My Junior Year of High School!

There is always a beginning and ending to just about everything, my junior year of high school is finally coming to an end. I have a very bittersweet feeling about knowing another year of my high school career has ended. At the end of each year of high school I am reminded of the inevitable fact that I’m growing up, which I think is very tedious. As eac year passes, I’m watching my friends get jobs and cars while I have yet to achieve any of those things, then again, these same friends don’t exact plan on having college careers and don’t care much for school so I assume they need and early start at working. Still I feel terrible that I don’t have a job for the summer and relying on my parents for cash doesn’t exactly leave me feeling great. But thats enough of my worries for now, this post is dedicated to reflecting on my junior year.

Okay, where to start? Well I guess my overall feelings for my junior year was that it was alright. At least I can say it was better than my other high school years so far. I found it to be alright because I think school is really boring, the only classes that interested me this year are choir, chemistry, and algebra 2. Now this blog is the only interesting part of my English class because I think English is a waste of time as well. Although I am extremely grateful to my teacher this year for making do these blog posts. When I need to write for school, I feel like its almost for nothing since only the teacher will my writing, or maybe only the first paragragh, but at least on this blog there is a chance that a few people will read my words, I would like to thank all of you who do follow me and read at least one of my posts, it actually makes me really happy and I will probably write more posts from time to time this summer. Well back to where I was at, why was my junior year alright? Well like I said earlier, I’m not too interested in half of my classes, well I also tried to make school more exciting by joining clubs. I tried to find a club for everyday, I had clubs for all the days of the school week except Thursday. When I had joined these clubs, my hope was to make lots of new friends, to my dissapoint, I barely made any new friends. I still went to almost every meeting in hopes of making new friends but it never happened although it was probably mostly my fault for not trying to start conversations so I’m not complaining. But just because this year was not successful doesn’t mean I wont try again next year. I plan to join more clubs next year to help make school less boring for me.

My favorite part of this year is when I got to travel to New York with my choir, although I was not actually at school, it’s school related. So there were some good parts of my school year, but I can’t think of many more off the top of my head. There were also some terrible times too. Every once in a while, I would feel like there was too much work given to me and I felt drained for days. Eventually it would pass and I would be back to normal but I still felt tired anyways. The most recent time I felt this feeling was when I had to do some finals last week. It’s ironic, those finals were for chemistry and choir, two of my more favorite classes. For choir, the final was music theory basics, I’m musically illiterate so I found learning the unfamiliar material on the test difficult and even after all that studying, I did not do well on the test. I’m still proud that I at least tried to learn the material. The chemistry final was a different story, since it was all on things I had learned before and the choir test was on the same day so I chose to study for choir and not chemistry, I did mediocre on that test and I am not very happy about that. I found it ridiculous that I had to do my choir test a week early since finals testing is actually this week. I understand why it had to early for chemistry since it is my zero period, I may not be glad with the results but I sure am glad it’s over.

Now this blog post is also for me to write about my teacher, who is a student teacher and wants to know how she can improve. Oh boy, this is going to be one spicy rant. Just kidding. You don’t need to read this part unless you’re my teacher. Well to start off, I was extremely dissapointed in the beginning of the year to have you instead of Mr. T again. But that was at first, honestly this dissapointment was because Mr. T ran his class with barely any work and you actually tried to be an English teacher so I understand. Now that I look back, it was immature of me to be dissapointed in that way. In all honesty, you did an excellent job teaching for your first semester. You’re teaching style is more traditional like my teacher in freshman year. My last two English teachers have been very unique in their teaching styles so for students like me who aren’t too into English, you can try to find the perfect medium between actually teaching English and being the fun laid back teacher. I believe that you can be that great teacher who is laid back but can control the class because you do know how to have fun, and it did happen in class from time to time. Now I’m not saying the class was not fun at all, but I think that you could have implemented more interesting methods. The brawl we had in class is an example of a fun, more exciting teaching method; especially when there was actually argument which you fixed in the end by forcing us to have opposing views. I did not like having you as a teacher at first, but that’s because I was not used to teaching style at first. Eventually i noticed that you also adjusted to being less strict as well. You’re doing well as a teacher and all I can really offer as advice is to try to create you’re own unique teaching style and focus on making the learning fun as well as challenging. All my most memorable and favorite teachers were unique and inspiring in non generic ways. My only complaint is that I never got to see my grade on my Catcher and the Rye essay that I really tried on, but that’s alright since I did good, right? Overall you have my gratitude as a student, there is always room for improvement as even the teachers can also learn from the student.

My junior year may not have gone a smoothly as I wanted it to, but I am still content with it. It may have been alright but I can’t complain for what I didn’t do and there’s no point in being sad about something I can’t change. Each and every year become a bit more mature, I will admit I am very immature though, and I become a bit more wiser. I would like to thank you, reader if you have read this far since my post is over a thousand words and is my longest post so far. I can’t explain how glad I am to know someone has read my words even if you think it’s bad. As my school year comes to a close, I can’t help but look foward to my next and final chapter of my highschool career, hopefully I’ll be grown-up by then.

Summer is Coming Up

It is almost the end of May, and the glorious season of summer starts in June. Time flies, at least for me, last time I checked it was January but summer has crept up fast. I plan on having a very active summer and I want to give some ideas for you to do this summer also. I think the most important and crucial part of having a good summer is at least one summer trip or vacation where you just leave the house and travel somewhere. There are many summer activities that you can do that are only in your area, for example since I live near the beach I can try surfing summer. Going bicycling is a great summer activity that anyone anywhere can do in their area. If you have a fun activity that you can only do in your area, then you should go outside and give it a shot this summer and enjoy the area you live in. Summer is a great time to go be active and do things you can’t do in the winter because of the cold weather.

One of the most fun things you can do is go camping in the summer, I know it sounds generic and chances are you already go camping in the summer. But if you don’t normally go camping or you want to try camping in the actual wilderness, I recommend giving it a try. This summer I plan on going on a camping trip in the wilderness with my church youth group. While camping in the wilderness, you can go rafting and go on hikes through the wilderness. I am not responsible for you getting eaten if you decide to try camping in bear territory or some other dangerous animal if you actual do go camping. If they’re are lots of dangerous animals in an area where you want to camp then I would recommend not going there or taking proper precautions on avoiding and dealing with those said animals if you have a face-to-face encounter. Summer can be a time of adventure and excitement and I wrote this post to encourage you to make this summer different from the others and go through with those plans you made. What are you waiting for, start planning! Also the beach in the picture is my local beach, I go there a lot in the summer.

Why Waking Up Early is Superior to Waking up Late

Everyone knows the old saying, “The early bird gets the worm,” well waking up early actually does have several benefits compared to waking up late. I wake up at 5 a.m. on school days and usually 7 a.m. on weekends. I have to wake up early for school because I have to go to a zero period. Even though my zero starts at 6:58, I like to wake up about 2 hours early for various reasons. Reason number one is that it works as a fail safe, if I accidentally oversleep an hour, I’ll still have enough time to get ready and not be late. Another reason why I prefer waking up at 5 a.m. is I can take my time showering and eating breakfast. Waking up early in general has several perks as well, people who wake up earlier tend to be more productive, get better grades, and be better at planning their days. Early morning people tend to also be healthier and in better shape, although this is probably because they wake up early to jog, which is a good idea too.

One of my favorite reasons for why I like waking up early is watching the sun rise in the morning, I usually get to watch it rise as I walk to school, but recently the sun rises before so I watch it from my window. Now most people probably would complain if they had to wake up early everyday but I have come to prefer waking up early. After a short period of time you get used to waking up early and it becomes a habit. Although I have been saying only good things about waking up early, there are some bad things too. Sometimes I lack sleep because I need to get up early, but even then I just use that extra hour of sleep and wake up a 6 a.m. so it’s not so bad in my case. Overall, the good outweighs the bad by a landslide when it comes to being an early bird, going to bed at an early time can prevent lack of sleep, and early people tend to have more positive traits and habits. If you consider waking up early, I would recommend it as long as you get enough sleep, waking up early is important for a healthy and productive schedule.

Visiting the Big Apple

Recently, after my spring break trip to Hawaii, I took a trip to New York with my high school choir group. Even though my last post was about how tiring travelling can be, once you start travelling you pick up momentum and get used to it. My whole trip, I was full of energy even though I had only been home for one day then flew to NYC. Perhaps it was the vibe of the bustling city that I picked up, but I felt like exploring the city constantly. Sadly, since I was in my choir group, I was extremely limited. I only had about 9 streets I could go down, I was right next to Times Square so there was always something going on there, but I could see any other part of this vast city on my own. My group did travel the city, but it was as a group so we had to keep moving until we reached the destination we were visiting. Even though I was limited, I still got to see a see many of the sights of the city. I also picked up many of the habits of a New Yorker, when crossing the street I give no attention to the crosswalk sign and only check for cars before crossing. I also got used to bumping into people while walking and walking at a very fast pace. New York was everything I had imagined it to be, there was constantly sounds of cars honking and sirens in the background. Food carts on every corner, people walking fast to get to their destination, subway entrances and stations being as dirty as they are shown on TV. Everything I has seen about New York was actually there, I found this very surprising since movies and TV usually overexaggerate a setting but this was real. This famous city was actually how I thought it would be. Leaving the city was hard, I had grown used to the sights and sounds of the city. When I got back home to California, everything seemed quiet and slow, it took a few days to adjust to regular life, my short time in New York felt longer than just 5 days. Eventually I got used to being in California again but I will never forget New York. I can’t wait to go visit again, hopefully I’ll be able to spend more time in places because I’ll probably end up going there again on a trip on my own rather than visiting with a group. If you ever get the opportunity to visit New York, I highly recommend going.

The Reality of Traveling

Traveling is fun to dream about, but the reality of it is far from fantasy. Traveling is great and is always worth it, but consistently traveling can be extremely demanding. Waiting at airports can be a very irritating process, getting through the TSA and airport security can either very easy or extremely difficult. They either let you through no problem or stop you and go through all your items, I went through both when I was traveling. During my spring break, I took a trip to Hawaii and had a good time for the most part until the end of my trip. Due to some unfortunate circumstances, my family and I missed our plane, it was a terrible experience. We had to buy new plane tickets and wait a day, originally we planned on staying in the airport for the whole night until the next morning, but my family decided to stay a Best Western that was nearby. I ended up having to sleep on the floor that night. After 4 hours of sleep, we got up early and went to the airport. The flight home was nice, the plane was comfortable and time went by fast. Returning to California at around 4 pm in LAX, I would not reach home until 6 pm due to the traffic of the 405 freeway that takes me from Los Angeles to my home.

Travelling can be a real hassle, especially when it comes to flying. It is expensive and you need to take time off to do it, which can be hard for some people, but the cost is worth the experience. You get to see different sights and places, eat different foods, and enjoy a new environment. You can participate in different activities that you may not have at home and meet new people. I think it is important to go traveling once in a while, it is a fresh breath of air from the stale daily routines we do everyday in our regular lives. Although it may be a bit saddening to leave the place you traveled to, getting home becomes your main goal once you start your trip back. It is a great feeling to sleep in your own bed at night once you get back, you may even want to sleep in your own bed the second you get home. After doing some traveling, the once stale routine is now like an old friend that you haven’t seen in a while. You appreciate getting back to your regular life. Traveling can be hard, or it can be easy depending on how much money you are willing to spend. No matter how you travel, it is always worth it so if you can, just take a week off and go on a journey to that place you’ve always dreamed of.

Enjoying Silence

There are times when the world is just too loud, the noises seem like they will never end. I live in the suburbs so my environment always echoes of passing cars, sirens, and the consistent buzz of the thousands of busy humans interacting in the city I live in. Since I am always surrounded by noise, I enjoy the sound of stillness, a blank sound we call silence. It can be the loudest noise and the most quiet noise. When it is exposed, you cannot avoid its ringing. Although when accompanied by other sounds, it fades into the background and remains unheard until alone. Silence if selfish and greedy, it wants to be the main attraction of the show and refuses to be heard if other sounds are around. It always wants to be the center of the stage or it refuses to perform, unlike most noises that are perfectly content sharing the stage and creating an atmosphere of colorful sounds. Silence is black and white, it either echoes louder than all the other noises when its alone or it doesn’t even bother to make a sound. It is very hard to capture the performance of silence, in the world today, it rarely likes to perform. To take an audience with silence is to separate yourself from all other noise.

I once was in an area in the desert that didn’t have as much commotion as the city. When I separated myself from the other noises, I heard it. There wasn’t even any background atmosphere noise that you always had in the city, even if it was quiet directly around you, waves of background noises from far away flooded the environment. But in this desert place, that sound was absent. All I could here was silence, the sound was so powerful I could not ignore it. It echoed through my soul, it was the first time I’ve heard true silence. The quietness and silence was one of the most beautiful sounds one could here. It created an atmosphere of calmness and peace that could only be found in few places in the world. The lack of noise was the most unnatural natural sound I’ve ever heard. It is natural because sounds are created by things that wouldn’t be considered natural, before there was life on Earth, it must have been a quiet place. At the same time, the lack of noise was unnatural to me, I’ve been surrounded by a vast array of sounds, some wonderful while others are a nuisance and distracting. I was able to hear every thought in my head and feel my heartbeat as I listened to the silence make its sound of emptiness all around me. Although some fear silence, I think that silence is a beautiful thing. I love music as much as life itself, but silence is something else, alien to most people. We are always surrounded by a storm of noises, but if you ever encounter silence, I hope you can appreciate it as much a I do. You might even disagree with me and say that silence is not a sound, but if you ever encounter a deep silence, you will hear the emptiness we describe as silence. When all else fades, silence will always remain.

Activities I want to Try: Rock Climbing

Rock climbing is a very physically and mentally demanding sport, it is a challenge that looks very fun to me. I’ve always liked climbing things like trees and roofs of one story buildings but rock climbing is on a completely different level. Before I can start, I will probably need to enhance my strength and stamina a bit more but I really want to try. It can a bit dangerous because even if you’re strapped to a rope, you hit the rocks if you fall. Even with that danger, I’d still be willing to try, I imagine the feeling I would have after climbing to the top. It would be similar to completing a 5k or bicycle race, you would push yourself and endure to reach a goal. One of the main reasons I want to try rock climbing is for the view at the top of the mountain, it must be a spectacular view at the top. Another reason is the intense workout that the activity would be.

Rock climbing is an ancient sport that has been done for hundreds of years by a variety of different cultures, although it probably was for exploration and getting from place to place rather than sport. There are also several types of rock climbing that vary in difficulty and danger. Aid climbing is probably where I’ll start, it involves using weight gear that will aid my ascent. I want to become good enough to be able to free climb where I’ll only use ropes for safety and climb using my own strength and skill. Maybe if I enjoy rock climbing enough, I may even try free soloing, where there is no rope involved although it is extremely dangerous and a fall is lethal. I probably will never end up trying free soloing but it would be great if I got good enough to do it. Rock climbing looks like a very fun and exciting activity that I hope I can try one day.

The Power of Music

Music can be a very powerful medium of expression. It can do more than just making an environment less quiet, music has so much potential. Music can bring out our emotions, spread a message, and inspire us in new ways. It can also cause headaches, have poor messages, and be a negative influence on us. There is good music and bad music, most people will agree on that but which is the good music and which is the bad is where opinions begin to start branching off. I love and listen to many types of music and genres, I especially like indie music and classical. Sometimes I listen to heavy metal or rap when I feel like it, I am open to just about every genre of music. Music is one of my favorite forms of art, it can be so relaxing or can boost my mood. Music is something all cultures have in common besides language, music is just as much in our nature as language.

I love music because it is a unique way to express emotion through making beautiful sounds, it is also very fun to produce and artists can actually make large sums of money if they become popular. This ambition causes more people to want to create music, although my favorite artists are those who produce music for themselves or just because they love music. I find it amazing how sound can be so powerful and have impact on people, imagine a sad movie or an adventure movie without any music, it would completely change the atmosphere. Music can also be terrible although that is a matter of opinion. I personally dislike mainstream music because most of it has bad meanings or doesn’t sound musically invigorating to me, but that’s just my opinion, there is nothing wrong with liking that music except that you have no taste, just kidding. I believe that all music has value, all music either conveys beautiful messages or demonstrates talent, sometimes both. Music is so easy to listen to in the modern era and with apps like Spotify and Pandora, it’s free. You can also illegally download music, but that not exactly the best way to obtain music since you are not supporting the artist and the fact that it’s illegal. But most that first reason, if you really love an artist then you should purchase their music to support them. Music really is powerful though, there are songs that can move you to tears, make your day, or irritate and anger you. But when you listen to music you are hearing a message or story from an artist and it’s up to the listener to interpret the meaning. Some songs have obvious meanings, while the great ones leave you thinking. I wrote this post because I just wanted to express my appreciation of music and share my thoughts on the subject.

The Fun of Playing Poker

Recently, I learned how to play the game of poker. Specifically, texas holdem. When I learned how to play I understood why this game is so popular. It is not a game of pure luck, there is also a good amount of skill involved in playing the hands. Even if you receive cards that won’t win, you can still win. This can happen with the skill of bluffing, being uncertain whether your opponent is lying or not. If you play well and do not reveal your mental state or emotions, the bluff will most likely work. If you look like you’re bluffing or your opponents notice you only play when your hands are good, then you will be predictable and unable to bluff. The objective of the game, besides winning all the poker chips, is to throw off or confuse your opponents so they won’t be able to read you. This creates an uncertainty of whether you’re bluffing or not, making them more likely to fold or give up for the round. This skill will ultimately allow you to win more often, even with bad hands; which in turn will lead to victory.

I have many reasons why I learned to play. My family always plays poker during family get-togethers and I am always bored with nothing to do. If I can play poker with them, I won’t be so bored. I also like the concept of the game, victory can be obtained through deceit rather than pure luck. The joy of taking risks is another reason I like the game, the only way to win is to bet a lot. I am still quite the amateur at bluffing though, so I have a low success rate, but I feel really good when I do win from bluffiing. I personally really enjoy the game and the competitive atmosphere it creates, especially when a decent sum of money is bet. If you don’t know how to play, but you like taking risks and gambling; I suggest you learn to play. If you think you are excellent at confusing and outsmarting people; you should also learn to play. If you are very competitive in nature; then you should really learn to play. Don’t blame me if you lose large sums of money though, I am just trying to spread the joy of a game I love.

http://www.wikihow.com/Play-Poker

Being Sick :(

When it’s winter time, people tend to get sick. Those sick people make others sick, so there’s a good chance that one of those people could be you. Now it’s currently winter in the states but winter eventually will gain a hold in your region, so it’s important to be prepared for any kind of winter sicknesses like the flu. Currently,(as I write this post) I am feeling quite under the weather. My mother was sick recently so I may have caught something from her, or it may have been from someone else. One fact about being sick is that it is a very unpleasant experience, I’m pretty sure no one enjoys sickness. Usually when I catch something, it only has minor effects on my body and I can continue my day; although I’m always uncomfortable and weary. I would like to start off by giving ways to prevent getting sick because avoiding it will mean that you wouldn’t have to deal with its effects. One very easy and basic thing is to always wash your hands and keep them sanitary. We touch our faces subconsciously thousands of times a day: our faces have many entry ways for pathogens to enter, like our mouths, so washing your hands regularly is a good start to avoiding getting sick. Another way that is probably really obvious is to avoid those who are sick. Eating healthy to keep your immune system up so if you are exposed, your body can fight off the pathogens. Getting a flu shot is probably your best shot at preventing yourself from getting sick. These are some great ways to keep yourself from sick, trust me you don’t want to be sick, staying at home for a day is not worth it.

Now if you happen to get sick, there are ways to cope with it and even make your time sick shorter. If you find yourself sick, the first thing that you should do is make sure you don’t infect anyone else. Even if you’re not feeling sick enough, where you can still continue your day, take precautions to prevent you from spreading your illness. From the start when you first feel sick, start taking medicine to suppress your symptoms and help you recover faster. Another important thing is getting lots of nutrition and eating healthy to support your immune system in its fight against the pathogens in your body. Sleep is also very important when you’re not feeling well, make sure to get plenty of it to help you recover faster. These are some steps that I am using to put an end to my suffering, I am slowly starting to recover. I hope that this post is a good warning for you to be cautious of the sickness and preventing it from happening to you. Whenever I am not sick, I take my health for granted, so take this as my warning to you; being sick is terrible.