Weekly Update or HAPPY NEW YEARS! (Almost)

Well another year is about to pass us again. So what happened that's worth reflecting? Well, as always, with no particular order:

1. College! Wow there's so much to say about that. First thing is that there are always so many choices! Wow. The school part wasn't so different as before, just that you went to class less often, but each class was so much longer. Roommates are, well, roommates. Apparently, though, I missed out on the most poplar event at school though, but I guess I can accept that since I don't really do that many popular things. I also went to the All-American Rejects concert with Blackwood and some other people. That night was a lot of fun. Blackwood visiting me was definitely a plus that helped me get through those 6 long consecutive weeks at school. I'm also volunteer at the medical center. Specifically I work in the out-patient anesthesiology department. It's so much fun. Especially when the old people come in for their visits. The nurses that I work with are all very nice. Sometimes, when I got bored, they let me go to the Spine Center or the Maternal Care floors, which were really fun. It was always busy at the Maternal Care floor. I think that I want to switch to the neurology and psychiatry department next quarter if it's possible. Also, after a quarter, I still don't know what my major is. That is probably not a good thing. I know I'm a biology major right now. Well, I think I am, but I want to change to a microbiology major. I'm also a psychology major for sure, but the thing is to graduate with both of those majors, I'll have to take an additional 40 some credits, which is like an entire year :0 I also thought about doing an interdisciplinary major of neurobiology, but I'm not sure how that'll look since I'll have to make my own major, which is kind of weird to do at a school like OSU. So in other words, a much needed meeting with my advisor.

2. Summer of Freedom! Well, partial freedom. So the first few days of summer were lots of fun. I forget which day school ended, but basically I hung out with friends a lot. There were lots of movie nights with Julia, Marie, Angela, Tiff and Blackwood, and lots of graduation parties. The best movie that I watched this summer (actually the entire year) was definitely Dark Knight. I don't think that words could express my feelings during the first viewing. I definitely want to watch it in IMAX sometime, when it gets re-released into theaters at the end of next month. I went camping again at Indiana Dunes. Julia and I woke up at around the same time again, as usual, and went for walks. I really liked that. The waves at the Dunes were really strong that day so only Julia, Marie and I went into the water. It was also very very cold, but still lots and lots of fun to feel the waves crash against you. Dragon Boat Festival was about the same as usual. My team tried to get really competitive this year, but I don't think it worked out too well. I think the biggest trip this year was to China. At first I remembered I didn't want to go because I was going to lose a month of hanging out with my friends, but then when I got back there, I remembered that I didn't want to come back to Sylvania. I still secretly chuckle at the irony. Staying at that island was probably one of the best three days of my life. So much fun. I miss my relatives in China. What I probably miss the most about that summer, though, is the time that I got to spend with Julia. It was so much fun just being around her. It just always made me so happy.

3. So I feel that it's really important that I expanded my music selection this year, especially after I got to school and listened to Pandora a lot, though it really only helped me find one song that I can't stop listening to. So from my roommates I picked up Angel's and Airwaves. I picked up Coldplay from someone, but I forget who exactly, since so many people listen to them. I finally downloaded the Boyce Avenue CD, which were really good, though Blackwood is convinenced that they're country. I started listening (or in other words, I now have the entire album for) Boys Like Girls, though that was definitely after everyone else, lol. I must say "Thunder" did invade my most played songs list quite quickly. I didn't have a complete 180 when it comes to listening to music, but I did download some techno (a little bit of Tiesto and a few Basshunter songs that I stole from Angela). Now that I write all that out, this paragraph doesn't seem very important, lol. Oh well.

Lunch time! I guess I'll figure this out later.

Weekly Update or I Don't Know How Many Weeks Behind I Am Now

While there is probably much time to compensate for on this blog, I think that I will put that on an indefinite back burner. So for now, I will sit back listen to Christmas music and write about... about... something. Well the first thing I'll write is that I'm actually listening to the new AAR CD now, since it's been about five days now and I still haven't listened to it. So far I like it. I'm glad I went to concert last month. It was a lot of fun. Wow, now that I think about it, it's been about a month since that concert.

Being at home is definitely a lot of fun, especially when I'm hanging out with friends or playing with Starr. Good times :) There are definitely some things that I miss about college though. Mostly the freedom to go to sleep whenever I feel like it. Hehe, I've already been caught several times being up past "reasonable" hours. During those misadventures (that's about as exciting as I can make it, lol), I've watched a movie (Dodgeball) and several episodes of House that I've missed. *Side note, House is moving to Mondays now :O Now I have to choose between and Chuck and House but I guess not. Tear.* Anyway, I guess I should change my sleep at 3 habit though. Though break will be over in a couple of weeks already. That's depressing. So far, I've been to/had 0 "parties". Though I'm having a "party" tomorrow night and then one of my friends is having one Tuesday. As always, there are plenty of Chinese parties coming up with the Holidays. Woo, some funny stories should come out of that.

Further side note, I'm now on the 4th song of the CD. I listened to this song in concert! It's called "Gives You Hell". I like the CD so far.

Back to being at home, so I've tried to read a lot this break. So this is definitely not going so well. I checked out War and Peace, but I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to be able to finish that, so I think I'll have to go find another book tomorrow or online tonight. Bummer.

Ah! Christmas is coming soon! Normally this would be really great :) However, on occasion as this year, when you don't know what gifts to get the people in your life, things get a little harder. So far, I've gotten something for everyone, except for Julia. Well atleast, I have half a gift for her. Well I guess, it could be worse. Any suggestions? Gift giving is such an high-demand activity. Taking a lot of brain cells so far :( lol. I guess I should go back to thinking of what to get people.

More posts about funny stories to come for sure :)

Weekly Update of Some Random Week Since I'm So Behind

Whoops. Just pressed the wrong button. Anyway, so we just finished first quarter at OSU. One down, two more to go for this year. Wow. That's kind of depressing. One quarter down. This last week was finals week, so I didn't write anything, which I justified to myself would be ok. I guess not writing didn't really make much of a difference whether or not I studied, so I just should have had fun and write on this blog instead :(

So college even with it's hundreds and hundreds of things to do isn't so much fun sometimes, such as when you have exams. I don't really feel like writing a reflection of first quarter, though, that will have to come sometime though. I guess the easiest conclusion for next quarter though is that I need to work more efficiently, I guess.

So right now, I'm a little bored at home. I try to keep myself occupied, but so far, it's only half working. All I've done since I've come home is complain about school/grades, see Julia, run/swim, sleep, eat and play video games with Starr. Actually, that's not too bad, except on Wednesday, I would have been home for one week and still have gotten nothing done :( I wish college were based on how lazy you could be. I took a nap for the first time today since coming home. I guess that's worth mentioning.

The last thing worth mention, though not of lesser importance than anything above, is that grades were suppose to come out today, along with admissions from Yale and MIT, except I don't know anyone applying to MIT this year. Good luck Julia! Good luck to Marie, too! Except she's not applying anywhere, lol. Finally, good luck to myself! I guess I deserve some.

Very Very Late Weekly Update or Last Week of Class

So today was the last day of classes for Autumn Quarter. Wow. Just to think, one quarter down and two more to go. I guess that's not so bad as to my mindset change. Never have I ever been more satisfied than now at getting an A-. Oh how things change in college. So instead of working hard on quizzes and getting the same grade as I do on my midterms (which I work very hard for at least now I do), I get suck-y average grades on quizzes, which drops my grade like no other. Gah! If I didn't have quizzes I would totally have an A in the class instead of a safe B. Yet even though, I should totally be working on my chemistry report before lunch, I'm sitting here writing this blog.

Anyway, enough about grades and school, time to reflect on the rest of my life. Oh wait. I currently don't have once since I'm at school and not home. I'm pretty sure this leads me to the conclusion that I like home a lot more than I like school. LI (laughing inside, yeah that's right! What now?!) I did play racquetball last night for a little more than an hour. Also, I'm still facing my food crisis. Well I think it's more of a overabundance of swipes/meals crisis. Yay! I'm bringing home a cheesecake. If I can remember to go place the order. Guess I should put that down on my calendar's to-do list. I should probably also figure out how I'm going to get home next week. So many things to do.

Ah! too many things to do! Boo :(

More updates to follow after exams. Yeah.

Late Weekly Update or AAR Baby and Mirror Lake!

So ignoring my "entire" school week, I'm going to focus on Thursday night and on. Thursday night was the night before the Michigan game. Well, OSU must of course have some kind of tradition for pre-grame. Right? Logically, it'd be something to cheer people up and hold a traditional value. No, college football fans, that is beneath us. We take pride in stripping down and facing the frigid air among other things as we show our school's endurance. That's right! The freezing cold jump into a three foot man made pond, also known as Mirror Lake. At first I wasn't going to go, but then one of my suite cluster mates persuaded me to go to hold his towel and such. After relentless persuasion, he finally got me to go. At around eleven o'clock, almost the entire floor left to jump into the lake. Not only did the goosebumps inducing wind greet us, but so did three sets of paramedics and Columbus and campus polices. The routine was pretty normal and repetitious. People take off their shirts and shorts or whatever they were wearing and jump into the water. Then they take it to yell as loudly as possible, perhaps to wake up dead, annoy people or sream in agony as the freezing cold numbs the nerves. After several jumps, the three or four floor mates I was helping out decided that they had had enough and took it upon themselves to run their frozen bodies back to the dorms. That was perfectly fine with me.

So then Friday was pretty fun. In the morning, I had to wake up to turn in my survey class assignment (basically teaches you about how to schedule classes and such). So I get up at 7:30 and get to the room at 8:30. First though, the instructor decided to email the class at 8:22 to tell us that we didn't have to turn the assignment in during class. Would have been nice to have received that email earlier, like before I left to go to class. Anyway, so only about three people showed up to class, which consisted of us turning in our assignments to some random lady who helped our instructor out and then leaving. When I got back to my room, I checked to see if my chem exam grade was up and it was! Woo! I finally did well on something in chemistry, so I rewarded myself with a nap until chem lecture. After lecture and lunch at some place that I forget, I did something. I don't really remember anymore, which is kind of scary. Anyway, fast forward several hours and Blackwood gets here! So we went to an All-American Rejects concert with Shawna, Jamee and some of Shawna's friends. So besides the 2 hour wait in a pretty warm place (I don't really know what it's called) and blasting music that made my left ear deaf almost. The actual concert was so awesome though! It was so much fun, except for the drunk people. The music was awesome and I actually knew several of the songs. So yeah drunk people were annoying. One guy decided that everyone should have a drink and so he sprayed everyone with beer from his bottle while jumping with the crowd. At the beginning some girl threw her bra to the lead singer, Tyson. This brought OSU the fame of being a party school, not that we needed it more than we already are. The band played their new single as the encore. Getting back was kind of exciting. Actually not really. We missed the first shuttle but then caught the second one. It wasn't too cold, but we kept on getting handed beanies and scarves.

Saturday, I spent the morning at the rec center, playing raquetball or riding the bike. I think that I'm getting better at raquetball now. It's so confusing keeping your eyes on the ball sometimes. After the rec center, I hung out with Blackwood, Angela, Brigette and some other people from their suite. After playing Rockband (never again), we went to Target, where I found out that I was really hungry. So we went to Johnny Rocket's, which was in the same area. I ordered a Streamline, which didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. I thought the ones that I make taste better. After dinner, we went back to Angela's dorm to play 90's Trivial Pursuit. I guess I should brush up on my 90's facts. Ah! so many baseball and Playboy questions :S Blackwood and I finally went to sleep at 4 after we managed to talk to Julia and Marie at the same time through different mediums. That was quite special.

Apparently I can't just avoid sleep anymore because after waking Blackwood up at 8:30, playing Halo 3 with him and then dropping him off with his ride, I managed to fall back to sleep again from around 10:15 until 2:30 almost. Wow. What a lazy bum I am :( I should really stop doing that.

Weekly Update or Break Dancing and Drinking

So once again it's a Sunday and time for me to update. No crazy failed COTA adventures this week.

On Monday, my schedule was pretty nice. Since OSU gives Veteran's Day (Tuesday) off, I didn't have lab since the Tuesday sections wouldn't have it. So that meant that my day consisted of a chemistry lecture and an English class. That was pretty awesome. No lab! woo! Not that I don't like lab, just that it makes my day seem to drag on and on. Don't remember what I had for dinner, so probably nothing impressive. Later that night, I watched Chuck, which was awesome.

Tuesday, Veteran's Day, was awesome. I woke up at like 11, ate a little breakfast, and then went back to sleep. Bad. Very bad. Other than that I don't remember doing much. I'm pretty sure I studied for chemistry and biology quizzes. Boo. I missed House that night, gasp! Yes, I know I'm very disappointed in myself.

Well Wednesday this week wasn't quite as relaxing as Monday or Tuesday really. Woke up and went to chemistry lecture, then lab, then English class, so nothing new at all, which is very unfortunate. After dinner, I went and studied some more, what's new?

Thursday was well very long, but mostly lots of fun. Biology lecture was interesting I guess? She started the lecture by telling us to come to class on Tuesday to learn how to pick up people of the other sex. It was a morning waker uper. Went back and ate some breakfast real fast and then went to nap. Volunteering at the hospital was another session of being shuttled around with almost nothing to do. Unfortunately, they didn't have anything for me to do. Biology lab was so different. Firstly, I could hardly understand the TA. She had a really think Chinese accent. I had to listen to carefully. Her quiz was so ahrd too. After the quiz, I was comparing answers with other people, and of course I had to do it correctly and then change it to a wrong answer since I thought that it was wrong. Of course, had to be just my luck. I hate myself. Grr. That question was worth 4 freaking points, too. Lab dissection went pretty well overall. I tried to be really conservatives on the cutting, so the TA had to keep on coming over and helping us. Yeah I did a male fetal pig dissection and the TA was a woman. So many awkward conversations... When she came to help my lab parterner and I the firstt ime, she said, "Wow those are huge!" Referring to parts of the pig. The entire class just froze and turned around. So wkward. Good thing she was just sub TA. I don't know if I could make it through another one of her biology labs like that. After a long and interesting lab, I went to watch Step It Up and Dance. So the main show was the Boogie Bots and Live in Color and then some OSU groups tagged along. The OSU groups were ok. Almost fell asleep during one of them. The tango was eh. The man was so old, but his partner was definitely college age. Hm... what else, Live in Color was pretty bad during their second routine. They were um... yeah, pretty provacative. So anyway Boogie Bots was so awesome! Definitely recorded some parts of their routine. They did this free-style after a quick intermission. It was so awesome. They basically ended the show. It was so awesome. Anyway, yeah. So when I finally got back to my dorm at around 9:30 I missed the Office. I'm pretty sure I'll get over that. (House... maybe not)

So Thursday/Friday, James Bond came out! It was a pretty awesome movie, definitely. Several of my friends and I from the floor and our RA left at like 10:30. Only problem is that we got on at the wrong stop, so we had to go through a loop to the theater stop, which was the last one before the stop that we got on at. Anyway, we finally got our seats at 11, which turned out to be a bad idea, since the theater was so hot and the wait was so long. The buses weren't operating when the movie finished, so we walked back to the dorm. There were definitely about 200 people walking back with us just in our dorm though, which I thought was pretty impressive. The movie was pretty good overall, but I don't think it was as good as the previous one. It was definitely different from the Bond movies that came before it.

Anyway, I'm going to stop for now since I have a midterm to study for and I just wasted all afternoon writing this while watching Pulp Fiction.

Weekly Update 110908 or Trying to understand Public Transportation

So aside from being sad that I couldn't go home the previous weekend, things were relatively ok at the start of the week. Monday was accompanied by usual boredom and normality. Tuesday revealed nothing new as usual. Wednesday during chem lab, however, I managed to return only one positive test out of five (bad). The last test that I conducted, however, was a positive test, which turned around my entire atittude for the lab. English class later, was as usual, pretty boring and plain. After the English class, a roomate and I went to see Pineapple Express. The movie was ok. There were some funny part, but overall the movie was very pointless.
So I acciently woke up late on Thursday morning for Bio lecture. Bad, bad, bad. So I went back to sleep and then woke up at like 11:20. So I got dressed and rushed to volunteering. Volunteering was ok. I made charts for the nurses for the most part. Then after I came back, I had a quick lunch at Mirror Lake Cafe and then went to a FYE series on Undergrad Research. That was ok I guess. Afterwards, nothing really happened. Atleast not anything that I recalled. Hopefully, nothing happened...
Friday was definitely a different night. I definitely went to class today. However, the that's not really all that important :P So that night, we got bored and several of us on the floor decided to go to Easton. It's so awesome there. Probably should have taken a camera, but oh well. Anyway the mall is pretty sweet. It's like Franklin Park and Fallen Timbers added together. We totally went to Apple and Sony story. We were so about to go to the PUma store, too. The movie theater was huge. They had 30 screens there. Anyway, we went and watched Zach and Miri. Yeah... I'll just leave it at that. Overall the "adventure" was pretty wild, lol. With the rain and early darkness, driving was interesting. The navigator was a little unsupportive at times...Anyway, we ended up taking a wrong turn on the way back and stopped at a Waffle House. Whoops :P
Saturday was ok. The regular unproductive Saturday that I always promise to avoid. Though I did get some exercise. So at about 7:30 or so, my suitemates and I went to the RPAC to play raquet ball, but that didn't work out so well. Apparently there was a raquet ball tournament going on so we had to wait until like 10:30 before we could play. So dumb... So anyway, I can say that we played raquetball midnight!
Overall, this was a pretty fun week. Not what I originally had planned for this week to happen in such a way, I must say that this week was quite interesting.

Fall Update

So I haven't updated in a while. Anyway, so much has happened since I last updated at a time I don't remember. So first off, YAY Obama '08 paid off! I'm so happy that he won. I can't wait for the changes that he proposes. I just wish that we had universal education years before. Then I wouldn't have to pay so much for college. I'm still just really happy that Ohio finally voted Democrat for the first time in three elections. Let's see what else? I had my first research interview last week. Hm... still waiting for an announcement. Hopefully, I'll get it. I think it'll be lots of fun and I'll learn a lot for sure. Classes-wise I just took my midterms the last two weeks. I guess I have to study a lot more if I want to do as well as I hope. The couple of quizzes that I had this week didn't seem that bad though, so I think I'm going to have an up swing. That would be nice, definitely.

So lately, I haven't really been sleeping much. I generally average going to bed at 3 in the morning now. I've also extended my normal naps from 20 minutes to 30 minutes now. I did manage to nap for 10 minutes only the last couple of nights during study breaks. Talking about sleep, I think I'm going to try to sleep more during Thanksgiving break. I can't wait. Yay! Six day break from the Tuesday night before until the Sunday whenever I leave for school again. I can't wait to see my friends again. Then as always, Thanksgiving shopping. I wondering what I'm going to buy this year.

Short post I know, but hopefully I'll be able to get into the habit of writing on this every weekend. We'll see how well that goes...

True College Post 1

So I guess, I should be a little more consistent on my blogging schedule. hm...

Now that we're in several weeks of the quarter, I'm guessing that it's kind of time to assess how I'm doing. Man... college is hard, lol. It's so easy to slip up. Right now I'm doing better in english than sciences.. *tsk *tsk *tsk. Guess I'll have to turn things around with the midterms and quizzes coming up. I think I'm doing better in chem than I think I am, but in bio we only have like 3 grades and I only know 1 of them... *tear* 5/10. I can only lose like 20 or so more points now. I guess I should go to running club sometime. So far I've only went once. I think I'm too lazy to go this week though. Maybe I'll go next week after my Bio exam to destress. I need to buy a printer, too, along with the lots of other thing that I have to do.

Ah! scheduling is coming up. Hopefully I don't get locked out of my psych class (H220). That'd make me really sad, but then I'd only have 17 hours, which would be perfect. Hehe, I'm considering taking First Aid! Definitely taking philsophy. Maybe a math and/or chinese? Ah! overload!

Other than that, I guess there's only one thing to write about.
Correction two: Jimmy Fallon on Friday!

Ok so last weekend, I went home to see people, family, friends, girlfriend, the usual. So much fun... I wish I didn't have to leave. Screw college. Ah! I miss home. So anyway I made a list of what I miss, starting with the most:

1. Family, Julia, Friends
   
2. My bed
3. The car
4. Something else...
   

Ok I'm going to sleep now I guess... Ugh. I'll write more this weekend, while avoiding to study for my Bio midterm.

Miracle Miles/First Week cont.

Hm... so Thursday I only had one class an hour and eighteen minute lecture for biology class, and Friday I just had two lectures :) The end of my week makes me feel happy. Saturday, I had most of the time to myself as most people were at the game. Oh! I also went to Potbelly on Saturday for lunch to use my coupon. (Side story: The first time that I went to a Potbelly was in Chicago with some of my friends. Anyway, I liked it so much that it influenced me to choose OSU over my other schools... ok maybe not. Anyway, I really like Potbelly.) I ordered a chicken salad sandwich with a apple banana yogurt smoothie. The sandwich was really good, but the smoothie definitely wasn't all that great. I could only taste the apple and a little of the yogurt. The 20 or so minute walk was definitely worth it. That night I tried to do some chemistry, but then I realized that I had to read the book/consult the prof's posted answers since I had forgotten everything during the summer apparently.

Then Sunday, I woke up early (for a college kid on a weekend), ate breakfast and then registered for the Miracle Miles 5K run. Atleast it was suppose to be a 5K. Anyway, the race started at noon-ish. Overall it was ok for my first race in a while... ok well maybe that would actually translate to years. I guess I'll try not to start in the middle so much next time. I ended up spending a majority of the first half mile or so trying to find the space to pass people. Then the person riding the lead bike messed up and lead us to run an extra .28km (.1740 miles). I guess I can take comfort in that I could have ran a sub 25 minute run had the race been distanced correctly. I placed 18th in my division (M 15-190)! Woo! For the rest of the day, I basically sat down as much as possible.

That afternoon, I did the most awkward thing possible. So I randomly decided to go to the Undergrad Chinese Student Soc. meeting. Totally didn't know that it's mainly for international students. I felt so awkward there while everyone else communicated in almost any which way in Chinese. Surprisingly, I met one of my Toledo people (like the kabillion of them here). (Side story: we met because we bought Starr's piano from the family.) So I guess that made me feel better. So as with all first meetings, we had to play an "ice-breaker" game. So the game was basically a chain game, where everyone wrote down a fun fact about themselves on a piece of notecard. Then the notecards were randomly redistributed. A person started off and introduced themselves and then read the card description for someone else. This continued for a while until we took a food break. There were some funny stories haha :P During the food game, about half of the people left so we stopped the game. Not much else happened after the game stopped except that then we had to introduced ourselves one by one. Chenglish all the way baby! Oh yeah! lol.

Yeah I think that's about it. I'll write about today's adventure later this week. That way the story will be more complete. I guess I should dedicate an entry to just class sometime soon I guess.

OSU!

So I've been at OSU for eight days now (tonight will be the 9th night, move in at night). So I thought that some things are worth writing about now. OWL Move-in really fast. I basically didn't do anything, everyone else did everything for me. First night there was a 9:00 meeting basically as soon as I got there. That night I feel asleep quite quickly (not sure whether that's good or bad). The next couple of days I went to a lot of meetings for OWL and made some friends. Things were kind of boring though since there weren't that many people. Then on Sunday everyone else moved in and things started to get better.

Monday... first we had Convocation. See pictures attached I guess. It was long ish and boring. But I guess I proved that the world really is small. I met one of my friends from Miami Multicultural camp. Well I guess it's not that weird, since we're all very similar, but I thought it was cool though. Anyway, back to Convocation. So at first we were just listening to the speeches and such, blah blah blah... and then a speaker comes up and says, " and now we have a special speaker." At first I wasn't too excited until she started to give the speaker's background. So now I can really say, I've heard John Glenn talk. So cool!

Yeah that's him at the podium. You can see it more clearly on screen kind of.
After Convocation we walked through Ohio Stadium. First time for me, I guess. Took some pictures here too, lol. It was cool to see it from the bottom instead of in the stands where I wouldn't be anyway since I don't have pictures.

Then I sent to the Invovlement Fair. That was so crazy. There were so many clubs (approximately 800 or so) and so many people (like almost all of the freshman/1st year students). Apparently college students, atleast at OSU people like to go by "rank" as in how many years of credit you have. Anyway, I signed up for so many Asian/Chinese clubs, running club, ping pong club, and a pre-med honorary. I'm sure that I also signed up for other things that I forgot about.

So Wednesday I had my first official day of school. The survey class, basically a post-orientation class where they teach you how to do scheduling, picking a major, and etc, was really laid back and easy. Chem was definitely something else. We jumped directly into solubility. Wow, I was so blown away. What we did in 48 minutes was what I did in 1 week in AP. Ah! The lab in the afternoon was a titration lab. It shouldn't have been that hard, but it still took me 3 hours somehow. So yeah... English was a lot less scary than Chem. I guess that's good. Thusrday, I had Bio lecture and that was about it. Bio wasn't that scary but I think that was because it was ecology. Hm... Other than that, nothing else really for now.

Oh yeah, just remembered. I like the food plan here at OSU, I can get food for all three meals, and I can get so much for one swipe, even if it's not the traditiona buffect commons. While they don't always taste the best, it's definitely enought to get by and more. Ok I think that's all for now.

End of August/Beginning of September

eeeeek... school, or rather lack thereof. while i'm sure that i will desperately wish for the free time that i have now come school starting, i'm really dreading all this free time that i don't know how to spend. you guys are probably thinking that i'm so lame right now, complaining about having time off, but you know when you do something for so long that you just get bored? well i'm there. i guess i'm more looking for something to do as to actually going back to school, but still it's so boring sometimes to just sit at home doing nothing. watching tv a lot more now O.O i guess this all sums up to, i kind of want to go to osu now, especially since everyone else is in school except a handful of northwestern kids and the kabillion number of osu kids, most of whom i don't hang out with anyway.

on the other hand, my new cellphone has been giving me distraction from my monotonous life. so i got a new razr a couple of days ago, though, i haven't really used it since my other plan hasn't exactly ended yet. but it's pretty cool for the most part. still have a lot to figure out for it, but i'll get there eventually...

i guess that's about it for now, wow that was short and kind of sad, but oh well.

Last Group Camping/Beach Trip

This past weekend, I went camping with some of my wonderful friends. Sadly this is like the first and last time we'll do that this summer, but atleast we got to do it once. Anyway, so this time we went to Pokagon State Park in Indiana. It's somewhat big. They have this really annoying rule about only allowing one "mode of transportation" per camp site, which I didn't really like. What else bugged me... Oh yeah... Indiana people... so based on my rather narrow perspective of Caucasian Indianians, I think that they are rather racists if I may say so. Well for one, this one girl saw Julia in a van as we were driving in and felt compelled to tell her mother, "Look Mommy! There are Chinese people here!" Wow. Then when I started to set up my family's tent, a lady tried to drive past the campsite, but several of us were standing in the road. When she stopped the car, she immediately started to roll down her windows, while at the same time, instantly started to say something to the people on the road. No one heard her, however, so no one responded to her. In response, she decided that all people with yellow skin must not be able to understand English (even though we probably all knew English better than her). So she took it upon herself to say to the people on the road, "No speak English?" Wow. Seriously, what is wrong with these people? What happened to racial diversity?
Anyway, so after those two episodes of racism, we progress to night/dinner. There were lots of mosquitoes and I got bit around my ankles so much. We, "teenagers", got put into a table at one of the other campsites since there weren't enough at the main eating/gathering site. After that dinner, we talked for a while and then went and made s'mores. Haha, so many weird/funny pictures from that. We also watched the opening ceremony on NBC for quite a while. Overall, the first night was pretty usual. It got kind of cold at night though, but it felt really good inside the warm sleeping bag.

The next morning, woke up really earliy (like 7 am) and sat outside because I was scared that I would wake up everyone else in the tent. Then at about 7:30 Julia came out and we went for a walk. After finally getting to the beach, which was kind of disgusting because there was a bunch of aquatic plants that washed up, we walked around at first and then tried to take pictures that didn't turn out so well. After walking around, we went swinging at the playground beside the beach, but the ground was full of mulch, which jabbed into my feet. Boo :-( On the other note, I beat Julia swinging :-D haha. We went back for breakfast at about 10, which was ok I think? I don't really remember what I had for breakfast that morning, lol. I think I had like a banana and a blueberry muffin. Then for not-quite-enough-food-to-call-a-brunch snack I had a bunch of grapes while the late risers had ramen, lol. After sitting around for a while, we finally decided to go on a walk. A walk that took like 3 hours. First we went on this bike trail, but then found out that it wasn't that long. Then we had to wait for our parents to meet us at this Saddle Barn where there were some horses. After meeting our parents for some random reason, we continued on our walk, before getting confused by the map and then getting lost. When we finally got onto the trail that we were trying to find, Michelle decided that she didn't want to go on the walk anymore, which was kind of weird. So she and Yifei went back before us. we passed this nature reserve that had pretty flowers, but scary looking water/pond. We also saw this really high point called Hell's Point and we stopped there to take pictures. After walking past Hell's Point, we all got tired and started taking the shortcut back to the campsite. So got back to camp and had a small lunch? Maybe had a small lunch, I don't really remember. Going on, we were all kind of tired, but we went to the beach again (different from the one in the morning). Sadly, when we got there, the water was a little cold and it started to drizzle. After a few minutes, it luckily stopped. The water was still cold, so Julia and I just took a na, while the Marie, Angela, Alice, Yifei and Michelle did something else? Napping kind of prevents you from being aware of what other people are doing. After I woke up, I went into the water a little, but then Lessie started scaring these two girls who were playing with her earlier, so I tried to distract her, but she got a little mad :-( oh well. For dinner, we went out to this Chinese buffet place. Well most of us anyway, all the little kids didn't go, all the older kids did. I went with Yifei's dad, and I got to play around with their GPS system. Now I really really want a GPS system :-D expensive birthday present anyone? After dinner, we sat around the fire/showered and then went out to watch the meteor shower. That was quite interesting... We played a game called "psychologist" which was relaly funny. Thanks for playing the game Angela, lol. Haha, we were so loud In all we saw three shooting stars, well, Marie claims to have seen three, but I only saw the last one. I wonder why...? lol After we got back, all of went to sleep immediately. So that leads us to the last day.

The morning woke up early again (like 7:30ish). Ate breakfast and then spent most of the morning packing and other generally boring things. In the afternoon though, Indiana Dunes! That was so much fun, well, getting there was a little confusing, lol. After we actually got to the state park for the second time (the first time, the beach was closed so we decided to go to the national one, but then remembered that no one remember the way to the national one, so we went back to the state park), we ate lunch and then went to the beach. The wind was really strong so the waves were huge! The rip current was pretty strong, but the waves were huge! It was so much fun. The water was so strong and lots of fun. I definitely swallowed water several times. Without a doubt, so much water went through my nose. Ah! Huge Waves! So much fun. I don't think that I've ever been in waves that large. I had to keep on swimming because the current kept pushing me away from where we put our stuff, but it was so hard because the currents was so strong. At first when you went into the water, the water was so freezing cold, but after a few minutes it go a lot better. After thirty minutes or so though, you started to feel really cold again :-( It got so bad, Julia's lips were blue the second tme we went in. Sadly, we didn't have time to climb the sand dunes and Angela and Alice weren't allowed into the water. For dinner, we went to this Chinese restaurant close to the park. I'm pretty sure that we went at peak hour, which was a bad idea because they only had one waiter there that day and we had a group of nine :-S At first we wanted to be seated together, then we thought that we'd be seated faster if we sat apart, but then we ended up getting seated together again, it was all a confusing matter. Dinner was ok. Several of the dishes were a little spicy. The drive home was a mix. At first we all had some energy left over and so we were all talking, but then by 11, everyone was tired, and I definitely atleast dozed off if not feel asleep completely. That basically sums up the trip. It was so much fun, especially at the dunes. Too bad this was the first and last time we're going to go camping this year :-(

August!

wow, so it's august right now... happy? excited? nervous? sad? or maybe all of the above. regardless, it's been a wonderful summer with a couple of weeks left to go. guess i should probably do some reflecting right now, especially of the last few years... here goes:

freshman year. wow. firstly, i'm really glad that it happened. sounds weird i guess. anyway, moved to toledo in august. definitely remember being really sad about leaving everyone in louisiana. anyway, that was quite a long time ago it feels now. back to freshman year. walked into school that first day, not knowing anyone (the only person that i knew was my neighbor who was a sophomore). still remember being the last person to get onto that yellow public transportation device called a school bus. there were only four of us on the bus that day. definitely sat in the front seat by myself, lol. when we got to school, student government kids stood outside giving us schedules of that day and maps. so awkward, no one wanted to take any from them and they didn't really want to be there. anyway, put my stuff into my locker really fast and then went into the gym to find an empty seat and just sit down (wow, this sounds so different from me now, lol, and it's turning into a first day at school memory, ugh). got through the assembly that they planned, minimum invovlement from me, plenty satisfied with that at the time. then they dismissed us and we followed the schedule that they gave us. things went pretty well, i guess, a lot of the kids seemed to already know people (arbor hills people knew the arbor hills people and the mccord kids knew the mccords kids). then came lunch. sat down with this kid who was in my world history class (maybe i forget now, but i had seen him before). talked for a few minutes and then just sat there eating my lunch. still pretty content i guess. after lunch it was more of following the schedule. went to all of my classes fine. just really intimidated that there were so many people. in junior high, my graduating class had 45 people, and then all of the sudden i started going to a high school with a graduating class of 308 in the end. talk about culture shock. when my junior high teachers talked about it, i kind of blew them off, but i guess i was really wrong. ok enough about first day of school. oh last comment, i would like to thank my locker buddy, a cool(wo)man. thanks for talking to me on the first day of school. and yes osu starts on sept. 21 if you're reading this. yes you have a summer assignment as dumb as that seems. ok rest of freshman year (sorry the bore you with the first day), um... first semester studied, played around, didn't really do anything i don't think. joined a couple of clubs (quizbowl, table tennis) made a few close friends (you know who you are). second semester, studied some more, tried to be more social. oh i totally remember really getting to poker, lol. haha, good times those poker parties. overall it was a good year, at first i really didn't like northview/ohio, but after getting accustomed to it, things got a lot better. those close friends really made a difference though :-) definitely started to grow out of my shy shell. classes were really easy. some classes seemed like a joke, but other classes were kind of fun. it was freshman year, not much to say about classes really, lol.

sophomore year: hm... changed quite a lot this year, and actually took classes. let's see, sophomore year classes, ap history and chem definitely stick out. man, had to actually do work for ap, that was a new experience for a social studies class. chem (honors) is probably the second hardest science class i've ever taken. got introduced to something called reading the book from those two classes. well got to learn sometime. english class was well... shouldn't have read "metamorphosis", let's put it that way. gah, it's such a depressing book. math class was really fun, met a really good teacher. bio teacher was good, too. hm... seems like sophomore teachers are better than freshman teachers? so... other things, um... went to my first dance ever (homecoming). oh student government was cool, speech and debate was lots of fun (as long as i had a partner), p2 starting at the end of the year was a great way to wrap up the week. table tennis was fun, but i didn't practice that much during the summer so i didn't get much better. made more friends, definitely more social. oh and most importantly, developed my late night habits. haha, got into xanga that year too for sure. atleast the first half of the year, i think myspace started taking over but i forget the actual timelines (by the way, never really got into myspace). it was a good year, a little stressful in the beginning with all my classes and stuff, but did lots of new thing and pushed my comfort zone. oh and started taking private violin lessons, can't forget that. how could i almost forget this... met my best friend. well the first time was actually at a part at a friend's house during the summer, but got to know him really well during the year, since we had all but like two classes together. that was really cool. haha, the stupid things we used to do in class when the teacher wasn't watching.

junior year: well... still did speech and debate, but didn't spend nearly as much time on it, did ld that year isntead of pf. was an officer for student government, that was really cool, great learning experience there. still did p2. hm... joined school orchestra, that was a pretty good decision, i guess. it was during the middle of the day so i could wind down between my classes, which kind of didn't matter that year that much since all my ap's were in the beginning of the day, more about that later. orchestra spring break trip was so amazing. wow. lots of pictures, went to so many different places, the restaurants were so good. BLUE MAN GROUP!!! that was definitely the best part of the trip. anyway, classes, um...ap psych is probably like the best or second best high school class ever. ap bio was um... ap bio? don't really know how else to describe it. ap lang was pretty up and down at first, bunches of hit or miss essays in the beginning, got better as the year went on though. taught me a lot about writing, so overall very pleased with that class. hm... rest of life went along as well, met some new people through different classes. took a bunch of standardized tests that year, ugh, hopefully never again (haha have to love my wishful thinking). guess this year was pretty relaxed compared to sophomore year. got inducted into nhs, too. pretty simple year i guess.

senior year: so bittersweet. took the hardest class i've ever taken, ap physics, oh boy. stayed up so many late nights doing homework or rather looking at identical sample problems and still not getting the right answers on the practice problems. ap chem was so much more fun. ap calc was a really good class. never have i had to work so hard for a grade in math. well, most of the time i had to work at it for calc. ended up as sir issac newton, that was kind of a shock, seeing as how i didn't have any competition points until may :-O ap gov was interesting, thanks to the different people in it. fell asleep so many times in ap lit... what am i going to do come next quarter? still did orchestra, was section leader, that was so scary. did sci olym for the first time. that was fun, well it was kind of more like a joke, but still there was a fun part and a serious part. states was hilarious. hotel adventures, hehe. bus rides as always have its moments. being vp of nhs was pretty cool, except when i had to count everyone's volunteer hours. well atleast that means that people were volunteering which is good i'm pretty sure. last homecoming and turnabout. well, atleast now i don't have to decorate for dances anymore. prom was amazing, so much fun :-) so thanks to my date (you're completely amazing), my boss ($ enough said, lol), parents (putting up with me then and always, lol) and friends (you made the night). went to chicago for spring break again, lol, it's like a magnet. this time it was with friends and family. watched BLUE MAN GROUP!!! again. almost went to the APPLE STORE again, but then we didn't, poo :-( went to navy pier again though. didn't get to go on the ferris wheel or the end of the dock, but i did get to go to bubba gump's restaurant, which was lots of fun, until people started tagging me as a certain sign in the restaurant. oh and bought a laptop for school this year. woo hoo! go MACS! so many fun times with friends this year. definitely had a blast. not only did i go to school, but for once i can say that i had a life. that took long enough to get, lol.
i guess this next part deserves its own paragraph. so colleges... ended up only applying to five, even though should have applied to eight. got into this six year med program, which made me feel good. kind of surprised that i got into the med program since, i didn't have any shadowing stuff or any research, but i guess my stats held up in the end. ended up at osu though, somehow... amid all of the thinking. apparently, i'm majoring in bio for the moment. that'll be interesting i guess. nothing really to report on getting into any special places, so i guess that'll have to wait until med/grad school.

so overall these last four years were great. while there are definitely somethings that i would change (no i'm not going to tell you what), they taught me some valuable life lessons and made me who i am today. needless to say, while i'm not sure if northview has prepared me for the rest of school and life, i'm sure that it didn't hurt. the memories that i have made here will carry on. i realize that i have changed so much from writing this entry, from a shy freshman to a senior that people know (well some know atleast...).

China US Comparison

Hehe, so some comments about my trip to China:

1. Geez pollution is so bad. Most days, I couldn't even see the sun or blue sky, that was really sad. About the only time that I was able to see both was at the beach or for those brief moments in Wuhan after a big thunderstorm. There also aren't enough trees and plants to balance the offset. In the city, it's basically filled with people, buildings and cars. Even in the farms, many are starting to get bought out by companies that heavily pollute the area, making it harder to grow the crops.

2. Traffic in Wuhan is killer. Well, basically all traffic in Chinese cities is killer. The traffic is similar to that of New York, but probably worse. Most drivers, especially in Wuhan, seem to have no respect for the lane markings or other indicators on the road. Many times while taking the taxi, a street that was regularly three lanes on one side became four lanes, sometimes even more. I'm not quite sure if this can ever be fixed since it seems like there is a lack of the mentality as the drivers here in the States have.

3. The weather was a little disappointing. It was continually hot all the time. In Sylvania, there is a rather obvious variation in temperature between night and day. In Wuhan, the temperature is almost always the same: HOT! I guess it doesn't bother you too much after you spend sometime getting use to the heat. It was also consistently humid there, which is also strikingly different than Sylvania. The combination of the two makes a sticky hotness feeling in Wuhan which is really hard to bear. Turning on the fan helps some, but it helps more for the heat and less with the humidity.

4. Traveling in the States and in China is different. In the States, the major medium of transportation is personal vehicles and then planes. In China, many people also take the train, which isn't necessarily cheaper than a plane ride sometimes. Taking the train is generally fun because you have lots of space so you can do many differen things like play cards with an entire family without having the share your hand to everyone else like on a plane. Also, the bed on the train allows you to rest more comfortable. While the train is slowest mode of transportation in the States, it is not necessarily the case in China. With the increase in usage of high speed trains and having higher priority in routing than commercial trains, the travel by train is very convenient. Also the timing of the train schedule can be made so that you can maximize productivity.

5. Education in China and the States is without a doubt different. In China, education itself has a much narrower definition and a much higher emphasis. Education in the United States is significantly different. High school education has a much more liberal arts approach, which along with extracurricular activities, greatly enhances a person entirely, not just in academics. General enhancement, however, comes at a price, because there is a large and obvious difference between the academic level of high school students in China and in the United States. Neither model is perfect for every student, so both models have people who succeed in it and fail in it.

Done with High School

Woohoo. Sylvania seniors '08 are done with high school. Mostly atleast... close enough. Bittersweet day though. It was good to see people. Realizing that there are more people that I will miss than I originally thought... I think. Anyway, I'm done.

I feel like I should say something else while I'm at it...

I guess this will just be a really short entry. Summer awaits now :-)

Lack of Sleep

So I've noticed something really disturbing. I really can't sleep. As many of you know, prom was Saturday and Sunday. (By the way, that was amazingly fun and a night to never forget any details about) More pressingly, I went to bed probably around 4:45 am on Sunday and then woke up at about 8:30 am. Does this seem weird to anyone? Just maybe? Haven't taken a nap all day except for a short one for about 10 minutes at around 2:40. Still don't feel tired right now, even though it's past 1 am. Why do I crave sleep during the week but not the weekend? I am zoning out a little bit the longer and longer I stay up it seems. Apparently, I'm not too great at sleeping either. I think I misspelled about five words from the few mere sentences.

Ok. I think I can fall asleep now! Woo Hoo!

Done!

So in celebration of the ending of my last AP Exam ever and basically academic high school life, I decided to write my first blog. Yeah I know! Not really anyway, today was AP Chem. I went ok I guess. More importantly I guess, high school is done. Woo hoo.

In the sudden increase in time, I'm beginning to wonder what I should do. Never thought that I'd have time to do this. Maybe I'll read a book.

So in light of today's event, I think that I'll comment on today's West Virginia Primary. So really people?! June is coming up, the Democratic Party really needs to decide here. Anyway, I really don't think that Hillary Clinton is as bad as people say that she is. Of course I could be wrong, and this in no way makes me a Clinton support. Sometimes, though, one must really step back and look at Clinton's platforms and not the attack she makes on her opponents. She failed to get healthcare passed the last time she attempted it, but times have changed. Furthermore, the healthcare of many other democratic states require that everyone has healthcare. So perhaps she does have a point to requiring everyone to have healthcare. Obama's healthcare plan, though, is not bad in anyway. In the current times, I think that perhaps his plan may be a little more feasible. Giving people choices has always been one of the most important aspects of American life and American market. Also, Obama's plan does a lot more than the status quo, so it is still a definite positive change. In a way, I think that Obama's plan must come first, before Clinton's plan has a chance to succeed. Anyway, that's just my two cents on healthcare. Regardless, both plans propose change, and that's what most important to me right now, I guess.