DREAMER

Wow. Another whole school year almost finished. The last week of May is always and has always been very intimidating in its own way. With only about two weeks of school left until summer vacation and finals to worry about, there is a mix of anxiety, worry, excitement, and eager anticipation. The seniors had just finished their last day of high school. All I can do is look at them with complete jealousy. Let’s see, I have about 700 days left in high school. Seven hundred days may seem like a big number. But think about it. We have already spent thousands of days at school. 700 is probably nothing compared to it. But then again, our junior year is going to be a year full of anger and misery, in other words, a nightmare. How am I going to survive two AP classes and Physics??!

Let’s just hope my junior year will fly by.

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“Oh, come on. It’s high school,” said Yura.

That made me think: what’s so special about high school? There really isn’t anything different from middle school. We still have homework, tests, projects, friends and teachers we love and hate. But what is it about high school that makes it so.. extraordinary?

It’s the atmosphere. It’s the busy, bustling, crowded hallways and cafeterias where we hang out. It’s the classrooms where we either listen and learn, or “listen” and sleep. It’s the sports fields and gyms where we play in games or watch them. It’s the principle’s office where some of us are often called to. It’s the late nights we spend either studying or socializing, or both.

It’s how people act. Have you noticed how much people change during their high school life? When people show me their pictures from just two years ago, myself included, it’s hard to recognize them. How much we have changed. High school is the place where we grow up into adults. Not only appearances, but behavior-wise also. The right decision has to be made, however. You may have heard tons of stories of how students walk on the wrong path and basically ruin their lives.

It’s how we are treated. The workload is definitely a lot heavier than junior high or middle school, simply because more is expected of us. Teachers expect us to manage our time well, follow guidelines and deadlines, and just overall look after ourselves. It’s hard. It is very hard. Especially for me because I just realized how bad I am at time management. I believe that as long as I get it done, than the process does not matter. I do not recommend this to anyone at all because it just ruins everything. Sleepless nights and enervating long school hours is a routine I have become accustomed to. It is currently 2:55 AM, it should be a time when I should be sound asleep in bed, preparing for another day. But no, it is not sadly. 2:55 AM is now a time when I do my homework. And as I do my homework, I hate myself for falling asleep at 10:00 PM.

I’m not so sure if I like high school. I would much rather go back to elementary school, or better yet nursery school. I remember when we had snack breaks and recess and even nap time! We don’t get any of that in high school. The closest thing we get is a short lunch period where we can socialize and eat. But is a 30 minute lunch period enough? I couldn’t understand, and I still don’t, why the school had shortened our lunch period. As more people enter high school, it means that lunch lines get longer. As lunch lines get longer, the more we stay in line and the later we start to eat. This means we have an even shorter time to eat and go to our next class. I wonder what they do with next years schedule.. I would really appreciate a change in the lunch period.

I just wished someone would have warned me before. I never knew high school was going to be like this. It is nothing like I have imagined. But I’m sure I’m going to look back one day, flip through the yearbooks, and miss everything about it.

Posted by skim092 under Life. in general & Thoughts and lessons and etc. & School | 2 Comments »

Every Wednesday for the past few months, I was able to watch movies during International Film Club at school. We had watched a total of three movies: a Japanese cartoon Totoro, Secret, and La Vita e Bella.

Secret: The Secret that Cannot Be Told. It is a Chinese movie starring Jay Chau. I thought it was a really interesting movie, although I didn’t like the ending of it. However, I just watched the trailer for this movie, and it was even worse than the ending itself! That was when I remembered I had made a movie trailer myself. I realized once again how it is important to have a good movie trailer because that is what makes the viewer make his or her last decision. I was very disappointed when I saw the trailer for this movie. It definitely did not do its job of capturing a viewer’s attention. I stopped watching it even before the trailer was half way done.

First, it was slow and quiet. Movie trailers should be the complete opposite - quick and loud. It should have quick snapshots of several interesting scenes from the movie that somehow describes the overall plot. In other words, it should be short but smooth at the same time. The scenes don’t necessarily have to be in sequence from the movie. For example, the infamous Harry Potter series have excellent movie trailers.

As you can see, there is music in the background and the trailer sums up the three hour long movie in less than three minutes. It shows scenes that leave people thinking “What does that mean?” or “I want to know what happens next”. The scenes shouldn’t show too much of the movie because then viewers wouldn’t go to the movies to actually watch the movie. The objective of a trailer is to captivate people’s attention.

Having an efficient movie trailer is almost as important as a book cover for a novel. Many of you may know the phrase “Don’t judge a book by its cover”. No matter how interesting the cover may seem, the actually story may be complete rubbish. And vice versa, a novel may have the simplest cover possible, but the content may be amazing. You will never know until you open it up and examine what is inside it. The same goes for movies and movie trailers. If a movie trailer is the equivalent of a book cover, you should not judge a movie by its trailer. Just as I had experienced, not all trailers depict the movie. I suggest you read the synopsis rather than watch trailers while deciding which movie to watch.

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I’d rather be anything but ordinary.

To walk within the lines
Would make my life so boring …

Avril Lavigne’s “Anything But Ordinary”

What do you want to do with the rest of your life? I’m sure you have a big dream of graduating, going to college, having the dream job, and maybe even have a family of your own. But would that be too ordinary, too simple, too typical?

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Is it really worth thinking about what others say about you? There are so many people who are constantly wondering what others might think of them. What if I look like a fool? What if they think I’m stupid? What will they say about me?

But are all these things necessary?? Does it really matter what they say about you? I mean, I don’t think it’s necessary. I think it’s a complete waste of time. I say as long as you are happy, then you shouldn’t worry about what others say about you. Don’t you agree? It’s not only a waste of time, but also a waste of energy to ruminate about those things. But, then again, do I really have to right to say this? Not until recently, I was always stressed out and always cared about what other people might think of me. Now, I don’t anymore. I just say “so what?”
Girls who persistently get upset about their appearances should learn more about this. I think it is natural for everyone to want to look good all the time. However, there are those who think skinny is beautiful, and that you must be a certain weight (no matter how tall you are) to be considered skinny. I think this is absolutely absurd. People should become more aware of the fact that healthy is beautiful, not skinny is beautiful. So many teenage girls all around the world are doing everything they can to lose weight and fit into certain size jeans. Is it really worth it? Is someone going to like you or dislike you because of your weight? (Actually, there are some nasty girls out there who judge people this way, but … that’s not my point.) Why is it that so many girls are self-conscious of their weight?

In Korea, everyone is dying to be more than average height and weigh less than the average weight. Why? Because they want to be skinny. This has really been bothering me lately. The way I see it, in the States, you can still be “big” and be beautiful. This is hard to describe. By “big” I mean healthy, not someone who is bone skinny. Because you can still be average and people will call you fat or chubby in Korea. Why? I do not know, and I can’t figure it out. I think it may be because the definition of skinny is becoming more and more ‘narrower’. It’s fine to want to lose a couple of pounds to look more fit, but becoming anorexic and bone skinny is not pretty. And all this does is pressure others to be skinny.

Anorexia and bulimia are all eating disorders as a result of a strong desire to lose weight. It may seem like something that happens when girls don’t eat or pretend to eat and lose weight. That’s not all.

Starvation, vomiting, extreme exercise, or intake of diet pills are all ways that lead to anorexia. For those of you who may be confused about whether someone has anorexia or not, the symptoms are:
1. refusing to be at or above the normal body weight for age and height
2. fear of gaining weight or becoming obese
3. troubled by the way they look, and denial or their extremely low body weight
4. the absence of at least 3 menstrual periods (for women)
5. eating disorders

As the media often portrays, people suffering from anorexia vomit the food they eat (self-induced vomiting).
Some side effects of this are:
- extreme weight loss
- thinning of the hair
- constipation
- weakening of bones & joints
- brittle fingernails

Along with these, there are also psychological, behavioral, and emotional side effects.

With the media constantly portraying models or actresses that are way below their average weight, this only pressure teenage girls even more to become thin.

It is just viewed as a eating disorder. I don’t think people realize how serious this is and how important it is not to be engaged in anything related to this. It affects your whole life. You will not be able to function as well as before, and may not be able to play sports that you enjoyed playing with friends before. So this is why I began to think.. is it really worth risking your life and putting your life to threat? Is it really worth it?

for additional information:
http://www.helpguide.org/mental/anorexia_signs_symptoms_causes_treatment.htm
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/07/09/061238.php

Posted by skim092 under Dangers in Life & Thoughts and lessons and etc. & Food | No Comments »

Why is it that every time I have loads of work to do, tons of distractions come with it?
It’s as if they can never be apart from each other.

I go to sites I have never even thought of going to before, and therefore I waste about an hour in an instant.

I should be preparing for my English presentation tomorrow, gathering notes and organizing, and practicing for my finals. But what am I doing? Writing a blog. I’m telling you, writing blogs are actually fun! Who knew?

But, please. Could someone please tell me why all these distractions just pop up from nowhere?!

Posted by skim092 under Funny, huh? & Thoughts and lessons and etc. & Blogs & School | 2 Comments »

iGoogle

*click above*

What is it with all the “i’s” in front of products. iPod, iTunes, iPhone, etc. Now iGoogle? Have you noticed anything different about the Google website these days? I have. Something was different, but I didn’t really think about it. Today, the top right hand corner had caught attention.

A quick glance at it and I could see that I could access my mail, watch videos, and check the weather — all on one page. It sort of looks like an English version of the famous Korean portal site Naver. The funny thing is that the next thing that came to mind was, “I should post a blog on this!” And here I am, blogging. Visit the site, it seems really useful.

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to put of doing something.

I have so many things to do right now: English Travesties poster, starting my English final, do my math homework, study for Spanish, practice for my Orchestra final performance, read, study for the SATs coming up, start reviewing for chem, and SLEEP.

I have been sleep deprived, not as much during second semester than first semester. I have stayed up for two nights in a row studying on school-nights. I absolutely do not know how I survived. On the third day, I came straight home from school, lied in bed, and slept. I actually had a tutor come that day, but I could not get up. I slept for sixteen hours straight - with my hard contact lenses on. Ouch. Then I wondered why. Why is it that I sleep more during second semester? I still receive the same amount of work. Then I figured it out. I actually started my homework as soon as I got home and didn’t leave it to sit on my desk until 10 pm. I was able to finish everything earlier than before and I went to bed earlier than usual.

Did you know that procrastination is also connected to addiction? I’m talking about addiction such as internet addiction or game addiction. These addicts “avoid reality” by searching the internet or playing games. Although I am not addicted to either, I still think I am on the internet a lot. Even now, I had eight different tabs open: one for writing my blog, three for wikipedia, one for google, one for gmail, one for flickr, one for youtube, and once for Lost the TV show. It’s acutally amazing I don’t have facebook open. Either way, the wikipedia sites have been open for a couple of days now because of my English homework. I have had them open, but I never actually bothered to read them. Why? Procrastination.

I am planning to get rid of this way of working because it is obviously getting in the way of everything I do.

I am going to stop writing blogs now since I have written so many these past two days. If you happen to be reading this, and you have other things to do, then

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Do you ever get the feeling when you know that you have improved? Don’t you just love that feeling?

I’ve told you I have had the worst week recently. Well, I think it’s getting better now. My singing isn’t as horrible as it was because I have been practicing. This is when I always think practice does make perfect.

Orchestra final performances are coming up this week and all Sophia and I have been doing is practicing, practicing, practicing. We have to perform a duet piece as our final test in Orchestra class. We are both a bit upset about this because we both wanted a theory final. I was starting to think a performance would be better than a written final, but that was only until Mrs. Lee (our Orchestra teacher) told us we had to perform it together - a duet. It was.. heartbreaking. Sophia and I know how hard it is to play together. We not only played a duet, but a trio with Jina a few months ago. It is not easy.

But I still think we have made progress this week. Although we both would like to be better, I think we are a lot better than when we first played the piece. Just a bit more practicing, and maybe we could make it perfect

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So Jung Kim, Susan Kim, and Susana.

Three different names and three different languages. Yes, I am trilingual.

I am pretty fluent in all three, more in English and Korean than Spanish, but I can still understand, read, write, and talk decently in all three. I think it is interesting how I am able to think and talk in three different languages. Recently this year, I have noticed that my friends and I are constantly speaking in Spanish. We see each other and say “Hola!” Throughout the day, we say things such as “rápido!”, “vamanos”, “no me gusta” or “me gusta mucho”. There are so many more, but these are the ones I use most frequently. I speak Spanish a lot with Annie and Yura, my Spanish class amigas.

But back to the point. I also think it’s funny how we are able to speak various languages. Learning a different language is not that easy. I would like to learn Japanese and maybe Chinese when I have time later on.

Would that make fives names?

Posted by skim092 under Funny, huh? & Thoughts and lessons and etc. | 1 Comment »