Skydiving?! Um...What?

So my boyfriend is turning 18 soon, and he wants me to go SKYDIVING with him on his birthday. Um, what?! I'm deathly afraid of the heights and the feeling of falling. Is he kidding me?

Should I go? I've always wanted to give it a try and see what its like. AHHHHHH I'm scared!

Six Flags?

First of all, I hope everyone is having a wonderful break. Mine has been full of excitement and fun. Yesterday, I went to Six Flags one last time before the end of the season. I thought it was going to be impressive considering this "Holiday in the Park" was supposed to be. Nope. As my friends and I entered the park, it looked like the normal Six Flags. The only difference was a giant tree in the middle of the park and some holiday music. It was no big deal, honestly, but they seemed to advertise something far more exciting than what they gave. We explored the park after riding some rollercoasters and discovered that half of the parks rides werent working. They were all closed. It was completely stupid. So we just rode coasters the rest of the day.

Overall, Six Flags was fun, but there would have been so much more to do if the rides were working. Oh well, next season should be better.

San Fran

San Francisco is my favorite city on this coast, and my second favorite overall (New York is first). It's a great place and I love the atmosphere, architecture, and general large city feel, which I otherwise would need a flight to get. On Tuesday I went there. It was a really nice mini vacation, and I saw all of the tourist spots as well as some more obscure locations in the city. There was great food too. I had coffee at the Ferry Building, lunch at this Indian place, and ice cream at Ghirardelli Square for desert. Great time overall.

Passion

My oldest brother, Ben, he is passionate about baseball. He would rather play baseball then do anything else in the entire world. Time and time again, he has sacrificed his education to jump college to college, all so he can play ball.

I admire him so much for this. He isn't the biggest, or the best, but it is what he loves to do and won't stop at any cost. He keeps trying. Perseveres relentlessly.

My cousin Hope, she is passionate about piano. She only started a little over a year ago, but she is some kind of prodigy I guess.

So, what fuels passion? Do you have to be talented? Or do you just have to love whatever it is you are doing?

I wish I had a passion. Or at least a hobby..

I play tennis, but it is nothing like the way Ben plays baseball. He plays because he lives for it. I play because.... well, to be honest, I don't even know why I play. I'm not even slightly athletic.

I tried to play piano, but practicing felt more like a chore than anything else. I am far from musically inclined.

Hopefully, one day, I will find something that I am both good at, and I enjoy doing.

Break,Part One: Sad Chica

Break has been rather boring for me.
I (as usual) have my lovely older sister (not really) Arisa Horigomi with me. She is from Japan, and is planning on staying here in the USA to work...So I don't really know what to call her. She's very sweet, and my Japanese is definitely better :) Her english is excellent; she is attending SF University...yeah.

Um, haven't done much. Gained 1 pound, which I am desperately trying to work off.
Eat a lot. Party not a lot.

Tired.

Crushing on a guy who lives far away. Facebook communication is not working..I'm a very sad chica right now. (sigh) I knew these things were impossible! Gah!

Feeling rather hopeless with the rest of the human race.

So I'm stressed. and tired. And bored.

Ugh...I can't wait to go back to school.

Time is Flying

This break is going by so fast!! I wish it would slow down. It doesn't feel like we are given enough time to just hang around and relax. Maybe I'm just comparing our break to college students breaks who get about a month off of school, but I feel like we just got out of school. I can already feel the tension and dread of going back to school. I guess I better make the best of the rest of our break last...

Wisdom Removal

Last Monday, at the beginning of break, I had surgery to have my four wisdom teeth removed. When I woke up with heaps of gauze and blood in my mouth, I was loopy from the sedation drugs. As my mom was taking me home I was staggering around laughing and saying delirious things. I informed my mom that "Drugs are bad" and talked about how there were two of everything and asked if I would get to see the kitties in my barely understandable drugged speech. The nurse said we should have brought a video camera.

Upon our arrival back home, the effects of the sedation began to wear off and the whole situation quickly began to seem less funny to me as the pain started to set in. I sat on the couch, napped, and iced my swollen face that whole day. In the next couple days, my face continued to swell and it took around two days to stop bleeding completely. I didn't take pain pills because they make me nauseous but there wasn't much pain after that first day.

I enjoyed a number of soft foods with my impaired chewing ability. It was all applesauce, ice cream, soup, jello, and yogurt for a few days. I mostly sat around watching movies for quite a while. Though I felt quite lazy and useless that first week of break, it was nice to relax after such a hectic semester.

Murphy's Law in the Holidays

Continuing the pattern of holiday-related posts:

This year, my extended family did not give me any gifts wrapped in boxes or bags. Being older, the gifts that people give me seem to be, generally, much less fun to unwrap. I get a card from each aunt and uncle, with a gift card or money or the like inside. So this year, I was excited when my favorite aunt, the one whom I am partially named for, told me that she had something for me that would break the tradition of my other gifts.

I'll be honest, I miss the old days of tearing apart the wrapping paper, I think all of we older kids do, and watching my three younger cousins, I experienced a wave of nostalgia. But, I reminded myself, even though what I get is not quite as personal or shows all the effort of a gift that someone has picked out or, heaven forbid, a hand-made gift (people just don't put the personal touch into their gifts anymore, and that's a bit sad to me. ah commercialization!) Anyhow! Auntie Britt had told me that she had a wrapped present for me, so I'd have something to unwrap, to add to the pile of discarded holiday paper!

But nope! One of my other Aunts had opened up my present, well, at least she apologized wished me a Merry Christmas when she handed me my unwrapped bracelet?

Haha, ah well, it could have been much worse. A few years ago, when we had all gathered for a cousin's birthday, an uncle decided that the best way to rid us of excess wrapping paper was to throw it into the fireplace. Needless to say, we enjoyed our cake out on the lawn while the fire department made sure things were okay inside. Another Murphy's Law family get-together, another happy Christmas.

The Etiquette of Receiving Gifts

There's an etiquette to giving gifts and there is an etiquette to receiving gifts, too.

I realized this on Christmas morning when I opened up a package from my grandma. Tucked inside sheets of white tissue paper, four necklaces lay before me..one for me and my three sisters. We were all speechless...

We thought they were some voo-doo tribal jewelery from years ago. They are not pretty and I can appreciate a wide variety of art. None of us are sure we will um..have the perfect ocassion to wear them. We aren't sure where they are from. I kinda have the feeling my grandma was trying to clean out her drawer. Maybe she made them when she was an artist.

I'd consider re-gifting them, but how would I possible explain where I "bought" them? And re-gifting is really only polite when
a) the item is brand-new
b) the person will actually like the gift

Hmm..at least I have a white elephant gift for next year. As I put it in my thank you note, the necklaces are "artistic and unique." At least they came with a Nordstrom gift card :)

CHRISTMAS

December 25 of the year 2010 was such a joyous and cheerful day that I'm kinda sad it's over. That waking up on Christmas morning feeling is priceless, and hasn't lost it's magic despite my not being a little kid anymore. There was so much cheer and love in my family that day that the presents were just an added bonus. I would have been completely content with just spending the day with my family and loved ones :) But when I unwrapped my new hot pink camera that morning, a smile was permanently attached to my face. Along with this awesome gift I got the new Taylor Swift CD "Speak Now" that I had been dying for, some clothes, rainboots, and tall black boots just to name a few. Oh and how could I forget the shake weight I got?? Haha :) So after presents with just my family in the morning it was time for my grandparents, uncle, and cousins to come over. We spent the afternoon eating and enjoying each others company during this most wonderful time of the year. Seemed to go by so fast this year, and I can't believe 2010 is almost over! But at least the holiday season is still alive with New Year's to look forward to!

Real or Fake?

So my favorite show right now is 16 and Pregnant on MTV. I think its a really great show I feel that it is showing us teens with out kids that parenting, especially at a young age, is not as easy as it looks. I think that it is capable of preventing teenage pregnancy around the U.S. However in some cases I feel that it could promote it because young teens are watching this show and seeing how some of the girls on 16 and pregnant are also getting on to a similar show teen mom, they might see this as stardom. I think that some girls are so desperate for fame that they would be willing to get pregnant at 16, just so they could get their 15 minutes of fame. Hopefully this is not what the world has come to.

Even though 16 and Pregnant is supposed to be a reality show I don't feel that parts of the show are entirely real. On every single episode there is always a scene where the pregnant girl is chatting with her friends and her friends are always just awkwardly drilling her with questions. The questions vary from "what was your reaction when you first found out?" "Are you and ___ still together?" "What are you going to do after the baby is born?" "When are you going to come back to school?" You get the gist, I don't know about other people but when I'm with my friends we have a conversation we don't usually awkwardly ask each other a million questions. That part of the show just seems like MTV planned for the girls friends to come over and told them what questions to ask. Overall the rest of the show seems pretty real which is good.

Anyway some people I know feel that the show is completely fake and everyone on the show are just actors. Who knows? Either way the show is extremely entertaining and I will continue to watch it even if its all fake:)

Break

After a week of finals and test, it is finally time to relax. Break starts in a few hours and while waiting all we have to do is sit through classes were most of us are doing nothing; some of us however, have a test or two but otherwise it is smooth sailing. After weeks of studying it is all done and we are free for two weeks.

snowboarding

this weekend i went snowboarding with my brother and his best friend which was all together just interesting. i wake up and look out my game room to see that my neighbor across the street had received a devastatingly bad/good (depending on your point of view) T.P.ing job. the trees were literally covered in toilet paper. then i went to get ready for the trip. we packed all our gear into his truck and then left. i was surprised to see a woman sitting in the front seat of the truck and it turns out it's his step mom. now, i'm not one to make judgements about someone i didn't know so i said hi it's nice to meet you, but after driving for 3 hours i woke up to discover that her bad directions had gotten us lost on our way to North Star. now being the patient i am i was okay with it, but when nature called and i had to pee i got on the irritable side. now we spent the next 15 minutes trying to figure out how to get where we're going. now with a very sore butt and the need to pee like a race horse i began to lose it a bit. however, fate was on my side and we were only 30 minutes away from North Star. when we got there we were so stoked we immediately hit the lift where we then met this guy named Josh. this was a cool guy he helped us learn tricks and all kinds of nifty things. then he showed us all the best runs which made this just a helluva time. by the time the park was closed we had made it safely to the top of the mountain for one last run. when it was all over we returned home exhausted and slowly drifted off into dream world where it still felt as if i were on a snowboard still.

fml

alright now i have just been told i have atypical pneumonia and i have no idea what that means but pneumonia is pneumonia. life sucks right now with the mind numbing headaches, the pain in my chest from coughing so much, the cough itself, the fever, etc., and to add the finishing touch i cannot come back to school on doctors orders so i have to find a way to figure out how to make this all work so i can take all of my finals for all of my core classes. wish me luck.

Matching

so today is the second time this week in Journalism that me and Franchesca are matching. and its only wednesday. Pretty weird huh? idk whether to think she dresses like a guy or I dress like a girl. She pulls off the looks better then me so I have to give it to her. Nice job Franchesca! today we our matching with our black Peacoats and on monday we were matching with a white and grey striped top. Who knows what friday will be like.

Christmas Caroling

Last night, I went Christmas caroling with the amazing SMOSS club and I have to say it was pretty great. About 12 of us met up at Holly's house, although probably only 5 actually attend SMOSS meetings and thats because they are officers. Then, off we went singing (not so greatly, I might add) from house to house. Overall, the reactions from the people were great and some even gave us candy. The main goal of going caroling was to ask people to leave donations of books for our Thunder Galleria booth on their porch for us to pick up but we also succeeded in having a blast and putting smiles on stranger's faces.

Finals

I am completely dreading Monday! Why you ask? Well, because Monday I have a Chemistry test and if I don't get an A on it I wont have an A in the class anymore. To make it worse I have a Spanish test on Tuesday, A Chemistry final on Wednesday (yes that's right 2 chemistry tests within 3 days), both a Spanish and World History final on Thursday, and a math final on Friday!

Sounds like an excellent week right? Its going to be completely stressful! The main reason for that is because so many of my grades are on the verge of an A. So basically I have to ace all these finals. Hopefully knowing that after all these tests, I will have a nice relaxing break to look forward will motivate me! Anyway good luck to everyone else who is stressing about finals! Were almost done with the first semester!!

Presentation disaster

Today I did my Identity speech for Advanced Language arts. Lets just say it didn't go well. I actually was supposed to go next class but a kid ended up being sick so at the last minute my teacher emailed me telling me that I had to go today in place of him, and I have that class first block.

So just imagine getting all your stuff ready for school so relieved that you don't have to do your speech then all the sudden you get an email saying you are expected to go in literally 10 minutes. Thankfully my speech was already written because originally I was scheduled to go today then someone wanted to switch with me so I woke up this morning expecting to do my speech on Tuesday but no, some kid who was "sick" messed everyone all up.

I actually considered pretending that I didn't get my teachers email, but me being the kind, honest person that I am, decided that I didn't want to mess the schedule of speeches and frankly I just wanted to get it over with.

So there I am at 7:35 reading this email at home, totally freaking out because I didn't really practice my speech all that much. I was planning on memorizing it this weekend but obviously that didn't happen. So if this morning couldn't get any worse I end up having to run to class with a huge poster in my hands.

And all that running with the poster was all a waste, because I was so nervous that I actually forgot to put my visual up. So when I get to the part in my speech where I talk about my poster, literally all that was going through my mind was... Ohhhhhhh Crap! so I ended up walking to my desk in the middle of my speech to get my poster. Kind of weird that I forgot to bring it up with me right, I mean its only a huge poster!

So anyway hopefully my teacher takes into consideration how last minute this whole presentation was and doesn't grade me to harshly!

ap world lecture and vampires

Another AP world post. . . kinda

Yesterday was the ap world review session thing. Very helpful I might say.

Went home, watched the sing off. Okay, that is truly an amazing show. That and VAMPIRE DIARIES! Yesterday it was on and I was mooning over DAMON. That my friends is a fine man.

Beautiful. Pure beauty. For those of you who don't watch this show... watch it. It's freaking amazing. I mean even if you don't like the mythical vampire cliche plot, just watch it to look at the beautiful men. Mute it if you have to but just look at them. Great show. Got really creeped out by yesterday's show but I recovered. Now I have to wait a whole MONTH for the next episode...

ap world

Yesterday was the perfect example of my stupid procrastination skills. AP World World that Trade Created due today and stayed up until the wee hours of the morning to finish it. Not good at all.

Learned my lesson. But it's all good. Not really though because I only got about 5 hours of sleep. I'll have to work on that...

The good thing is that I'm done. And now I'm off doing my ID project for Hurrianko. It's an okay project. Not too hard. I mean we just have to talk about ourselves and trust me, society today has conformed into a society that is massively obsessed with ourselves so this ought to be quite fun :)

Working in the library right now. Will probably enter another blog right... now.

I Hate Sick Days

While many of my peers may enjoy sick days, I absolutely dread them. I feel as though I am so so behind on so many things and it does not help that I had to take a sick day just a week and three days before the semester ends. On top of it all, I have about fifty relatives coming over tomorrow for a family reunion. As much as I love my family, the preparation for this weekend is always a little stressful. My mom and I have become in charge of buying everything to make the tamales, anything Mexican themed, and Christmas presents for the younger kids. Oh and don't forget cleaning that is regulated by an almost OCD mother.
But now I have time to do all these things while I'm sick. Ugh.
Or...maybe I will just catch up on homework and watch TV. Ya I think that's what I will do haha. I've already watched a ton of TV that I recorded from yesterday. I decided to honor my favorite celebrity's death last night so I recorded every John Lennon program I could find. So today I have watched about three biographies about him, A Hard Day's Night, and Imagine. That actually has been pretty fun.
But thank God tomorrow is Friday. I will be back at school and ready for the weekend and then the final week of school before CHRISTMAS BREAK! :)

Mumford & Sonssssssssssss

La la la la la so there's this band called Mumford & Sons and I can honestly say I've never been more obsessed with any band or artist ever. I literally cannot stop listening to them. Sadly they only have one album and a few EPs but I definitely have them on repeat constantly. I'm actually really scared for when listening to them nonstop will catch up to me and I'll finally get sick of them. It's basically four English guys named Marcus Mumford, Ben Lovett, Winston Marshall, and Ted Dwane. They are all amazingly talented because they all play multiple instruments. In an interview, Lovett said they basically take a song and decide what instruments it needs, then learn the instruments required. Their sound is very folky rock and I can't get anough of it. Their poetic lyrics and amazing harmonies are just aaaaah. I would die to see them live but they are taking a break from touring :( And sadly they were just in SF a couple months ago! Oh well, I'll just have to settle for listening to the same like twenty something songs on repeat.

Blogs are the best academic distraction

Trying to put thoughts on paper can be so hard. Even after having written so many stories, I can't say my fingers always dance across the keyboard with incredible ease the moment I open my laptop. That would be nice, but it isn't realistic. That's why taking a look at the blog is a good five minute break: reading what other people is inspirational and entertaining. Clearing my mind via posting is homework, too. Double-win.

Blogs are just really great for when you need to vent and relieve stress...

Junior year has been off to a bad start, but thank goodness it's halfway over. You know, for a while, I thought I was the only one who cried myself to sleep, or cried at the thought of homework and AP tests, but this week, with finals coming up and teachers piling on the projects, it has become more apparent to me that there are a lot of people who care very much about their grades who are also struggling. Just like me they cry over a failed test and don't get any sleep and I seriously just want to give them a big hug and cry with them.

This has been the worst year so far academically. Socially, I guess, too since I don't really have a social life anymore. I guess failing every AP math and AP chem test (math and science being my favorite subjects)has really taken an emotional toll on me. Subconsiously, these "failures" have made me come to think I actually am a failure. I hate how hard I am on myself, but I can't help it. School was what I was good at, always getting straight As, and now I feel as if I don't have anything going of me. My confidence has really been hurt. For example, I don't want to be a doctor or a math teacher anymore because I obviously don't understand mathematical or scientific concepts anymore. I've become afraid of hard work and stress because of what it does to me.

But we have a week and a half left. So for everyone else who feels this way and who may have even more weight on their shoulders than I do, here is an inspiring quote that I heard Mrs. Cutts say today: "Think of stress as being a huge wave and your're on a surf board. The bigger the wave, the better the ride."
Happy almost winter break! Two weeks off with 2011 just around the corner. Hopefully next semester is a better chapter in all of our lives.

ahhhh I feel much better now:)

Qualified enough yet?

Amanda Wong
- Sports Editor of the Flash
- Member of the Grant Board of Placer County
- Ambassador for the Placer County Youth Commission
- CSF
- Progressive Youth League
- Multicultural Club
- Student Senate
- Hero Club
- SPP Core Team member

And hopefully Link Commissioner. I am applying (ack) this year, and am very nervous...I found out that I'm going against BRANDON YOSHIDA who is smart and more qualified than I am. Definitely nervous. And he's already had experience in ASB...Oh well. I don't care if I don't make it. Actually, I do. But well.

Whatever happens, happens.

Crazy Week

This week- Four basketball games, four pre-game meals, four shootarounds, two practices, an AP World project, a Alegbra II test and homework, a Chemistry test and homework, a language arts essay, I have to read To Kill A Mockingbird, I have to write two stories in Journalism, my Pops hates me right now and ya know what? I don't really care,
 

I'll Figure it Out

Is stress genetic?
I wonder, because my mom and brother are often up half the night stressing about things that aren't even worth it. But my dad, my other brother, and I rarely ever stress.
People always get mad at me because they always want to have a preset plan, and I tend to take the, "We'll figure it out," approach.
I always just assume things will work out I think, just because they always have.
One day, something is going to go terribly wrong because of my lack of planning skills, and maybe then I'll learn to not just count on things to work out in my favor.
But until then, I'll just make my way through life figuring things out one obstacle at a time.
Mr. Sturgeon says I can blame it on my premature prefrontal cortex. Or something.

:?

This week has been kind of bad its been long and its just been really boring and just cold. I wish there was something exciting I could say about this week but there just isn’t anything I want to or have to talk about.

Crunch.

Currently my brain is crunchy. No, not literally crisp and crinkly; it is like someone microwaved it then baked it. Now I feel like I'm talking about food. God, I'm hungry. See what I mean?

Lately, I've been really stressed out. I have two tests this week (Spanish and Math) then a big AP World final project due Friday, then an AP World test next week. I have a project running with the Placer Herald for the grant board I'm involved in, and although I'm supposedly an ambassador for Placer, I have not attended a single meeting (although I have joined one of their conferences) and am not sure of my role in the whole deal. It's as if Life has handed me a plate full of stress and asked "Oh, would you like some fries with your stress burger?"

On top of that, I have gained weight. Ugh.

I suppose this is what they call "the crunch week", the time before the semester ends. However, I'm more than tired and crunchy. It seems as if all i want to do is sleep and eat, and am losing my love for everything else in life. I feel as if I am constantly hungry and achy, and as if my time is just being used and used and used some more. Stress....Ugh.

So, Life?
I would like to order Peace with a vanilla-strawberry milkshake. Thanks.

My First Game

Tuesday was my first home varsity basketball  game and it was one of the sickest things ever. From pre-game meal to shootaround and coach's pre-game speech it was really easy to get hyped. Then, outside the gym in the locker room getting ready and getting pumped, that was easy! then we came out to the cheering crowd and it was all business from their. We handled Florin 71-49 and now i can't wait until our next home game

Calculus BC

Is so stressful! I certainly do love the teacher and my peers...but there's just so much to remember.

There is a test today and I just don't feel ready for it. I mean I studied...a lot. I studied mean value theorem, Euler's method, volume techniques, surface area, integrals (including all the techniques such as partial fractions, u-sub, integration by parts, etc.), improper integrals, and logistics.

With so much studying...why do the tests always seem so hard? The answer to this is stress. Stress releases cortisol which inhibits the transmission of glucose in your brain. So the idea is to not stress for a test right? But...how do you do that? I have no idea...

So...wish me luck in my mathematical endeavors today. And just remember that when you are taking a test...relax and don't stress yourself out! You'll end up doing worse...goodluck!

The Day of Tues

Nothing exciting ever really happens on a Tuesday. It is a day that is often overlooked, since it's not really at the beginning or the end of the week. However, this past Tuesday my mom and I decided to appreciate this neglected weekday. Last Saturday we saw Harry Potter while my cousins and aunt saw Tangled so we decided that it would be fun to go see it sometime soon. Having completed my homework early for once, Tuesday seemed like the perfect day to go.

At around 4 in the afternoon, we made popcorn at home and put it in large ziploc bags to smuggle into the movie in order to avoiding paying 5-6 dollars for popcorn. We headed out to Blue Oaks (so happy there's a theater so close now) and bought tickets for the 4:45 show. Since it was a weekday, there were only elderly people and some parents with very young children there. Munching on our illicit popcorn, we sat near the back row and watched Tangled in 3D. It's one of the cutest movies I've ever seen and really funny too! There were probably about 10-15 people total watching the movie.

We left at around 6:30 and drove to the Fountains for some shoe shopping. It was like a little winter wonderland town there, all decked out for the holidays. We stopped by DsW shoes and after that Payless before heading home. My mom had just bought a new electric griddle that day and we tested it out by making pancakes for dinner. Yum! For the rest of the evening we relaxed, drinking tea and watching Frasier on Youtube haha. I probably could have used this time to study for the numerous upcoming tests, but I'm glad we took advantage of this Tuesday for some valuable mother-daughter bonding time. Who says no one ever does anything on a Tuesday?

Turkey Day or Christmas

it seems like every year people start setting up Christmas before Thanksgiving. But now days they are having stores get out all of the Christmas stuff months before thanksgiving even takes place. But some people are even celebrating Thanksgiving the day before just so they can be more rested for the black Friday sales. But many still spend the day with their families on Thanksgiving so the holiday has not completely disappeared yet. But it raises the question does Christmas shopping take priority of spending time with your family?