Sunday, I drove myself over to the nursing home with my flute and music at the ready. The people there weren't expecting me, I don't think. NHS does Elmcroft visits every last Sunday (or something like that, I don't remember), but I have a strange feeling that not too many people show up to these events.

Anyway, I timidly approached this lady who was having a late lunch (it was around 2pm), and she looked confused as to where to place me. Finally, she placed me in the Alzheimer's ward. The interesting thing is that they keep the ward locked with a special security system. The lady let me in, but if I wanted to leave the ward, and nobody was there to help me, I would be stuck in there.

Anyway, I digress. This is only the second or third time I've been at this particular nursing home, and although these visits make me sad, I still try to go every now and then. Making these senior citizens smile makes my day, even if I do have to play my flute for two hours. Although playing for two hours is rough- I tend to run out of things to play. I need to start commiting more pieces to memory. It comes in handy.

There was this man sitting on the couch in the corner. He didn't look too old - maybe around 70. Everytime I finished a song, he would always be the first to clap. I would look into his eye and nervously smile and mouth, "Thank you." Nice old men are a joy to see because most nursing homes are full of women... and most of them are kind of cranky.

The women who worked there were all smiles when I finished - I didn't realize that they were listening, as well. Some of them were hanging out in the back. They commented on how cute I was and how I should come back more often.

I should.

I'm going to the nursing home (another one) on October 1st. I think I'll bring my flute that day.

I'm so lazy... I never write in here, in my Xanga, or in my real journal (where it really matters) anymore. Lots of stuff happen, but I'm usually too tired/sad/HAPPY (?) to write about anything anymore. Mostly tired.

-_- Zzz... that's me...

Anyway, I saw all of my old middle school friends at the football game on Friday. My school lost miserably 25-0, but esta bien. I just wanted to see all my friends again, and yes, go through the heartache that I always feel after leaving this game.... it's my last one, and after this year, I probably won't see them again much.

As Todd says, "SEEN-YORZ!" 06!

Oh, how lovely.

Last night, I watched the last episode of this Chinese soap opera - it's about this angel who comes down from heaven to see if there are any good, righteous people left. A lot of the members from "Do Yu" were in this soap opera. Well, in my opinion, this soap opera was kind of weak because all the episodes were about daily life, and nothing traumatic even happened. The angel (played by this innocent Chinese guy ^_^) and the cute girl (from "Do Yu") are so pure, it's crazy :) I cried at the ending because it was, in a sense, bittersweet. Oh gosh, my sister proclaimed that I'm "emo." Okay, so I cry a lot, big deal.

Blah, I'm so tired and overworked- I need to stop doing so much stuff... ;(

I already missed 2 days of school this year - blahhhhhhhh...

I'm so proud of my heritage... call me a dork, but a lot of the weekends, this is what keeps me up at night when I should be a normal teenager that's simply sleeping. You know what I do a lot of the weekends? If it's not sleeping (haha), no, it's not partying and getting drunk like a monkey (like some of my classmates have a penchant to do), but it's learning Chinese. Translating words and phrases.

I wish everyone had the opportunity to grow up billingual. Since I did grow up billingual, indeed, I have no idea what the other side feels like, to only have a (somewhat?) command of the English language and nothing else. Parlez-vous francais? and Hola do not count. I know a lot of kids in high school French, Spanish, etc. are only in there for credit/college applications, and I know most kids don't even come close to "profiency" in high school foreign language. I know unless I do outside reading and speaking, there's no way I can survive in Mexico, or Spain, or Venuzuela despite my (now) three years of Spanish class. However, I have been exposed to Mandarin since I was born, really, and if you threw me in China or Taiwan, I think I could manage :)

Being billingual (or trilingual, or whatever) is a powerful feeling, and a useful one at that! :) Being able to communicate with relatives, businesspeople, and simply people from that country(ies) is a huge barrier people can overcome with another language. There's a lot of appreciation to be gained with the knowledge of another language, too. For your own background and the other country's background and culture. Okay, in my case, there are still a lot of words/phrases that I'm not sure what they mean, but with every sentence I translate, hey, I'm getting there. It's like decoding some "secret" message, only like, two billion people know, but you don't.

Which gives great satisfaction to me. :) Maybe I should be one of those cryptologists my physics teacher was talking about - breaking all this code. It's kind of the same, right? :) I love figuring out and deciphering stuff. Definitely the hard part, but the end result is almost always so rewarding.

I'm still alive.

I didn't go to school today because I woke up exhausted. Actually, I almost didn't wake up, I don't think... or get up, anyway. Bah. I slept from 8pm - 6am, 7am-11am ... what a day, what a day. I'm still not really okay because my health is perpetually just bad.

Anyway. I watched The Terminal w/my family this evening. What a cute movie - and it's not thy typical romance movie, either, which was fantastic. It didn't end the way I thought it would, but I guess that what makes movies/books stand out, eh? Bravo, Tom Hanks :) And first time I saw Diego Luna in action - ha ha ! :) He's still on my wall...

Okay, off to bed. Volunteering tomorrow. :)

I don't know if I should still do Early Decision to UPenn...

Hello.

Senior year is no fun... whoever said it was fun was probably referring to second semester. I always find myself sleeping at 12am at the earliest... this is bad. Am I procrastinating too much? Maybe I should step back and observe what in the world I end up doing after school, after band practice. Almost every day, two hours is lost due to power napping.... and then like, 1-1.5 for eating, showering, brushing teeth, etc. I wish I didn't come home at 5pm almost everyday.

LHS WON 12-0 TODAY! CONGRATULATIONS!

I'm so excited. My freshman year, our football team was 0-10 for the whole season. Since then, we have never had a winning football record, and we just got lost to winning like, three games and losing the rest. Now, I'm back in marching band (after a year hiatus) and excited that we're now 2-1, which is a miracle to everyone's eyes! We're seniors now, and I hope we can end with a winning record. That would be nice to be the class at LHS that actually has a winning record, for once. Let's break this dry spell.

In other news, I found out there are COLORED PICCOLOS and they are so pretty! The base is one color while the keys are another. There are pretty pairs like blue and silver, purple and blue, red and gold, etc. My piccolo is dead (you should see me trying to play it. I look so silly), so I am in search of another one. I don't know if I have time to play in college, but I would like to have the chance... perhaps it would be an outlet from all this studying I would probably be doing. YEAH! I love music.

I hate studying.