i feel good.

I found these videos off a recommendation from another blog I read. These videos make me feel good, even at 3:15 AM when I am trying to finish my private college applications (half way thru!!). I love that it is HIGH DEF. I love the cinematography. I love the REAL life expressions on people's faces. I love the questions. I love the feel, the music and the atmosphere for the video. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. It is genius.

Fifty People One Question, made by Crush & Lovely Films.
They had an idea to ask one question to fifty people.

goals for break

1. finish private school apps before xmas
2. finish reading invisible man
3. do ap gov fall hw
4. do pre-cal, ap lit hw
5. read some books for pleasure
6. read some classics for ap lit
7. hang out with pachia & melanie
8. drama day with maggie
9. board game night
10. sleep a lot

what crazy teachers give hw during break? all my teachers except the teacher i ta for. no christmas spirit.

--christina

i'm not done yet.

• 12 page term paper on economic espionage

• Common App for Stanford
• finish reading FAUST!
• and do long form...
• SCHOLARSHIPSSSSS!!!!!

i thought winter break was going to feel good. but i dont think it's really going to feel any different, besides the fact that i'll be getting a lot more sleep than i've usually been getting for the past week.. doing i dont even know what-- nothing :|

i bombed my ap stats test today. however i did write a somewhat decent bill for our mock senate in government. and hamlet was good, yet at the same time i'm not sure i did so well on the hamlet test or the ap essay (which i don't think i'm EVER going to get over a 7 on). yearbook is as dramatic as it always has been.. blah, blah, i have two spreads to finish by the end of break. my mouse is acting reeeaallly irritating, but it must be because my computer just recovered from a deadly virus. not even the party-potlucks have felt nice today. the only thing that i actually did enjoy this week was watching Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in english, which was awesome (although i probably would've never grasped it as deeply as i do now if my teacher didn't go over with us--and just because of that, even though it was good, it still makes me feel bad). Tom Stoppard is a geniuuuus (though)!

but aside from all that, i still have my senior project to do. which i guess isn't so bad... i'm just not feeling up to going to businesses and asking them for donations so i can put on my food sale. maybe i was just setting a goal to high for myself! 1) learning how to cook gourmet food 2) making a cookbook 3) putting on a food sale to benefit the hungry! everyone's just taking it easy, nobody really committed themselves to doing a lot, and now i wish i never had either. But i know i can't back down. besides, i have been thinking a lot about what i want to sell at the food sale.



my mom just bought new white plates and bowls, so i'm super excited; i want to take more pictures!!! i'm also going to the bakery with josie and her sister on monday, instead of the embassy, so i'm excited for that too :)

i'm running low on moneyyyyy because i've spent it all on gifts. i've already spent over $100. i bought tommy a cute pea-coat/coat, which, i'm glad, he loves; i bought josie these cute little sock/boots and a scarf from ae for secret santa; and i bought my mom and my sister and my lil brother gifts too, which all totaled up to over $80. today i also went to oldnavy and target and spent a bit more on my lil brother and my sister, which is fine, but i still have my dad and my brother and cousin and my other sister! and i only have so much more money in the bank. i also havent bought quite a few other people gifts either :| and bdays are coming up too :0 soo, i think i need to find a job. but everyone knows how that is these days...

HOLY CRAPP!!OPIU$)%&@)#% my mouse is retardeddddd. i'mmmmmm done. its friday. i want to watch a good movie :)

PACHIA!

my secret lion

I think senior year has definitely been a year of self-reflection. I am mentally preparing myself for a new stage of my life--adulthood. It is kind of scary to say that my next step is adulthood. To be eighteen and an "adult" seems really unnerving and scary. Even when I am 18, 19...21, I do not think I will be an adult yet.

I am having more self-reflecting moments because of English. In English, we read an essay in our book called The Secret Lion by Alberto Alvaro Rios. It is set in the POV of a boy who hits junior high. He reflects on the moments he and his best friend had in their childhood summers and how they became disillusioned and had to grow up. He talks about that weird middle school period (yes we all know that period) where girls are different, you feel different, adults always scold you when you do not know things, and adults assume you are supposed to know certain things but no one taught you those things.

The story was kind of disheartening because it made us realize how in one year, in one second, it was like a carpet was pulled from underneath us. One year, we reach a certain period and adults pull that carpet, that security blanket from underneath us and tell us "okay now it is the time to grow up and now you should know how everything in the world should work". It really doesn't make sense, but it happens. I wake up one day, 17 and half, still a teenager, a child, but I am pushed towards being an adult, to make my own decisions, fill out my own forms, remember my social security number, etc. I had to do it on my own and no one taught me how. And if I asked a question, I was scolded as if I should know. Well I don't know.

The story is called the secret lion because the boy says the lion is there and it just appeared and he can't really explain where and how it got there but it happened. That is the secret lion.

So after that story, my teacher asked us to remember when our secret lion moment happened and I tried to remember, but I really couldn't. I know it happened but I didn't have a moment in time where I saw the secret lion. I could say it was sixth grade. When girls and boys started to like each other. I liked boys but I did not want a boyfriend. But it just started happening and I just had to go with the flow and sixth grade was really disheartening and scary because everyone was trying to grow up so fast for no reason. I think that is when I had my secret lion moment.

I am a little more depressed thinking about how I have to grow up after watching Peter Pan on tv. I really love that movie but now I come to understand it a little more watching it at my age. The whole struggle of you either have to learn how to be an adult to enjoy those adult feelings of love and family or you have to remain a child. It is a really bad ultimatum. I was really sad that Peter Pan lacked the whole family and love all because he didn't want to grow up. It was sooo sadddd to me. Why can't he have a family and love and still not grow up? BECAUSE SOCIETY WORKS IN HORRIBLE WAYS AND YOU CAN ONLY HAVE ONE. I want to be greedy and have it all and not grow up. But life doesn't work that way.

I stay home for one day without anything to do and this is what television does to me. Make me depressed about how life works. Thanks tv.

To be happy, just look at Jeremy Sumpter. Where is this kid? I hate how good kid actors just disappear after one good movie. I loved both the lead kid actors. They were great. Overall, this was a great Peter Pan movie. It was done really well and you feel sympathy for Captain Hook too. Though the kid sexual tension between the two is a little much. But it is cute.

He is still hot now.



<3

--ck.

my last multicultural.

Friday, December 05, 2008 was my last multicultural show. My second and my last. I was very sad afterwards. I had spent Oct-Dec practicing, perfecting my dances. To have all that effort, that work in one night was very depressing. But I was so happy afterwards, so happy. The song above will remind me of multicultural, especially the night show. It was the song for PIC's hula dance. It really reminded me how this is the last multicultural for me.

This year I am Asian Club secretary. Last year I just participated in the Asian Club couple dance and I choreographed the Korean fan dance with Michelle. This year, I choreographed the Korean fan dance again. However this year was even harder. Last year, I only had eight girls in my dance and it was a less than 2 minute dance, but still we tried hard and did well. This year we had a 2:38 song and 22 GIRLS!! It was freaking crazy. Originally I wanted probably 16 girls. I was worried I would not get enough girls but over 24 girls signed up. But in the end, I got 22 girls who performed. It was so stressful, so hectic, and crazy. Coming up with choregraphy for 22 girls throughout a whole song was crazy. I think I've watched every single Korean fan dance video on youtube to for inspiration. I didn't want to use the typical Korean fan moves so we even came up with our own. Luckily I have creative friends. Tiffany, Mimi, Michelle, Maggie, and Hanh helped out a lot. But in the end, I was responsible for everything. And last year we didnt have time for costumes because we had to do the dance in a quick two weeks but this year I WANTED TO HAVE COSTUMES. I stressed so much for costumes. We bought material, got the jackets, sashes, and bows made and bought skirts. The jackets had to be sewn and it was stressful to try and get people to get them sewn. We bought skirts online and they didnt come in until the DAY BEFORE the performance (I had guesstimate the girls size too).

The night before dress rehersal (on a thursday, the day before the actual performance), I realized I was short THREE JACKETS so I had to go to my friend's house in the middle of the night and sew three jackets and we had no idea how to make it because our aunts' had done it so we had to figure it out from the jacket samples. It was crazy. But in the end, the costumes came through.

Luckily during rehersals our dances came out good, but my brother's ninja dance was horrible unorganized so the night before the performance, I stayed at school until 7:30 pm to make sure they had it down and it would look good. I did not want all my hard work to go down the drain if my brother's ninja dance made our club look horrible. I prayed so hard when they performed, but they pulled through. They really did their job.

The day before the performance, I had a breakdown at school. It was horrible. I have never cried before at school but I did that day. And the night before (when i had to make those jackets) I had a mini breakdown at home too. The stress was too much. But I felt happy after it so it is good to break down once in awhile.

Fashion Show;
Korean, Thai/Lao, Vietnamese, Hmong


Asian Club repping.


Asian Club Picture


My senior girls;
Michelle, Adrienne, Maggie, Tiffany, Me, Hanh the Blowfish


Most of my fan girls


Our last multicultural :(


Me and my family

And now to see our beautiful performances.
I mixed ALL the songs for the three performances







I am proud, I really am. All the tears, the stress, the anger, etc, was really worth it. Even if I failed two tests that week, it was worth it in the end.

If anyone wants us to perform for them even if it is on a random street, WE WILL!!

--ck.

blue days; gray sweaters?

days are getting super cold. but today i was extremely hot in my dad's old sweater. i actually felt a little self-conscious, because the sweater was eating me, but i guess i got over it. honestly, i really think that i need to go shopping for winter clothes. i've been wearing the same things every week, because i may have a lot of clothes, but i have nothing that i actually want to wear anymore (which also keeps me warm)! time for... some thrifting. especially since christmas is around. but times are tough.

so update? well, i sent in my uc college apps over thanksgiving break: uc berkeley, uc davis, uc santa cruz, uc santa barbara. i'm still debating whether or not i should apply to stanford, but i have a strong feeling that i'll just go for it :) aside from all that stuff, i've just been shuffling with school. i have to go write an essay on whether or not the bill of rights are above politics, so i'm just making a short and simple post!

au revior,
PACHIA