviendo en una forma de ignorancia y engaño, y un día de estos si escuchamos, oiremos la voz y sabremos nuestros propósitos más claramente. No sé.

Bringing things together

2010-04-30T21:12:00.000-07:00

So lately I've been posting on my tumblr a bit, so last few updates are there.

It is easier to keep up with other people's stuff on Tumblr (and also far easier to repost/spam/etc.) and its better integrated into facebook and stuff. But for the rather antisocial blogging I do, I'd say my blogspot is better suited.

I'll continue to update both, but this will probably be the site of the longer, drawn out, nebulous posts, while Tumblr will feature more links and random clever/interesting/etc. stuff I find.

AP studying, tired, etc. :/ Will try to get to posting more later.

Chik Fil A Poem

2010-04-16T21:33:00.001-07:00

Repetition.

Tasty routine
Chicken and Ice Cream
Add Waffle Fries
Come on guys
its free
For here
But if it isn’t free
To go
eat at home instead.

----

Nooo! Promotion week is over. Lool D: Today I went to Chik Fil A, Gen, and Del Taco with Shelley. Food field trip!

Things realized while working, etc.

2010-04-14T18:15:00.000-07:00

Back to listening to Sky.fm, I miss IMEEM :(

Statistics Pun: "r you sure there is a correlation?"

Mechanical pencils are really nice. They don't get short and they stay sharp (Thanks captain obvious).

Getting Sleepy

2010-04-14T00:35:00.000-07:00

Thoughts on Assorted Things

In any given circumstance, there is only so much you can do to make what you want to happen, happen. Especially if it involves the free will of another human being. Pursuing what you want is often stomping on another person's opportunity. I would say I'm far too practical to be any sort of communist, but there are things to be said about considering a world of cooperation rather than competition. What you want is often not the socially optimal situation. Then there's the relativity thing- is it impossible for everybody to be rich, because one must be rich relative to another person?

Friendship is a wonderful thing. Though it does exist to some extent, the issues of jealousy, animosity, etc. often accompanying boy/girl relationships and/or the pursuit of them are not nearly as prevalent. From a Christian standpoint, one of the beautiful things about a relationship with Jesus is that there are (for those who manage to attain it) all the things of a perfect harmonious intimate relationship available to anyone. No jealousy. No envy. Only love.
------- ------- -------

Okay so there is some App on facebook called "FriendQ&A" which will present questions like :
"

Here are some other questions you can answer about Alan Wong.

1:Do you think Alan Wong is hot?

2:Would you travel around the world with Alan Wong?

3:Do you think Alan Wong is a good friend?

4:Do you think Alan Wong looks good in a bathing suit?

5:Do you think Alan Wong is attractive?

"
But of course it will ask about random people or whatever. These are all "yes" or "no" questions. I actually added this app very briefly out of curiosity, but deleted it with a few minutes. I personally feel that this application promotes very negative feelings.

Okay, for starters, three of these questions are about physical attraction. This will produce one of the following effects (obviously simplified argument because I'm getting sleepy haha):
1. Ego Boost (The person answers "yes")
2. Self Image Wound (The person answers "no")
In most cases I don't think either of these are particularly beneficial if so artificially created in such a superficial context.

I suppose some things can give people a "heads up", but other times it is just a drama-generator. Personally, I didn't care that much for the physical attraction questions since that is pretty arbitrary, but I was particularly self image wounded by questions such as "Do you think ___ is virgin?" (someone answered "no"), "Do you think ___ is a flirt?" (someone answered "yes"). This application forces people to give either a "yes" or a "no" answer; such a dichotomy elicits black and white, answers questionable validity but with nevertheless equal if not greater emotional impact, positive or negative.

I won't deny that I enjoy getting formspring questions. I like formspring because it gives room for honest answers, discretion (you can delete, ignore, etc.), explanation, etc. Applying "yes" and "no" answers, whether honest or not, to superficially superficial questions, however, I feel, is a disservice to society.

Daily Events, etc.

I woke up easily this morning (I suppose that is usual). I don't know why I even care to write this, but I ate a banana for breakfast. School was pretty interesting and fun. In statistics I agreed to play Shogi with Bryant, and we didn't even finish our game. And because I was playing Shogi, I didn't get to study as well as I hoped. Double fail. Nevertheless, quite interesting and entertaining. We had an interesting substitute in statistics as well that had a great deal of insight into "senior mentality". In biology we are listening to student presentations for the anatomy unit. After helping various people with Computer science, doing statistics, reviewing (or trying to start) some calculus, etc., I'm becoming more and more disposed towards math and chem rather than the memorization and wide breadth of specific things we learn in bio (do I really need to know what a cnidarian is?). At a high school level it doesn't take that much to memorize the extra word list or whatever, but just a though for future consideration. I think I have to especially start studying Government soon. Today in class we talked about lawyers a bit. I used to be quite opposed to pursuing that career path, but I wouldn't rule it out entirely now. Many options make a decision difficult. Spanish is hard! I still have to do some multiple choice passages before I sleep.
After school I went to get free waffle fries at Chik-fil-A with Shelley (and a number of other Beckman people, since so many people were headed to the same destination). Afterward I went to Jesse's house to go work out a bit and play some Tatsunoko vs Capcom.
Then I went home and took a three hour or some other large number really long nap.
AP tests are drawing nearer and nearer, and I can feel it in my homework load. I had homework from all of my classes today, which is rather rare. I didn't get around to making some scary AP schedule yet, but the sooner I get to that the better.
During tutorial Danny Fields embodied the stereotypes of a rich white male. It was amusing.
I had finished reading Genesis recently (I'll check on the actual date) and am currently reading through Exodus now. I'll probably give some commentary on this later.
For English I had to make a presentation on Modernism. I enjoyed myself far too much making math and science allusions. This particular one I related to the Modernist's rejection of the principles of certainty associated with the Enlightenment.

Spring Break 2010 and the day back from it

2010-04-12T23:08:00.000-07:00

Okay midway through writing this, I realized I would be unable to finish the entirety of the Spring Break post. So I'll leave a hanging "to be continued", talk about the week leading up to Spring break, talk about the first few days of Spring break, and talk about today.

Today:
So this morning I got a bit of an ego boost because I got to see the posters I made for two opposing students running for the same ASB office. That small amount of pride though didn't mean much though, as it was overshadowed by lots of mixed feelings. I had no idea there would be drama behind a simple request for poster-making. Maybe I'll elaborate more on this later, but for privacy's sake etc. etc. I will refrain from doing so now.

High Enthusiasm from school. Mostly all of us still have the enthusiasm of Spring Break running in our veins. While making a Calendar I came to realize how close AP tests are. After college admissions, many of us wonder why we are even taking many of these tests. I'm not going to request credit for probably... more than 3/4 of the ones I took.

Poetry reading in Statistics (2nd Period). Thanks Bryant Lin for being a good sport. Please tell me if I ever actually offend you. Biology in the computer lab. Andrew made his own sandwich. Ms. Solanki refilled the candy bin in Econ. Spanish AP listening section is scary.

Free Chicken strips at Chik-Fil-A. Econ studying with Shelley at Barnes. Such a pleasant life.

Sentences are getting increasingly fragmented and thoughts less meaningful as I write this cause I'm getting tired;; Perhaps I'll edit this or add more later. Tired D:

-------------------------
Okay hopefully I am going to be done with these anachronistic "catching up" type posts after this and be able to give more daily type updates rather than these abridged excuses for updates.

Pre-Spring break fillers:

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
School Week Prior to Spring Break: March 29 - April 1
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------

Monday:
I cannot say we did not see it coming. The algae in the bottle surely became a tree. Congratulations to Daniel Dumett on Stanford acceptance. This was foreshadowed long ago with cryptic messages. Or was it?
After school I went to grab (and go?) Red Velvet cake with Shelley at Albertsons. Overrated or no, it was pretty good.
At night I did something I had not done for a while- Basketball. I went with Gene, Kenneth, and Jimmy. So exhausting. And then the lights shut off on us. I guess parks can't be open all night long, less we summon what Shelley calls the "etch a sketch". Jimmy and I won. We switched teams. And I won again. YEAAAH!! Afterward we all went to Barnes and Nobles. I was cheap and drank water while everybody else got some classy drink.

Tuesday:
Pretty much just a homework, studying, and catching up day. Should not ever say that a day is insignificant, just no notable "events" I have recorded or can recall. This is why daily blog posts are of more value. I could have recorded some thoughts and such from that day, but now they are forever lost as entropy into this vast universe.

Wednesday:
So I went over to Jesse's house, he came over to my house, and we played some Xiangqi. Then I went to Barnes with my Platonic-friendship buddy Shelley to delve into the realms of Solanki-nomics. A random note: In a certain facebook note for Econ, I began it with the beginning lines of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness as a hook, "The Solanki, a cruising yawl...". Today Jimmy and I realized that we could not recall the original name of the ship, only our interjection of BHS Microeconomics into a classic work of literature. Good times.

Thursday:
I took Jesse to submit some scholarship over at Art Institute in Santa Ana. Miscalculations led us through Santa Ana on Edinger for quite a while. Following that, we met up with Kenny Tanaka and Jimmy at Rubios, and then went to my place to watch Miyazaki's "Laputa: Castle in the Sky", probably my favorite Miyazaki film as of now. I still can't quite play the whole theme song for the movie on Guitar yet, unlike Margaret Lin who does a fine job at it. "So Beautiful!"

A Castle... ...in the sky.

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Spring Break Begins! Friday April 2
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
In the morning I went for a hike with Jesse. For some reason he wore flip flops. I thought about how amusing it would be to dress up in armor and carry random gigantic weapons in a place where normal people hike.
In the afternoon, Jesse and I met up with Jimmy and Daniel Baek to go to Tae/Krista's "fundraiser", a pool party. I hope it was really a fundraiser. In any case, a very nice location, people were all friendly, overall a good turnout I would say, but I had to leave a bit early.
Daniel, Jimmy, and I went to Good Friday service at Bethel. It was youth service, and I think it was designed largely with emotional appeal. Nevertheless, I think that was something I needed a good dose of.
Jesse convinced me to play.... ...Maple Story... a little bit in Spring Break. Despite Gene's claim that real men don't play in Kradia, I joined Jesse in Kradia as a pure int Fire Mage. I'm not going to post my screen name and stuff here, because I don't really intend on consistently playing or even playing for a while. -_-

Pose from the fight scene at the beginning of Castle in the Sky :D

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Weekend: April 3, April 4
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Bike to the Beach! Kenny, Jimmy, and Danel. On the way back, we (except for our tree-like friend) ate at Sobahn Express in H-Mart. As Jimmy would say, "Good Ddong"

Meeting at Harvard Park; Daniel Raises our magic attack by casting meditate (Maple Story allusion)

The fellowship of the... ...right?

During this bike trip, a lady said "passing on your left... ...while riding towards us. We passed, and were passed, by this lady on multiple occasions. On one instance when she was passing us, she said "Please form a single file line, there is a car coming and I wish to pass" or something very strangely worded and precise like that. Quite an interesting ride.

On Sunday I went to Church at Harvest for Easter, Matt visited as well. I also got to eat dinner and play some Chess with Rafe who happened to be in the area. Later I went to Taco Bell with Jimmy and Jesse.

So Beautiful! Cupcakes at Harvest Community Church:

Also I applied for USC housing. Supposedly I applied for the "nerd dorms" as first choice. I asked Matt for advice on housing. Better be surrounded by nerds in a far nicer facility, in a place you can sleep, then be trapped in a super-ghetto location with drunk people pissing on your sheets I guess xD I wouldn't say I'm not a nerd either haha.

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
To be continued...
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------

A Catching Up Post (Yet Again)!

2010-04-10T01:01:00.000-07:00

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Week: March 1 - March 7
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Matt and Dad's birthday were this week. We went to On the Border for dinner. Mom made some tasty dessert. Unfortunately, Matt was at school on his actual birthday, but we got to celebrate earlier.

I mentioned on an earlier post about how cool Mr. Bowman was :)

Talent show tryouts were this week. Attended that with Shelley, and of course (by being unique, aka not a music/dance/singing act) got a place ;D

Mom's dessert :)

HOW CUTE! Taylor brings a turtle to biology. Joanne wants to touch the turtle.

Friday was Sadies. Dinner at Kula Revolving Sushi, Sticki Picki (Glara knows how to use those machines far too well :o ) and then a lot of waiting in line at the actual event loool ;D But overall I'm satisfied with how it turned out. No drama exploding into fire and flames, met some new people, Glara was pretty ;D...

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Week: March 8 - March 14
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Pretty much everyday this week I did something that involved studying with Shelley. On Friday, I went to Jesse's house with Kenny, Margaret, Priscilla... good fun :D

I got accepted into UCLA, USC, and UCSD (Eleanor Roosevelt) this weekend. Celebrated by going to souplantation.

The Elusive Kevin Lee

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Week: March 15 - March 21
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
On Monday I donated blood with Red Cross. Matt visited on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I got a flat tire on my bike, and had to walk home. It was ironic because in the morning Eugene saw me with my bike and asked me why I didn't just drive since I had a license. Then I saw him walking, and he said to me from his bike "You should have drove". Hahah I guess it depends how you look at it. Talent show practice again. Kid with the Yo Yo is so epic.

On the weekend, in addition to biking with mom and dad, I got to eat dinner at Beni Hana. So tasty... On Sunday, I saw Catherine :D Its been quite a while.

Catherine and Soomin :)

Shelley is a robot (at red cross drive at school)

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Week: March 22 - March 28
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Ooh Wow... People were really good to me on my birthday :o
In addition to many many birthday wishes (thanks facebook for reminding people haha) got quite a few goodies xD
Jesse got me a new sketchbook which many people signed the inside of. Also he burnt two CDs of which him and Kevin found a bunch of interesting songs.
Jolene got me a stuffed Totoro, asian school supplies, and candy (that I still haven't finished)
Shelley gave me a T-shirt and candy
And then more shirts, money, etc. from family;; Thank you again everybody for a wonderful birthday :)

Another major event this week was the Talent Show at BHS.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=407196036947 I'm on facebook at least once, but I had to do many many transition acts. Overall I think everyone really enjoyed themselves :)

Family :D

Gifts from Jolene

Talent Show practice

Cool kids :]

Talent Show

Talent show was also interesting because I met up with Hileman again, whom I also have not seen for a while. After Talent Show, I went to Original Buffalo Wings with Jimmy, Shelley, Jesse, Daniel Baik, K.Lee, and Justin Koo.

Catching Up Post (Again)!

2010-04-09T23:59:00.000-07:00

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Week: January 4 - January 10
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
A school work week with no major events in terms of going anywhere extraordinary or winning some award or something, but nevertheless quite eventful. On Saturday I ready C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. Played a lot of board games: Scrabble with parents, Monopoly with Jesse and Jimmy, Shogi multiple times...

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Week: January 18 - January 24
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
It was this weekend that I acquired my Xiangqi sets. There was a Link Cru event, Freshman Final Frenzy. I hoped I help a little bit, good to catch up with my Freshman Tony.
Pun: "If you can't do something because you have to read, you're booked."

Emo-looking picture (I like the colors though)

Mintz would describe him as my "nerdy friend" hahaha-- Danel "Tree" Dummet demonstrates the functionality of my homemade shogi set.

One-sided feelings. I do random artsy crap sometimes too!

Food from Shelley that I didn't eat fast enough.

Rainy week

Link Cru event

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Week: January 25 - January 31
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Finals Week! Went over to Jeff Wei's house on Tuesday and he cooked up some fine salmon fried rice.

Playing Weiqi vs Bryant

Cherry on Top with Shelley :)

Shogi came in the mail from Japan!

Fixie bike locked in front of Jesse's place. Typical scene.

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Week: February 1 - February 7
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------

New Hallway opens up at school:

PGLO lab, AP Biology

Dad rented the film "Waltz with Bashir", which we watched on Wednesday. Played lots of Xiangqi, played some Shogi. On Sunday, played Monopoly and watched Yatterman. Mom refused to do the haircut I wanted, but its alright haha xD

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Week: February 8 - February 14
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Danel says : "Nothing new under the sun".

Chinese performing arts club practices and performs:

Citrus Ranch park almost open:

Gel Electrophoresis

Shelley-club!

Applying gel with depth merge in GIMP

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Week: February 15 - February 21
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Pun: How do you greet Gene if he smells bad?
Answer: Hygiene.

Today there was a late start Wednesday. I didn't make any plans so I was a loner. I went for a nice rollerblade run, and didn't get hurt. Yay :)

I opened up a formspring account (http://www.formspring.me/captainalan) this week. Personally, I enjoy it, but I hope it doesn't cause any unnecessary or bad drama/harm/etc.etc.

Random desk shot.

Random room shot.

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Week: February 22 - February 28
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
The new citrus park opened by my place; went there with parents. It was a walk in the park. Literally :D

2 Birthdays: Diane, Janet. :D What a nice friend network they have to make happy-happy bdays :)

Who doesn't like getting these? xD

Chi-Squares lab in Biology

Catching Up Post

2010-04-09T22:23:00.000-07:00

Yet another catching up post, Spring Break updates will come soon enough (I should hope) Notice that there are a lot of pictures. Thank you Glara for showing me that blogs with pictures are often far more interesting xD

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Week: December 21 - 27
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------
Winter Break! Matt visited back from USC, and it is like back-in-the-day. Biking to Albertsons in the morning, making Christmas cards, being able to sleep in a bit... a pretty relaxing, but not uneventful break.

Sticki Picki on Saturday with Aimee and Sunjay. Here we leech off the green screen in the booth.

Matt is doing the cooking by the book. Sam is visiting.

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Week: December 28 - January 3
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------

Winter break continues. On Monday, with Tiffany Guo's BHS Talent Group, I played guitar at Lakeview Senior center. I made a lot of mistakes and stuff, but I think everybody had a good time, and that's what we were there for. Someone had a recorded video of it somewhere that was on my facebook wall, but I can't seem to locate it. Oh well!

With family, I watched Sherlock Holmes. Very well done. 2 hours of clever-clever! While we were waiting for it to start (our movie time got delayed a few hours) I read Voltaire's Candide in Barnes and Nobles. Quite memorable. Quintessential work of satire.

Peter Park's good-bye party

Morning Albertsons runs

Chinese (Or Vietnamese for some reason) People!

Birthday card for Mom

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Week: January 4 - January 10
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------
School is back in session, and homework has once again returned to me. Saturday was winter formal! Overall really fun :) I didn't get to finish my vegetables though. But I got icecream... ;D

Joanne is being all cool standing in the back (where the real g's at, elbows up, side to side)

Chinese People! So Styrish.

Money to Glara xD

Pat and Oscars with Shelley. Shelley thinks she's cool because she is wearing a hat.

Happy Easter!

2010-04-04T22:56:00.001-07:00

Happy Easter Sunday (or Resurrection Day as some prefer to call it)!

Spring break has started, I'll probably update this more later, but pretty tired now. Lots of things to write about, but lots of homework, so I'll try to get to doing a longer post soon, sorry (nonexistent?) readers for lack of updates lately, I have a lot of catching up to do!

Lessons Learned and People Appreciated

2010-03-02T14:31:00.000-08:00

Thank you Mr. Bowman! :D
I asian-failed (borderline normal-failed) my Government test Part I, but Mr. Bowman is letting me retake. Very-very-very grateful :) I studied for the FRQ instead... ...and I should be getting an 100% on that... ...but I really should have payed more attention to the calendar. So lesson learned.

1. If dates are given, take note of them.
2. If there is something better than the textbook, use that rather than the textbook (or make sure to do it before the textbook).

APUSH/APWH were pretty nice for just reading the book to study. Government book though... ...wow. That book is hard to read. So now I have learned my lesson, and since Mr. Bowman is so cool I learned it in a relatively painless way.

Every class is different-- I'm still doing Biology by the book. I was doing Statistics by the book, but now I got the Barrons prepbook and two other textbooks from Matt... so much reading to do zzz!!

Other people who made me happy today (chronologically, and I may have missed some): Jimmy, Danel, Jeff Wei, Aimee, Glara, Jesse

Okay food and study time :)

Happy Birthday Dad and more

2010-03-01T23:11:00.000-08:00

Play hard, work hard day today~
I unfortunately woke up a bit later than usual (7ish) so I had to take an under 5 minute shower and get ready really fast, not the most pleasant way to start a morning. The morning began well aside from that; in English we're beginning to read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, a manly-man change from the female themed books we read earlier this year [Pride and Prejudice, The Awakening, A Doll House, Beloved]. I've been brainwashed a bit more feminist from all of the literature and outside forces as well though, so I might actually miss blaming society for oppressing women a bit. I actually enjoyed each of the books mentioned, except maybe The Awakening. After it is graded, perhaps I'll post my essay though, I think I had a fairly interesting thesis. I had a statistics test on inference and what-not (Ch. 11 in Yeats, The Practice of Statistics). I felt like I did well, but we'll see how that confidence bites me in the behind when we get back our scores D:... Biology likewise seemed not-so-difficult, but I'm pretty confident in emerging victorious on that test. In Econ, we're talking about monopolistic competition. Quite relevant. Spanish class we get to read some Gabriel Garcia Marquez. What a coincidence, because I must start reading 100 Years of Solitude for English. If even Danel cannot do it in Spanish, I think that I might have to shamefully read translated version only. Following school, I went to grab a bagel (or two) and and icecream sandwich (or two) with Shelley. She gave me a few brownies from a batch she had made earlier. There are many inside jokes. Afterward, I stopped at school to summon some people to go to Barnes and Nobles. Tiffany Guo, Vincent Mai, and Thomas Ngo joined me in a semi-productive trip to Barnes and Nobles. Vince sucks at shogi hahahaha but did not do so horribly at Xiangqi. I shouldn't be one to judge that though, as a beginner myself. I just purposely set myself up to lose multiple times, giving up territory and leaving things undefended on purpose, etc. etc. etc. I guess there is a larger learning curve to some things. Got some strange questions on Formspring, and must decide now whether or not to answer them.

Perhaps most importantly is celebrating Dad's birthday :) Mom prepared a photo album over quite a bit of time, asking extended family members to send in pages and such, quite a feat.. and came out quite well. We ate dinner at On the Border and I ate a usual burrito. After, we went to Home Depot for like an hour. Home Depot is practically a Spanish-English dictionary. Then we presented cards/gifts and ate Mom's tasty berry dessert.

요즈음 한국어를 공부하고 싶어 그러나 바뻐요 :( 숙제 많고 벽화 프로잭트 있어요. 드라마는 있지만 지금 행복해요. 피곤해요... 꿈꾸겠어요 :)

Past, Present, Plans

2010-02-25T23:01:00.000-08:00

It has been a busy week. Work hard, play hard, climb high, fall far. I've been taught by numerous sources that as a person, my job is to serve. I am to serve God by serving in the way that he wishes. Today I am going to throw out some thoughts regarding the present, what is happening now. This is a kind of homework break, sorry if syntax, phrasing, etc. is horrible, more of a brainstorm than anything here--

Now, all the fourth dimensional, us being stuck in a linear perception of time-- all of that business I am not so sharp on. I am throwing out thoughts from my narrow linear perception of time; perhaps someone with a greater understanding teach me to see beyond this.

The past, is it dynamic? In retrospect we can interpret the past differently than we perceived it when it was once our present. When asking people, "What is the importance of keeping a journal?" or "Why do we study history?", a common quick response is "to learn from the mistakes of the past". Do we bend our perceptions of the past in such a way to create lessons for the present? I probably unintentionally do sometimes. What is the value of the past, except for our present? It can even be argued that the importance of a beautiful memory of the past is only to be able to enjoy it now, at least that memory, in the present.

And the future. The "present"s (so many pun opportunities here I will pass up) that we will try to define for ourselves.

The present is our reality, the past contributing to part of the reality, the future, the realities to come, of which speculating about influences our current reality.

Waiting does not need to be passive. The future is something ahead of us, but decisions in the moment's reality will change (from my ignorant linear perspective) that which is to occur. The past, as far as I am concerned for myself, is something for me to interpret to make a better present. I am not saying to lie to oneself.

More of a brainstorm than anything, I posted this largely as a break from work, and because I feel I should put more stuff like this on my blog rather than just abbreviated day-to-day happenings.

My job now and forever will be to serve. My present now is doing homework to gain the marginal satisfaction of having fulfilled responsibility and thus serving my role well as a student and son. My present job also means being the best friend I can be. How else should I serve right now?

What a nebulous way to present a mess of thoughts. Anyways, back to work for me. :D

--------
Notable things of today:
--------
Banana for breakfast, it was aPEELing. School: Socratic Seminar in English on The Awakening (Kate Chopin), a book which I did not like so much. Some people I know compared me to Robert. Is that a bad thing? Does it matter if it is a bad thing? Statistics. Bryant makes it really obvious I'm playing Danel in Shogi. I emerge victorious to my surprise. Biology. Tricks are for kids. And Mr. Hu. To test if we were listening he has a sign on the door that says (go to room 217) when in reality we are supposed to go the computer lab in the 300 wing. Supposedly Ms. Hammer yells at people. Poor Eugene :( Econ fourth period. I get very upset with myself because I forgot key details and concepts regarding elasticity. Spanish class is 5th period. We are reading a short story, "Espuma y Nada Mas" (Tellez). Perhaps I ought to find some food and bring it to that class. The people that sit around me are very nice. I am really moved by initiative, for example when people greet me or ask me something first. Red Cross meeting at lunch. I did not expect pizza! At the last blood drive, I was unable to donate because I used the ALEKS machine at the previous blood drive. I should be able to donate in the coming March drive though. I told Joyce and other leadership people I would be happy to help make posters and such for the club-- they gave me pizza, and all I have done is donated blood once and gone to a few meetings. I gave Shelley a ride to the market, and then home. Afterward I went to Jesse's house. Pak family bough ta lot of drinks today: water, iced tea, etc. Played some Xiangqi and won, played some Tatsunoko vs Capcom and lost. Very grateful for dinner provided, Boston Market. That Macaroni and cheese-- so good! Minnie actually laughed at a few of my jokes and that made me really happy. Mocha made some mess that Jesse had to clean up, so I posted on Mocha's facebook wall. Jesse and I went to Target to get Alvin's friend Left 4 Dead 2, then we went to Barnes and Nobles. Kevin Lee, we lost. After coming home I rode the exercise bike for 25 minutes while listening to kpop and did some pushups. I don't know if you would want me to mention your name, but I told you I would pray for you and I did. Korean nationalism for 김연아 and the Olympics continues to amuse me. Not enough time to play Bryant a shogi game, although I'd like a good duel. I hope I made at least somebody's day better. Back to homework. Being excited to go to sleep is not a bad feeling.

Xiangqi, Chess, and making Pokémon Real

2010-02-22T06:20:00.000-08:00

There are occasions in real life in which we are permitted to compete. In the United States, we have a fairly free economic system that allows competition. We all know that we are allowed to compete in school (except that TUSD doesn't do rankings!). Sports are another obvious choice.

I think it is safe to say that many people are fascinated by competition, and in particular duels. Take for example the great popularity of Pokémon and other anime shows. We see lots of individuals battling. Now wouldn't it be cool if we could all be Pokémon masters? As a child, back in the day of the original 150, I greatly enjoyed Pokémon. I also enjoyed playing Chess.

Chess/Xiangqi/Shogi etc. offers a safe ground to duel. Nearly everyone I have met knows how to play Western Chess. Nearly all Chinese people I know are familiar with Xiangqi or can play once reminded of a couple of things. Young/Old, Male/Female, I would say that a fairly fair (pun?) battle ground is offered.

Xiangqi in particular has done a lot for me lately. This Saturday I had the pleasure of playing Ye Ye at Xiangqi (won one, lost one). On Friday, I lost to Christine Ma (NOOOO!). I've lost multiple times to master William Chiu. If it weren't for changed seats in Biology, I'd be playing some good games with Andrew Kao this week. Jeff Wei knows he is doomed when I have a plan. Whatever the case, Xiangqi is socially connecting tool as well as an intellectually stimulating hobby.

It is unfortunate that we cannot have Pokémon duels. Other games such as Starcraft and Call of Duty or whatever people are playing nowadays (Starcraft is kind of old, but people still play :D ) will give distinct advantages to players with better equipment or more hours invested. I still think that good, old fashioned chess (and variants) offers a delightful duel alternative to other more physical options.

A Study in Danelism

2010-02-22T05:52:00.000-08:00

More catching up, (or falling behind more slowly)

2010-02-21T22:10:00.000-08:00

Today:
I went to EFCI in the morning. I woke up at 9 (beat waking up at 10 and missing church cleanup yesterday D: ) and was a bit rushed, but made it on time. The sermon was on a passage in Acts and problems associated with a growing church. The divide between the Greek and Hebraic Jews was well related to EFCI specifically because of the different generations of Asian people, me belonging to the ABC's. In Sunday School we discussed John Ch. 5, in particular the story about the paralyzed man that Jesus healed that was criticized for "working" on the Sabbath when he carried that mat he used to lie on. I asked a question regarding when man's law is to be respected, the specific example used being teachers and the illegality of discussion of personal beliefs and religion. Interesting things to think about...
This weekend I was blessed with plenty of nap time which has made me rejuvenated and happy-objective :D instead the bipolar-artist-like mood that consumed much of last week. I was reading the Psychology text book (even though I'm not in psychology) and Wikipedia regarding sleep earlier this week. Quite intriguing. Perhaps it is hindsight bias or confirmation bias, or one of those other biases that the book discusses, but I really think I have been underestimating the power of sleep this Senior year. Junior year with zero period I actually managed to pull of more sleep (at the cost of less social life). Anyways, I'm beginning to see how more sleep leads to more efficiency and better performance overall, so more sleep may lead to more time by allowing work to be completed faster.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Catching Up!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Week: November 30 - December 6
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
On Tuesday I took my driving test at Laguna hills and passed. How delightful! Afterward Mom took me to Jack in the Box and I let her drive. After practicing with my permit for a while, I hadn't been driven for a while, so it was great fun to not have to do the driving myself. Throughout Junior Year, I didn't have that much inspiration to get a drivers license. Then I saw Ryan She and his car under that bee hive, and Jeff Wei's heroic rescue. And I thought to myself-- I am a Senior and I don't even have a car. If my bike was under a bee hive it would suck. Also, not being allowed to ride my bike in the dark was getting a bit annoying. Now that I have a license I can do things like eat fried rice at diamond jamboree (I could earlier but it was a far bike) and go to Barnes and Nobles until 11 PM closing time :D

Friday was the Lip Sync show at school, with an excellent performance by our very own Dan(i)el Dumett and Arnob Mallick. Some drama I won't mention for privacy's sake occurred afterward involving some close friends (all I will say is bitter bitter brownies), but aside from that it was a delightful night. I didn't know Glara was performing so it was fun to see her :) and Vision of Hope club, of which many friends of mine are in, did a great job and had some creative glowing goodness at the opening. I also remember on this day that before the performance, Kevin, Jesse, and I were in the park of Northpark speculating the larger questions of life. I felt like I had vague answers from Christianity to questions such as "why do we exist?" but nevertheless always an important and interesting topic worth discussing.

Matt payed a short visit on Saturday.

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Week: December 7 - 13
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Socially this week was quite active. On Tuesday I went to Rubios with Vince. That drink machine does not cease to amuse me. Today (02/21) I went to Rubios as well. On Thursday I went to Barnes and Nobles and studied Bio and such with Sunjay. On Saturday, I worked on the song project for Government with Shelley and Dan(i)el.

Perhaps the most dramatic event that happened this week was asking Joanne to Winter Formal. In Biology with Kimchi Ramen... I was a nervous person. I had decided the night before to ask her, so only like one or two people saw it coming. She definitely didn't. I got a "yes" thankfully. :) I hope I made her happy, and at least I added some entertainment to Bio.

I went to EFCI on Sunday.

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Week: December 14 - 20
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Pleasant surprise on Tuedsay, saw Rafe at Pat and Oscars. It think I mentioned this earlier. It is strange because a second time I saw him again at Pat and Oscars. What a swell place!

Senior late start breakfast was on Wednesday. I like free food. I don't think I know anyone that doesn't.

On Friday I went to one of Jolene's concerts to hear her play flute. I really enjoyed the performance, but as always (at least from my experience) the performer was more critical of herself than those watching.

Sunday I went to Thomas Ngo's Birthday party. Props to Thomas for having such a fun party :D First we watched Avatar at the district, and enjoyed awkward scenes of blue people with tales making love and riding flying lizard things. Then we went to Chae Bahn in Diamond Jamboree. I was far too amused watching a vegetarian in a Korean restaurant. Afterward we went to Thomas' house and watched District 9. I really liked District 9- as far as intensity goes it was... well pretty intense. Had many major themes and things to think about in addition to being very well done. It seems there was a theme of alien rights going on that day.

Dropping in

2010-01-10T22:34:00.000-08:00

Because I have been recording things on paper elsewhere, I haven't gotten to transferring things here, which I really ought to on a a more regular basis. It has been a pretty intense week. Winter formal was yesterday, which was a very nice experience. I made my own week more difficult by memorizing Hiragana and Katakana during school, a most intriguing endeavor. Much of it was by rote, but forcing myself to memorize so many characters in what I would like to believe is a relatively short amount of time has taught me much regarding learning such things in general. I am planning on memorizing a good number of hanzi (Chinese characters) in the near future. I am watching Death Note (デスノート)。

Main Events today:
-EFCI
-Ramen House after church (I don't know if names want to be mentioned)
-Park + Weiqi
-Hike with parents

Minor Notables:
-Watching Death Note
-Uploaded Winter Formal pictures and other senior year pictures to Facebook

Catching up yet again, etc.

2009-12-30T09:00:00.000-08:00

Ouch! I haven't gotten around to posting updates for a while, but I have been keeping records of what has been happening. How shall I begin...

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Week: November 2 - 8
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
This was a fairly busy school week. I had two club meetings: Hopeline and Beckman Talent Group. Shelley was explaining to me how much we take leadership and such in clubs for granted, and how she understood now that she was a club president.

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Week: November 9 - 15
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
As opposed to the previous week, this school week was very light. I began working on UC applications this week, because submission window opened the 15th. On Tuesday I went to Jesse's house and ate Boston Market which I haven't for a long time. Give me more corn bread. Wednesday I went to Barnes and Nobles. During Statistics, Tiffany brought a thing of seaweed (yum) and I amused myself by learning random words in Korean off the back. Too bad they're really obscure and probably words I will not use again, examples: 영양정보: nutrition facts, 나트륨: sodium...

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Week: November 16 - 22
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Lots of projects! I looked at the site of where I am to do the mural project for the school in which I have to represent a whole bunch of sports. Quite large, quite daunting, but quite an honor. College applications are of course a big priority at this point. I'm not procrastinating at all so my life is easier and less stressful with these. Other projects include weekly comics and a logo for Mr. Beilin's WoW guild. Matt visited on Friday. I submitted my Stanford application on Sunday.

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Week: November 23 - 29
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
A short week for Thanksgiving week. Week's tasks include acquiring canned food for Link Cru, working on the Mural, weekly comics, applications and sending scores, and Beilin's logo. I got a surprising Thanksgiving gift from someone who may not want to be mentioned. I thought it was really special-- Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Sheryne's bday-- I did not forget :D During Biology I amused myself by memorizing lists of Korean words. On Thanksgiving family went to Aunt Vicki's house which was remodeled, very nice very nice. Ginormous kitchen, etc. On Friday I went to football game with Jesse and Kevin. There will be no next time, sorry Jesse haha. Unfortunately, Beckman lost, but nevertheless an interesting experience. I owe Jesse an Arizona for losing bet. Church at EFCI on Sunday.

Catching up

2009-11-28T06:53:00.000-08:00

Its probably too early in the day to make a post about today, so I will just do some catching up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Week: September 28, 2009 - October4, 2009

In English class we're reading William Shakespeare's "King Lear" still. There are many good puns to be made from this work. King Lear seems to have lost his mind, you can say he is deLEARious. Lear tried to REGAN his kingdom, only to find that it was GONERIL. I submitted all my Socratic seminar notes in pun form and got extra credit; English class is definitely among my favorite classes this year.

In Biology we're learning about enzymes and metabolic processes. In a lab we used the enzyme catalase which was extracted from a cow's liver (CATTLEase... hahaha)

College applications and such are moving along, slowly but steadily. In retrospect it was good that I started as early as I did; applications was a relatively very low stress endeavor.

Thursday was a good friend's (I don't know if I should mention names for things like this) birthday. I made her a nice card and I think she was very happy. That made me happy.

Waiting after school with Sheryne, Calculus, and Eric's french fries

Being productive at Barnes and Nobles with Jeff Wei

Homecoming game! Hay Jenny!

Homecoming game! Hay Shelley!

Homecoming Dance: Green Screen with Nicole

Homecoming Dance: Its a trap!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Week: October 5, 2009 - October 11, 2009

Monday I donated blood (well, platelets since that's what they take from first-timers) to Red Cross. To help prevent disease spread, they have to ask very interesting questions. "Have you been to Africa in the past 3 years?" "Have you slept with a person that has been in Africa..." etc. Overall I was happy to give blood and got some free cookies, water, and a free t-shirt out of the experience. Now I have to wait until January if I am to donate blood again.

In biology we're learning about viruses. Scary stuff... especially the crystallizing and lying dormant part. We were shown some video and they showed where they store the last strain of smallpox in some ghetto lab in Russia.

In Spanish class we had a formal essay... ouch! But any day writing is easier than speaking for that class.

Oh snap! National Merit packet. I was unsure about one section and had to rapidly fill it out during school. Everything looks good and in order.

Applications are getting along well. At this point I had registered for all the online things for the application. I am really applying myself this weekend.

Matt visited on the weekend. From what I remember, this week we just did some dinner at On the Border and went to Target for some shopping.

Jeff Wei borrowed this book from me. I will remember to get it back!

Jolene's sunglasses!

William Chiu!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Week: October 12, 2009 - October 18, 2009

On Monday I had to go to a district awards thing because of National Merit semifinalist. If anything came out of it, a few good puns came out. We were a bit late, so we had to stand in the back. I told my friend that I couldn't stand being late. The meeting wasn't too exciting, I guess that's why they call it a board meeting.

Thank you to Nandita for reading my essay draft-- quite helpful.

FCA was this week and I ate plenty of pizza. I went to Yogurtland with Kelly and Vince on Thursday. I went to see "Where the Wild Things Are" with Kelly on Friday and got grounded for leaving my phone off. The movie was interesting, but not so uplifting. Well done for what it was, however.

I went to Supermex with Richard on Friday, and afterward we played Brawl at Jesse's house.

Jeff Wei vs the Bees to Steal Ryan's Car?

Vince will find no lunch in my camera bag.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Week: October 19, 2009 - October 25, 2009

Homework was plentiful this week. Daily statistics homework, lots of writing in English, labs and such in bio, etc. Not too much busy work though, so it was tolerable.

I mentioned the legendary drink machine at Rubios. I visited this twice actually this week.

If there is something I detest about school, it is bad questions on tests. Questions like "Which of the following is the best answer" with an answer choice of "None of the above"...

Friday I visited Jeff Wei's house and we drew stuff. Afterwards I went over to Jesse's, other people like Shelley, Chrissi, etc. were over there as well. Unfortunately we played Mario Party, a game I still fail to see the appeal of.

Saturday I went to Jesse's house again. I tried some strange Japanese drink with grass jelly in it. I got Korean food today. Thank you! Yay!

Sunday I visited Evangelical Formosan Church of Irvine with Kelly and her friend Alex. I thought it was very good. Afterward we grabbed Ramen and Sticky Picky. 'Twas fun!

Do I need to clean my room?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Week: October 26, 2009 - November 1, 2009

Halloween Jesse and company decided to go get a free Burrito at Chipotle by dressing in foil. I must say... this costume is pretty legendary. The sick irony is that we were walking right past the Albertsons where a couple of people were killed by a person with a katana... so... insensitivity much?

On Sunday I biked with Gene to best buy. After looking around for like an hour he bought a case for iTouch instead of iPhone. Fail.

Okay more to come later...

More catching up and today's update

2009-11-11T23:55:00.000-08:00

Well maybe not today since this will probably get published after 12:00 AM, but you know what I mean, right? ;D

Today I woke up to a healthy dose of econ homework. A most intriguing subject; as with other subjects like Chemistry, I think think the calculations they test students are annoying and distract from the subject itself. They have to test you on something though, so I suppose they have their purpose. They can also demonstrate concepts, but so can just seeing them once as opposed to repeatedly doing them as exercises. Different people learn differently.

Unfortunately today I was unable to fulfill two requests. Sorry for not going over to Sunjay's house yet, and sorry for not going biking with Gene. I admit I didn't work the entire day, but I did do a lot of work and resting that I really needed to do.

I went to Barnes and Nobles this morning until maybe 4 pm (a long while, though with a lunch break). The morning was especially productive. As with most study sessions, productivity declined towards the end, but that was largely because I accomplished thing things I wanted to early on. I got some good bio studying done with Daeyoung and also learned how much more intense class of 2012 is than class of 2010-- at least I don't have to compete with them all for college admissions :)

Lunch break was pretty nice, went to Chin Chin's with Jolene and Vince. Jolene let me buy fried rice and just watched me eat after she told me she would eat some too D: But that's fine I guess if it makes everyone happy (I'm fine with it-- I got leftover fried rice keke!)

After lunch things didn't go as well, but I won't elaborate too much on details here because I don't know if the people I am thinking of would want it. I will just say that I am concerned.

Going home was fun-- Jeff Wei didn't die on roller blades, I got to listen to more kpop while riding home. Sansa Fuze-- great mp3 player by the way, especially for price. Random interjection: if the scroll wheel seems to get stuck, can be cleaned by leaving face down over a damp tissue of rubbing alcohol or trying to clean in between wheel with rubbing alcohol. Alcohol evaporates faster than water and stuff so nothing was damaged and now its working perfectly after a minor inconvenience of stuck wheel (not a fault in the player, I still retain really high reviews for it)

At home, remodeling continues. Its nice to see parents engaged in a non-work related project. I hope they are happy. I don't like all the nostalgic references they make to my childhood, but I suppose that is natural for parents, so I'll have to deal with it. Remodeling gives them something progress-orientated to look towards, full of discovery and interest they probably miss from seeing a child rapidly developing. I don't think I'm that boring now though, but I guess I was more interesting in the past to them. Oh well.

---------------
Catching up!
---------------

September 21, 2009

Spanish homework is to compare 2 Central American countries. I am pretty ignorant, I had not even known the difference between "Latin America" and "Central America", or any of the difference between countries in Central America (besides the given obvious geographical ones like one is above the other) prior to taking Spanish AP. I'm glad I'm taking this class.

---------------

September 22, 2009

We're reading William Shakespeare's King Lear in English. For being the character he was, Shakespeare did write some very intriguing literature. One of the most tragic things about this play, is that I do not feel Lear continually makes mistakes, rather it is one mistake that leads to a cascade of fail. Numerous definitions exist for tragedy, and each has their own degree of merit.

---------------

September 23, 2009

Senior mob shot. Some people make things so difficult. Put down your hands and wannabe-gangster hand signs and let them take the picture. Who wants to stand squinting in the sun in the mud for a long time? I'm trying not to think lowly of class of 2010, but I'm still liking class of 2011 and class of 2012 better.

---------------

September 24, 2009

Senior quotes: I don't have one yet at this point, and by today (Nov. 12) I decided not to turn in one at all. Something funny is alright, but I wouldn't necessarily want to be remembered by something funny that had little meaning, or especially a cynical connotation. Something more serious or Biblical might have been good to bring, but nothing in particular came to mind to me. I guess a blank space will leave me room to append a quote if I really feel like I have to later in peoples' yearbooks.

---------------

September 25, 2009

I went to the Fresh concert at Bethel church with Jimmy, Jesse, Daniel Baik, and company... ...saw Tim Chang there too :P We left early and went swimming. This day was a Friday. I did not record anything for that weekend, but it likely involved resting and dreaming with a large dose of homework.

---------------
more later.
---------------

Glucose for Breakfast and Metaphorical (and literal) Fog

2009-11-09T06:32:00.000-08:00

Monday Morning Ramen
A Foggy backdrop from the window to my left
It is difficult to see through the fog
But through the fog I must pass
If I am to learn
Because
School is on the other side.

(Uh-oh... Running out of time this morning, but I still have to fill in all the days up until now, will get to that soon hopefully)

Popping in--

2009-11-02T16:50:00.000-08:00

Been rather busy-- I'll get back to here soon, but have to finish an essay and apps and stuff. Here's a nice quote from that one Greek guy ;D More stuff to come, just showing I'm still alive here.

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” - Plato

Today

2009-10-21T22:39:00.000-07:00

First off here is comic:

Today was rather interesting. In the morning, because mom wanted to donate some stuff to the biology department I didn't ride my bike to school. I brought my guitar to school and got to play at school randomly. After school I went to Rubios again with Vince (he ate this time) and had to wait till like 6:30 to get a ride home. At home, some water thing was getting fixed. Then I took a multi-hour nap. Now I'm up finishing up homework. Best thing that happened today: I got a free dollar and turned it into entertainment for people. Will maybe write more later, but got to finish up stuff today.

Continued catching up and today's update--

2009-10-20T22:06:00.001-07:00

Today

I tried to make today a good day, but as the day proceeded everything seemed to be getting worse. I'm trying to revive my day with some evening friendship, reflection, and productivity. The friendship part means keeping online on AIM and attempting to be the most useful/amusing/helpful/etc. person I can be for my friends. The reflection part means writing here so I can maybe get some inspiration. The productivity part means I already finished all my homework due tomorrow, and hope that blogging here will give me some ideas for this week's comic and college apps, and what-not.

After school today, I went to Rubios with Vince. They got these crazy new touch-screen soda dispenser machines. There are flavors of Fanta I never knew existed that taste oh-so-good. Now I want more soda-- the glucose empowered goodness! Anyways random appreciation here for Vince for being able to laugh at any of my sometimes lousy jokes and for being a very stable friend. You don't meet any friend by shoving someone you don't know and saying "What's your problem?" to someone who looks nice that you guess would understand the humor behind the action. Ahaha... interesting story. Interesting people.

Drama--! I don't think its proper to report any drama here unless things work out well, then I'll be glad to report the whole story using substitute-names to protect identities (unless the people really want me to put their names). I guess having a more private journal is useful for recording anecdotes that one might not want to publish at the time for privacy's sake, but can be made fully anonymous later. I think I'll try to start to keep more of a personal-type journal in edition to this blog, but any epiphany I'll likely be very eager to share here.

(might add more later tonight-- we'll see :D )
----

September 20, 2009

I had written about my experience in debate on a burst of inspiration at 2 am on a tired evening to respond to one of the UC application's prompts. I later decided my swim experience would make a stronger statement, so I quit this one, but of course saved it anyways.
Here is a personal statement that I decided not to use describing my experience with debate team:

On September 19th 2009, I competed in my first debate competition. It was a last minute decision to participate-- my teammate and I had only begun preparing one week earlier for a competition that most teams take many months to ready themselves. Upon first hearing of the competition, just over a week before the event, I was reluctant to participate. Entering the competition represented a significant time investment and monetary cost, and I had not previous experience in formal debate. Nevertheless, I decided to make the investment and enter the competition. I was amply rewarded with a fulfilling experience.

Preparation was an arduous process. On top of the daily work load of six AP courses, I had just been hit by a car on my bicycle a few days before, and had been emotionally shaken by a cold rejection from my school’s homecoming dance. Friday night, after school, my partner and I, and another partner pair met up with our debate coach. We had been expecting at least six people to represent our school on the debate team, but only four of us were willing to make the commitment. The meeting with the debate coach was quite insightful-- in addition to receiving some helpful pointers on how to present an argument or refute an opponent’s claim, we came to a healthy realization of how unprepared we were. Following that meeting I resolved to read an 150 page long packet of primary sources regarding our topic, “Resolved: United States policy on illegal immigration should focus on attrition through enforcement rather than amnesty”, much of it being legal jargon and other seemingly unintelligible material. Saving trees (I didn’t print out an 150 page document), and consuming much of my time, I condensed this document into a 20 page or so document summarizing all of the main arguments and providing easily accessible statistics for use during the debate in a manic struggle to do what other teams have been doing for months into less than a week. I was fortunate enough to have a very able partner-- throughout the preparation process, my communication and teamwork skills were significantly improved as under the pressures of time restraints, my partner and I were forced to work with utmost efficiency and effectiveness.

Loss of sleep, sacrifice of free time, and extended study hours proved to be very worthwhile. Two novices, myself having no previous debate experience, my partner only having competed once, emerged victorious in three out of four of our debates (and still strongly believe we should have won the one we did not).

Debate competition was very much a microcosm of what I have thus far discovered of life. The formal structure of the “Public Forum” format we followed reminded me of the order needed to achieve an effective discussion in case of debate, and an orderly environment in which to succeed in terms of society. The “crossfire” section of each debate, the portion in which each team is able to “fire” questions and responses back in forth showed the competitive nature of our capitalism society and the adaptivity and improvement it fosters. The format of the competition, requiring each team to argue both sides of the issue, twice the “pro”, and twice the “con” encouraged educated analysis of multiple facets of controversial issues. Participating in the SoCal debate forum competition proved to be both a practical and enlightening experience, enhancing my communication and time management skills while giving me a deeper appreciation for the opportunity presented in our society, encouraging me to examine multiple perspectives on issues, and the demonstrating the importance of adapting.

Puns.

2009-10-14T22:46:00.000-07:00

Update

2009-10-12T17:20:00.001-07:00

Things have been pretty busy lately, but are settling mildly. I will start with today, then describe the days from the last few posts up until today.

So today at school Rachel's Challenge had an assembly. The father of a girl killed at Columbine High School back in the 90s spoke. A message was given about spreading kindness, reaching out, being positive, among other things. For the most part I agreed with it as it was in tune with Christian values (and values associated with most belief systems). Perhaps one of the biggest things I took from the presentation, however, was the importance of writing things down. A point stressed in the presentation was to write down goals, and keep a journal. I suppose this is my form of a journal. It was really impressive how, though very idealistic, deep what Rachel wrote was for such a young age. Really positive and thoughtful people are a rare and beautiful thing. Looking on my blog, I feel pretty shallow and cynical, but I suppose that I should just continue and see how it evolves. There is little to no point lying to yourself on your own blog or diary.

September 15, 2009:
Jesse Pak told me how to play Yu-Gi-Oh. The first time he made me use a lousy PAK of cards while he dominated me with some cheap rigged setup. The second time he killed me as well. I guess that game takes more skill that I thought. I read a poem called ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER by John Keats (1795-1821). Basically Keats was really happy to have been able to read a translation of Homer's classic. Back in the day, before internet, things like that were appreciated so much more. Information is so accessible nowadays, at an elementary level, there is very little searching to do if you want to learn about something. Wikipedia is such a great study partner.

September 16, 2009:
This day was mostly homework. I had to turn in something to TURNITIN.com. I think that it is a really annoying site for some things, such as notes. I remember in APUSH it would highlight like every single one of my proper nouns. For stuff like essays and things it is pretty okay, for now at least. If that site stays in existence too long, the database will get too large and everything will be plagurizing. Stopping cheating gets harder and harder with new technology. Every improvement creates more loopholes and opportunities than all the safeguards it makes.

September 17, 2009:
For Spanish class I had to give an oral presentation. My spoken Spanish is really bad. Writing and reading isn't too bad with the huge number of cognates. Speaking and listening are what kill for Spanish. Still seeking to improve, listening to more Spanish music and stuff to improve comprehension and get used to the accent, but still very difficult.

September 18, 2009: At this part I'm doing really hardcore preparation for debate competition which is the following day. I'm getting very nervous because I have not done formal debate for. Jimmy and I are coordinating our organization of materials. As a team, we communicate very well.

September 20, 2009:

(Will describe debate in depth later)

--------------
To be continued... Got a lot of days to fill in!

A few comics

2009-10-08T00:56:00.001-07:00

I'll write more later-- been way too busy, sorry readers :(

Staying Alive

2009-09-24T19:33:00.001-07:00

I've been pretty busy lately. I'll report on the debate competition later, which went very well, but I think I'm going to write about it for one of my college-app essays, so I'll just repost that essay a safe amount of time after I submitted it.

Today my new wheels came in for my bike which was nice, now I have my wings of speed back :)

Sorry for lack of details today, I have things recorded to write about in the very near future, just rather busy today.

First three weeks of school--!

2009-09-14T18:05:00.000-07:00

I did not realize how much time I had let pass without posting here until my good cousins so kindly reminded me.

Life has been very kind to me lately. My Grandparents' 80th birthday party seemed to have been a great success-- everyone seemed very happy. There was beautiful music, delectable food, Chinese outfits and magic, and of course lots of family members. I got to see Matt again-- he is having a pretty intense lifestyle. Randall was jerking and celebrating Caucasian pop music while Matt and I softly hummed Michael Jackson and Tong Hua in the background. As a party favor too, I got this nice carrot cake cupcake that I have yet to eat. Grandparents are truly blessed people :)

Schoolwork has been less intense this year than last year. I am without my core work loads from last year, Chemistry and Calculus. This year I have Statistics (very tedious so far) and Biology (amusing, mild work) for my Math and Science. This year I'm starting to feel like a rich middle class male-- taking classes like Government and Econ, looking at Graphs in Econ, and then now debating about Immigration for Debate Club... By far my hardest class this year, in a schedule of all AP classes, is AP Spanish Language. Yo soy 1 de las 3 o 4 personas en la clase que no habla español en casa. El escuchado es el más difícil parte del clase. Puedo leer más o menos bien porque hay muchos cognados y tiene la maś experiencia en el leido, pero en los años antes de este año no recibía mucho practica sobre hablar y escuchar. (excuse grammar errors if you know Spanish!)

Social life has been pretty decent. Barnes and Nobles is a swell place to study. Went to Wei's house a few times to study/draw/guitar. Though the vast majority of seniors leave at lunch, I like to hang around. Its been great to get to know certain people better. I feel like I'm distancing from a lot of people in my own grade a bit though; missing the camaraderie of olden days, but alas, nothing on this earth lasts forever. Nevertheless, its been a great year.

I'll try to get around to posting more frequently-- it seems it kind of goes in bursts of momentum and inspiration.

Today

2009-08-25T00:54:00.000-07:00

Link Cru training in the morning, hopefully the actual event will go well;

Afterwards I ate lunch and yogurtland with Jenny and Janet and then went over to Jesse's house. Now I'm watching Stairway to Heaven as recomended by Jesse's sister. So dramatic. I'm tired.

Today

2009-08-20T23:46:00.001-07:00

Interesting day today.
In the morning I decided I very much disliked the Beckman planner and decided to search Morning Glory for a better one. I called up Jesse and we biked there (but not back). I sensed a flat tire was coming, and indeed one was! Jesse got a flat tire and we had to walk back. Due to not wanting to spend money, we didn't get any of the good asian food on the way either :/ Still fun and interesting though, I bought Arizona iced tea.

Afterwards I began biking to the beach. I visited Jeffrey Wei at Barnes and Nobles and we looked at yet more planners. We saw Shelley too, but she was mad because the movie theater was being unfair.

Bonfire was a good experience. I met (or re-met) some cool people. I don't like certain people very much right now but I am not going to make any enemies. Biking there didn't take too long and wasn't too hard. Parents gave me a ride back and were not too upset, and I am thankful for them. Overall the experience was very positive. I think I was a bit obnoxious at times, but I was always well intentioned and hope I was a valuable contribution.

The Alchemist (required school reading) .... eww... Highly not recomended.

Today

2009-08-19T00:15:00.000-07:00

So today I went to registration. It took quite a while. Those annoying budget cuts make scheduling and stuff more difficult... so now I have to drop studio art and art history, and I'm taking statistics. Oh well, not too bad. I ate lunch afterwards with Jeffrey Wei and Dorothy Kiddo Phan at Baja Fresh. I ate a lot. Then I went to Jesse's house and then to Pavilions with assorted people. I went for a rather silent walk with Matt at night, he's off to college tomorrow. The Alaska post I started earlier will soon be finished hopefully. I'm almost done with Spanish AP homework.

Alaska Trip

2009-08-17T07:53:00.000-07:00

Wong Family 2009 Summer Vacation!

I apologize for (lack of) photograph quality in advance; I shot in JPEG the whole trip unknowingly.

Day 1: (Arriving, At Sea)

This day ran rather smoothly. I was unable to eat my kimchi ramen in the morning because my mom turned off the water and gas. John Wayne airport was relatively uncrowded and fast. One guy at security thought my mom was my wife ("Is this your wife's bag?"). What a nice compliment to my mom. In the airplane, I read Native Speaker by Chang Rae Lee, a well written, depressing, Asian American book assigned from a list of choice for AP English. Matt was drawing Totem poles and doing some anatomy study. The extended family united at the airport in Seward.

From there, we took a bus towards the place where we would board the ship. I sat next to Daniel and we talked about Bikes and Yo Yo's and ate warheads. How absolutely delightful! On the bus ride, we saw some white mountain-goat things on the side of the road. The scenery in general was really cool. We rode past some extensive flat, sandy thing that is suppose to get gigantic waves every once in a while.

Arriving on the ship wasn't too bad. A lot of showing passports and stuff, but not too bad. This was our first glimse of the empire of hand sanitizer that reigned in the ship. From this day until the conclusion of the trip, we would be using a lot of sand sanitizer at the stations conveniently dispersed throughout the ship. We soon found our rooms and settled in. My parents, my brother, and I shared a room. I chose some top bed out of the way of everything that comes down from the roof. Small, but comfortable, and hard to get out of to pee at night sometimes.

Our Dinner time was designated as 8 PM. I think this day I ordered Penne pasta and grilled chicken, but am not quite sure. Dinner was very nice. For the first day I sat at a table for four with my immediate family.

The remainder of the day was spent walking about the ship for me. Dinner consistently let out relatively late for us, so after dinner a lot of times people were pretty tired.

Randall is so cool he's blurry. At the airport.

Mei-guo! At the airport.

On the bus to the ship

Day 2: (At Sea)

At 6-ish, we passed Glacier bay. My dad and I woke up, got early breakfast, and viewed these glaciers. Very fabulous! Being a day at sea, this day was pretty relaxing. I taught some people how to play Go, which I brought along. Unfortunately at this point of the trip, Matt is feeling a little bit sick (not sea sick at least). Dad and the cousins question whether the Captain and his rrrrrrrrrrrrolling r's is real or a voice actor. Either way, he sounds pretty cool. I think this is the first day I went without listening to Korean Pop music for a long time. It was either this day or the day before that Noah and Daren shared about their intern experience under Ye Ye.

Dad looks at glaciers

A glacier :D

View of the ship (Holland America : Statendam) near dark. It gets dark really late up North in the summer!

Day 3: (At Sea)

The days at sea were my favorite because they had the most time to relax and spend time with people. On this day there was more wandering of the deck, playing of games, and eating of food. I think I went swimming too in the ship's pool. Outside was pretty cold compared to Southern California.

We saw more glaciers as well.

Copyright Randall Hsieh >_>

Day 4: (Haines, Alaska)
In the morning, Dad and I walked around the city a bit, and then came back and left for our river boat excursion after with Mom and Matt. It was very beautiful, very cold, and we did not see much wildlife besides a few bald eagles from a distance, but the environment in general was very nice.

Day 5: (Juneau, Alaska)
Here most all of the family went Whale Watching. My parents were very excited about seeing wildlife. It was good to see them so enthusiastic and positive. I played a lot of ping pong with Daniel and Randall. Family meetings were discussing Ye Ye's upcoming party and general sharing of the grand kids. If you want something that tastes really good but isn't very healthy, but a scoop of ice cream between two cookies.

Day 6: (Ketchikan, Alaska)
Black Bears are overrated. We took a float plane (expensive!) to this salmon hatchery. This hatchery itself was pretty interesting. Salmon to me seem much more amazing than bears. Such a struggle and an epic journey of life to death... they're pretty muscular too, jumping all over the place.

Day 7: (At Sea, Leaving)
A peaceful day... Deck 14 hammocks and relaxing... some good games of Go...

(more text later too)

Fixed Gear

2009-08-03T23:07:00.000-07:00

So today I biked over to the Path and bought a fixed gear + lock ring and installed it on my bike... and then biked back home without getting hurt. Pretty fun, smooth ride, and now I have the confidence to apply my previous track stand skills and stuff so I can go really fast etc. I breifly went to Pavillions with Jesse to draw stuff, but had to leave to get contact lenses. This is the second visit, and I finally got them in... now I can wear cool sunglasses and see at the same time. Zzz!

New Bike!

2009-07-30T23:42:00.000-07:00

Mmmmm tasty! I got a new bike today. So far its functioning very well, but then again, I've only ridden it around the block a couple of times because I finished building at night.

Didn't get much homework done today... I finished reading Jojo's Bizzare Advendure on OneManga and started Stone Ocean... I'm also reading Full Metal Alchemist in Spanish to practice Spanish while amusing myself... hahaha

Today I also hung out with Dumett and Jesse Pak; we went swimming and played some brawl. Now I'm tired.

Weekend

2009-07-26T19:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the traditional crowd went bike riding to the beach again. I will upload pictures soon, but I'm waiting for more pictures to be on my camera before I transfer over right now.

Today I slept in pretty late. Its hot. More later, working on some Spanish homework.

Bike Spam

2009-07-20T21:03:00.001-07:00

This morning I biked to the beach and rode around there for a bit. It didn't take that long and it wasn't too hot.

Jesse told me this looks like a scene from "The Host". I concur!

Then I started researching flash-based small-ish mp3 players because Zune's lack of Asian Character support and incompatibility was starting to piss me off again (everything else except for that has been great so far). I'm starting to look at the Sandisk Fuze. Not having to deal with mandatory software sounds nice.

Now I'm making a homework schedule for the upcoming few weeks.

오늘

2009-07-19T23:51:00.000-07:00

아침에 교희에 갔습니다. 저는 언전을 실제. "Million Dollar Baby"를 형 가티 봤습니다.. 좋고 슬픈입니다. 밤에 달리기했습니다. Ruby를 공부했습니다. 숙제 있습니다 그러나 지금 피곤해요. 자겄어요. 안녕히계세요!

Hoy

2009-07-18T23:52:00.000-07:00

(Necesito practicar mi español)
Hoy mis padres, mi hermano, y mis abuelos fuimos a la "Gamble House" en Pasadena. Fue más o menos interesante, pero no nos permite tomar fotografías en las casa durante el recorrido. Después, fuimos a la casa de los Lims para celebrar los cumpleaños del Julio. Estoy cansado ahora.

Done

2009-07-18T01:08:00.000-07:00

Ewwww.... Pretty much spent the whole day cleaning my room and I'm finally done :D

Today

2009-07-17T00:53:00.000-07:00

Today was rather busy. In the morning I cleaned my room. I ate some food for lunch, and then cleaned my room some more. I already ranted about cleaning my room enough yesterday. I have way too much stuff. Gift-giving, as a tradition, can be a very good thing. Some gifts however, mainly gifts given for the sake of giving a gift (such as for a Birthday, sometimes on holidays, etc.) often result in the accumulation of items that don't bear much significant meaning besides it being "polite" for the giver of the gift. I know when I'm an Uncle/Father/Grandfather, I will not hesitate to give away money or disgustingly practical gifts to certain people (mainly family) because too much stuff becomes burdensome and almost selfish for the giver (giving for the sake of being polite etc.)

I got in a lot of driving practice. To drive to Dr. Ota's office for contact lenses I had to get in a good dose of freeway.

I tried Guppy House with Mom. We ate some popcorn chicken and fried rice. Nom-nom-nom. Very good.

I saw Harry Potter (Half Blood Prince) with Shelley, Nandita, and Dumett. It was quite suspenseful. And wow-- these movies are pretty dark. If I were a little kid that loved Harry Potter the books I might be terrified. I have yet to read the books.

Upon returning home Matt and Nicole were finishing up watching Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon of which I've seen fairly recently. The characters of that movie still don't really appeal to me.

Room Cleaning

2009-07-16T01:12:00.001-07:00

Here I am cleaning my room again. I feel really old, but not necessarily in a bad way. My earlier childhood (up until the start of high school) stuff reminds me of a past I don't really remember besides the happy blur I described earlier. I admit I did have quite an imagination, but I lacked an important sensitivity that I feel I still often lack.

Freshmen year of high school was an interesting time. From analyzing drawings from that time, that is the time when I probably grew the most technically. I haven't improved a whole lot since then.

I've found that most of the drawings I think are worth saving are not the ones that are technically the best, but the ones that either captured the essence of a moment or that reminded me of people. All the drawings I have of people with swords and crap I don't really care about. It is the little doodles people do on my papers or the small, funny comics I draw in the margins that I want to keep.

Most schoolwork I am not saving. I am saving Calculus stuff for practical reasons (I think Beilin did a really good job teaching and my notes are helpful).

Going back through my old Elite stuff, and knowing that many of my friends are now in Elite, I can safely say that I am glad I did Elite, and aside from the actual SAT work, I miss it a lot. In Korea, children have to go to school like all day. If it was like how Elite was, I probably wouldn't mind. Usually I don't save any homework. I'm highly considering saving some of my Elite work, or turning my Elite binder into a sort of scrap book to archive memories of there.

The other "work" I have contemplated saving is my AP World History stuff (my AP US history stuff is mostly all typed and saved). That was a memorable class as well.

I have a ton of notebooks that I only wrote like 10 pages into, journals of sorts. Right now, I'd like to think I'm a pretty dedicated person, so seeing things like that makes me think that I have grown a bit since my earlier years.

More to come...

Today

2009-07-14T23:00:00.000-07:00

Today was rather uninteresting. After waking up and having breakfast, I enjoyed reading some of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure on onemanga. Then my parents woke up and started talking about organizing first thing in the morning. I went to sleep again because it was very demotivating.

Upon waking again, I proceeded to do some organizing. I think going through my old papers from pre-sophomore year is really depressing a lot of the time because though I had a happy childhood (though its quite a blur) I see how mean I was sometimes.

I still haven't found the one item from the past I actually wanted to see again; I am pretty sure I still have it-- the notecard from sophomore year from Catherine with the hangul alphabet on it. Oh well-- if I don't find it, I still have many items of similar nature to symbolize that time of my life.

I am not very sentimental and could probably make with one small box of miscellaneous items, my computer, my guitar, my keyboard, and my books (and clothes + desk + essentials) in my room and be completely satisfied, but I'm keeping all sorts of old stuff to satisfy my parents. They really miss when I was small, but I think that I was pretty mean back then so I don't like talking about it much; its just a happy blur of which I have a small amount of guilt over.

I was thinking about learning katakana in one day so I could read all the packages at Mitsuwa and stuff for fun, but then I got distracted (or rather un-distracted) and started learning more Korean words instead. I guess sticking to less languages increases productivity with those. But I still might go ahead and learn katakana/hiragana, it probably won't take horribly long.

I didn't get much exercise today, just rode the elliptical trainer while listening to Chinese podcasts. As of now, I'm too busy to learn Chinese written language, but while I'm exercising, I like to learn something (though I love listening to music too). Its kind of like a half-nap when I exercise inside becasue I can close my eyes while I exercise. Exercise is also one of the few activities (along with taking a shower, going to the restroom, usually sleeping) that people won't bother me while I'm doing too. Even when I'm doing homework and stuff I'll get interrupted a lot, but for some reason, while exercising, nobody ever asks me to do anything. That makes it a bit more relaxing.

Homework is progressing rather slowly. Towards the middle of June I blasted through a lot, but pace is slowing as I realize alot of the work I have left is best delayed a little bit to maximize retention for the school year. Reading books for English, too, I don't really consider "homework" as I enjoy reading very much. Its Biology and Spanish homework that is the most work this summer. Both subjects I find interesting though.

I played some guitar this night. I haven't played for a few days, and it sure showed. Guitar, piano, etc. are more "physical" skills than take programming or learning Chinese in my opinion, and I feel they deteriorate much faster than "mental" skills so I'm not as motivated to practice hard since it takes a large amount of time and effort to maintain these skills at high levels. I really enjoy playing still, though I feel like I'm not making a lot of progress. I don't know if I'm committed enough to invest in Lessons or something that would really boost progress. Maybe I'm just on a plateau now and soon I will begin to climb in progress again. Progress was definitely fastest at the beginning though. As with everything pretty much, the more advanced one gets, the more progress slows.

I didn't get to hang out with anyone today. A lot of people are in class. Poor Jisun gets locked up at IVC for a long time. Shelley has a life and went to some mock-court thing. Gene is getting dangerous and learning how to drive. Brandon Nydell is sitting around and playing games all day. Lawrence is Lawrence. Daniel is Daniel. etc. etc. etc. I'm sure I could find someone available if I put in a little bit more effort. Today was nice and relaxing though.

More stuff later-- getting tired!

2009-07-12T21:22:00.000-07:00

Today I went to Church and then to eat lunch with Matt at Mitsuwa. Then I went to play tennis and swim with Gene and some friends. Now I am watching Dragon Inn. Fun day, too tired to write more now

Summer updates

2009-07-10T17:49:00.000-07:00

Lots of stuff happening lately:
Today I biked to the district and ate with parents at (something) Korner, a Persian restaurant. I finished watching Lars and the Real Girl and watched Gran Torino with Matt. Both are recommended.

Yesterday I biked to IVC to visit Jisun and she gave me a cool notebook from Korea. Then I ran (eww) to Serrano to go swimming with Gene and Bryan. Too much exercise for one day. I did a lot of Bio reading too at IVC.

Earlier this week I went to go eat Korean food with Shelley. Nom nom nom it was pretty good. Lots of Korea-philing >_>

Haven't been able to do much art lately, kind of uninspired... I think I'll learn some Ruby and maybe do some drawing later if I have time.

Weekend, Yesterday, and Today

2009-06-30T08:08:00.000-07:00

Weekend: The extended family on my Mom's family met to eat lunch at the Empress Pavilion. I am not the biggest fan of Dim Sum, so I pretty much only ate some vegetables, rice, and noodles. There was a lot of food ordered, and leftovers were abundant. In China Town there were Guitars on sale for like $30 (for half or three-fourths size) or $50-70 (full size) and I was really tempted to get a ghetto nylon string that I could bring to the beach and stuff. I decided to hold off though to combat stuff-accumulation. I'm really starting to want one of these Yamaha Silent Guitars (nylon). Everyone seems to like them, they look cool, and sound great. I should probably get better at what I have first though-- nice equipment with limited skills only shames the nice equipment. It was good seeing Grandparents/Cousins/etc. and I think Matt and I mildly amused them so that was good. Matt also showed me some Japanese drama of which I do not know the name. It was pretty dramatic.

Yesterday: In the morning I watched Il Mare (시월애) and I must say it was worth watching. I went to Barnes and Nobles with Shelley. We also ate bread sticks. English AP homework looks slightly annoying. At night, I found out from Bryant that we could call collegeboard to ask for our AP scores and get $8 robbed from us. I did that and found out my scores: Calc - 5, APUSH - 5, Art - 4, Chemistry - 4, Computers - 5. I actually thought I would get higher on Chem because I did well on SAT II. For art, I had no idea what was coming.

Today: My dad bought a bunch of books on college and stuff. Right now I'm reading a book called How to Become a Straight-A Student by Cal Newport. The first chapter talks about time management and calendars. During the school year, I always used a planner/calendar, but for summer I haven't gotten around to getting a new one. I'm thinking about getting one though so I can maximize productivity. I really exploited a calendar well during Winter Break and before the AP tests, so I'm believing what this guy says (and what other students he interviews have said). Anyways, too early to recommend or not recommend this book, but so far it hasn't said anything I blatantly disagreed with. I appreciate how my dad tries to do things in a smart way. Unlike other Asian parents, he doesn't force me to study all day. My parents are relatively easy-going in their own way. <33 them.

어제 한국어 공부합니다. I payed $10 shipping to KoreanClass101 to get some DVD/CD set with a lot of content and some 7-day trial of Premium membership and 30-day basic membership. Seemed like a pretty good deal to me. $10 is like eating out twice.

2009-06-26T00:46:00.000-07:00

Today I went to the Dentist.
I also watched Jay Chou's Secret and read about the Apocalypse for AP English. Interesting day.

Thus begins summer

2009-06-21T06:57:00.000-07:00

So school let out a couple of days ago, and now it is the first weekend. I had a relatively low-stress finals week with relatively little finals which was very nice. The bonfire for Class of 2010 was on Friday, and that was very fun and interesting. Pictures on facebook! Saturday family visited extended family for fathers day. Good to see grandparents and cousins and stuff-- just wish certain cousins would talk to Uncle Alan instead of working on their laptops the whole time hahaha but that's okay I guess.

I'm planning on making this summer pretty intense, even though I'm not doing any formal classes or anything. Just today I woke up before six (zero period is still in me!) to run and stuff, and I've been running the past few nights. Eww... Oh well my Korean pop keeps me going. I already have some Spanish AP homework due soon... but its not so bad. Who needs organization of paragraphs anyways?

My bro is converting to apple. I'm still a PC person. I'll go hug Windows and Linux in the corner while he goes and uses Safari or something >_>

Free weekend :O

2009-06-14T08:48:00.001-07:00

I saw up yesterday with Shelley and Jisun... I called like 234234234 other people but nobody else went, so I hope people don't call me mean names for going to a movie with two girls. Up was really really good. I don't know how much kids would like it compared to other Pixar movies because it was more artsy over spamming action/humor for a lot of it, but go figure.

Afterwards we went to barnes and nobles. While I was waiting for my parents I was reading World War Z. Zombies... so interesting... so usless to read about though because they aren't real. Or are they?

How to study for Calculus? I was watching tutorials on youtube while playing Ragnarok Online. It was surprisingly helpful for review, but I don't recommend it for learning something for the first time.

Ragnarok online is fun. Valkyrie, the official free server has been around for a while I guess... I suppose Gravity corp got smart beause they knew the net was crawling with private servers and a free server would help a lot out with competition....

Okay more later, I'm enjoying a free weekend :P

Vocab (Brown)

2009-06-08T22:20:00.000-07:00

cavort
decry
exhume
feckless
nefarious
piquant
propinquity
unwonted
verbiage
viscous

ZZ... Last weekend was SAT IIs for me, and then now its APUSH "individual" product (making a video)... so lots of fun because of creativity, but also lots of work. Getting sleepy.

Vocab (Green)

2009-06-01T15:52:00.001-07:00

animadversion
brackish
celebrity (unsure)
celerity ?
gambit
halcyon
histrionic
myopic
pejorative
propriety
undulate

Vocab (Red)

2009-05-26T16:40:00.000-07:00

arrogate
banal
congeal
encomium
eschew
germane
invidious
largesse
temporize
tenable

zzzz

2009-05-23T10:12:00.000-07:00

Two days ago I saw Terminator Salvation, yesterday I saw Star Trek. I'm tired. Too many screwy space/time timelines. Hahahaaa.... but good special effects. Homework time!

Post!

2009-05-15T17:10:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I haven't had a lot of homework on the weekend. This will be interesting. I want to catch up on some art stuff, maybe do some water colors and stuff. Taking a bike ride to somewhere wouldn't be bad either. It is nice to be able to relax.

For APUSH I have to think of an epic project idea... Probably going to do a video. In Spanish class our current assignment takes more drawing that Spanish. What is this? Oh well, I like drawing.

어제 태극기 휘날리며를 봈습니다. 좋고 그러나 비통한 입니다. 드라마과 난동과 많습니다. 이 주말이 숙제는 모자라습니다. 지금 한화과 예술와 합니다. 피공하도. 비디오 게임 하고 싶도.

Free! (for a little while)

2009-05-12T16:21:00.000-07:00

I still have SAT IIs in June, but for now I'm done! Yay! I fixed by bike flat that I got riding over some ditch or something--

Free breakfast on APs is good business.

Happenings

2009-05-10T19:17:00.001-07:00

4 APs down, 1 more to go:

Computer Science: I think I did pretty well, MCQ was hard to finish on time
APUSH: So many questions about minorities it was ridiculous, but that's expected
Calculus: I felt prepared
Art: I don't know what to expect

Now I'm prep-booking for Chem... Hopefully I'll do well. The curve is ridiculously nice, so I don't expect to fail.

It's Mothers' Day :D
내 엄마가 사랑합니다.
Family thing today- good to see everybody. I ate rice and chicken (how typical)

나는 한국 음막에 중독입니다. 모든 하루 6시일 한국 뮤직을 하고 숙제를 하다. ahahah... okay grammar is probably fail there but I think my vocab is getting better. Okay back to studying.

Vocab (Orange)

2009-05-05T20:57:00.000-07:00

Eeek... Sorry this is a bit late-- I actually forgot to bring my notebook home.

converge
copious
emaciated
indemnity
limpid
panacea
skulk
sophomoric
supercilious
venial

Vocab (Yellow)

2009-04-27T18:16:00.000-07:00

derogatory
antithesis
eulogy
galvanize
stultifying
chimerical
indefatigable
ungainly
embroil
inane

Time is Ticking

2009-04-25T15:35:00.000-07:00

Today I went to a programming competition at Troy High School.
Team: Lawrence Yu, Josh Littman, Anthony Drew, Richard Tran, Me.
For amateurs, I think we did pretty well. Whatever the case, it was fun.

I have to write a personal statement. One of the prompts is Describe the world you come from – for example, your family, community, or school – and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.

It's kinda hard to respond to for a rich suburb kid. But I will try. I'm thinking about talking about raising the standard of living for everyone else. I believe that helping people is a good thing. Oh well. I'll figure it out.

For AP studying, I'm reading the textbook a lot. I'm tired. Moar KPOP! And maybe a nap--

Vocab (Blue)

2009-04-20T18:42:00.000-07:00

apocryphal
duplicity
evanescent
garner
nomenclature
parsimonious
philistine
prudent
sycophant
taciturn

Kimdalf wip

2009-04-18T02:35:00.000-07:00

Work in Progress

2009-04-16T06:15:00.000-07:00

Here is some art I'm working on. Second one is Kimdalf for calculus. Neither are complete yet.