All I Want for Christmas is You...

Let's see, hmm, I've watched three movies this holiday season so far: Elizabethtown, Narnia, and King Kong. Elizabethtown looked good, but there was no plot... Kirsten Dunst is so annoying in that movie ~_~ well at least for the first half of it. Narnia was sooooooo amazing; it was like Lord of the Rings (although I'm not sure which is better). I felt that it was rather faithful to the book, so that's good. The special effects were really nice; yay Mr. Tumnus. King Kong is... uh... well, really melodramatic. I went into the movie theater not knowing what to expect, but when I saw it, I knew this wasn't what I thought it would be (LOL). King Kong doesn't even make his first apperance until about 1/3 into the movie, and the movie is 3 hours long. Naomi Watts is really pretty, though - I like that hairstyle on her, LOL (she looks eerily similar to Nicole Kidman, except her features aren't as harsh). Jack Black looked ... out of place in such a serious movie, but then again, he was the idiotic guy in the movie.

I think I'm getting sick. My throat is feeling scratchy. :(

I'm leaving for Orlando this Saturday. I'll miss you all :) My non-existent blog audience! Haha. Oh, Howard, if you're reading this, HEY! I'M SO SORRY I MISSED YOUR IM! I HOPE YOU'RE HAVING FUN IN TAIWAN! AND I DON'T KNOW WHY I'M TYPING IN CAPS. :)

Well, I turned 18 on December 13. Another year, another year's worth of friends, advice, love, homework, and who knows what else. Happy birthday to me, and thanks to all those who wished me well. :)

I've learned a lot this year, as always. There has been some heartbreaking moments this year as a 17-year-old but the heartwarming ones may just well outweigh those.

I'll probably write more insights later, maybe when we usher in the new year (2006). Right now, I'm going to bed. Goodnight, my dear.

Wow, I haven't updated this thing in awhile. To think that I was a semi-daily blogger, too... with somewhat real posts filled with substance. Great!

Yesterday I got my Georgia Tech acceptance letter, yay! Today, I also got my University of Georgia acceptance letter, yay! In case everyone rejects me, I have two schools to go to, now... hooray. I hope my scores, ECs, hooks, etc. can convince UPenn and other schools to accept me. Gah. The wait is really agonizing. Actually I need to submit some more college applications come December 14th, if I don't get into UPenn. I have this sinking feeling that I got rejected/deferred.

Man, I look so ugly...I look in the mirror and am not happy with what I see... dark circles, not so great skin due to no sleep. My face looks fuller too - lack of good eating habits?! ... :( I wish I didn't care about my appearance, but I do have to keep face.

Happy belated birthday Todd! You're 18 now! :D

My 18th birthday is next Tuesday. Wish me a good one, would ya? :) By then, I will hopefully be "hen ching song" and not do anything, yea!! I want to go out to eat w/all of my close friends.

I need to go Christmas shopping! Ugh! I bought Jane T. something today (shh) but I have 829374 other people to buy stuff. Well, no, actually around 30... but considering I take forever to shop for people, this might take awhile.

I GOT AN A ON MY SENIOR PROJECT PAPER! Yes, my P.O.S. paper. Even Mr. Owen said my thesis wasn't really that strong, and I totally agree.... o well, I'm happy! Now I just need to present it. I'm thinking of playing my flute in class... (which ties in w/my senior project)

^_^

Hi all,

I just finished reading The Winter Mantle by Elizabeth Chadwick. UGH. This is one of those books tha I have a tendency to pick up and wonder why I even bothered picking them up in the first place! I could NOT put it down in the first 250 pages or so (medieval historical fiction/romance, of course) but after the main character fades away and the new generation, I guess, lives on, there is no plot whatsoever. I'm disappointed because the first half was really good while the other half was an utter waste of time.

Yesterday was our last day of school before we come back next Monday. YES. :) I'd like to say "You're cool!" to Ishita because she's a hilarious, fun girl who I've got to know very well this semester :) through trials and tribulations of school (AP Bio, AP Lit, AP Physics, and sometimes AP Calc when we don't do our homework)! :D Ah. My friends, old and new, never cease to amaze me.

Augh, my monthly friend stopped by. Time for another week of pain and torture -_- My mom said that eating lots of sweets, albeit unhealthy, does ease the pain. I remember last time, I ate all these processed sugary foods right before she dropped by, and the week was nearly pain free. Eh. Little Miss Debbie is my best friend.

Sorry for lack of posts. I've been feeling very down/lazy lately, and nearly all of my journals have been neglected. Apologies (not many people read this anyway, though)...

If you REALLY want to keep up with my life, visit my xanga: http://www.xanga.com/dani1213 and you can see all the idiosyncrasies of Dani! Yes! ... The Xanga is reserved for random ramblings like WTF =\ haha :)

<3 1 year soon

I'm cold.

(At least my hands are).

OSU lost to TX last night, 47-28 (if I remember correctly) - that wasn't too fun because my mom got really upset over the game (!). Usually we're like, bleh, but my mom and dad went to OSU for grad. school, and if it weren't for OSU, I wouldn't be here (in this form as a girl named Dani) :P so yeah. Was depressing... first half, the Cowboys were doing really well, but Vince Young ran x number of yards all the time, and yeah.

GA lost to FL 10-14 as well. Boo. Why doesn't GA ever win vs. FL? :\ Not that I like GA and/or FL, but just wondering.

Okay, off to work. Once again. I love Daylight Savings Time change o' clocks.

Oh no, the dangers of fall break: NOT DOING ANYTHING PRODUCTIVE. OR NOT GETTING EVERYTHING DONE.

Yes, I am a workaholic. It bothers me when there is unfinished business.

Hmm, so far I have:

-Gone to Cumberland Island to get eaten alive by mosquitoes, learn how divine the water feels on one's bare toes at the beach, write chinese words in the sand, listen to "fob" music, walk 3.5 miles or so, and avoiding horse poop left and right. Oh, and watched The Longest Yard... "I sucked at football... I got picked after the white kids..." or something like that. I'm not good at remember word for word quotes in movies.

-Volunteered at the Red Cross stuffing envelopes, whee...

-Bought 2389434 cans of food at Publix

-Went downtown to walk the Breast Cancer Walk with Ning-Fei - why are we not getting any closer... oh, and walked another mile at the park. Total? Probably 4-5 miles. Exercise is good.

-Went to Walmart - decided that the clothes aren't really that great... :P

-Finally beat the last levels of Soul Calibur II with cheap Link :P

-Started my "Why UPenn" essay and decided that it sucks, really badly...

-Learned some Chinese and realized how little I know...

-Practiced flute

What's left undone and what is bugging me right now:

-RESEARCH PAPER

-CALC HW (I'm going to get a bad grade this nine weeks XD)

-Other college stuff? I'm not sure

-Reading for UGA FF (I'm not going to get it... and I think my book isn't that great. I'm screwed)

-Recorded flute recordings. I need a better recorder.

-Bio photojournal??!?!?!? ...

-Beta Club T-shirt

-My, yes, "Why Upenn" essay

WHY CAN'T I JUST SIT BACK AND DO NOTHING? Why am I typing in caps? *frustration, anger, anxiety*

I'm still here.

Productivity: low/suffering

Desperation level: pretty high

I'm tired of this silly cycle - thank goodness no more band practices - I hate sleeping at 1+am almost everyday because all this work simply accumulates.

I hate being on the top.

I already have visions of cold weather and Christmas trees in my head - praying that I may hold on until then - It's the light at the end of the tunnel -

Maybe I should be content with just 90's. What does a 95 mean anyway?

I still have too much stuff to do.

Senior year is a lot more busy than junior year. Junior year was just bad because the contrast between that and sophomore year (at least, for us) was pretty hefty. Senior year is bad because there's AP classes, college applications, senior projects, extracurriculars... and we still need to find time to have fun because after all, we are seniors.

Uh, my "fun" factor is lacking right now, but I'll make it up this Thanksgiving/Christmas breaks. Oh yea.

:)

My Emory App is due next week - don't think I'll get Emory Scholar, but that's okay...

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.

Yesterday... after spending two hours volunteering at a nursing home, I almost slept the rest of the day. Things have been rather hectic, and I've been getting not a lot of sleep. I think my health is failing, which is definitely not a good sign since I need to be really robust and healthy in order to get anything accomplished. I've downed like, 200 ounces of gatorade/powerade to replenish all that lost minerals/electrolytes from excessive sweating.

There is so much stuff to do, and so little time, but it is not even September yet. Am I worrying too much?

Sleep-deprived.

I never seem to get lots of sleep lately - around 5-6 hours/weeknight. The thing is, even if I do have time to sleep, I...don't. It's quite strange. I must have an addiction to reading, which, considering the alternatives (drugs, alcohol - read the Newsweek issue about meth), it sounds rather good and rather nerdy. Like, last week, I couldn't stop reading summer 2005 back issues of Newsweek (I wish I could write/have the knowledge of Fareed Zakaria), even though it was around 12am. Of course, there's the constant studying because I don't get home until 5pm three days a week and I have to leave two hours for nap (and shower, and a short dinner) because standing in the sun for two hours is really taxing on the body. Like my good freshman buddy Jaime says, I "sweat like a dog." Thanks.

I love my freshmen! They're so funny.

I just sweated about 10 pounds of of me.

Tonight was the first football game of the season. I am guessing the humidity index was like 2450% because I've never sweated so much in my life. Ok, how about this - all the practices I've been to so far amounted to this one game. YIKES. Not to gross you out or anything (I want you to come back), but I looked like I took a shower. Except, uh. I didn't.

Shuaib is awesome - when we band kids (dorks) were kneeling for the halftime show for the other band, I saw him and Vikas (these are my two brown friends, woot) walk by. I said hello and complained about the utter humidity (UGH), and he went and bought me a powerade, which I had to drink after the halftime show. Awww, thanks for spending $2 on me, that means a great deal, especially how I was dying of dehydration out there. :) I got to hang out with my Indian guy friends (and my girls, ZAHEERA and ISHITA) at third quarter, which was nice. I usually don't see all of them congregate in one area (I wish I had more Chinese guys my age/grade... cool Chinese guys anyway. The little we have I don't really associate with them). Ah, I love my friends, but why do I have to have this stupid antisocial part of me that seems to kick in at the wrong place, wrong time, everytime?

We played lots of cheers. I screamed a lot. I played an octave higher on the piccolo, and everyone knows that the piccolo is already high enough :P I misheard those cheerleaders' chants... they were spelling L A K E S I D E and I always caught the last part, but I didn't understand what they were spelling, so I thought they were spelling S T I C K E R. My friend and my sister almost died laughing. Eh. Funny things happen when one is delirious, tired, and dehydrated.

I finally stepped in the Lakeside bathroom for the first time in my four years there. Wow. Stadium bathrooms are horrible.

Well, to wrap it up, after many frustrating "so close, yet so far" moments, surprise surprise, we lost 20-10.

And now I'm going to eat something. :)