Top 10 Things I Think are Ridiculous

1. When my 7-year-old brother corrects me on PreCalc homework.

2. An intelligent, gorgeous, and funny guy that's not taken or gay, but rabidly Republican.

3. The back of your head.

4. SAT's.

5. Creme de la Mer foundation. It's half the size of a half-pint water bottle and costs 120 dollars at cheapest.

6. GPA mongerers.

7. People who think global warming is nonexistent. Not people who think that we aren't causing it, but people who believe it's false.

8. Black lipgloss. And yet, I own a tube. And it's gorgeous.

9. Bonsai kittens.

10. This insanely popular video.

Top 10 Reasons I Actually Try at School

1. I'm in IB, so the environment rubs off on me. Both the procrastinate-on-projects side, and the study-10-hours-daily side. I live an excitingly stressful life.

2. I'm Asian. It's in my genes.

3. I'm already looking back at middle school and severely regretting the fact that I didn't pay attention more. I don't want to be in grad school, thinking of my time at PESH, and wishing I had fallen asleep less often in Spanish.

4. Although this doesn't happen often (I'm not trying to be egotistical or snobby), I get an uncomfortable tingly feeling when somebody references events in history that I should know more about but know barely anything about. In middle school, it was both World Wars. I didn't know which one involved the Holocaust.

5. Because I am the first in my family to have ever spent my childhood in such a wonderful country as America. My parents did not come here for nothing. I owe her good things for a 12-hour plane flight, the pain of childbirth, and the gift of life.

6. Completely shallow and superficial as this sounds, I can't bring myself to feel attracted to somebody who doesn't try at school and isn't in all honors, even if they are the next genius to walk the earth. I like people that push themselves mentally. It only makes sense I hold myself to the same standard as I hold others. Of course, there have been major exceptions to this rule. By this I mean, JL., get off your bootay and use that brilliant mind of yours in ways other than HACKING INTO YOUR FRIENDS' ACCOUNTS.

7. Opportunity.

8. There are times when people see the paper version of you and not the personality version of you. As much as that sucks, I want to have a good record because it's inevitable that will happen.

9. I've begun to notice times I fortuitously learn things. Like taking a decision to read Good Housekeeping (I don't know why) and learning the best way to clean off spilled nail polish is to just let it dry and scrape it off later. I don't want to miss some fact in school that might be useful later.

10. Unless the anybody is extremely dumb his or herself, I don't see how being academically stunted is attractive to anybody.

*Bonus Reason*

Because I promised my piano teacher that I would take everything out of life that I could.

Top 10 things I hate

1. When people tell me negative gossip about a certain person that I'm friends with. Not because I'll personally be offended, but every time I talk to them afterward, I'll be thinking about the bit of nasty news.

2. When people viciously support something and don't really know what it is. (OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT! WE ALSO LOVE HIS RUNNING MATE PALIN!)

3. When people have too much pride and ignorance to admit they're wrong.

4. When people randomly mutter "I don't know" in the middle of conversations when a question was never asked.

5. Cilantro.

6. Extremely shy people.

7. People who poke and endlessly bother/annoying hit on my best friends.
8. When people tell me a person has a crush on me. For some reason, I will get extremely annoyed at the person they mentioned for a week.

9. People who insist that when they say "nigger" they mean it as "ignorant people", not an extremely rude racial slur.

10. The dang Vietnamese lady who has got the wrong phone number and calls me, thinking I'm her son. "AAAH, WHY GRADES NOT GOOD? AAAH, WHY NOT HOME YET, ALREADY 10 AT NIGHT! AAAH, WHY YOU GET GIRL PREGNANT?" (<-- not even kidding)

*Bonus hate*: Facebook insisting that "Facebook" is not a word.

What happened?

I had this friend in elementary school, who I'll call Natalie (for anonymity). She was a really pretty, sweet girl that all the teachers absolutely adored. Stereotypical description? Yes, but she truly was like that. Very nice, and always cheerful.

In 3rd grade our school split into two feeders, so I didn't see her until this year in 11th grade. At first I didn't recognize her, because she had changed so much. But gradually, as she began talking about her boyfriend, we realized that we had been friends eight years ago.

She'd changed so much. About three days each week during lunch hour, she goes out of school to get stoned in her car. She's been to juvenile once, and her personality has completely changed. It's not like she grew up in some ghetto area of town - her parents, I remember, were upper middle class and I remembered them to be rather nice as well.

I'm not saying that Natalie, in any way, is a horrible person. She's still nice, though now she's extremely inclined to violence when she loses her temper. She's addicted to three kinds of drugs. This is not the kind of person I, or any of our elementary teachers, would have imagined for her. If anything, I should have been the child that grew up a stoner. I had so many behavioral problems, never listened, and was so socially inept that my first-grade teacher suggested my mom to put me in this sort of special education course at school for problematic children. My mother never did.

I turned out to be okay. I'm not a perfect student, but I actually pay attention in class, I have a lot of friends, and I'm generally regarded as some goody-two-shoes, which Natalie was before.

I'm just wondering - what happened?

Not that it's one specific event, but how did our supposed roles switch like this? In some ways, Natalie has already made it difficult for herself to succeed in later life, what with the marks on her records and her barely-passing grades. It sometimes makes me sad when I think of her (and then I feel bad for feeling sad >.>) and just how things have changed over eight years. Is it that somehow, society has failed on her? Could there have been a moment where there should have been help, but it never came?

It makes me frustrated because of this. I know I'm probably superextending the issue, but because of Natalie, I've tried to be there when my friends look upset, instead of edging away and letting them work through their own problems. I don't want the cumulative effect of not being there to eventually negatively affect the ones I love.

A Significant Add-on

I was talking to a friend, Jake, in the hallway today, lounging around before school started. I don't remember what exactly we were talking about, but the topic of us both being atheists popped up. A nearby student overheard us, and joined in our conversation.

Even though I've encountered my share of the crazier religious people, I was still surprised to see somebody my age so deeply entrenched in Christianity and his bigoted attitude toward not only those that are atheists and agnositcs, but of other religions as well (I found this out after relating the following conversation to a Buddhist friend). Normally, I get the "It's okay if you're not Christian, as long as you're religious" approach, but this was completely different. He nearly started attacking my friend and me.

Unfortunately, the student picked the absolute worst people he could have chosen to argue with, because my friend and I were both exhausted from studying, and are rather laid back and don't provoke easily though Jake began to get (to my amusement) more and more irritated today.

Me: blah blah blah atheist blah blah
Him: You're atheist?
Me: Yup.
Jake: Me too.
Him: You know you're going to go to Hell for that, right?
Me: I don't really believe Hell exists, so....you might as well be telling me that I'm going to Azkaban or Mordor for the rest of my life.
Him: You're denying the truth.
Jake: (shoots rays of apathy) If we are, why is is such a big deal to you?
Him: Just telling you that you're making a bad decision here.
Me: Oh, okay. Thank you for telling us.

*awkward silence on his part*

Him: Have you ever been to church?
Me: Yes, I've gone from first grade to fifth grade.
Him: And yet you're still not Christian?
Me: Yup.
Him: I'm telling you you're going to regret that for the rest of your life. When you die, you're never going to be able to enter Heaven at all.
Jake: (under his breath) And you are?
Me: Please don't try to convince me to be Christian using arguments that I don't believe exist.
Him: There should honestly be a commandment against not being a Christian.
Jake: There should also be a commandment against being an annoying idiot.
Him: You shouldn't insult me. (This was the oddest thing I've heard as a rebuttal, but to the poor kid's credit, his only arguments to support himself seemed to be "You're going to Hell", and he was running out of repetition power.)
Jake: In that case, don't insult me by believing that I'll listen to your stupidity.

After this, the kid had his own moment of awkward silence, and walked away. Jake and I began to talk about how random his butting in had been, and Jake said, "He should be able to believe what he believes, and I should be able to believe what I believe. And then everybody should stop bugging each other about it."

I agree with that point, but with an add-on.

People should be able to believe what they believe, and not let that affect others in what those others perceive as a negative way.

I'm not completely against religion - I've seen it help people, and raise their self-esteem and just generally make them happier with life. I've seen agnostics who, after Christian friends worked their influence, became religious. I'm really fine with pamphlet-passing and Bible-giving, and though it can get kind of annoying on occasion, it's never hurt me physically or mentally.

What I'm against is violence caused by religion, or constant harassment in extreme ways to start going to church. A kind suggestion, a couple of flyers - I'm perfectly fine with that because I realize that Christians get something from their religion and want to spread the goodness. After all, if I encountered something that bettered my life, I'd like to share it too. What I'm against is when they try forcibly for you to take this "goodness", because religion isn't for everybody. Whereas it helped my best friend rebuild his life, it created a huge strain on one of my other friends before she became atheistic. There are limitations to human beings, and one of them is the extent of belief. If we are doubters, then don't punish us for being that way. I'm rather sure that Christians don't want to be punished for being Christian, either.

Top 10 Quotes That Make Me the Best Set-Up

After a particularly embarrassing conversation with Robby, he mentioned that I was probably the best set-up for "that's what she said jokes", and listed a few instances. And then after recounting this incident to another friend, he told me that I say things without thinking and they often come out painfully comic. So, here is a tribute to my naivete.

1. (referring to a sine graph set on radians, which Kevin helped me set up.) "Wow, why is it so long? And big."

2. (referring to boba latte) "I like the ones with the big balls."

3. (referring to odd stains on my backpack) "There's weird white crusty splotches on it."

4. (after saying number 3 and being roundly laughed at, Robby mentions that the splotches aren't white, but rather red. And I go on to say...) "Well, it was certainly white last night."

5. (referring to a kind of clay) "You have to rub it for a very long time. And if you do it right, it'll harden up pretty quickly."

6. (playing with my friend's knitted creation) "I thought you said it would be stiffer. It feels kind of floppy to me."

7. (referring to a piano technique) "In this instance, it's better to slide your fingers slowly over it, one by one."

8. (when asked what was the ruckus down the hall) "I'm not too sure. I heard a lot of banging on the wall and shouting though."

9. (My friend and I were sucking on lolipops - yeah, I know - and he finishes way before I do.) "Dang, your tongue is fast."

10. (referring to the different sizes of the basketballs) "Why are all the black balls two times bigger than the others?"

An old friend

In two years' time, I will go to university and begin my life as an adult. With this transition I will forever leave the house, but more importantly, I will forever leave a memory.

There is little at home that I left an imprint on. My name is written in tiny letters on my bathroom window, and written again on the bottom of our sofa. But these imprints are insignificant, and when I look at them I remember only moments of boredom. The only object in the house that I can call my own in terms of emotion, in terms of memory, would be my piano.

Out of my carelessness, and then out of habit, I very rarely took the trouble to wipe it down. The thousand fingerprints were a source of all my teachers' aggravation, but now it serves as an album. I can see a faded smear of my elementary-school hand across the piano cover, left from when I opened the piano for the first time and heard the full colors of each note. On one of the glossy black legs there is a double print of my little brother's and my fingers, pressed there when I joined him to play underneath the piano. The lid has lost its lustre, and is dulled under seven years' worth of prints from lifting and closing. There are a 9-year-old's prints smudged next to a 16-year-old's prints. Hundreds of piano pieces have been played into the strings, their echo in my memory. I can sit at the bench and reach for the keys, as I have done for over ten years, and feel the songs in my fingers.

The piano, by now, is my oldest friend. I must leave it behind when I go to university, and with it, lose a bastion of memories. I will feel the presence of it fade away from my hands until it becomes, finally, only a reminder of my childhood.