Decisions

In about a month, I will have to decide on what college I will be attending in the fall. It's scary to realize how fast my senior year flew by. I remember around this time last year, graduation and just being a second semester senior seemed SO far away...but now that the time has arrived, it went by really fast. As stoked as I am about graduating in about two months, deep down inside I wish high school were longer because I'm going to miss everyone, and it's going to be hard to live without the people that I see almost everyday.
Today on the news, there was a report about high school seniors and how now is the time where seniors are in the process of waiting/deciding on colleges. But for parents, their main concern is the cost to send their kids to college. For seniors, their main concern is what colleges they get accepted to, and what college they want to go to. The story went on to discuss why college tuition is so expensive, and where the money actually goes. I didn't listen to the rest of the story, but I heard enough of it to give me inspiration to write my blog about making college decisions.
Since a parent and their child have different concerns when deciding on what college to attend, there will definitely be conflicting opinions on what college the student will actually attend. Should the student's decision be based on the amount of financial aid received and how much the tuition is? Or should it be based on where they really want to go/their best fit college? Which is ultimately more important? Right now I am somewhat having a hard time deciding on which is more important. I have my heart set on going to the University of Washington, but that is also the school that gave me the least amount of financial aid. The school that I don't want to go to at all gave me the most financial aid. The cheapest school is the school my parents want me to attend, but I don't think I will be happy there.
I have a month to decide...
:/

Dress Code.

When we were asked in class today to talk about public interests, the first thing that came to my mind was dress code. Dress code is something that most female students at Punahou have a problem with. Most guys don't really care, because they can basically wear whatever kinds of shirts they want, and some boys would wear polo/collared shirts anyway even if there wasn't a dress code. Anyway, I think the dress code is really ineffective and I am no less distracted in school than I was when there wasn't a dress code. I think that the only good thing about dress code is that you really don't need to worry about what to wear to school anymore, and money is definitely being saved to some extent because I don't need to buy as much clothes as I did when there wasn't a dress code. But whatever. I hate the dress code, I think it's stupid, and ineffective. Plus they are kind of expensive, and did require extra money to be spent to buy the uniform clothes last school year. I also think that all teachers should enforce it, or not enforce it at all because the way it is now, with some teachers enforcing it and some not, it is very unfair for students who have teachers that enforce it versus students who have teachers that don't enforce it. The students who have teachers that enforce it HAVE TO dress in dress code, and students who have teachers that don't enforce it can choose whether or not to dress in dress code, and take their own risks in running into a dean during the day. No matter how many announcements/reminders that the deans make in assembly about keeping up with the dress code, I still see handfuls how students everyday who aren't following dress code.

LEGGINGS AREN'T PANTS!

At least I'm a senior so I won't really have to deal with this dress code madness for much longer.

300

So last night I went to see "300". About two weeks ago, the movie "300" came out. Many of my friends went to see it on the day it debuted, and at about 7:30 at Ward, all of the showings for it that night were sold out. I didn't really understand why so many people wanted to see it...especially on the opening night. But I guess it was hyped up so much that it's hard not to want to see it as soon as possible. I chose to wait until I could use a GMT to see it because I didn't want to spend nine dollars on a movie that I could see a week or two later. So I went to see it last night. There was a very basic plot about the Spartans and the Persians fighting. Blood, gore, violence, nudity, and monster creatures with warts. It was basically what I expected, but I didn't think the special effects were THAT good. They were good, but I thought the Lord of the Rings effects were better. But I would definitely recommend it to people who like war movies. After the movie, I was reminded that it was a true story. This made me appreciate it more because it was a pretty intense battle, and to know that it actually happened in real life made it that much more epic.

While on the topic of war movies, I would have to say that my favorite war movie would be "Troy". You know the one with Brad Pitt in it? It isn't my favorite just because Brad Pitt is in it, but because I really liked the story and morals depicted in it. It sucked how Brad had to die at the end though...but I would really recommend that movie as a good war movie!

Comic Life

I really enjoyed working with the digital pictures and the comic life. I thought it was a really cool program and now I want it for myself at home! I thought that doing sentence/grammar work was going to be really boring, but thanks to all of the new technology that weʻve been using recently, it made doing sentence work really fun. Not only was it fun to take pictures that depicted our sentences, but I also learned a lot from it. Before doing this activity, I had forgotten what simple, compound, and complex sentences were. I had learned what they were back in freshmen year but I had completely forgotten. When we started to try and think of sentences that we could depict in pictures, me and Aaron were really confused about independent clauses, dependent clauses, and predicates. So it took us a while to figure out the sentences we were going to work on. But we eventually figured it out after asking Mr. Watson for help. During and after we took pictures, I started to learn even more about sentence making and now Iʻm much more confident about writing sentences. Iʻm a very visual learner, and so this type of exercise helped me learn a lot more effiently and effectively. If we did fun activities such as these more often to help us learn, I will definitely learn better. If only all classes were this fun! Haha.

Iʻm pretty sure that everyone in my class enjoyed this activity. It was really fun taking pictures because it was unlike anything else I have ever done in a class. I hope to do more fun things with technology in the near future!

Creighton

Tonight I went to a Creighton University informational reception at the Luke lecture hall at Wo Center. I didn't want to go, but my dad made me go with him so that we could both learn more about the school before I decided that I didn't want to attend there. I applied to eight colleges, and the first one that accepted me was Creighton. I applied there because I know that they have very good science programs which is what I'm interested in. Anyway, me and my dad ended up at this reception. I observed all of the people that were there and tried to imagine myself with them next year if I decided to go to Creighton. It was hard for me to do that because they all seemed like they were extremely studious, and I am not extremely studious most of the time.

There were a handful of parents there who spoke to us and shared the experiences they had with their children at Creighton. They mentioned that if you are really focused and know what you want to do in terms of a career, Creighton is a good place because you will really study and there are minimum distractions. They never mentioned anything about any shopping malls being close by. This was a red flag because I wanted to be in an urban area, and omaha nebraska is definitely not the ideal place that I would want to live in.

I thought attending this reception was a good experience for me because I could make sure that I didn't want to go there. Sure enough, I still don't want to go there. But I'm glad I went to the reception just to make sure.

I'm a big city type of girl!! =)

do you remember?

I often find myself thinking about the things in my life that have changed over the past several years. Especially since graduation is approaching just around the corner, I find myself reflecting on my highschool experiences and memories on a daily basis.


I miss the good ol bishop days. Stress from school was kept to a minimum for me and there wasnʻt nearly as much drama between my friends as there is today in highschool. Some of my closest friends in bishop have become completely different people today in highschool. I no longer have someone that I can call my best friend. Remember asian avenue and xanga? Remember the courtyard and all of the hilarious after school memories that we all shared there? Remember study halls and blcʻs? Even though at the time I didnʻt like having those, I sure miss them because I could really use study hall time in my scheudle right now so that I am forced to do some homework. Back in the bishop days I donʻt remember being stressed out or unhappy. I remember being really happy and carefree. If there was a way to go back in time, I would definitely go back to 7th and 8th grade so that I could re-live all of those great memories again.


If I could re-live my highschool years I would definitely do many things different. I wish I could say I have no regrets. But unfortunately, I do. If I could take this regret back, I truly believe that my entire highschool experience would be different. If I hadnʻt made the bad decision that I did, I believe that my highschool experience would have been soooo much better and I would have enjoyed it much more. But nothing is going to take back what I did and I wish I could fix everything. I thought everything was fixed last year but apparently it isnʻt because the results have carried onto this year. This is probably really hard to understand because no one knows about my regret. But there are probably some people out there who have made mistakes in their lives and have had to live with the consequences like I have. I wish I could say that I had a great last year in highschool, but to be honest I havenʻt. I swear Iʻm not usually this unhappy, but now Iʻm becoming more sentimental with graduation and college coming up fast.

I hope some people can relate. =/

what you gonna do?

So I don't really know what exactly what we're supposed to write about in these blogs. I just write about thoughts that are in my head..but they're not really insightful things. I hate drama. But it's definitely an inevitable thing to avoid when you are in highschool. I would think that my senior year would be drama free, but that is not the case. Senior year should be a time to make new friends, and make relationships with old friends stronger. Since we're all leaving for college in some months, I would think that everyone would be nicer. But everyone seems to be the same people they were when we were younger and have not matured at all. But there's nothing I can really do about that because I can't control how other people act. But what is there to do about drama anyway? There isn't really anything anyone can do to make drama not happen...but I guess it's all apart of highschool. But having drama isn't all that bad in some aspects. Experiencing all of the drama that I've experienced in the past has helped me to grow because it has taught me a lot about my friendships and who my true friends really are. There are certain people who have been with me through bad times and good times who I consider my best friends. (This is beginning to sound a bit corny..eesh) But anyway, with the year coming to an end very quickly, I hope that by the time graduation comes along, people will realize that all of this drama is very unnecessary. As "emo" as this sounds, I don't think I've ever been truly happy in a long while...but I don't show my unhappiness to anyone, I usually just keep it inside because I don't think my business is necessary for many people to know. I hope by writing this blog people won't judge me or anything like that. I know/hope people can relate to this...
shoots!

appreciation

With all of the pedestrian accidents and fatalities that have occured so far in this year, I've really learned to appreciate my life and the life of many others much more. After reading this article and hearing about the numerous pedestrian accidents on the news, I felt a very heart-wrenching feeling for the victims and their families. Most of these pedestrian accidents and fatalities involve elderly vic†ims and it is just an extremely terrible thing to happen. Some of these people get hit because they are jaywalking. But others get hit by speeding cars while crossing in a crosswalk. All of these victims and their families do not expect that their lives would end the way they did. This is what hurts the most, and what makes me deeply saddened.
On one news report, reporters interviewed an elderly chinese person in chinatown who had jaywalked. The reporters asked her why she jaywalked and if she even knew that she jaywalked, and her reply was a confused " I can't talk English". She probably didn't even know what jay walking was. That old lady reminded me of my grandmother. My grandmother often goes to Chinatown to buy groceries and she probably jay walks sometimes. The recent pedestrian accidents make me even more concerned for my grandmother, but hopefully by the passing of the stricter pedestrian laws, unfortunate accidents can be put to a stop.

exhausted

I got about five hours of sleep last night, due to the incredible amount of procrastination achieved this past weekend. I had a ton of work to do. Two projects, multiple pages of math homework, and several chapters of econ to read. Of course I saved it all for Sunday night. I didn't plan to save it all for Sunday night, but a lot of unexpected things happened this weekend.
I planned on spending Saturday night and the whole Sunday day working on my homework. But on Saturday my mom had called me to make arrangements to go to a dinner party with her. I didn't have any other plans, so I was in a way obligated to go. So that's how I spent my Saturday night. I was so exhausted by the time I had gotten home from the party, and so as soon as I got home I took a shower and went straight to sleep. I didn't bother to start any of my homework, and figured that the entire Sunday would be enough time to start and finish my homework. At around 9:30 am, my manager from work called and told me that I was suppose to start work at 9 am. I had checked my work schedule on Friday, and it was blank. Work schedules are supposed to be done every Thursday,but there were unusual circumstances at the work place, so the schedule was done late Friday night. So it wasn't my fault that I didn't know I had to work. But anyway, there went my entire Sunday day.
By the time I had arrived home from work, it was already late in the afternoon, and I had not even begun to touch my homework. I took a shower to prepare myself for a looooonggggg night of homework. I was not looking forward to starting my homework. I finally finished my homework at around 1:30 am, thus, I only got five hours of sleep.
As a result of lack of sleep, I had a really bad headache this morning and found it very difficult to concentrate and sit through my morning classes. I nearly fell asleep in all of them. But tonight is going to be a similar night to last night because I have an economics quiz and a math test tommorow. Plus, 24 is on tonight and I absolutely cannot miss it. I'm very hooked on the show and I could not go a Monday night without watching it. I also got my hair cut this afternoon, which took up more of my time to study. Tommorow is going to be a long day...and I am utterly exhausted. I don't know how I'm going to survive this week if it is starting off the way it is. Gah!

senior slump

I'm beginning to feel the beginning stages of senior slump. It's almost the fourth quarter of my last year in high school and the main thing on my mind is graduation. I am procrastinating way more often than I did last semester, and I definitely feel lazier. I feel like I'm still putting in a lot of effort into my schoolwork, just not as much as I did last semester. Last semester I tried incredibly hard on my school work. Almost every night I would go to Barne's and Noble to do my homework/study for tests. I can never fully concentrate on my school work when I'm at home because there are way too many distractions at home that get me to lose my attention on my homework. But this semester, I haven't been to Barne's and Noble once to do my school work. I do all my homework at home now and indeed I find myself giving in to all of the distractions I have here at home. I live in my grandparent's house with six other family members, so the house is very chaotic and noisy most of the time. Even if I shut my room door and play music in my room, I can still hear what's going on outside of my room.
Anyway, this semester I'm finding it very hard to concentrate on my school work. It's not that I don't care about my schoolwork, but more like my mind-set is already on being in college and trying to make a college decision, etc. The days of high school left are dwindling ever so quickly, and so it's difficult not to be thinking about graduating. But for now, I'm just trying to survive every day of school and trying to try hard in school. As much as I want to graduate from my school with a decent gpa, it's so incredibly difficult to try really really really hard this semester knowing that the grades we receive don't matter much. Many fellow seniors I know feel the same way about second semester grades, and many find it hard to do concentrate on school work. For most seniors that I know, senior slump had hit them as soon as the third quarter started. But now that the third quarter is near to ending, and the fourth quarter is getting ready to begin, senior slump has officially hit me.