the REAL reflection

Eric pointed out that my last entry was not much of reflection at all, which I totally agree. I think that the long entry before that caused a brain fart so I couldn't really think much or the determination to write more. So now I'm somewhat determined to write a long entry today! Let's hope the fatigue from last night won't get the best of me.

The past few days have been contradicting each other of being uneventful and quite eventful. It's only been uneventful during the day since there's nothing much to do except drive at some places to go grocery shopping or to drop off my brothers. Other than that, I stare at the computer and talk to a couple of people and read the Taiwan brochure that my dad gave me. However, I find that at night is filled with things to do or look up. Well, I guess it's also most of the time I'm talking to people online and skyping in wee hours. I'm actually quite amazed of how long I could stay up lately considering that I would freak out if I stood up later than 12AM during school.

However, I think that it's still worth it in the end because I was able to share alot of the feelings that I couldn't open up before. At first though I was very hesitant in telling people how I feel or the concerns that I had. In a way, I do feel like I'm burdening people with my worries, knowing that they have no power to change anything. Alot of times I feel disappointed to whom I tell because that individual becomes clueless of what to do and mindlessly listen to things that he/she can't relate to. Because of this, Eric mentioned that my level of attachment can grow rather deep, which I found to be painfully true. In the end, I figured that it was best not being close to people because of the level of attachment and expectation that I can potentially have with others. I've done it before and it hurts losing that feeling of security and trust, and I'd to try and be shot down again. That doesn't mean that I won't trust anyone anymore, I guess the degree of trust just won't be as easy to achieve from me because of my past experiences.

So the past few days have been pretty hectic since my sister's graduation was this week. Two days ago, my family minus my father drove to my parents' office to meet up my dad. Seeing that my dad went out for dinner, we ended up waiting for my dad until he returned. Personally, I found that a complete waste of an hour because we were essentially just sitting there doing almost nothing when we could have saved that time to drive to Irvine first and start the packing. After my dad got his dinner, my siblings and I grew hungry since our family has been lazy and neglected to cook for the last few days. So, we ended up driving to Taco Bell and stocked up on tacos and burritos and went ahead to Irvine.

Looking at Irvine reminded me back at Berkeley and how large the difference in size, security, and cleanliness they both have. Besides the armed robbery that my sister had a couple of months ago at her hall, I always viewed Irvine as another city of Walnut, except it's bigger and prettier to the point that I would actually agree to Jason if he called that city the surburbia maxima. After living in Berkeley for a couple of days, it made me realize how safe most of us are in Walnut or in any suburban city in southern California. I guess that living in Berkeley will give me a good insight of how real and unsafe the real world can be at some degree...

Anyways, so we went to visit my sister and help her pack all her things in her dorm room. If you guys don't know, my sister is a resident advisor (RA) in the Mesa Courts of UCI. Basically, she's in charge of a hall of about eighty residents to make sure that they aren't doing anything against housing policy (drinking, smoking, drugs, etc.) and to check if all of them have checked out accordingly. Of course there are always the fun part of the job since she gets to bond with alot of her residents during the year with movies, outings, or activities. In all, RAs are supposed to be role models for the residents as well as a "mother" while they are transitioning to college.

One great benefit of being an RA is that you get your own room, your big own room, and your big own room that has your own bathroom and entrance. That means, alot of stuff. I don't blame her though, I'm sure that I would have much more stuff than she has at Berkeley. Anyways, my family and I spent a couple of hours wrapping and boxing up her things. It was very tiring, but it was touching to see her and her residents crying together and saying their goodbyes.

Today was my sister's graduation. I must say, UCI prepares their graduation very efficiently. You see, at high school, the staff forces the seniors to rehearse for two days while UCI takes only an hour to get everyone lined up and their names down. That's what you call efficient. The number of graduates was about the same as that as my graduation, but the time length was much shorter. Most of us were so tired that we fell asleep after we cheered on my sister when her name was called. It was good that the graduation took place indoors too, we would have fried if we were outside.

After graduation, our family took a bunch of photos together as well with her other friends. It was amazing to see her graduate already and she her grow and mature through each year. I really want to express how proud I am to be her sister and a great role model, but I feel I've already made it redundant enough while she was at home. I think the great thing about her being in college was that we were able to be much closer and share alot of interests together. I'll stop from there.

Since most of us were hungry, my sister drove to Yogurtland. My mom gave us a clear message that she wasn't a huge of yogurt seeing that she hardly liked any of the flavors that it offered (and if you've been to Yogurtland, they offer over ten flavors of just yogurt). She also left the yogurt as soup in the end since she ate too slow. Oh well.

Okay, I'll end it here since there's much more to update soon that I haven't mentioned yet...

Inspiration with Tired Eyes

I am back from the dead. Kind of? Considering that I had about four hours of sleep the night (actually, morning) before makes me feel as though I am still dying from lack of sleep. Oh well, it was worth it.

I really need to make blogging a habit rather than an obligation for me. I DO enjoy blogging, but there are just so many other things to do or I'd rather do (yes, Stephanie, you are so dedicated to your blog). I think I mentioned this in my previous entry, but I feel that there's so much to say but at the same time I have so little to say. Call me a seeker of attention or what not, but I feel as though the opinions that I make is rather insignificant and waste of time for me type and others to read. The more I think of that idea, the more I feel reluctant to try continuing. I suppose I degrade myself too much. Well, happy one year for this blog, let's see how long it'll stay up and updated for.

After a few weeks after not updating, nothing much has been different. At least, I don't feel any different. Noticing that many people make a larger deal about graduation than I do makes me feel as though I'm neglecting everything happening and just let it go without me considering how important it is. Though, I found it peculiar that I didn't cry at the graduation at all, which helped me win a bet against Eric (haha). I laugh now that he has a lovely Dir en Grey desktop wallpaper on his laptop for a month. It was quite amusing hearing him shutter in disgust (?) while I was up at NorCal in his apartment.

Back to graduation, I was very grateful that my dad, brothers, and sister came to watch me get a diploma. I was a bit sad that my grandma and mom couldn't come, though I tried convincing myself that high school graduation was not as important. Also, since my mom had alot of things to do in Taiwan, I didn't want her to risk missing alot of her work and encouraged her to stay there and miss my graduation.

I guess another reason why I didn't feel as sad for graduation as I should be is because of the many things that were coming up after graduation such as CalSO, my sister's graduation, and Taiwan! Maybe I was so excited about those things that I was too preoccupied to be sad. However, I will miss my close group of friends alot because I would be one of the few who will be living up NorCal along with Sandra and Levey. However, I doubt I wouldn't see them often either because of the limited selection of classes that I can pick. I'm sure though that we will all still be able to keep in touch with each other since communication is fast and convenient. Just being able to see them everyday is a habit that might be difficult to overcome.

After graduation, I stayed overnight at Sandra along with the rest of our group. After KTV-ing and fooling around for hours, I realized the great effect of the meds that I had to take during the week. Lack of sleep with medications equals no good at all. Overall, it was a fun experience to sleep over and bond with everyone before everyone had to leave out of town.

Which reminds me! A week ago or so, I developed a mouth infection after I bit my tongue really hard. However, I never really realized how critical it was until my lymph nodes became swollen and my gums grew sensitive and red. Later, I grew hot with a fever while we were at Santa Monica beach. The next day, I went to see a doctor and he told me that I had a virus that looks related to Herpes Simplex (no, not the STD). He then prescribed me antibiotics. During that week, I felt very depressed that I couldn't eat or talk properly for a very long time. Losing weight and being mute half the time made me feel sluggish and unhappy since I was used to eating periodically and talking to others. Most of the time, I resorted to mumbling or making weird noises so that others would understand bits and pieces of what I want to say.

While I was up at NorCal with Eric, I forced myself to talk because it would have felt awkward not talking to him or impolite. That night, I felt a burning feeling of my tongue that didn't get better the next day, but I guess it was worth it considering I had alot of fun hanging out with him and strolling around San Francisco with him for the first time. He took me the Westfield shopping area there and looked at many clothes that we couldn't afford. Eric kept encouraging me to buy a really expensive shirt in Bloomingdales. Afterwards, we ate at the food court there. I found it hard to find what to eat since I was only able to eat something soft and warm. I started scooping in some mashed potatoes and gravy as well as some steamed vegetables and Swedish meatballs on the side. I spooned in a pint of clam chowder as well since most of the food was too hard to chew and swallow down.

Unfortunately, I ended not not being able to eat half of the food I bought, which was pretty pricey. I soon realized that eating salty foods became so painful that I started to well up tears while I was struggling to eat. As a result, I couldn't drink the clam chowder or the gravy. The mashed potatoes were also a bit salty, so I started scooping it with the steamed vegetables so it was tolerable to eat. Afterwards, we took the BART back to Berkeley to his apartment.

I found his apartment very homey and bigger than the dorms (well, obviously). Because I was ignorant and lazy, we ended up working on my course schedule for fall semester. I regret ever doing this the night before, no fun at all. But after changing some courses around, I had a rough and back up schedule in case the classes get full. I felt bad though since I took alot of Eric's time to work on the scheduling and listening to his opinions on some of his classes. I was very grateful though for his help. Without it, I wouldn't have a nice schedule and I would have probably freaked out half the time when I have to reserve classes.

After finishing the schedule, Eric was nice enough to walk me back to Unit 3 that night. Which I must emphasize, was probably one of the scariest nights I've ever experienced. Living in a suburban town (as Jason dubs it a surburbia maxima), I never had a problem walking out at night alone since it was safe enough to do so. As I walked down a block with Eric, I kept walking either really close to his side or behind him. There was one point when I had to hold his arm because there was a hobo standing relatively close to us and talked about us.

After Eric dropped me off, I slowly came in the room and went to the bathroom to shower. I felt really bad since I had to keep unlocking and opening the door to gather some things that I forgot such as soup. I slept around 2AM that night.

The next day was the official CalSO day! I got ready, slowly ate breakfast and met a new friend from the College of Engineering. It was nice meeting a person from SoCal and somewhere nearby (Torrance). He invited me to eat with him and his friends, so I agreed and followed him. It was nice meeting different people and starting over with a clean slate, although Josh was amused by the fact that I was part of a show choir in school. He and his friends found it abnormal for me to eat oatmeal and actually like it. It was in a sense tolerable, but it was the only thing I could eat because of the continental breakfast. Continental breakfast equals bagels, donuts, muffins, ...in general just alot of bread that was solid and painful to eat. Just to save some embarrassment, I told them that the oatmeal was very good and pushed the fruit to the side since it was too painful to eat that as well.

After breakfast, everyone met up with their counselors. Later that day, I decided to ditch CalSO since my mouth continued to hurt more to the point where I didn't want to interact with too many people since alot of people means that I would want to talk more. So after dinner, I called Eric to meet up with him to hang out and wrap up my course schedule. I don't remember much of what we did, we talked about high school experiences and people we encountered. It was a nice talk since I got to know Eric more.

The next morning, Cafe 3 actually served real hot food for breakfast (yay!), so I stocked up on eggs and oatmeal again. CalSO was fun again since our group bonded more and we knew that we would have a class together in Chemistry 4A (as well as suffer together...). So after we said our goodbyes, I met up with Eric again to eat lunch and hang out at his apartment again. I was able to make a deal with him and treated him dinner at Tomatina, which was pretty good for the price. We then took the BART/AirBART where he dropped me off at the Oakland Airport. We said our goodbyes there and I was off back home!

Overall, I really enjoyed NorCal more than I did back at Cal Day in April, except the hobo part. I guess it was cause I felt a little less intimidated by the campus since I was able to meet much more people and bond with alot of classmates from different parts of the state (well, most of them were from NorCal). I was also able to get to know Eric more, who I found a pleasure to spend time with.

So any updates lately? I bought myself a journal so I could write in some random thoughts or meaningful poems or what not. I soon found it very useful to rant and scribble around my feelings. So if you find that I don't write enough here in this blog, you would know why.

My mouth infection is also healing since I am able to talk and eat alot better than I did at CalSO. It was a pity though that it didn't get better before then. Oh well, it's better than not getting better at all!

bringing back some comfort

My apologies for that short hiatus.

Days are going by and school is quickly spiraling down to its end as Prom flies by and AP testings bring the year's horrible end. I just finished the Calculus BC AP exam, which much of my dismay, was fairly difficult and boring that I nearly fell asleep during the first half hour of the test. I can blame either it was for my body that was not used to the extra hour I slept or for the test's difficult problems that cause my brain to immediately shut down. I pray for a 5, but expecting it like last year.

The next test is going to be English Literature AP that I will almost guarantee fail unless my brain synthesizes information that I never knew that ends up being ultimately useful for the test. Let's hope my brain doesn't fart again and end up shutting down on me. Hope is a very weak word used in this sentence.

Seeing that I opened the Barron's AP book to try a mock test, I see almost no progression. I frown at my lack of motivation.

Monday was a "great" start for the AP testing week since I somehow developed a sore throat. I felt sluggish and hoped that it something temporary. I was wrong and started to make some of my remedy, hot lemon juice with honey drizzled in the cup. Even though it takes a long time for the sore throat to cure, it's alot more enjoyable than swallowing pills.

I am excited to see that Erica is going to hopefully be my roommate at Berkeley. I find it so troublesome though to come back to Berkeley for orientation and for other needs. I forget that the distance is more than just an eight hour drive every so often.

Summing it to one

It's amazing how quickly time flies when you're having fun. Spring break came and went. However, this lackadaisical attitude and life of procrastination that I have been dwelling for the last few months leave me thinking how I was so productive during junior year. Well, I never was really productive, I was just a bit more determined about my academics than I am now.

Even though it's a year of relaxation, it left me more negative effects than I expected. Many times I blank out or just stare at the computer when I could be easily vomiting my thoughts on this entry.

To sum up Spring Break will be an obstacle. Not really, but it will take some thinking beyond my will. Ha, I'll attempt to anyways for memory's sake.

April 5th - Ken's 18th Birthday at Todai's. We then shopped around and I had to get some groceries.
April 6th - Parents left to Vegas. Jonathan and I watched Death of a Salesman on his laptop and ate Korean tofu for dinner.
April 7th - Sandra's 18th Birthday at Old Town Pasadena. I promised myself a $20 budget there. I was so wrong.
April 8th - Wisdom teeth pulled out. Let's just call that a day.
April 9th - Ironically did nothing that day. Parents came home.
April 10th - Connie's 18th Birthday at her house. Went to Coconut Bay for dinner and met some new people! Truth or Dare was awesome. New cell phone!
April 11th - Packed up for NorCal. Drove up north for about 8 hours and slept over at my dad's friend's house.
April 12th - Cal Day!
April 13th - Drove back to SoCal. Got home around 10:30pm

Okay, I think I used enough of my mind today. I hate being lazy. Bah, I'll blog more tomorrow over college or something of that sort. However, I think procrastination will get the best of me very soon.

Perhaps a final choice.

After six horrible, dreadful months of planning, paying, applying, and waiting for colleges/universities, the hectic yet exhilarating race is over. I still do not understand the whole "Moment of Our Lives: April 1st" kind of gig since I did get my replies from all the universities four days before the actual day. Thank goodness for internet. Maybe they should call it, "Moment of Our Lives: Last weeks of March."

After receiving the results, there's not much to contemplate of which schools I should go to. So I guess I'll just post up the results now...

Accepted: UC Riverside, UC Santa Barbara, UC Irvine, UC San Diego, Wellesley, USC, Cal Berkeley
Rejected: Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, UCLA

Considering that Cal is the #1 public school in America and it saves alot more money than USC, my parents are pretty sure and psyched that I'm going to Cal. There's not much to say other than that.

Excited? Kind of. Yet intimidated and scared. Hopefully Cal Day will change my mind.

this college MAYHEM

Dwelling among affluent families in an affluent neighborhood, I realized that most high school students are very spoiled. Yes, I repeated the word "affluent" just to emphasize really, how spoiled most of us are. We are able to afford many college/SAT institutions in which we high school students attend for our own benefit. We then feel confident that we will do well since we attend to some of the most prestigious (but the most expensive) places to prepare us for the exams. Some of us also follow a legacy of attending to the most outstanding schools in the country. We become so spoiled and over-confident and we lose the sense of reality.

The reality that most of us won't get what we want. However, that's the thing that most teenagers don't understand around here. We don't get what we always want. We can afford the latest technologies and afford the nicest clothing, but we cannot impress the colleges with our fortune.

Some of us add, "Why? Why can't I get into the school that I've been wanting to go to for __ years?" (you can fill that in yourself). We continue to state this rhetorical question and read the rejection letter a few more times, just to make sure that our eyes didn't trick us.

It's amazing how overconfident people can be. The day after the UCLA decisions came in, seniors who applied were either ecstatic or groggy the whole day. Some believed that they should have been accepted and felt degraded that this school, full of glamor and prestige, should accept them as well.

There were times when I would just want to mercilessly smack them across the face. They seriously need a reality check.

Despite the fact that I didn't get into UCLA (oh boo hoo), I was in fact very grateful that I was. Throughout high school, my parents' dreams were for me to get into UCLA. Through all the institutions that I went through to either prepare for the SATs or for colleges, my mother would always come in and tell everything that I wanted to get int UCLA and it was MY dream school.

Oh really now? I could have said that if it was my dream school.

From dinner tables to meeting with college counselors, my mother would always ask questions if I was ever able to make it to my "dream school." Not only was it extremely annoying and embarrassing, but it also made me feel rebellious to whatever my mother said. I asked her, "If I get into LA and into the privates (Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Wellesley, and USC), which ones Too bad I killed her hopes?

Sure, UCLA is a great school. However, I think this whole "OMG, I DIDN'T GET INTO LA" is getting too dry. Maybe people should be grateful of what they got into so far rather than living on the edge of false hope.

Life goes on. There's always transfer or graduate school. Doors are opened to you, it's just the matter if people would walk into those doors.

By the way, if you REALLY want to know what I got into, here it is.

Accepted: UC Riverside, UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, and USC
Waiting on: UC Berkeley, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, and Wellesley
Rejected: UCLA

Delighting Our Senses

This tingles the ocular and gustatory senses.

Chunky yet soft, these almond cookies have a hint of cinnamon topped with a generous amount of melted white chocolate. I was pretty satisfied with the light sweetness unlike most of the typical over-saturated-with-sugar American cookies. I would normally eschew away from the packaged or bakery cookies found in the center aisle of the supermarket. No matter how cheap it is or how embellished the cookies are with the colored frostings and sugar-coated icings, I still find that one bite is equivalent to a teaspoon of sugar.

No, and it's not because I am too "Asian".

Despite the fact that many Asians don't particularly enjoy consuming American cakes and cookies, some use that "excuse" to their advantage. Many despise the American cuisine after eating one dinner at one restaurant, thinking that one mediocre restaurant makes all others the same. Living in a city where over half of the residents are Asian, I find this obstinate behavior particularly irksome. No, annoying. There are probably other cultures that behave the same way, lacking the broad-mindedness that is needed in America and continue to dwell in this limited perspective that can only lead to conflicts between cultures.

Well, that's enough about my trivial garrulous nature. Now on to college topics, how exciting.

So. I've visited UCLA and USC (do I sense irony in this?) campuses along with many other classmates in this tour program that is given in my SAT class. After seeing the buildings, listening to the tour guides, and taking many many pictures of the beautiful campuses, I started to feel nervous.

"Nervous about what? College is all about the independence and freedom from home that is endowed to you"

That's the thing that I'm worried about. I feel that I'm so attached to home and my family that I don't feel I can stay a week without being at home, eating home cooked meals, and playing with my dog. Not only is the freedom scaring me, but also the fear of failing classes. Although it is my dream to be accepted into the medical field, getting there is just the beginning.

I dislike insecurity. Be strong!