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.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
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.
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.
Monday, August 11, 2008
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 :-(
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 :-(
Sunday, August 3, 2008
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...).
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...).
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
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 :-)
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