Grades

I'm a perfectionist. I want to get straight A's. Everytime I open veracross, I close my eyes, and slowly open, them, hoping none of my grades have dropped to a B. In the asian society, grades mean basically everything. To get a B is absolutely unacceptable. Well, not absolutely, but its enough to depress someone for days. For example, when I learned that I'm probably going to get a B for PE, I was absolutely down for the rest of the day. When we lost that one softball game which cost us the A, I felt like crying. And it sucked. Most of my team were really depressed. We tried our very best, but we still couldn't win. It's horrible being a loser. No one ever remembers the 'second place'. This is my life's motto. I have to be first, because no one cares about who is second. Does anyone remember who the second person to land on the moon is? No. Well, actually I do, but that's a different case. (By the way, the second person to land on the moon is Buzz Aldrin). Sometimes, I think I care about my grades too much, but I know that if I don't push myself, I won't be able to achieve the best that I could have done. I want to prove to people that I can change the world. I want to change the world. I want to go to a good college, and get a good job. But I'm not doing this for me. When I was younger, I used to tell my mom that I didn't have to be rich, and that I'd be happy, like from doing charity work. But my mom told me something that I will never forget: Money can't give you everything, but without money, you get nothing. This is a chinese proverb. Since then I've learned, that to change the world and help those in need, I need to first gain money and power. With money, I can provide more help to those in need, than if I didn't have money. This is my motivation of getting good grades. I don't care if I don't live a rich life with luxurious items. I couldn't care less if I didn't have the best products in my future life. All I care about is to help the people who actually need the money more than I do, and to help out animals and to save the earth. My motivation for working hard is that since I've been born to this world, and that so much resources have been wasted on me, why shouldn't I do something and repay our earth? It is everyone's responsibility to do their best to help our planet. Even though many people couldn't care less, I know that if I've done my part, and tried to persuade others to do the same, than I've tried my best and will have no regrets.

Halloween at PAS

Today is October 27th, so many people who read the title of this post will go "huh?" In PAS, we do Halloween not actually on the day. Who knows why. Today, we had only half a day of 'Halloween Fun'. First of all, I had 4 lessons: Geometry, English, Chemistry, and World History. Then we had lunch. Before that, we channged into our costumes. My Little Red Riding Hood costume was recognized by some. There were some pretty awesome costumes, like a friend of mine dressed up as 'Snake' a character from the video game 'Metal Gear'. He was all suited up as some special force operative, and hid in a cardboard box as cover. Some other friends dressed up as a celebrity couple, Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez. There were also other pretty creative costumes. This teacher dressed up as Mario in Mario Kart, with a wheel and everything. And another teacher dressed up as a 'comrade' (or Russian Revolution activist), with a hat and 'historically' accurate clothing (I think we can all guess what subject this teacher teaches). The office staff costumes were so awesome I can't even describe it. They were like Abba or something. But my favorite of all were the group costumes. I love group costumes. People come up with the coolest costumes. One of my favorite groups were the 'Wally's' from 'Where's Wally?' There were four Wally's and I think they even brought along a Where's Wally? book. Also, a group of boys dressed up as the Ghostbusters. I thought that was awesome. And then there were the group that dressed up as a hamburger. A hamburger. Someone was the bun, someone was the beef, someone was the lettuce, someone was the cheese, someone was the egg... etc. Also there were the Speedo boys. That was kind of disturbing. They wore a robe to school and I thought they were just the 'Robe People'. But turns out they were wearing Speedos under their robes. There was also another group that was dressed up as Pacman. And another group dressed up as Mario characters. I think the best part of the day was looking at all the costumes, but other than that the day wasn't that special.

Halloween Preperation

Tomorrow is Halloween in our school!! YAY!! Its going to be awesome. This year, I'm dressing up as Little Red Riding Hood. After missing two years of Halloween, I wasn't about to let if pass. So I got a red piece of cloth, and one of my mom's friends made it into a cape. Its a bit short, but its really pretty and I am forever thankful to her. I've also got these awesome boots I got in europe that I never really had a chance to wear. Also, I've got this small flat basket. I went shopping for bread to put in. In the end, I bought breadsticks and biscuits. I also decided to perk it up a little, so later on tonight, I'm going to test different scary makeup to try to atleast make the riding hood scary. Its hard to make a costume scary, I think, unless you're extremely talented, like one of my teachers at a summer camp, where he dressed up as Joker and almost made the little kids pee their pants and the older ones think Heath Ledger came back from the dead as Joker. It was really funny. So anyway, I helped out with many of my friend's costumes. It was fun. Most of us aren't scary, so that kind of defeats the purpose of Halloween, but its been defeated many times before so I'm not too worried. I think in Halloweens-Past for me, I've been stuff like a mummy (wrapped in cloth: REALLY hard to walk), a ghost (the art teacher painted my face blue, and I wore a white dress with blood stains, and my hair covering the entire of my face), a garbage fairy (this was in kindergarten, my dress was made of garbage bags, decorated with little bells, etc. it was kind of sad), a mask (I made a really not scary mask with an eye that pops out), a native american girl (I made the costume myself, and I was quite proud of it), and I can't remember others. I made most of the costumes, because I think that's part of the fun and spirit of Halloween. I think store-bought costumes are stupid. I've seen so many different interesting costumes. I love the group costumes because people come in all sorts of groups: Teletubbies, Winnie the Pooh, OnePiece characters, M&M's, mobs, etc. They're really fun to watch. Another amazing part about Halloween is the guessing of who is who. For example, you'll see someone in dressed as a huge yellow sponge with freckles and bunny teeth, and you'll immediately know its Spongebob, or you'll see a costume of a guy with floppy hair, fake glasses, vans shoes, flicking his hair, with a really bad voice, and somehow managing to resemble a girl, and you'll know its Justin Bieber. I love Halloween, and I'd hate for the Halloween spirit to die.

"You've Got Mail"

The movie "You've Got Mail" is probably one of my favorite films. Although its quite old, and I was maybe only 2 when it first came out, I absolutely fell in love with the movie the first time I watched it. The film is about two person, Kathleen Kelly and Joe Fox who are business rivals who fall in love over the internet. Initially, Kathleen Kelly, owner of 'The Shop Around The Corner', a children's bookstore inherited from her mother, is about to be put out of business by Joe Fox, who owns the chain of bookstores, 'Fox Books'. The two, in reality, have disagreements on the issue of putting eachother out of business, and hate eachother. However, on the internet through mailing with screen names (ShopGirl and NYC152), they don't know they are eachother and chat and bond over the internet. The stories later on developes into more conflicts, whereby Joe finds out 'ShopGirl's' identity, etc. The film was starring Tom Hanks as Joe Fox and Megan Ryan as Kathleen Kelly. I thought that throughout the whole film, the atmosphere was amazingly relaxed, sweet, and beautiful. The film itself was absolutely priceless for me. Also, because I like music from the 60's and 70's, the songs in the movie, mostly from those time periods, really made the movie even more amazing for me. The music certainly did contribute to the atmosphere of the movie. Also, I absolutely loved the plot of the movie. Everytime I watch this movie, I feel relaxed and can watch through it many times. This movie really makes me happy even when I'm not.

Naming children

If I were to have children in the future, I would probably adopt twin daughters, and maybe a son. I put a lot of thought into what I should name them. If I could afford it, I would adopt as many children as possible just so I could give them the most wonderful names. For example, one set of names for twin daughters would be Alexia and Ashley. I think names starting with A's are beautiful, and they could be nicknamed the double A batteries. Haha. Also, I've always wanted either Alexia or Ashley as a name for myself. As a person with a significantly short name, I'd love to have a name where there could be a nickname. My name is too short to have a nickname. I have a friend called Alexia, and people call her Lexi for short. Also, Ashley could be Ash for short. If I were to have only one daughter, I would name her Rose. Roses are my favorite type of flowers, and I think the most beautiful. I think Alexandra is a pretty name as well. I'd also love to have Alexandra as a name and have Alex as a nickname, because I think unisex nicknames are cool. I also really like names that are named after colors, like Hazel and Amber. I think those are two really pretty names. I know definitely that I will not name my child something like Anne, or Emma, or Sophie, or Milly, because I think those names are not unique and are far too common. Although, I do think that Alice is a pretty name, and so is Johanna. Ali could be short for Alice and Jojo could be short for Johanna ( I have a friend called Johanna, and she was called Jojo for short). I think that names represent a lot about a person. Sometimes, you look at a person and you think, "Oh yeah, he does look like a Michael" etc. But I think children should have their own choice in names after. Although, I don't really prefer my name, I don't think I will change it. My name is unique, and as my friends constantly reminds me, it is short and sweet.

First MUN Conference

MUN had been really successful this year. This year I attended the HsinMUN conference. There, I met people from all over taiwan, from pingdong to taipei. It was amazing seeing such a great variety of people, there were people who originated from Taiwan, and also people from countries such as New Zealand,  South Africa, different parts of the US, etc. Everyone spoke in a different manner and accent. Some of the accents were really cool (like the british accent of the delegate of UK and the new zealand (?) accent of the delegate of germany) I was the delegate of Sudan for the HRC. It was REALLY hard! I supported the reso submitted by China on the issue of the promotion of peaceful assembly and association (i don't know how many times I've had to type the words 'assembly and association' for the purpose of this conference).Our reso was bashed by delegates of UK, USA, etc. It is hard for delegates of countries who are not as democratic to debate in such issues in the HRC. But personally, I found some of their criticisms were taken too far. They had crossed a line when talking about how our resolution was a waste of time, money, people, resources, etc. and when they said our reso was so bad it shouldn't be debated at all. However, they did bring up some fair points and I acknowledge them for that. The conference was really fun. A lot of the people were experienced and I had a fun time listening to different perspectives and angles of which the delegates would question eachother's resos. I learned a lot these two days and hope to attend more conferences.

Writing the Ghost Story.

Today, I continued a bit of my ghost story. I got really really scared when writing it. I think the weird thing is, when you watch a horror film, you want to watch it, knowing it will freak you out, and in the end you watch it, and get seriously freaked out. I hate horror films. But in sleepovers, there are on the 'have-to-do' list. I hate it, but we watch it anyway. Most of time during sleepover horror films, my head is stuffed in my pillow with ipods pugged in, and sometimes someone narrating. Now when I'm writing the ghost story, because I have to use my imagination, I get really scared. My imagination on ghosts, etc. is really wild. Every night, I imagine all these scenarios with encounters. Even now, as I'm kind of scared. My whole family is sleeping and I'm the only one awake. So when I was writing my ghost story, I listened to music, and it helps. Or else I'll get really freaked out. So now when I read my story, its actually not as frightening as I thought. I kind of dread reading everyone else's story tomorrow. I really hope I don't have a nightmare today. Because I got kind of freaked out, I think I'm going to finish my story at breakfast tomorrow. Today, because of basketball practise, I didn't get a lot of time. But I made good progress. So every year in Halloween, I dress up as something completely not scary. The scariest I've ever dressed up as is a mummy, which was stupid because all I did was wrap my self with strips of cloth and use safety pins to fasten it. This year, I'm going to dress up as something completely not scary. But its a surprise. This is my hint: its something from a French fairytale.