Sleep

In the past, I had believed that I was a genius, I believed I had a great destiny, I believed I was the world's center. I was proven wrong, not in a single, life-defining, plot-point of epic proportions. But series of practical non-events, things that had significance to no one but me. Questions, I asked myself, that destroyed the grand narrative over time.

In my social circle, no one had any self-confidence. In my younger days, I believed that I was the only person who did not believe in themselves. That everyone else in my life was simply better than me, that they had it all figured out. I saw my own inadequacy, and looked at the minuscule potential for me to make a positive impact, the resources wasted on my upbringing, the self-loathing for not loathing myself sufficiently. What has my life amounted to, what could it ever amount to? Everyone around me was better, I had believed, whatever I could contribute, others could contribute more. I could never begin to repay the debt of suffering my own existence has brought upon the world.

I question the purpose of living, other than to blind myself to the future I know is coming, to seek short term pleasure, to go even further into debt, to die in all but name.

It is not really death, it is more like a nap, a dream, an illusion. I have always woken up, and each time I do, the road looks bleaker, the mind grows darker, and it takes another nap. The mind can go days just going with the flow, not thinking of anything beyond completing the next action in an endless cycle of numbness.

I don't even know my goals in life, the optimist in me claims that they want to better the lives of everyone in the whole world. Sometimes, instead, I scoff, and wonder if I'm obviously just hiding-refusing to think about- the selfish desires at my core.

Part of the reason for this is I can't take action, I see people around me do so, and conclude that it is possible, so I blame my nature. And what is nature, but something which I can do nothing about? Thus I fade into yet another frenzy of meaningless pleasure, and sometimes, when awake, I wonder if that is what I should do.

Who cares if the pursuit of short term pleasure leads to problems in the long term, if those problems are inevitable? It would be a waste, sure, but my life is already a waste. I just want to stop thinking about it. I just want to fall asleep, only asleep, am I truly happy. If I'm not happy, its because I'm not all the way asleep. Haven't I always been doing that anyway, what will waking up change? What has waking up this time changed?

A Vacation of Nothing Much

For the past few of days, I've been on a road trip with my family. While much time passed on the trip, I didn't end up doing much.

As with all things, it started with our family's failure to plan out the trip. I personally didn't know we were even going on vacation until Friday Night before we left. Thus, the night before we left, I sketched out a general idea of which destinations we wanted to go towards. The plan ended up being very loosely followed.

The first day, we left at around 9 after a morning of packing our things. The plan was to head towards Tucson, AZ on the first day. We took Interstate-5 down South towards San Diego. By the time we reached Santee, it was 11 o'clock and we decided to stop for lunch at a Costco in the city. After wasting nearly two hours buying snacks and a lunch (pizza, of course), we set out West. Highway 52 eventually merged onto Interstate-8, which we would stay on for most of the day. By the afternoon, we had arrived at the town of Yuma, AZ, by which point it was getting dark. It was around this time that we booked the hotel for the night. At around 9, when we finally reached the hotel, we discovered that no restaurants were open. Instead, for the first dinner of our vacation, we bought food at a gas station and began to ate.

The next day, we quickly visited Saguaro National Park and looked at some cacti, watched a movie, and took a very short hike. Afterwards, we drove up towards Phoenix, stopping at Eloy to eat at A&W's. At Phoenix, we visited a mall, that was really stinky. I merely used the bathroom. Afterwards, we ate at a formal restaurant and went to sleep. In the afternoon, I played cards with my family.

Come Monday morning, we took a quick visit to Arizona State University, before quickly eating lunch and heading for Albuquerque. The path was a mountainous one, and very cold, but I didn't really notice that much because I was playing games on the iPad. When we arrived, it was night. This time, we ate instant noodles.

The next day, we took a "gap" day in Albuquerque. We wasted a few hours in the hotel before, buying a little bit of ice cream, before heading to the mall to buy more stuff and play some games. Eventually, we left the mall to eat at an Italian Restaurant. Afterwards, it was games in the hotel, before sleep time.

The next day also began with video games, until we resolved to go to Lubbock, TX. We skipped lunch, owing to a lack of places to do so, and ate pizza at an arcade. Our hotel was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but at least it was the biggest room we'd been in so far.

After that, we headed towards Austin, Tx. We ate in the town Abilene at a Subway. It was 7 by the time we reached our hotel. We went to an Outback Steakhouse, and pigged out before going to sleep. The next day we went to the Texas Capitol, LBJ Presidential Library,  UT Austin, and a park. Then, we ate at a Texan BBQ place before going to sleep.

The next day we walked along the Colorado River for a while before heading to San Antonio, where we saw the Alamo and the riverwalk. I ended up eating at Taco Cabana for dinner.

The next day, we started heading back. A long day, and we stopped in Las Cruces, NM

Finally, we came home at around 11.

Sang a song

Thus, in the far far past, a song was sung.

Thus, in the time of song, a past has passed.

Thus, far away, time was timed.

Thus, in time, far is afar.

Thus, in the ahh, in an inn

Thus, in the inn, a ahhAnne

Thus, has the past, was the wuss

Thus, wuss the was, has for hass.

Frozen Musical *Analysis* in all lowercase letters

the musical opens with three doors.

opening scene

anna hit in the head

trolls

"do you want to build a snowman" on fast forward

the actors sit diametrically opposed, a door in between

"love is an open door." 

• "say goodbye to the pains of the past"
• for anna, the pain of elsa pretending she doesn't exist
• for hans, the pain of his brothers pretending he doesn't exist

"you can't marry someone you just met that day"(and if you marry, then the gates must open again) 

"you can if its true love"

"what do you know about love?"

"more than you, all you know is how to shut people out"

"let it go"

• "kingdom of ice-olation"
• ice therefore, represents isolation or shutting people out AKA
• "turn away and slam the door"
• ice and isolation ends with love and
• "love is an open door"

"you can't marry got engaged to someone you just met that day?"

"you can if it's true love"

anna sees elsa in her castle, sings parts of "for the first time in forever"

• "we can fix this together"
• "I don't know how"

<no anna, go back home alone, leave me be, open up the gates (without me)>

"I'm alone, but I'm alone and free"

<but what about the eternal winter?>

"I will never be free" (from the magic, from the ice, not even by letting go, not even by running)

anna gets struck in the heart yadah yadah....

trolls procede to arrange a marriage between anna + kristoff. 

• "people never change"
• <love is a powerful force> (foreshadowing, much?)

audience:"you can't marry kristoff, you just met him that day" (or a few days ago, it's ambiguous)

audience:"you can if its true love"

they go to hans

<long rant> hans, you could've won if you had just killed anna. also you could've won if you had not told anna your evil plan. also you could've won if you had pretended to love anna. also you could've won if you at least tried to make anna not turn against you. also you could've won if you were not the antagonist  </long rant>

hans:"if only there was someone who loved you"

audience: "booooooo"

what is love?

olaf: <love is putting someone else before yourself. like what kristoff did>

audience: "love is an open door"

anna: "kristoff loves me?"

olaf: "wow, you really don't know what love is, do you?"

ending scene

"love, of course!" (now I know how)

"[from here on out,] the gates will always be open."

love is an open door gate.

"love is an open door" plays

anna dances with hans  kristoff

elsa blesses the marriage (you can if it's true love)

elsa is forever alone, forever ice-olated

"... say goodbye ... to the pains of the past"

'"love is an open door ... with you"

audience claps, actors bow.

A Day Through the Lens of My Selves

    Sticking to a single train of thought for longer than but a second tends to lead to interesting observations. Yet such novel thoughts rarely transcend the barrier of time, because without constant recall, thoughts fade away... This is relevant to the task of trying to plan for the future. Any plans my present self makes are forgotten by my future self. Often that future self does not remember the plans and why my past self made them in the first place until the consequences have already affected my future self.
   When my past self reflects on how an average day normally goes, it see one particular pattern. It makes a specific plan regarding tasks it wants my future self to accomplish, the night before. By morning, said plan is extremely hazy, barely remembered. By the time my future self arrives at a school, there is a completely different environment that inspires completely different trains of thought. The memories of the plan are completely buried under several hours worth of school experiences. At home, my future self then wastes a lot of time until it finally dawns on it that my past self actually intended for it to spend that time productively.
   Yesterday, my past self had decided to formulate a specific plan, and understood that in order for the plan to be remembered, it must make an effort to inspire my future self to remember me, sitting in the bed, drawing up a schedule that would match every minute of time from the moment my future self would come home to the moment at 3:30 my future self would go to sleep at 9:30 with a particular task. It wrote everything down, and put it on my desk. But that wasn't enough, it also thought up the mantra "Read the Schedule, it is on a table", which tired as my past self was, thought rhymed.
   Sure enough, when Future Self woke up, it looked at the table, and memorized the 'catchy' mantra. At school, there was a 'relay race' where Future Self would recite the mantra in my head and pass it on to a Future Future Self. And so, when Future Future Future Self stepped off the bus, it began to follow the plan. It was pretty hard for Future Future Future Self to stick to the plan, because unexpected distractions occurred. One particular distraction was a Boy Scout meeting that Past Self had simply forgotten about. Future Future Future Self was caught off guard when it heard my mom announce that we would be going to a Boy Scout Meeting, yet overall, Past Self's plan succeeded in making Future Future Future Self's day more productive then it would have been.
  Now, Future Future Future Self is writing this very blogpost, finishing one of the last items on the schedule, and will go on to plan the next day, hoping that a Future Future Future Future Self will follow it and continue the cycle.

An interesting class

Today I went to my Boy Scout troop's emergency preparedness merit badge class. The two hour class was both informative and interesting. At three o'clock, my mom sent me to the meeting. The class was taught by one of the many adult leaders of our troop, Mister Huang. The Emergency Preparedness Merit Badge is all about preparing for unexpected situations and knowing how to react given the situation. It was a small class, only six other scouts were present, as well as a couple of adults who were on their phones half the time and sort of listening and poking fun the other half. First, we watched a video about preventing injury during and after an earthquake. While most of it was not new, as our school does an annual earthquake drill, some of it, especially the stuff not related to school, made sense, but probably wouldn't occur to you naturally. For instance, one suggestion was      to move your bed away from windows, because they are likely to break during an earthquake. Another was to install automatic gas shutoff, because gas leaks are another potential danger. Additionally, there were suggestions about what to do in the event of an actual earthquake. The instructions varied based on what where you were in the moment, but a common theme was staying calm, avoiding windows, and protecting one's neck.

Afterwards, we did some physical practice. Mr. Huang dragged a dummy human underneath a few tables and guided us through the process of rescuing and administering first aid in this hypothetical situation. The first step was getting the 'rubble' off of the dummy. The lesson here was that it is important to not directly lift the rubble, but to use a stick or other long object as leverage. If you are the victim, you are supposed to conserve energy and moisture, because rescue is likely a few days away. Signalling responders is done via tapping any metallic object, and not by shouting.  Having educated us on this point the next step was first aid. The dummy had a leg missing as well as a fake cut on his left arm and a fractured right arm. We then went over the first aid procedure for those injuries, which included information about CPR. Obviously, this was important and to hammer the point home, each of us had to do 60 chest compressions on a CPR dummy.

The next emergency was the active shooter emergency, which is a new requirement that was added rather recently. This was taught in the 'GET OUT, HIDE OUT, TAKE OUT' mantra. GET OUT essentially means to run away, as quickly as possible, in the opposite direction from the sound as gunfire. HIDE OUT refers to barricading and locking the doors, turning off the lights and pretending that the building is deserted. The whole point is to buy time before help can arrive. TAKE OUT refers to aggressively defending oneself. The video we watched showed a group of people swarming the shooter with books, chairs, and other makeshift weaponary. An often forgotten point is that running away is preferred and the other options are for when running is no longer viable. Of course attacking is called a last resort, because it is the riskiest option.

Like the first drill, we also did a practical exercise. We went to different locations and were asked which way we should run if gunfire was heard in such and such direction. After a while, Mr. Huang suddenly left. This unplanned departure left us very confused so we started socializing. However, it was a trap! We heard a strange noise, and all of us froze, it took us a second to realize it was supposed to be gunfire. One of the other Scouts shouted "Run you Idiots!" and we all ran. Mr. Huang was carrying a banana and pointing it like a gun. After that, he called us in and told us that the last class all died because they didn't run away. We later realized that doing an emergency drill was a requirement for the merit badge, which was the point of that whole charade.

The last topic of the day was about mobilization, or organizing a large group of people to accomplish a task. Mr. Huang made us find a 'missing baby' that was somewhere on the facility (which he has hidden there beforehand). After a quick little search, we found the baby in the bushes behind the building. With that, we were free to go. Overall, the reason that the class held my interest so well was that we moved around and put our skills to use, which is why I can now still recall most of what I was supposed to learn.

The Honoring

The rabbit jumped out of its hole in an animated and excited manner. The sun, round and solid, was on its way down. It had been a good week, and as in all good weeks, the rabbit had eaten a lot this week, and today was the special day. It was the day when all the rabbits would come out of their little holes to meet up once a week. The rabbit hopped as quickly as its little legs could take it to the place where Bunnykind would meet on this special day. For some strange reason, even on this special day, not a single other rabbit could be found. Bunnykind was very spread out and it was rare for the rabbit to see more than a few other rabbits in a particular day, but the rabbit recalled that on other special days, as they were honoring the Great Rabbits, it had seen a lot more other rabbits. Strange. The rabbit hopped and hopped in order to find the other rabbits, but it saw no one, as they had all left. Hours passed, as the rabbit traveled through the Great Forest. The special day, as the rabbit remembered, was supposed to honor the legacy of the Great Rabbits and to select a new one, all of which gave their very lives to protect Bunnykind. While in the Great Forest, the rabbit suddenly realized that it was lost. Thus, its legs gave way and it fell down, fast. A loud thumping sound accompanied the rabbits's fall, after which, the rabbit began to sleep. A few hours later, the Clever Fox walked by and deliberately picked the rabbit up, carefully picking it up and making not a single noise.

The rabbit slowly stirred, in the Clever Foxes' firm paws. The rabbit looked around and saw the other rabbits gathered in the area. That was probably why they couldn't be found in the gathering spot! The rabbit noted with a hint of sadness that one of his friends was not in the audience, the rabbit hadn't seen his friend since that special day two weeks ago. He was a true friend, and never cared if other rabbits thought it was plump. It was a story of true determination and eventual success, for his friend had joined the realm of Great Rabbits last week. The rabbit thought back to the Great Rabbits. The rabbit's friend became one, and perhaps the rabbit would become one too. It filled the rabbit with pride, Bunnykind would honor - 

The Clever Fox smiled at his reflection in the newly formed crimson puddle. Its teeth were as sharp as ever. The Clever Fox was full for now. Now it was time to clean up, and when the Clever Fox finished naught but the bones would remain. Afterwards, the Clever Fox purred and gracefully waltzed off into the night. It would be back in precisely one week. 

As the rest of the stars came into view, the rabbits that had survived the day dodged the bones of their kin as they fled into the night and ran back to their separate holes.

End of School

At my school, we are currently on the last week of school. Most of the work was over by last Friday. As of today, 4 out of 6 of my classes have completely finished their content. I had two finals today, one in English, and one in Science. For the last 3 days of school, we will simply be watching movies. The light workload almost makes me forget that I have school. Talk of summer vacation is in every classroom and a ubiquitous conversational topic. It will officially end on Thursday, but by then, I will basically be not in the proper mindset of a student.

hIit

Max experienced that day and wondered just what had happened. He felt nothing beyond his arms but a dull chill, a reminder of what he had just left. The noise he heard had also changed, gone was the buzzing sound he had heard since he was five, and instead he heard thewind rustling the clothes on his back. He looked around, and saw where he had come from not too long ago. Max had wondered what it was like to feel cold. He knew now.

Each step brought him closer to the snow filled scene he saw in front of him. The air grew ever colder, and the wind would grow ever louder until it's deafening cry forced him to cover his ears. He saw someone's mouth open. The wind, he thought, it must be blocking his voice. It's almost like he is screaming out. Another moment later, the person vanished into the wind which now started to fling snow into his eyes. His eyes widened as a tree trunk flew right past him. My clothes caught on the branch ... Ahhhhh. 

Grasping on to the snow, Max unsnags his clothing and realizes he's on the edge of a cliff. Finish the job finish the job finish the job. A jolt of pain flies into his leg as he lands on the snow. I failed... again.

The Horde

The morning is quiet as the last visible traces of the Doom fade into the morning. The ashes, now buried beneath the earth give rise to the beasts, who crawled to the surface and wandered off. Yet it is not an aimless wander, though their movements may be random, two things are clear, they never go to the same place twice, and they naturally gather together.

 Years pass: the horde is now an endless crowd of nightmarish creatures, who make no sound other than the crushing of grasses below their feet. The world is quiet, The Horde the only noise that can now be heard in the vast expanse. Where The Horde goes, the grass slumbers, the dirt packs together, the world becomes even quieter.

Centuries pass: The Horde combines into one large beast - its name is The Horde. It walks less often and decides that it's time to sleep.

Years pass: The entire world has been visited, The Horde fades into a mountain of ashes.

Many more eons pass: The ashes harden. The grass lengthens, now living upon a sea of hardened dirt.    Remnants of the Doom awaken, and see their new home, and sing at their fortune. They make their home on the mountain, and tell stories of the miracle that gave them a second chance.

Boy Scout camping Pt. 1

Last weekend, I went camping and it was pretty fun. My Boy Scout troop had been preparing to go camping for a few weeks. The Wednesday before, my dad and I dedicated 2 hours to purchasing the food for the camp out. In our troop, we select one person to buy all the food for the entire weekend, known as the "grubmaster". The grubmaster can receive a refund from the troop of $12 per person that they are buying food for.  

On Friday, while I was studying for a test for a class, my dad drove thirty minutes to the campsite. By the time we arrived, it was already dark and I had trouble getting my things moved. However, my tenting partner had already set up the tent so at least I didn't have to set up a tent. I read on my kindle for two hours until Cracker Barrel, where the adults provided Cup of Noodles and Hot Cocoa. At about ten I finally slept. 

I woke up many times in the middle of the night cycling between attempting to sleep, sleeping, waking up, checking the time on my kindle, and laboriously taking the 100 meter run to the bathroom without properly putting on my shoes. In total, I woke up to use the bathroom 9 times! I woke up at seven to see the sunrise and peacefully waited for everyone else to leave their tents.

Scary books and a few more days off from school

Two weeks ago I read a really scary book. I thought about it all day and didn't want to go to sleep for fear of nightmares. Right now, most of the fear has subsided and life is back to normal. During that time, I actually was afraid to go back to Barnes and Nobles. However, on Monday, school was out and I decided to try my luck at Barnes and Nobles again. My decision was made at 4 o'clock and I read books until 6 o'clock. Actually, no, I think that most of the time was me just looking for the right book. I don't have a watch, but I believe that I might have spent 30 minutes staring, wandering, and reading blurbs. After a while, I just went to the Manga section and easily found something good to read, which tends to happen a lot. With novels, I'm not patient enough to read past the first page. With Manga, I've never stopped reading because I was bored, only if I was scared or was forced to leave. The only problem is that it breaks my neck. After a neck-breaking 90 minutes, I left the bookstore, but felt like it had been much longer than that.

Barnes and Nobles again

Recently, I've been starting to go back to Barnes + Nobles in order to waste some time. I did that a lot during summer, but when school started again their wasn't much time. The last two weekends, we have had three-day weekends. Last Monday, I spent most of the afternoon at a Barnes and Nobles store. I spent 5 hours reading a single book, which was actually pretty good. That day was pretty fun and it is why we came again today. Unfortunately, I wasted about 2 hours trying to look for a book. I simply paced around. When I found a book that I was interested in reading I never finished before we had to leave. Now, there are going to be no more three day weekends so I won't be coming back for a while.

Library E-Books

For a pretty long while now, I've been checking out E-books at the library to read on my Kindle. This started about 4 months ago, when I first got the kindle, I read a book which talked about "assets". Anyways, while I was reading a review on the book, someone who didn't like the book quipped that their greatest 'asset' is my library card. My dad agreed with that statement. Later that day, I wanted to buy a book, instead my dad told me that the public library not only has books to check out, but E-books, video games, movies - all sorts of stuff. We didn't even have to go to the library! All we had to do was check it out through the library's website. I looked through the E-book collection for about 15 minutes before finding the book Maximum Ride and it was very convenient. Those 15 minutes answered most of my questions about the system. I initially wondered why anyone would buy books with such a convenient lending system (you could say the same for physical books except that there is a wait-list), to solve this problem, there are only a certain number of copies available to check out, popular books have about 10 something people waiting. When the lend time is two weeks, it takes a couple of months to get one book. I read a bunch of less popular books that I don't find in a bookstore or the library, before finally reading a book I had holded since I was first introduced to the library E-book selection. Now, every-once in a while when I get bored, I look through the catalog of "Available Now" books, select one, and 30 seconds later, start to read.

Not much

Today I did spent a pretty long time away from home. In the morning, I did some of my math homework before leaving at 10 for a class, as usual. Unlike most weekends, today I went to two other places. At 2 o'clock, I left to take a short math test, which was over in 30 minutes. Following that, I spent a very boring hour at the library doing math problems. Each problem took me about five minutes, but it was very satisfying to do so many of them. I'd been doing those math problems for about two weeks now, and they aren't much harder than they were when I first started, but I get really really lazy. Whenever I got stuck, I looked at the clock, then at my dad (who was reading magazines) to try to pass some time, because I knew that once it was 4 o'clock I could zip out and go to the next place we were planning to go. I got stuck a lot. Today I was also frequently hiccuping, which made it difficult to focus. After 30 minutes, I took a short break. When it was about 4:05 my dad took us to our next destination. There, I spent 45 minutes before going home.   

Skip-A-Day

Yesterday I forgot to write a blog. I don't really know what to say about that, except that I should probably write one today or risk getting in trouble. I kinda don't really have much else to say, so I guess I will write what comes to mind. As stated before, I kinda just want to have between 8-9 sentences. So I will keep writing extremely random and boring stuff until I reach that point. At this point, I would have my old lazy blog length. Whenever I do write blog, I always feel like my day was very boring. It really wasn't though. I guess it was rather normal... Yet it felt pretty long. I just don't remember much.

Quality Blog

One of the things I was supposed to do in exchange for the video game was to write a quality blog. I hadn't written blog for over two months. When I first started, I wrote about the hiking trip I had done the day before. Then I took an easy route and spent 11 days writing about my 9 days of vacation. Then I ran out of ideas. Yesterday, I wrote it on the video game that I convinced my dad to buy which is the reason I have started writing again. Of course, there is really no set definition for quality, and that means that I tend to go for the standard of "better than my old lazy blogs" which were five to six sentences long. I want to try and beat that. If I asked my dad back in the day, he would tell me that the length doesn't matter as much as the "quality" of my writing and that I shouldn't treat writing blog like a task I want to get done. Maybe it would be better to judge it based on how long it took me to think about it and write it (This patch of words took about 7 minutes total, 2 minutes for typing, and 5 minutes to think of stuff to write) ... Anyways, the point is after coming back to writing blog again, I hope I won't go back to lazy five sentence blogs anytime soon.

Okay, correction, my mom just came up and told me that this current post is too short. Great. I also recall writing some stories, but I don't like writing them anymore, because of how detailed the first section is compared to the 6-7 sentences I use for the last part. However, my mom actually liked when I wrote stories.  This is a list of the labels I've used: (Activity, Book Report, BORING, chinese, Discovery, Fable, fiction, funny, Game, joke, Journal, Letter, Lily, Long Journal, Main Idea, miscellaneous, placeholder, Play, Poem, Pretend, rhyme, Round Story, Science fiction, Song lyrics, Story, Tongue Twister.)  I used to do a lot of things. I don't remember the last time I did a story, much less all the other things.  Anyways, I also thought about something else, perhaps I should instead judge the quality of my blogs not by how long it took to write it, but how long it takes to read it. In that case, this blog can be read in under 3 minutes. Soooooo... Fail.

The game I got

Two days after coming home from vacation, I came home and wanted to get a video game (Not a free one). The result was a rather interesting experience that I think rather positively of. In the beginning I directly asked, that didn't work very well. After begging for a while, the next day, I convinced my dad to the point that he told me that he would buy a video game for me if I wrote a "proposal" to convince him to do it. He meant proposal in the context of a proposal for funding for research. In other words, I needed to write a letter with reasons that he should buy the game for me. It was like writing an argumentative paper (with respect) and preemptively discussing various counter arguments. After about 2 hours, I showed it to my mom, and she said that she would buy it for me. Then I showed it to my dad (who's opinion actually mattered), first, I ran away, not wanting to hear his response, when I came back, he did a little research of his own before accepting. The experience as a whole taught me of the importance of being able to write effectively and convincingly. For future issues, if I want, I can always attempt to write another proposal.

Part 9

The ninth day was the last day of vacation. After eating breakfast, we went to one museum about route 66. After a few souvenirs, many pictures, and one long video, we were ready to leave at 10. We crossed the California border around noon. I spent most of the car ride reading. We ate at a familiar place (The Panda Express at Barstow). After that, it was a quick 2 hour drive back home. With stops and all, we got home at around 4:30. It took a while to unpack, but after that, vacation was basically over. 

Part 8

The next day was our first day on the way home. We woke up from Gallup, NM at 7. When we finished breakfast, it was 9. We drove one hour to Petrified Forest National Park. Before we got there, we stopped at a store in Navajo Nation for some ice cream. We spent a long time at Petrified forest, from ten to about 5. Along the way, we did the junior ranger and one hiking trail. After that, we ate at another Mexican food restaurant in a nearby town. It again took us until 7. The day ended after we arrived at the hotel in Kingman at about 11.

The great skiing fiasco (Part 7)

After waking up, it was 7 o'clock, which was actually pretty late, because we wanted to go skiing that day. After eating breakfast, wasting time, and getting lost, we arrived at the skiing area at 10 o'clock. Renting the equipment took two hours, and we only started skiing at 12:30. Afterwards, I tried to learn how to ski by eavesdropping on the lessons (which cost money). It took about two hours before I could reliably stop myself. I still had no confidence in myself, which meant that I didn't do much for another hour. I only skied down the full bunny slope twice. After that, we took a picture of the sunset, and started heading for our hotel at around 6 o'clock. After that, was the moment of our winter vacation that I remember the most. I had muscle spasms. After losing control of my left thumb twice I asked my dad what was going on. He said it was most likely due to the fact that I had not eaten any salt the entire day. Luckily, my mom had packed some sausages, and I ate half of a sausage. At 6:45 we arrived at a Thai food diner in Albuquerque. We finished eating at 8:45. Then, it was a 3 hour drive to our hotel in Gallup, NM. We arrived at 11 and, for the second time, went to sleep after midnight (at least we booked the hotel though). 

Wasting a Day (Part 6)

After not going to sleep until 1:00 AM the last night, we still managed to wake up at 7:30. After a one hour breakfast, we decided to extend our stay at our current hotel, because we just really wanted to go skiing. At 9 we explored the city of Los Alamos which had a "national historic park." We also visited the atomic bomb museum (paraphrasing). By 11:30 we were finally heading to Santa Fe, which was what we were planning to do that day. Though we arrived at about 12:15, it took us nearly 45 minutes to find some place to park. We ended up parking at the New Mexico Department of Veterans Affairs, and my mom gave the parking meter fees for three hours of parking. We waited for 30 minutes at a random Mexican food dine-in restaurant, before going to the Georgia O'Keefe museum at 2:00. We also went to the Native American art museum, a large cathedral, and the New Mexico state capitol before arriving back at our parking spot 15 minutes early. There we contemplated going to the movie theater again. However, we eventually decided against it. My dad remarked that we had nothing planned for today - but we still wanted to stay in Santa Fe an extra day? We ate at a grocery store Deli next to our hotel. That took until 6 o'clock. When we got back to the hotel, my sisters realized that this hotel had a heated pool, and they went swimming. I just played video games (after booking the hotel of course). We slept rather early that day (before 11 at least).

Revisiting missed opportunities (Part 5)

The fifth day of my family's vacation was spent at Guadalupe Mountains National Park, which was in Texas, but only an hour drive away from the city of Carlsbad (New Mexico) where we spent the night. We stopped and got out of the heated car many times to take pictures in the sub-freezing temperatures. Once at the sign declaring "Welcome to Texas" and twice at the two signs informing us of our entry into the National Park. We immediately went into the visitor center, where my sisters and I were forced into doing Junior Ranger. This was by far the most difficult junior ranger program I had to do in the whole vacation. It took us 90 minutes to do it. Afterwards, we decided to do a very short 0.6 mile hike, because there apparently was not much to the park besides hiking (We were ill-prepared for the longer hikes).  I took many pictures of the frosty desert, making sure to capture a Prickly-Pear in the background to remind my future self that, yes, this is an actual desert. At noon, the fog finally cleared and we could see the park's namesake Guadalupe Mountains ... right as we were planning to leave. So, after a few photos we headed towards our hotel. At 2 we ate at a subway in El Paso. Then arrived back at White Sands National Monument at 4:15, because we were determined to revisit it. It was open, but would be closing at 5, and much to the relief of my sisters and I, we didn't have time for Junior Ranger, and instead headed into the monument, sleds in tow to sled in the white sand dunes. While the entrance is blocked out at 5 o'clock, once you get in, you don't have to get out until 6 o'clock (sunset). So, we enjoyed about 45 minutes of sledding down sand dunes, before leaving. We quickly ate in the nearby town of Alamogordo before speeding (metaphorically) to our hotel in Los Alamos. We arrived at 11:30, and I might've been asleep for part of the 4 hour slog. It was so late that we didn't have time to book the next day's hotel, and instead opted to procrastinate until the morning to do so (we still found time to mess around until about 1 o'clock). 

Part 4 (Points for an original title)

The next day was, in my opinion, the best day of my entire vacation. After an unfilling breakfast where I mostly ate toast w/ butter. We left to go to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. The day before, we had already visited most of the park, except for the visitor center and the actual caverns, which were located 700 feet below the surface. We went down through an elevator reading all the signs and taking plenty of pictures (the cavern was lit up by artificial light). After seeing the main attraction, we walked out through the "natural entrance", which was a sloped one mile trail out of the cave's natural entrance. By the time we were finished, it was almost 2 o'clock. We ate a very overpriced meal at the gift shop, drove a scenic route, and did the junior ranger program. We didn't leave until sunset (which was approximately 5). After that, my dad decided it was too early to go to the hotel, but too late to go to the other national park we were planning to go to. Instead, we watched a movie. The movie was from 7-9 so we ate dinner first. By 9:30 we were all at the hotel and did some research on our next destination before going to sleep for the night. 

Vacation Pt. 3

The next day, was Christmas Day, which means that next to nothing was open. After breakfast at the hotel, we left to go to White Sands National Monument. Unfortunately, the one hour drive was wasted, because it was not open on Christmas. In desperation, we parked our car and walked around the gate, but we were caught before we got very far. So, at 10 we had already left for our hotel. We also couldn't find any place to eat lunch and ended up eating lunch at 2 o'clock at a Sonic in Artesia, which was one of the few stores open on Christmas. Later on, we arrived at our hotel, but decided to visit Carlsbad Caverns National Park, which we originally planned to visit on the 26th. Unlike White Sands, the road wasn't blocked so you could still drive in and visit. However, the visitor center and their main attraction - the underground caverns were closed for Christmas. Because of this, we visited the national park again the next day. At 7 we returned to our hotel in Carlsbad, spent one hour eating dinner, then planned the next day's activities in the hotel.

My Vacation Pt.2

The next day everyone woke up at 6:30, but we watched TV until 7:30. After that, we quickly ate breakfast, before checking-out of the hotel and beginning the next day's journey. Our first destination was a place we literally just found out about yesterday, one of Arizona's three national parks - Saguaro National Park, which apparently was full of Saguaro Cacti. We arrived at 10 and basically just drove around, took photos, and occasionally stopped to read the signs. At 12 we did a short hike, and by 1 we had left. After that, it was a quick visit to the local supermarket and In-N-Out for lunch. Right after that, we refilled on gas, then left for a 5 hour drive to Las Cruces, NM. On the way, I finished up my math homework. When we got there, we ate Mexican food for dinner, which also filled me up. This is mostly because of how large the portions were and the fact that they had free chips w/ salsa sitting on the table. At the hotel, we booked the next day's hotel, and I slept a bit earlier than the day before.

Long vacation Pt. 1

Winter break has been going on for quite sometime now. Yet, it feels like it has just begun. This is mostly because I went on a week-long vacation, and presently don't really remember much of it. If I think about it, I can remember many of the details, but, when I'm not attempting to recall the details, I just am not aware of the fact that I've already used up the majority of my two weeks off. I think the reason for this is because I haven't done anything remotely similar to what I did during vacation, and thus only truly remember yesterday and today - the days I spent home from vacation. Anyways, if I think hard I can probably get about 80% of the details right.

We left for New Mexico on Saturday morning. On my family vacations, we normally end up leaving later than we originally plan to. Our plans took a second hit when we agreed to go a different route than we had originally planned. Under the new plan, we drove south to San Diego. I remember doing my math homework while occasionally asking my dad questions on problems I needed help on. Our first stop was to refill the gas tank at San Diego. It was also the first time my sisters and I washed the car (which we failed at doing). Following that, we sped along the freeway heading towards Arizona. We stopped for lunch at noon in the city of El Centro, CA. My mom and sisters went with me to eat KFC, while my dad decided to stay in the car and eat some of the food we had brought from home. After that, I was stuck doing my math homework in the car until about sunset (which because of daylight-savings time was about 5:30). I still hadn't finished though, there were some really annoying problems that I must've pondered for more than an hour. We mainly passed through desert and such, the other major stop was on the border town of Yuma, AZ, which was where my mom took over the steering wheel from my dad. At about 7 in local time, we had arrived at our destination - Tucson, AZ. While Tucson is only 8 hours away from our house, bathroom breaks and meals took up about two hours. We ate dinner in Tucson at a local Italian restaurant. It took about 90 minutes and most of my stomach (my dad had to help me finish). At about 9 we finished eating and headed to the hotel. We, being last minute planners, booked the next day's hotel at today's hotel. We decided our next destination was Las Cruces, NM and we would spend the morning at Saguaro National Park. Afterwards, I played Learn To Fly 3 until about 11 before going to sleep for the night.

Going Hiking (again)

Today I hiked with my family and my friend Kevin's family to celebrate the new year.  However, this 3 mile hike didn't feel like a hike at all for two main reasons. The first was how easy the trail was. It was flat and straightforward, with not very many extreme slopes. The second reason was the fact that I was talking while walking. Kevin was hiking with me, and we talked about school, video games, and life on the internet. Earlier in the day, I was dreading the hike, but it turns out that time really flies when you are doing something you want to do. The second part of our new year excursion was eating out at a restaurant for the new year. I mostly ate with my own family. Due to the fact that we are learning about nutrition and health in science class, I forced myself to choke down vegetables with the rest of my meal. I had already been doing that for a while, but this time, I absolutely hated the taste of the vegetables (specifically steamed lettuce). My sister later remarked that I was the only one in the family who ended up eating it (it was that bad). I finished eating early, and then I talked with Kevin for a while. After that, everyone headed up to the local bakery to eat dessert. I went home with a full belly and basically forgot the hike in the morning.

Getting Sick

Yesterday I was sick, like really sick, I had a fever, messed up lips, dried throat, and was completely out of energy. Naturally, I missed school that day, but after the school bus left, the Advil I had taken basically completely took out all the symptoms.  By 10 I was completely OK. My mom asked if I wanted to go to school or not. I felt that it would be a bit awkward, so I stayed home. By 2 the symptoms were back and I took another pill, at the end of the day I was basically rid of the illness. I wondered if I could of just went to school. Today I'm mostly okay except for a dry throat that I keep pouring water into, but is perpetually dry and constantly gives me weird mucus. Next time I will go to school.

Book Orders

My sister got her book orders today. So she gets to buy a bunch of books from scholastic. Back when I was in her grade, I didn't really buy that many books, but now I wish I had, every time I look for something to read, I can always check my sister's book hoard. She has so many books that if I tried reading them all I could probably read them again without feeling bored. Some books can be reread over and over again. 

I tried to write a book more than 4 times, every time I couldn't get the project off the ground. The closest I ever got was a 27 page wall of text, that spent 20 pages introducing concepts and then 7 pages for the plot. If it was the size of a normal paperback novel, it might have been around 50~ pages. I can't help being distracted, sometimes I really want to write something good, like when I find so many opposing complaints on goodreads. I have so much fun reading comments it wastes so much time, which makes it the most interesting thing that I do.

Speed Homework

Yesterday I did the impossible I finished my chinese homework in less than 20 minutes. I was extremely motivated, because the computer was already open, and I had to do it in order to keep it open. my dad commented on how long it normally takes me to finish one simple task and talked a lot about ways to improve my efficiency. I guess it was basically a one time thing however, because today it took about 40 minutes to do the same amount of work. The thing holding me back was a combination of my sharpener issues and frustration made my mental atmosphere less suited to doing it. Seventh Grade has been very light on homework, and I must get faster to keep up.

Middle School

So, today is the second day of middle school. I have many different conflicting feelings already. So first on the list is homework, I actually don't have much homework, but the main thing affecting me is the high* expectations of the teachers. *I mean I don't actually know that I can't handle it but I feel like I can't which is almost worse. I already have 2 things due on September 5, and the teachers advice to start early isn't very helpful. So I kind of finished my homework. Also I don't know about tests or anything else as of now. It is all very confusing, the number one feeling I've been having. I don't know if I need to change my habits to finish my homework on time. I also don't want to get to comfortable. In a few days my questions will be answered, for better or worse. For example, in history class, I have a long project due September 5th, I know from experience that I can finish on the last day, but it doesn't turn out well. I try to plan, but I know that there are always unexpected obstacles. All the teachers are currently very nice, but I have big suspicions that is only due to a kind nature and fickle first impressions. I want to make my parents proud this year, but the 8th graders always talk about how hard a particular teacher's class is. Anyways, my general feelings are positive, yet I don't want them to.

Vacation day

Today is the first day of our vacation. However, we still had to do our things today. We only will actually leave to go at dark. This is a first, as we usually like going first thing in the morning. Flying a plane is so weird. My sisters probably are having lots of fun right now, I shall join them.

I'm so weird

Yesterday was an unordinary day. I woke up at 8, and my sisters were asking my momma to open the computers. We did stuff, eventually she opened them , but only one, which we all had to share.We rotated in thirty minute intervals. I played for two hours that day. When my mom came home at 5, I played the iPad until I went to sleep, yay!

Blah Blah Blah

My sissy is such a sissy. Bye, I just wanna do stuff so I can finish blog and play a bit before I have to leave at 11. Anyways, on Thursday, I get to go on vacation. So I have three more days to do stuff. I am sort of worried about middle school. I already feel like summer is over for me. It actually went by pretty slowly, and overall I feel that I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I am glad to start school at 8:15 in middle school, and being able to take the bus. I could wake up at 7:50 and not be late, which is when my sisters have to be at school. Yay

The last week

This is the last free week at home I have for the summer. This entire week I went to zero summer camps. I've had 4 free weeks this summer, but today was like a sort of sleep in week free from obligations. My parents gave me a break after Basketball Camp which lasted a whole day five days in a row, so as a reward, my parents let me do whatever this week! Except next week we go on vacation. This week I woke up at 9:30 slept at 10:00 and stayed home the entire day. Yay!

Basketball Camp

This past week, I've been going to basketball camp. I had to wake up at my usual get up time of about around 7:20, I would play around and then start a long routine for 7 hours straight of basketball, that I don't like, and was forced to go by my parents. I guess it started to get fun at the end, I won't be coming back this year though. My sister was jealous and what not, because she actually likes basketball.


Okay, I guess I'll go through day to day of what happened.

On Monday, I woke up at 8:10, we went to a big basketball court. At about 8:30 I saw the huge wooden gym. I mostly just explored around trying to find out about this situation I have been forced into. Starting at nine, the coaches introduced themselves and we split into "leagues", I was grouped into the 11 - 14 yr old category. Then they numbered us off into teams. After a short half-court trial game, they decided to split the six teams into 7. Originally I was in team two, maybe the coach thought I was really bad at basketball, and I was the first one to join team 7. We were the smallest team in the league. Of the 11 players in team seven. 2 left for vacation, one sprained his ankle, and one disappeared by Friday. After that we got to do drills, which were hard, because I didn't understand much. Then we had lunch (provided). After that we had basketball challenges. Then some full fledged games, which was the first time that I decided "maybe I'm not completely trash.", we lost, but I played for 8 minutes out of 16, pretty good.

The next 3 days were the same, except there was an additional morning game, oh and on Wednesday we went to the pool, and we had pizza on Thursday.

Friday was the "Playoffs". We played, and lost by 2 points on the first round. Not much else happened. I remember getting a certificate telling me how I did. You either did "Average", "Above Average" "Good", "Excellent", or "Outstanding". Then I went to Barnes and Nobles, Yay!

This week in boring...

This week was quite a boring one, I went to no camps or any place fun. I stayed home and my joy for the week rested on my ability to use electronics for just long enough to survive, and otherwise spend time doing other things I didn't want, I went to Barnes and Noble three times this week, and I don't plan on coming back until the staff forget me. I uh kind of made them not mad, but I was noticed. Now that I think about it, it doesn't seem right being in a bookstore without buying anything, it really wasn't that much my choice to go there, but a necessity to stop that urge to do something, as long as I'm away from the computer, my mom doesn't care if we don't do anything, so the bookstore is like a small step down. My sisters didn't come with me this week, I wonder what they did.

Besides the book store, I also read my kindle, and I got caught reading it at night twice, and I always get busted by my sister for

1.  Reading after I go to bed (she always comes into my room, and actually has pretty convincing excuses, but I feel like she just wants to tell on me.)
2. Reading in an awkward position. (Yes I get it, but I need to move around while reading its helpful)
3. Eating while reading (One of my favorite multitasking things, but I'm not allowed to.)

And that's it, I spent my time reading my kindle, playing on the iPad, or reading at the bookstore. Yay! I guess when I went to chess class yesterday that was moderately fun.

Carl's Junior

Today I went to Carl's Junior, I go to a chess club from 6 to 9 and decided to go eat out today. Instead of going to subway today, my mom and I decided that fast food would do the trick as we were late anyways, before I had time to change my mind we were already speeding through the drive through. I discovered Carl's Junior's $3 dollar burger, and we ordered it, in less than the time it took us to drive from the order window towards the pickup window, my burger was done.

In my personal opinion, there is no burger store in all of the US that matches In-N-Out, and this is reinforced by the fact that I nor anyone else in my city frankly, gives the other stores even a small chance, so with its popularity an In-N-Out Burger takes 20 minutes of waiting. Now, maybe I was just hungry, but the burger I got was pretty good, it was also far more expensive than the most expensive In-N-Out burger.


So I guess I just wanted to say how great In-N-Out is.

Swimming

Every, other day, our family goes swimming for the summer. We go after the sun has set, because I hate putting on sunscreen, and thus swim in slightly colder water, I never like swimming in the afternoon anyway. This summer I also have big dreams of learning to swim, I kind of can and kind of can't, so I want to learn, but I have to teach myself on my own, which is quite a challenge actually. The cold water wasn't actually much of a big deal, at first I thought swimming after dinner was crazy, but I would always adjust, and it wasn't that cold. The only time it was cold was when we left the pool at around 8:30. just before any serious wrinkling beyond my fingers.

At this point, I'm beginning to lose my fear of water again, I went to a water park, and swallowed a few cupfuls in the wave pool (much more dangerous than the water-slides), I then decided to stick to the lazy river instead. This however, caused me to fail my swimming test, and my parents told me they were going to get my sister and I a teacher, and then forgot about it, I think I've gotten slightly better though, at least as well as I could do last year. 

Croissants

A couple days ago, I ate a croissant, I never used to like them, they tasted like regular plain old bread, but worse, because they looked unnaturally weird, but my sisters liked them, so the Costco twelve packs were purchased for them. When I get bread I only use them for Sandwiches and French Toast, I do not like plain bread. Then I made a grilled cheese sandwich, I started to like the bread part more than the cheese, because of added butter. Then I realized that the Costco Croissants also have butter on them, and if I microwave it, it tastes really good.

I guess I hadn't realized I had to microwave it when I first tried them, and now once I realized it suddenly tastes like the only bread I can bear to taste without making it into a sandwich first. So now my family is the one convincing me to stop eating it rather than make me try it.


Anyways, I get bored, and that makes me hungry...

Yay

Hello, I found a new hobby on the iPad, I am listening to the podcast "Hello Internet", on the iPad I can even listen without the iPad being actually turned on. It really annoys my parents. I have a habit of playing arcade games while listening. I first discovered it when I looked up Hello on iTunes, trying to find the song by Adele, I accidentally clicked on Hello Internet, I've been listening to it since. I have problems playing it, my dad doesn't approve, I think it is very interesting, but he doesn't think so, I always try to get him to listen to a whole episode, but whatever. For now, I can only enjoy it in my room.

More Fooling around in the bookstore

This week, without a Camp to go to I will simply fold around at the local bookstore. I've always read the same small variety of books. It's a very strange experience but I manage to somehow get through the day, It passes pretty easily. Often we buy snacks at the stores nearby, the movie theater sells $1 hot dogs. I spent yesterday doing it, and four weeks earlier, I was basically at the bookstore the whole time. Next week I'll be going to camp again though. For now, the bookstore is the single most comforting place in eventless weeks in my summer.

Movie

Yesterday I went to the movie theater with my friends. It was the most interesting thing that had happened this boring midsummer week. It started it when I woke up at around 9 to do things, then I went to the library, I then fooled around until 3 when I met up with my friends we played this game called Fort Destroyers, after a while, at around 4:30 we left for the theater, and watched a 3 hr movie. The most exciting part for me was making comments on lines, I really had to go to the bathroom though, it was weird holding it for so long. Afterwards, we ate and I went home at 10.

Repeat what I say

I used to do a sort of repeating thing for my blogs. I would go into a very lively place and record whatever people say around me. It gets really exciting when the people who I am writing about notice what I am doing. Then I make them really angry or speechless. It is sort of like reading TV or something like that. It is a clear example of my laziness however. I do it especially when I just want to take up more and more space. Eventually it can get to many pages long. It doesn't even require thinking! I generally am reminded about this style through the following chain reaction:

1."ugh, so bored"

2."My sister is so distracting"

3. "Wouldn't she be so embarrassed if everyone could hear her stupidness"

4. "Hey, that reminds me, I can do a repeat what I say blog. "

Chess Club

Tonight, at about 6 o'clock I will get to play chess for 3 whole hours! That is very exciting, I have been preparing for a long time for this opportunity. I wanted to go somewhere to play chess last week, but because of various reasons I couldn't, today I can go, and it is for a pretty long time. My mom explained how it is a chess club with no instructors, that makes it very interesting to me, I always went to classes, but I mainly want to play, my mom also told me that when summer school finishes I can go where to a camp for the entire week!

Public Speaking Class

I have to classes at summer school for this week and the next one. First, I have art, and then I have public speaking, which I by far enjoy more. I came into summer school, after an outdoorsy boy scout experience. I also took public speaking, it consisted mainly of impromptu speeches, which were hard, but not very punishing. I came to summer school, doing planned speeches, which seemed so much harder, coming from an experience of mostly impromptu speeches. We are currently on the advertisement speech, and it was a nightmare making the power point. Even though I had done it before, it seemed odd after my plain speeches. I decided to make a cereal advertisement, I was inspired by the fact that 33% of Breakfast Cereal profits are reinvested in advertising. Though it is kind of painful, this part is the important, but hard part for me. I actually want to learn it for the future.

However, I am yet anticipating for the Debate Class part of it. I love debating, I love arguing so I can't wait to go into it. I tend to argue a lot, and I haven't been in a debate class before. So now, I can finally unload all that pressure. I am thinking of what the topics are, hopefully it won't be too off from my expectations, however, I know I will have to wait a bit, so I am just trying to relax in the meanwhile.

In conclusion, this week's spice in my life has been the public speaking/debate class, which I hope will stick with me until at least next week.

My Summer Camp Day 1

Last week, I went to a Boy Scout summer camp for the majority of the week. It was cool. The morning of Sunday, 5 am, I was yelled awake by my dad, after a quick breakfast, by 5:20 we were off. Finally at 6 the bus, along with our gear started heading towards camp Chawanakee in Central California, near Shaever Lake. We headed north, and headed towards Los Angeles without traffic - because it was seven in the morning. By the time we ate lunch (At the superior burger store, In-N-Out) we were in Fresno, just a mile from the destination. After a bumpy ride, and 5000 ft. of slopes, we arrived into a forested area in the valley of Shaever Lake. From Early afternoon until bedtime, I enjoyed a few hours of hanging out after we finished setting up camp at 4. While my friends went fishing, I enjoyed the sunset. We had a welcome campfire and by ten, I was dozing off in the warm summer weather.

Boy, I am a boy.

Today I am a boy. I am being such a boy, whatever, I guess, time to go. I need to play a bit more piano. For now, I was fighting over the computer. There is a time to be cool. I guess, now I have to do things, I am torn between finishing piano and playing more games. I have decided to do piano so that's cool. I am writing blog, when I finish I will tell myself and reflect on this.

My Piano Test

Soon I will have my piano test, which is coming up very quickly, so today I had to play piano for two hours, in addition I did a lot of unlikely stuff for me, such as doing homework in a rather focused fashion, but I have a few more things on my head before I can finally do what I want, writing blog is one of them, I plan to take a shower right after this. I have lots to think about over the course of the day for everything I did. The rest of my time is leisure. I actually have a lot to think about, so for now I guess, I will tell myself that a few minutes doesn't matter.

Writing

I am writing things in my sister's dance class again. Yay! So now I have to continue eating pie. Just kidding, I am wondering about how much longer my batter might last, so yeah, now I have to contiune writing my blog, then I can finally play things yay! So I guess I will stop here. My dad went to china. I have his computer for a full two weeks, and the school year draws to a close.

Lol

Things are interesting at first until they aren't I actually had quite a nice day today, now I can have fun. I like playing games , and now I am. Hooray

Three hour vacation

Today I had three hours with my friends to do a big group project. We had been doing this for about the past three months, but today, we finally finished it, and it felt good, now all I have to do is wait, my problems are over, the year's hard things are all done. My friends are the one editing for a change, and I just have to watch the finished project. I still have a few worries about this school year, but the hard stuff is slowly sliding out. This is one of my most relaxed weekends.

Kindle

My sister went off to go buy herself a Kindle, with my dad. We had been arguing over it too much and instead my dad bought by sister a second one. We only just got our first one on Monday. I told everyone the she was hogging it too much. That didn't go well. I complained, but I felt that I got in bigger trouble somehow. Anyways, that day was not a good one, luckily I finally got it back, my dad and my sister came back. So, in the end I guess I was kind of happy.

Hi

Water is kind of important, I drink a lot of it, some would argue too much. But it feels so refreshing after running around and stuff. Other times, when I drink it after having ice cream or soda, it feels like trash. Anyways, I drink to much of it. I remind all who complained that you're supposed to drink 8 cups a day, even I can't do that. So now, I guess I'm kind of stuck. But I still always get my water, or my juice, or my soda, or my milk.

The Teen Era

Its been a long time since I started blogging, back then I barely knew what blogging is. I had to write every day, I don't do that anymore, even though I probably should to practice typing and writing. My sister says that I am a teenager now. I'm twelve. In my school district, 6th grade is still in Elementary, but elsewhere not so much. I think I act very much like one as well, though I'm not sure what that means. I haven't shown myself that I'm responsible or what not, so yeah. I thought it would be different.

Computer

My dad has 3 computers at home right now, my mom has 3, and we have a bunch of unused desktops lying around and gathering dust, not to mention the amount of mobile devices. In light of this, when we were assigned a math project to interview, I decided to survey my classmates on how many computers they had at home, I expected at most 10, but some people had as many as 27, and when I further probed, I found that only a small fraction of them were actually used on a day to day basis. In the future, I have to take this info and do boring stuff, such as find the average, the range, and "analyze" it to make a poster, but enough of that, I was legitimately interested in this sort of stuff (my dad, on the other hand, compared this topic's usefulness to eating food).

Does this prove that we use computers too much? kind of, at school we had this other survey question "How long do you spend on the computer each week on non-school related things?" Answered varied from 0 (probably a lie) to 40. 

Okay, finally, I would like to share a bit more about the results. In class, lots of people asked me questions on what counted as a computer "Like my computer, or all the computers in the house?" and "Does it have to belong to me?" This inflated the results a bit, but it gave me more info.

Thank you, that was a summary of my survey's summary. I don't know why I did this.

Laze and Craze

The past spring break was very interesting. I was out a total of 5 out 9 days for vacation. On this topic I have extremely mixed feelings. I really wanted to do my projects, but my dad pointed out that a few days wouldn't affect much anyway. Now coming back, the turtle rock academic challenge is an extremely pressing issue. Its technically an optional project, but I have to do it anyways. It includes 3 school run events, writing 5 book reviews according to a template, and doing 8 hours of math, and 5 hours of typing not including things done at school. I am just starting to pick up steam. While it has been hard, right now it seems like just another nail in a complicated school year.

Weekend again

Yesterday I lost a lot of my time. I had to go to another camp out. They bother me, because so much of my time is wasted. I wish I could have spent more time on more pressing matters. Now I am home, and am wondering what this week will mean for me. On Friday, I will have to turn in a month long project.  It has been using up all of my effort. I hope to finish soon.

Monday

Today is Monday, the least epic day of them all. It is boring and is the longest day. I think on Monday of weekends left behind. I look both at an uneventful day ahead, and a tedious string of activities on the evening. It is boring, but on future days I wish that I had a better one. It always anchors the rest of my week. That is Monday for me.

Weekend

This weekend has been a camp out. I feel I basically wasted two days of time. It doesn't really have a value to me, and is awfully boring and useless. I wish that I could use this time some other way, yet I have to do it all over again in two weeks. It was terrible, I don't want to go again. Its too difficult. Instead, I'll talk about the 8 hours I've spent at home. I did do some things, but it is so bad. I really expected something different. Both for today and yesterday. 

The Wave

Recently, my dad's to do list had started to become more and more meaningless. He doesn't enforce it as hard as he said that he would the first day. On the first week he let me have the iPad when I forgot to do 11 out of the 91 things on my to do list the first week. The second week, I didn't do 15 out of the 76 things on my to do list. Then on the third week, I didn't fill it out at all - and every single week he let my sisters and I play on the iPad. I partly feel like the to-do-lists burden is far too large, but whatever. Today, I have finished everything on it, but I starting to doubt how long this will hold together. Thankfully, I know my dad pays attention.

Weekend Hill

Finally I will have my chance to do some math. Over the last few months, I have been practicing and practicing for a chance to get in the first math competition I have ever been in. It has been a very bumpy road, at many points I wanted to quit and just do my own things, but I have kept going, because it might be one of my only chances. I also have the science fair next week. I didn't expect to get very far, so it will be interesting. I also come close to the due date of some major projects.

Memories of the Darker Times

Today I am reflecting on the past weekend. It was sure an interesting one. The long four day weekend had a variety of effects. First, I noticed that my dad did not keep his promise from two weeks ago not to give the iPad unless we did all of our things. On Friday, my sisters had somehow downloaded Roblox. They were playing for a long time. I, on the other hand, was watching you tube videos. That was basically Friday, such a relaxing day. I slept until about 9 in the morning. I only got up, because I had Chinese School. After Chinese School, I sat around, because I didn't want to do anything. I took my first nap that day! Sunday morning was where I mostly watched Youtube, and otherwise sat around occasionally doing Dad-Approved things like math and homework. On Monday, I basically did math in the morning, and watched videos in the afternoon. Then, Tuesday Night, my dad set up this new organizational tool, I hope it goes a lot better this time.

The long campout

This week, I went to the mountains, from Tuesday to Friday. It was a school field trip, which set it apart from other camp outs I have been in. It was entirely run by the school. On Tuesday, they rented a luxurious bus. I remembered the bus for its reclining seats and its TV's inside the bus. When we came the movie Inside Out was played for most of the trip. After the movie finished, we waited around for 20 or so more minutes, when the bus reached our campsite. It was on the plateau between the mountains of Sugar Loaf and San G, nearly 6000 ft. above sea level. Right after getting off, they would separate all the 6th grade kids into Field Groups. I was in group I. We hung out for a bit before eating lunch. We had to wash our hands with vinegar (because it is organic). At lunch, we were squished between the two tables. For that while, we had chicken nuggets and bean soup.  In addition, we were served lots and lots of water to combat altitude sickness. Finally, in an attempt to be frugal, no food waste (Uneaten food) would be allowed, otherwise dessert would not be served.

After kind of adapting to this new lifestyle, we went over a rules briefing regarding the snow, the classes, and just basically how to live in the camp. With that, the first class, or the "Team Discovery" hike to root. We walked up many switchbacks to climb the snowy hill to the south of the camp. After sinking into knee-deep snow, our group found a dry spot in the area and began talking about the week ahead. It was where we set our goals, and got to know our instructor. We then got to know our cabin for the week, mine was the Lizard Cabin. So, at 4:30 pm we would switch to our cabin groups. In our cabin groups, we brought down all our luggage into our cabins. Soon, we decided where to sleep, and I took a top bunk bed. Soon, it was time for dinner. My dinner experience was very different than my lunch experience. First, when I came in I randomly drew a poker chip from a bowl. It would have a number from 1-14. That would be the table I would get to sit at. I drew an 11. Sitting down, the first thing I saw was a bowl of salad and a plate of bread. I didn't realize that I wasn't supposed to be eating yet. Apparently the camp had a rule not to eat anything before everyone else got food. It was to ensure no one would be bored watching others eat. After eating, we met again with our cabin. We had a class about snakes and their properties. I got a really cool photo of a snake slithering up onto my classmates hand. Then we learned about astronomy. On a night hike, we had a 30 minute session on astronomy, then the day time activities were over and it was sleep time.
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Using the bathroom at night was a complicated procession, we should've only needed to use the bathroom in the case of an emergency, but I had drunk to much water. To go pee, I have to wake up my buddy, wake up my instructor, and make them approve of my visit. Then, I need to put on a whistle just in case. Finally, I can use the restroom. I woke up at about 2 o'clock and really needed to go. So I walked around in the cabin, because I didn't really know how to wake anybody up without being too rude. So I waited until I eventually woke them up at 3. I went back to sleep and got a grand total of 7 hours of sleep on the first day.

The next day was adventure day, where the camp seemed more like a summer camp, than a science camp. At 9 it was time for morning switch over, where we would go from cabin groups to field groups. We brought along our lunch, as we would be eating outside for the second day. We climbed up a long towering hill of snow. Later, we adventured into knee deep snow, looking for a good place for the next class. Over there, we would learn about survival in the wild. At first I decided that I learned much of the stuff from Boy Scouts, but I came up with some interesting things. I learned about the importance of extra clothing. Finally, we also learned about building a stick shelter, we split up into two groups of 6 and had 20 minutes to build the best shelter possible. It was recommended to lean it onto a log, and insulate the shelter with snow. After 20 minutes, our crude shelter was built. In comparing them, he noted the southward facing and lack of snow of our shelter, both were mainly done by accident. there was much that I had learned from that class. Next was rock climbing, with a weakened arm I barely got to the second rock. Then, what everyone was looking forward to, came archery. I did pretty well in my own opinion. And just like that the first full day was over. It was time for afternoon switch over. We then went over to dinner.  The next time I drew a 7. I enjoyed the meal. The evening activities were line dancing and learning about nocturnal animals.

The next day was environmental day, we learned about rocks, mammals, and conservation. The evening was marked by the campfire, where each group did their own skit. It was a great day. Finally, on Friday, we left camp (at 9) forever.

The end of the week

At the end of the week, my dad is supposed to judge whether the work we did during the weekdays was sufficient, determining whether I would get the iPad or not. It really helped, because I started to write blog better! and I paid attention to other important things in life, it was not just a cycle of homework to video games to homework. I still feel that in the end, this will not last, and that the motivation is not enough, but as of now its going well. The last year, I thought of a different idea, which was to form more goals. I think I'm already starting to slip. Hopefully I can get it this time. 

Fortune this week

Today I have come towards the end of the week, and I did a lot better than the previous weeks. This week their was very little daily homework, and I did a lot of research for future projects. I was glad to not have to worry about something huge eventually, and right now am pretty optimistic about the coming weeks. My dad has told me about getting the iPad on the weekends by doing everything earlier in the week. Right now it has me motivated, but I wonder what it'll do in the future. So I am eager for the days to advance.

Hello again, blog

Today, I have discovered something, I had not written blog in a million days. My arm was broken and I had a cast on for the past few weeks, I still have my cast on, but recently I my fingers had healed enough so that I could type as fast as I normally can with the cast on. My parents have not forced me to write blog recently, but now that its healing, I'n back to many of my normal responsibilities, such as, playing the piano, doing math homework, playing my flute, and writing blog.

To this news, I have mixed reactions, they take time, and without doing them I could focus more on regular homework, but when I think about it, I didn't really focus a lot more than normal. The extra time was used on video games and such. On the other hand, I'm interested to test out how I can do better on piano, math, and blog after this break. I want to see how much better I can do with it.

Finally, this year, I want to start writing about better topics.

A day completely at home

Today I stayed home for the entire day, it was an entire day with only video games. Over the entire course of winter break, my mom has brought my sisters and I to Barnes & Noble, and on this weekend my sisters went skiing on Xmas Eve and we played board games on Sunday. So today, I spent the first half of the day doing my school projects and the second half staying put and wasting time. That is, on my computer. At 5:30 we ate dinner, and my dad told me to write blog.  So I wrote this, looking back on this day, I felt it went successfully because I finished a lot of school stuff, and I managed not to procrastinate further. In the future, my family will be going on vacation this break, with a broken arm I spent a lot of time at home, but I'm proud of completing my tasks.

The Dinner

Today was both my mom's and my dad's birthdays, so to celebrate, we went to a restaurant. Which is nothing new, except that the restaurant was empty, I was really surprised, but there was no line and the food didn't take so long, which was probably was what made me feel so good about it. It was a Chinese restaurant, AKA where my parents complain that I don't eat anything but fried rice & dumplings, so I decided to challenge myself and try at least one piece of every dish ordered, and I succeeded except for one dish, and then I was full. The food was mostly meat. Interestingly, my sisters and I didn't beg for desserts after the dinner. Once done, we went to buy a strawberry mousse cake, which my sisters were horrified to discover that it was actually vanilla cake covered in strawberry filling. My mom was saying that she loved the cake and would buy it again.

The Gifts

Today my family went Christmas Shopping, but there are so many restrictions. When my mom us that the price did not matter, us kids still felt a need to minimize the price, and we weren't allowed to ask for video games, I managed to negotiate for one though. Mostly I wasn't that interested, reading some books at the store. I just felt that nothing was appealing, the board games I would get bored of and lose most of the parts, the toys I would lose and get bored of, and I was afraid if I bought a card game my little brother might rip them apart, so nothing I really wanted. 

7 hours of stuff

Today was the first day of my school's winter break. I thought that I would be able to just play on the computer all day, that's what I really wanted to do, but I had to go somewhere, because my mom didn't want us inside all of the time. So I went out to Barnes & Nobles for the day. We were there for seven hours, but the new book that I had wanted to read wasn't released yet, so I basically just read old books that I've already read and guides that always call themselves "The Official Guide to..." or "The Essential Guide to ...", but they're kind of interesting, because they have illustrations. When I got home, it was almost 6,  we had dinner and I now am writing a blog on those 7 hours. So I'll just go back to the fun stuff now.

Journalism Club

At School, I have go to this after school club called journalism club. This year, the first year of the club, I decided to become an editor. Historically, the school magazine was written by the school PTA, but this year they let students have a shot at writing articles, taking pictures, and even add comic strips. It was really fun to be able to do try out this, because I feel about what I could do would be so much better than past editions, it always is fun to do that.

Hello, I don't sleep

Today, I wanted to sleep until about 9 o'clock, because I was sleepy and there was no school today. I, however and limited by the fact that the washing of my clothes happens at about 8, meaning I have to get up, or sleep in my day clothes, which sucks! I do get kind of sleepy all throughout the day. Recently, I've been losing on sleep, mainly, because I have to sleep in a sleeping bag in the night and I wake up so much. I can sleep in the day, but I just want to play video games. So I don't catch up on sleep on no-school days either.

Writing is boring

There are many reasons why I can't write good pieces. In my opinion, it is hard to make me right well for a couple reasons: 

a) First of all, typing is hard, because there are many things I'd rather do, because when I get the computer, I just want to use it in a fun way

b) If I do have to write, then I don't take much time, because I technically still "did" it.

c) When my parents tell me I have to write a good post, I ask what to write about, and I generally want to avoid my topic getting picked for me.

d) In my head, I do want to write about picking a topic and how to write good posts with structure and all that, but it is hard to do that over and over again

e) Then I think about some topic other than a journal, but it takes a lot of work, and my poems always seem the same each time.

All this means, that when I have to write it well, I recycle my old topics, and make it a little more "interesting". Basically next time I have to write something good, maybe I'll just change the letters into numbers and add a little humor.

Sleeping Bagt

The last few days, I had to sleep in a sleeping bag, because my grandpa is visiting. I kind of enjoy the sleeping bag, because it keeps me warmer than the blanket. However my bed is cozier, and the sleeping mat is easy to roll off of. Yesterday, I slept on my bed for a day, and I kind of miss it. On the other hand, when I end up going back to my bed anyway, I'll get more used to the bag. I talked about this , because sleep is very important to me.

What today

Today is Veterans day, we didn't do anything special today, other than stay home and do stuff. At 4:30 today, I have a First Lego League practice session. It is the last one before the competition. I have to miss my Chinese school to do it though. I don't like missing Chinese School,  especially since tomorrow is the test, and every time I have Boy Scout camp out, I have to miss Chinese School for it.

No Way

I was about to ask my dad what I should write my blog about, but after what happened last time, I think it would just be better to keep silent. Though, some of the advice is important. It really doesn't matter what I write about, but how I write it. I just don't want him picking my topic for me. After writing that, my idea came to a halt, and I again can't think of much to write about. If I finish, I technically did do it, that is the main reason I write blog. 

Fireland

There was a place called Fireland, it was next to another area called Ireland. Fireland was a beautiful place inhabited mainly by birds and sharks. Visitors who went never returned, although no one knew why. One day, a group of kids found their way onto this strange land. When they came back, their clothes were burning and charred to pieces. Due to that incident, it started to be called Fireland.  Then another day, the Ireland was also covered in fire, and then they were both called Fireland. For many years, the existence of these lands were mostly unknown, until a small fishing boat got caught in a storm and got stuck on the island. The crew stayed marooned on the island, and got lost, but a boat holding a record floated back to other places. Many more people finally learned of this place‘s existence.

Then shortly after, the entire world itself was shook by a giant volcanic eruption, and thus everywhere was now a land filled of fire.

Rah Rah Rah # 2

Hello this is the Rah#2 where we will talk about Synonyms for Rah Rah Rah. I looked it up on the dictionary, and it is short for Hoorah/Hooray. It is used in cheer. I wrote it randomly in my first one, now I guess I just was a little lazy and continued, so Rah for me.

Video Project

On Tuesday, I got my latest Video Project, or project that is done as a recorded video. This is the first year that I've had a video project, and I learned to use iMovie. It started near the beginning of the school year. When I was working with a group, one of them decided to do a movie as a presentation, it worked out, and I decided to try it and I made a couple of low quality videos myself. Then we had an Oral Tape, but I didn't get to edit. Now I want to make my own school project.

Oral Book Report

This year in school, we have a thing called an Oral Tape. It is interesting, because it is a reading of a passage in a book with others. It is recorded, and edited to be a "movie". I like it, because, watching others' movies is a lot of fun, especially when you compare it to yours, and with movies, the final result can turn out very differently than the expectations. Our first one was on the novelization of Star Wars. So it was a movie of a book of a movie. I thought it was really funny, so I watched it a couple times, since I didn't make it, I was also thinking about what I would've done differently. Today I am going to find a book for our next one, and I hope it will be good. 

Fireball Launcher

I had to type the words fire ball launcher because I just had a habit of doing it ever since my friend tried to design one that works like a regular cannon, now and then, when I have nothing else to write I find my hands simply just typing those words on the screen. I decided to write something about it.

Boy scouting

Boy Scouts are a fun part of my life, but sometimes I feel it takes up way too much time. Even though some events are optional, there are like 3 events every week, and this hogs up A LOT of time. I have to go troop meetings every Monday, so I am definitely looking forward to Halloween, where the meeting is canceled that day. Also, in order to make things more interesting, the last Monday of the month, instead of a conventional troop meeting, we split up into smaller groups, and have a little more fun and socialize more than getting requirements done. Today we have a troop meeting, because this is the last meeting of the month of October. I hope it will be fun!

The war of videos and video games

Whether I currently like videos or video games, I like using computers. Without them, I can do neither.

 I mostly watch videos of other people playing video games, especially when I can't get the game or I'm not really good at it. I sometimes surf the web for a good video game, and sometimes I stick with it and forget Youtube for a long time. I spend about a month on a particular series before I get bored and quit watching someone playing, or playing that particular game. 

These two activities cover what I do inn my "free" time whenI can use the computer. Both waste time, and my parents aren't a fan of either. But I like them, and enjoy doing those things.

A real poem

How long have I tried?
How many times have I cried?
I wrote it start to finish
My skill has truly diminished
I think about what I wrote
There is nothing to bloat

I did it all wrong...

This is what I have not done
Though I do not need to in order to have fun

I want to write a poem
So I will do it right.

Another time limit

Again, I have only thirty minutes to finish writing my blog. I guess that is necessary to prevent me from getting distracted while writing blog, but I can't always write something interesting. I will not delete this, even though this topic isn't very interesting, because I already have written so much. I don't really know if the time limit helps me or doesn't, because I rush a little bit more.

This year, I decided to improve on my writing by practicing writing more, and right now I think I have a lot so, yeah.

I published this already, but since I had more time I wanted to make it a little better. I really am just throwing out whatever is in my head. I think I am simply just telling people about my goals, and not actually doing them. I could make it better but I am too lazy, I just made this post slightly longer...

Topic Loss

I, once again, have no topic to write about. Therefore, I continue the pattern of a million other blogs, and creatively talk about the lack of a topic. This normally happens when I just have to write a well thought out, well-worded, in general good piece of writing. I tell my parents I can't think of a topic, and they provide a topic that I would never want to write about. So I was stuck having to think about my own topic.

In free writing, it doesn't matter what you write about, but how you put it down. So I guess the point of this post, would be to make a post on this topic the best one I ever did on it. I think why I never can write a good post on not having a topic is, because this topic bails me out. If I were to write a good one, then I not be allowed to do it again. Another reason, is simply that writing is hard, and I don't want anyone saying "But you did so well that other day...". So, I basically want to keep the standard low. Not that this strategy works to well anyway. So, in conclusion I wrote something about how to write a good something, when I have nothing to write about that something. I hope that makes sense.

Columbus day

Today is Columbus day, the third day of my really long weekend. To me, stay home days (that are not holidays) are always boring, because, without my dad, nothing special happens, and I don't get to play on the iPad unless it is a Sunday. On the other hand, not having school is helpful, because I can do my long term projects and read. I love reading. I spent a lot of the weekend reading. I am now addicted to Cookie Clicker.

What I did today

Today was a fun day, but I did not feel I accomplished much. At 10 in the morning I went to someone's birthday party. It was at a place where they had Lego Mindstorm robots. I liked it, because I love creating something, and getting to see it in action. I liked the fact that in the end, we got to control it with a remote, and all of it was built from scratch. It was sort of like a video game, and we got to see a live soccer game between robots, it was very interesting. The party was done at around 2 pm, then, after that I went to the library to get ready for a book report, and finally I had a meeting with my friends to work on a school project. After we did that, I played cookie clicker with them, and we had a contest to see who could reach a certain point first. At 6 my eventful day was finished and I had to continue with my normal responsibilities.

How many days without blog?

I have gone many more days without writing in my blog than when we went on vacation. It is just so boring to do it, because writing a good piece of writing is actually pretty hard. I think I talked about my structure the last time I wrote in it.  Supposedly a piece of writing has to has a topic sentence and all that, but what's the point, when I only spend like ten minutes on a blog post that uses no high level vocabulary, and rarely decide to edit it or sometimes even fix my grammar, what is the point in writing it? All I do is practice typing, and I my writing isn't even very good. I will do it next time I do blog, which will be in ten days maybe.