opinions do matter.

Today in AP English 11, our teacher was cruel enough to be gone and have the substitute teacher give us one essay and two multiple choices. AUGH!! The prompt for the essay was talking about opinions in media, blogs, ordinary citizens, etc. Do these opinions matter and do these opinions foster democratic values?

I KILLED THAT SHIT! I think I did the best I've done so far (which isn't very good). But I was lucky that day because I discovered this wonderful site, Global Voices Online and it helped me a lot miraculously. This site is for bloggers to translate the words of other bloggers around the world in English. I thought it was amazing. They don't just talk about politics, they talk about EVERYTHING. It is really cool to read the opinions of a person living in Botswana (for example) or how some person in Japan feels about our 2008 Presidential candidates. I didn't even know they cared about who was our president.

Obama is hot even in Japan.

I found the site in first period (web design 2) with our free time since the play we were supposed to watch was canceled. So I started talking about how opinions do matter but my counterargument was that misinterpretations of opinion can lead to bad results. My counter was kind of weak. But I started talking about how recently Koda Kumi (japanese singer) said something in an interview :


"The comment came on Tuesday night while Koda was hosting "All Night Nippon." The topic of her manager's marriage came up, and Koda was asked about when her manager was planning to have children. She made a seemingly light-hearted reply that "when women turn 35, their amniotic fluid goes rotten, so I'd like them to have a child by 35."


It sounds really stupid to me but the Japanese public were offended especially since the late Japanese princess had struggled to produce a heir at age 41. I wrote about that in my essay. Haha I am sure my teacher is kind of like what the heck but she is cool enough to accept it. And it is true. I think opinions really do sustain democratic values. Restricted democratic values = restricted opinions. Then for my argument I talked about the bloggers in Japan and other stuff. I made the conclusion in the last 2 minutes so it was really cheesy, something like:

"An opinion can change a thought, a mind, or a life. Opinions do matter."

The two multiple choice tests were freaking killer. My brain was dead at the end of the day. So I am doing luau for PIC (pacific islander's club) with Chrissa. It seems really cool. It was our first time going to their meeting and it was kind of weird but at the same time I felt comfortable. I only knew less than five people in there. But Mindy is one of the club officers so I felt comfortable with that. I think it will be really fun to try something new. And most of the members seems really nice and funny. It is nice to be involved with a fun activity when I am stressing about all these crazy classes.

OMG PACHIA's PROM IS TOMORROW :] lucky her.

mine is not until march 8th. a lot of time. haha. kind of.

love,
ck.

l.o.v.e

HAPPY SUPER TUESDAY
for the non-Californians out there,
today is super tuesday,
BIG PRELIMINARY caucuses for the presidential candiates.

My mom went to vote and she voted for Hilary Clinton. We had a mock super tuesday at our school. I voted Barack Obama. I am not just bandwagoning with the rest of the young folk. I have heard his speeches and I've watched him and I liked him a lot especially in the youtube democratic debates. I have a lot of respect for Hilary Clinton also but I just prefer Obama. I don't care for much Republican candiates but I would love if anyone won but ROMINEY. I dislike Rominey a lot, not just for his Mormon factor. He seems to like to personally attack in the debates (no surprise of course) but he just seems to have a very slick greasy factor to me.

So my weekend. I was going to show pictures of Acadeca but MIN has not sent me the pictures yet :(. Acadeca is always fun but we always lose because our team never takes it seriously. We always just go to play and we always end up bullshitting the multiple choice but rocking the speeches and the interview. I totally rocked the interview. I had three really nice ladies that were pretty impressed by my resume. haha. I didn't think I was that great with activities but they asked me a lot of questions about my CRC college classes, student mentoring, etc. I actually do a lot of extracurriculars so I am glad that I looked so intelligent and well rounded. It surprised me that they actually were impressed by me. It was astounding. I guess since I am surrounded by such HIGH LEVEL students who do like a sport, juggle at least three or four aps and are in clubs and still get A's that I under-appreciate myself. Well for the speech I have no idea how I did. I got the worst three old people. They did not give much facial expression and since I was talking about Darfur genocide I dont think they appreciated it very much since they came across as very conservative (especially the two old guys) and I was just like crappp.. inside my head. I made my speech in like 10 minutes that morning anyway. Oh well. The Superquiz was okay. I was mostly talking to Harjot and Min the whole time. Everyone else was trying to compete with Mr. Mowrer and getting the most right answers during the Superquiz. Afterwards most of our team went to go eat PHO! It was really windy and confusing because we initially were supposed to go to Pho King 2, but then people changed it to Viet Ho (??) on Florin, then we call and they are at Viet Hoa in Laguna. It was crazy. Well our whole group took up like half of the restaurant. The pho was so-so. My mom isn't even Vietnamese and she makes better pho. Dom dropped me, Maggie, Michelle and Faith home and he drove really fast over a bump and it was really fun and we were like WHEEEE!!! But in the dangerous weather we were in, I don't think that would be recommended.

On Sunday, I went to run errands with my mom and we were by Jamba Juice by our old house. So I was like, I wonder how our old house looks like. My mom was like "lets go check it out". It was fun to remember little things about the neighborhood. I remember we would always pass by this one house where this Asian guy would always be washing/waxing his car even if it was SPRINKLING. So we are driving around the neighborhood and we get to the house and... MY HEART BROKE. The new owners had totally torn down the trees in our front yard. Our old house had this kind of "forest" as we called it. Our house was formed in an "L" shape with the front door facing the street and the garage facing the neighbor's house. Where the garage was, there was a lot of bushes lined up and this really big green patch (full of sharp vines? something strange like that) and a big tree. There was a little path which was aligned to the garage side and you could walk in (this was behind the bushes) and come to this little overhang formed by the roof and the big tree. It was our (my siblings and I) clubhouse. Well they TORE EVERYTHING DOWN and had just this big mound of dirt. And they re-did the fence and put iron bars on the windows and put a stupid white iron door (i don't know what it is call but it is the door in front of the big thick door). They even planted this ugly crop of sugarcane or something. They made the house look so Asian.

I was really sad that everything had changed. I can still remember the layout of the house and what it looked exactly. I forget that houses can change even when you have left them. Things change even when you are gone, like you were never there. That is sad.



I found a youtube video that was fanmade of the "tell me" song to the fan background. I am too lazy to find the youtube video but here is the ripped version of the song. :]


Okay so I posted a couple pics from Triumir's line just because ONE, that guy in the first picture is hot (SEXY!) and two, I liked the hat. Check out their line because it is pretty cool. I love to look at streetwear brands but you know what I have a big problem with? THEY DONT HAVE LINES FOR GIRLS. Gawd, I should just open my own damn brand because there is a lack of streetwear for girls that is actually cute and cool.


Did you hear about Kanye West's new tour coming up? It looks cool.

I would love to afford to go to that.

Today I had course selection for my senior classes. That is INSANE?!?!?!?!?!? SENIOR CLASSES. That is my future right there. Well I had a real headache trying to determine which classes I have. For one, I seem to be the only one to want to try and take it easy. Everyone else is going crazy and taking like FIVE APS. Seriously, I know I am going to slack a bit being senior year. Plus think about SENIOR PROJECT AND SENIOR APPLICATIONS. I am not about to kill myself. However, I am taking a couple APs. I was really debating on whether or not I can handle AP Calculus because I would have to double up in math in order to take it but I really think it would benefit me and not be such a burden to take it in college. Then the thing about AP ENGLISH LITERATURE! Half the people I know are regular English and half are doing AP. I think I am going to do AP because I LOVE ENGLISH but the thing that sucks is no grade changes after AP test so I don't know if I can get a B in the class. I will see after AP Language & Composition. So here is my potential schedule: physics, ap english, ap gov/honors political science (goes together), ap cal, pre-cal, ap psych, econ, etc. I hope I just get really easy electives to fill it up. Sigh... why am I surrounded by overachievers?



I am really sick of this AP ENVIRONMENT. I am surrounded with kids who are like SUPER GENIUSES. I am super competitive and it really makes me sick to my stomach if I don't take an AP that someone else is taking. I was getting really anxious if I should take SPANISH AP 4 but HELLO I HATE SPANISH!!! So I forced myself not to take it. It really kills me to think some kid would be chosen over me because they took SPANISH AP and I didn't. I know some people are thinking I am just going crazy but yeah that is how i feel. I mean I think some of my friends are going to have strokes by age 20 because of all the stress they put themselves through and their LIFE PLANS. WE ARE ONLY 16/17 guys!!! Sigh but I go through the same thing as everyone else. Stupid college admins people who make us worry like shit over this stuff.

That makes me happy. Animals are so cute.

----CK.