marijuana.

It always seemed like common sense to me, not smoking.

Marijuana?

It was a ridiculous idea.

It was a foreign idea.

It was a silly idea.

So I joked about it, I threw it around, I played along;

I didn't think anyone would actually be stupid enough to do it,

especially not in northview high school.

But oh, I've got so much to learn.

It's disappointing.

I Wrote This For You

Guys! Alice sent me this amazing blog, called "I wrote this for you." Check it out. They're short stories, written specifically for you to interpret. They're great. Here's some snippets:

You wake up with a list of all the people you'd rather be. But you're already on everyone else's list.

You close your eyes when you cry. That's ok. Just don't keep them closed too long. Things have become beautiful since you last looked. There's nothing more to cry about.

"This is the one." The universe assures me from behind the counter.
"But I thought you said the last one was the one." I reply.
"No." Says the universe. "I sold you that one so you would know that this, this is the one."
"Is there another one?" I ask the universe.
"I can't tell you." They reply. "It'd ruin the surprise."

You say the things you don't need to say.

Because it hurts when you don't say them.

Once again, here.

i give up.

i might have given up.

not because there's nothing to live for,

but because there's too much to live up to.

hey, i'm going to be truthful here.

Beta convention '10 definitely had its highs and lows, and the miserably cold weather probably accounted for a large portion of the "lows."

Oratory

So I went for oratory, and the terrible thing is, I didn't have the time to memorize it until the morning of. So I was frantically trying to stuff all of those trite expressions and cheesy phrases into my head (and wondering why on earth I had felt so sappy while writing the speech) while running around trying to finish the scrapbook at the same time (yes, I also went for scrapbooking). When speech-delivery time finally came, my hands grew clammy and my heart shaky when I realized that I still hadn't fully memorized my speech... trust me, this is new to me. After placing first last year in various speech events, not doing well just didn't seem like even a remote option.

And yet suddenly, it was the only choice I had. I was second on the list, and during that first speech, I tried once again to run through my speech in my head, but I had only gotten through the first two paragraphs before I realized it was my turn. No biggie, I thought to myself. I've done this before. I could still place first. So I strutted up there, put on a smile, and began to talk.

Imagine a man, maybe 20 years old, a bit overweight, still lives with his parents, and has never seen a race before, or a track meet, or even the track itself... they were smiling. I started gaining momentum, pacing across the room when it felt right to, illustrating my points with grand hand gestures, speeding up and raising my voice when the climax of my introductory anecdote neared. And then I paused. Umm... uh... oh.... crap. I blubbered on, and I felt my face reddening. I think I'll just sit down now... and I sat. Talk about an anticlimactic speech.

I have never done that before. And for some reason, I felt relieved. The boy sitting next to me patted me on the shoulder and told me it was the best introduction he's ever heard, and other competitors confronted me at the end to tell me it was still wonderful. But I couldn't puzzle together why I felt so relieved. I suppose because the pressure was gone. I had a legitimate excuse (almost) for not placing. I no longer had expectations to meet. I could just enjoy the weekend without having to worry about whether or not I did well... and boy, did God show me. I've been praying for a wake-up call from my pride, and this was definitely it (along with the situation a week ago). And to think, I was sitting here thinking I could do it all by myself.

It's true though, when all my Northview friends started receiving awards, half of me wished I could have that fame too. That I could've been the one up there to deliver a speech. But then I realized- I only wanted it for my own glory and my own pride. So it's a good thing I didn't win. Otherwise it might as well have been another obstacle on my attempts at renewing my relationship with Him.

Speakers

They were inspiring, especially the ones who were bold enough to talk about God. I'm not going to lie- when they started talking about Him, a part of me was condemning them because they were bringing religion into a nonreligious state convention. But if only I had that courage, to speak up without fear of condemnation or judgement (which will inevitably come). How did they do it? Oh my goodness, another wake up call. I just can't get over myself, can I?

Anyways, I loved the one from Kentucky, who talked about our airport as if it were Satan in architecture form. He was hysterical, and so inspirational at the same time; I aspire to be like him. And he testified to an amazing story too-

So his mother loves to facebook, and she had updated her status so that it said "I wish I had a camcorder so that I could record my son's speech." A man commented, telling her to meet him at a certain place and time; he would let her borrow his. When she saw the price tag on it though, she rejected the offer, saying that she couldn't take something that was brand new. But the man said that he had bought the camcorder a few days ago, knowing that God had called him to do it, knowing that it was going to serve some purpose in the future. And then he saw her status.

Is that not God's hand working? It reminds me of a time in Nashville, when we needed tools to fix a sink at someone's house... and Chris pulled out a toolkit from his back pocket and said that he just felt a weird urge to bring it on the trip. I love it. There was another one too- he talked about how failure made him a better person. And he reminded me a whole lot of myself- changing his major four times in college? That's insane- and he's only a sophomore. But the failures led him to his success, and I sure hope I'll turn out like that too.

And finally, one of the candidates, named Neal. He was running for vice president, and he was asked a question- What's the greatest gift you've received? And you know what he said? He said, "my salvation." Wow. What a great answer. Of course, afterwards, a few atheists in my Beta group started questioning it, and one girl brought up a really interesting question- "If we're the ones choosing whether or not to accept Jesus, then wouldn't we be saving ourselves? Why is it that Jesus is the one saving us?"

It's because we don't deserve it, and yet, He's giving us the chance. Take it, guys.

Fun

Here's the things I'll remember :) --

• dancing like I was on drugs in Penn&Sandra&Bria's room, then singing on the balcony while strangers walked past
• playing a certain game that transformed dogs walking on beaches to llama-cats to dragon-seals to the world ending, and bananas to octopi to coat hangers
• feeling exhilarated at the rush of northview's numerous wins, and realizing how much we've grown since last year
• trying to learn drums and only succeeding at the rim shot, then trying to have war with the drumset on the other side of the room
• being crystal's arms
• witnessing the drunkenness of jennifer's dad, and finding out that mrs.ely does not, in fact, live near us.
• wondering about the legitimacy of rachel being human
• listening to a boy who literally breathed poetry (he should've won oratory, but he forgot his speech as well...)
• rushing last minute to glue together a scrapbook, then tearing up because the beautiful thing didn't win
• smirking at how ill-qualified other quiz bowl teams are compared to northview
• meeting harry potter, waldo, and bees, as well as future stars
• watch uzma freak out about a boy, then finding out that boy was alice's boyfriend...
• listening to some of the most talented singers and some of the best songs ever, then falling in love with them. I'm marrying a good singer, guys.

oh, the joys.

I guess it wasn't so bad after all. True, I could've spent the time studying...
but why do I always worry about that, anyways?

Lukewarm

The truth is, lukewarm believers don't go to heaven.

Read:

http://xiphiasgladius.blogspot.com/2009/01/profile-of-lukewarm-from-crazy-love-by.html

And examine yourselves.

Because this sounds a heck of a lot like me.

I'm on crack or something.

I had the strangest, most bizarre feeling today, and it might just possibly be a consequence from my lack of sleep. The entire day, I felt like I was high. Or on LSD or crack or ecstasy or something like that; I did not feel normal. (Of course, I don't know how being on drugs would feel like; I wonder, do high people know they're high?)

Anyways, I couldn't think straight, and it took me about two minutes to register what people were saying to me. I had trouble stringing sentences together into coherency, and I had these weird mood swings; I'd be dead and depressed for one minute then the next I'd suddenly be bouncing up and down again. I'm not on my period, I promise. I blame it on physics. Seriously, I had the most terrible feeling of dread all throughout the first half of the day. What's weird though is that I don't even remember taking the physics test, and I don't remember what kinds of questions were on it. I just remember being in that cell of a room, then walking out and feeling dazed.

Holycrap, I need sleep. How do people survive off of four hours of sleep every night?! I think I really scared some people today... I was acting pretty aggressive too. And my APUSH class officially think I'm a crackhead. Ha.

Anyways, my dad said the funniest thing last night at the dinner table;

me: gosh, I wonder why protons hate protons so much and why electrons hate electrons so much?? It's kindof funny; they're like humans!

dad: well, it only makes sense that they'd hate each other... that's why gay/lesbian marriages don't work! It's a natural law of physics!

haha, oh man. Pretty clever, dad.

one through nine things.

Lots of things have been going through my mind.

This is mainly for my own personal recording purposes; no need to read the whole thing.

1- I'm super selfish, or cocky, or prideful, or something like that. Except the thing is, I was too prideful to realize that I'm prideful. But I get it now. You probably don't realize it because I pride myself on hiding my pride, and by saying this I'm only confirming my pride. You might be laughing (because I'm chuckling inside), but I'm serious. Pride's a terrible thing to have. Because the second I think I'm being genuine about something, a little voice in the back of my head's applauding me for being genuine, which only makes it not genuine. Mister voice, please go away.

2- Every time I want something, I'm afraid that God will take it away, because it's never good to put all of your efforts into one goal; that would be like worshipping it. I'm afraid that my desires are too worldly or selfish that God will begin closing doors. Which is something I fear about GHP- I'm afraid that I want it so much that God just won't give it to me. So I said a little prayer and tried my best to put my future in His hands. Big leap, let me tell you.

3- I'm awfully terrible at dealing with depressing people. I just make them more depressed. Probably because I tell them that they suck for being so depressing, which never helps.

4- I rock at making new friendships, but I suck at keeping old ones. It's really bad. I just don't know how to do it. Sometimes I wonder if it's really because I'm afraid. Or do I just not care?

5- I prioritize school way too heavily over all the other aspects of my life, including my social one. I have yet to find out if that's a good thing or not.

6- Everything's a competition for me, especially if you try to act superior to me. If you don't, then you'll be one of my favorite people.

7- GHP interview passed by so quickly that I'm not even sure what happened. First, we had to write an essay, and they gave us three topics, but I don't remember what they were. All I remember is that I wrote about an angry book yelling at make-up, because my prompt asked me to pretend I was an inanimate object. And then it transformed into this fiery letter about the dangers of conformity and the shallowness of society and the materialism of consumerist America. Gosh, I rambled, and I don't know how make-up and books even tied into it. That was fun. Then we marched into this little prison-like cell (with no clock in the room) and began reading passages and annotating them, and I smiled because they were awesome passages (I'll quote one later), but there was really no point in this part of the process because nobody ever asked me questions about the passages nor did I have to write an essay about them. So that was completely random. And then, here comes the interview. There wasn't even some sort of barrier (like a table or a desk) between me and the interviewers; it was just three chairs in a circle. Which means that they were able to see my shoes and my mismatched socks (that was awkward). The bad part about the interview is that it wasn't too much like a conversation; it was more like them drilling me while I laughed at myself and rambled for about three minutes about nonsense. Plus all they did was sit back in their chairs like hippies on weed, nodding their heads and smiling. I could almost see thought bubbles coming out of their heads that said "cool, duuuude." So that was lame. I hope I stuck out. When I walked out of the room, I said, "Have fun interviewing my competitors!" And they laughed.

The bad thing is, that was the first time they had lolled the whole interview. Oh well.

8- I went to a hand-in-hand chinese new year party today. Hand-in-hand is basically a big-sister-little-sister program, which pairs up girls like me to little asian girls from kindergarten to third grade. These girls were adopted by white parents though, so they have a difficult time trying to live with both a chinese and american background, and a lot of them are ashamed of being Chinese as well. I had a fantastic time hanging out with those children; I made a little Up house (complete with balloons!) with a little girl, then I acted crazily insane with an equally insane hyper girl (I literally stuffed an entire bao zi into my mouth because she swore that I couldn't do it), and then I did cartwheels with a kindergartener who was amazing at gymnastics. My gymnastics lessons finally paid off :) Then, it started snowing. I love children.

9- I still believe in good people.

First Grade

Eleanor Tsay had short, black hair that went to her shoulders, with a bold, adventurous glint ablaze in her eyes. We called each other best friends, or I called her mine at least, and I copied everything she did. If her favorite color was blue, so was mine; if she loved to swing, then I did too. I hated to displease.

One evening as we strolled through the halls of her house searching for something to do, she suddenly gestured at all the toys scattered around her spacious living room, elaborately swinging her arm from one corner to the other as she pointed at the stacks of board games and the bins of various trinkets lined up against her wall.

“Do you really believe that God made all of this?” she asked, turning to me with expectant eyes.

“No way,” I responded, incredulous.

I expected her to accept my answer and continue walking down the hall, but she stopped in her tracks and whipped around, with a caricature of a shocked face drawn in her features.

“What? You don’t? Because He did! He made all of this! He made you and me and everything that we ever knew!” She shook her head and disappointedly walked away, and I treaded closely behind, awe-struck by her words and embarrassed that I had stated the wrong answer. Her words were still ringing in my ears when I skipped back home, and her words have yet to stop echoing in my head.

I didn’t know how she had made any sense from the empty words of the preacher; all he could ever do was swing his hands from side to side and occasionally slam them down on the podium with a note of finality, as if he was sentencing us all to eternal doom, whatever that meant.

But what Eleanor said- I believed it. I believed everything she said, after all.

I'm on my way to becoming a musician.

I'm on my way to becoming a musician, I am.

I've got a dream, you see,

to play as if the piano were my soul,

to speak through the notes

and sing through the trills

and laugh through the 'peggios

and cry through the chords.

I want you to yearn with me

and dream with me

and see the paradise that I painted for me.

To escape with me,

you'll see it, you will,

you'll feel yourself get lost,

rise up,

fall down.

I'm on my way to becoming a musician, I am.

Screw the fact that my hands are too small to play anything.

i love giraffes. (: (ps- I actually am on my way to piano class, haha)

"However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is... Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul."

-Thoreau