Day: October 23, 2011

Why Me?

yrreskrap1 Comment

October 20, 2011, Thursday morning.

The familiar buzz of my alarm shook me from my sleep. A heavy hand reached over, my drowsy fingers searching for the Dismiss button, rather than the usual Snooze.

I had woken up with one thing on my mind.

I sat up, my hands grabbing the computer and placing it on my lap. I refreshed the awaiting Collegeboard page that was already open on Google Chrome. I signed in again and…

I couldn’t believe it.

Could it be true? Was I too tired? Was I seeing things?

Again. My fingers tapped the refresh button. But the same score prevailed my cyber attack.

My SAT score had increased 240 point since the last test. My cumulative 5 months of straight studying had paid off! Immediately, I ran down the hall screaming for my roommate and Sungjin. Then, happy phone calls to my proud mother and father.

October 21, 2011, Friday evening.

With a heavy feeling in my heart, I checked my phone. The email accounts in my phone did not receive any mail but college junk mail.

It should’ve come by now. It should be here. Maybe…

Thousands of thoughts rushed into my head and I brushed them off. Worrying wouldn’t change anything.

Wishfully thinking, I double checked each email account I had on the internet browser. Nothing…

…until I checked my POP/junk mail folder on my hotmail account.

“National College Match Application Status” sent at 12:01 pm. Goodness, it was already halfway past seven, I should have checked earlier.

My fingers pressed the small icon before my heart was ready for the news.

My eyes couldn’t believe it and my heart beat at 9187431938471 miles an hour.

“Dear Serry,We are pleased to inform you that you have been chosen as a finalist for the 2011 QuestBridge National College Match! “

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHH I’M A FINALIST AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” I screamed for joy! My track coach, probably scared out of his wits next to me in the Ojai Valley School Van, said, “No way!”

He had been helping me with these essays before I turned the applications in. Without his help, I don’t believe I would have gotten this far. (Thank you so much!)

Now, my next deadline is November 1. I need to submit all my applications by then and wait until December 1.

But until then, I can’t give up or slow my pace! I just need to try hard and pray even harder. Thank God for how far I’ve come. I can definitely see his hand working in my life, molding the paths I take. Although I know that this is just one step of the way, I am confident that God will lead me to the right direction.

VP: Does it Mean Anything?

therightliberal2 Comments

Being Vice President of the United States seems like a big deal. I mean, by the title, it seems to be the second most important job in the US. But is it?

No. It really is not to be honest.

Let’s think about how much power Joe Biden has. If there is a deadlock in the Senate, he has the tie-breaking vote. But because everyone knows which way he will vote, there never ends up being a need.

Nowadays the VP doesn’t even show up to the Senate, they always elect a President pro tempore. So what else are the VP’s duties.

Well really not anything. They are the first up in the line of succession so they need to keep up on all the goings on just in case the President becomes unable to serve. For the most part they go around campaigning and enjoying a nice pay check and some media coverage.

But I think there is a role for the VP, and Joe Biden does a good job of it.

Biden is really an average Joe (lots of pun intended). Listening to him talk in an interview is like listening to a local politician talk about Washington. And with the general population growing more and more uncomfortable with intelligent politicians (just look at the GOP field) it is good to have someone who can converse with the general voter.

To be honest, if there was to be a huge disaster in the US, I would want Biden to talk to the people, because he would be honest and to the point. He does not seem to be too motivated by the politics of Washington (most likely because he is not involved) and he understands Americans.

Dick Cheney was quite the opposite. While Biden comes off as a goofy and  an average guy, Cheney was the evil Sith Lord who was pulling all the strings in the executive office.

And that was the problem. Cheney was never supposed to have the power he had. The VP should not be the one controlling the country, they should be the one at the local bar getting to know the people. They should be the ones who go around the country campaigning because they have nothing better to do.

Cheney had so much power that he could not even be called VP. He was more Evil Overlord of America. Cheney is a very smart man who saw opportunity in the VP position. He realized that Bush was so weak that he could take over control of both the White House and much of the Senate.

So to answer the title of this blog, yes, the VP position CAN mean something. Chances are it doesn’t, but there are certain pairings of President and VP that turn it in to a meaningful post.

But for the sake of the country, let’s keep it meaningless. Let’s fill it with down to earth people who are able to stay attached to the real world instead of becoming entwined with the mysterious world of politics. Let’s have more Joe Bidens.

Private School Cheerleaders=Irritating Teenage Girls

r3t5nom1 Comment

Today I traveled to the distant land of Orcutt California with the girls JV and varsity volleyball players as their manager. First off we rode in a bus that seated almost exactly the amount of players going and the bus ride was too long. Secondly, the bus ride back was too long.

l
But it wasn’t the bus ride that got me irritated and grumpy, it was the Orcutt volleyball teams cheerleaders that just triggered my frustration.

They were loud.

They were obnoxious.

They were CHEERLEADERS.

And not the kind of cheerleaders that look like these and do things like these:

But more like these:d

hahaha!

I believe that it is disrespectful to cheer while the other team is attempting to serve the ball. Cheering is fun, it is something that gets people amped up and ready to play but everything has its time. When the other team is serving is not the time.

Am I the only one who feels this way?

How do you feel?

Mt.Sac!

thehungryrunnergirl3 Comments

Mt.Sac is the coolest meet I have ever run.

Since Puma hosts this meet, there were shops, game booth, ping-pong table, and DJs were playing music! Also, a big screen showed the runners running in real-time! It was such a fun meet!

The course was pretty hard. I can’t remember, but I think I ran up maybe 4 or 5 steep hills. My back and abs were hurting at the hills… But I loved that course in spite of its difficulty! Hearing my coach yell “What hill?” motivated me to speed up. Cheering always helps.

Overall, we all did great! Even though our girls team couldn’t compete as a team, all 4 of us ran hard finishing strong!

I’d like to thank my coach (thebrownguy) and those of you who supported us! Great job everyone!

GO OVS CROSS COUNTRY!

Fast Food.

YourcupateaLeave a comment

in-n-out

Fast food, in the eyes of many, means bad food.  I am going to stand up against the masses and say this is not always the case. Ok it’s greasy, fatty and is often a heart attack wrapped in a piece of paper but it can, and often does, taste good.

The one thing with fast food is that if your going to eat it you have to go all out and eat it properly.  Eat it properly what do you mean? I hear you ask. No this does not mean supersize your meal, instead it means go to the right place.

Fast food does not have to be fake food. Today as I waited for my In-N-Out Burger I admired the chef’s making fries from peeled potatoes. Yes there were real vegetables in a fast food kitchen. I know, a miracle right? Not all fast food is made from frozen fries and flesh; instead some is made extremely fresh.

Although fast food is full of fat, and a lot of the time you don’t want to know what’s inside what you’re eating, there are some times when what you’re eating is not as sinister as you believe. Fast food tastes good and can sometimes be better than you think.

Spudfest!

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Face painting, tie-dying, rubber chicken tossing, water balloon tossing, dunk tank, laser tag – you name it, Spudfest’s got it.

This Friday was the best day of the school year so far, and will most likely be one of the best overall.

I got up at 7 and went to breakfast as usual, came back, put on my team comp shirt, and went to blow up orange and black balloons in the spirit of Halloween, then doodle with some chalk in the black hole with my best friends 🙂

And then we went to play team comp where my team, the Mosquitoes, DOMINATED!
Especially in the chicken launch where I was the launcher.
Teaming up with the 8th graders was surprisingly fun, too. It was good to have them up here and show them a good time.

So many good things happened that day, including dunking one of my best friends in the dunk tank on the first try, making friendship bracelets, tie-dying some awesome designs onto my t-shirts, and painting faces.

This day really reminded me of how lucky I am to be here, and how great it can be.
And it also reminded me how great my friends are.
I love all of you. Spudfest is fun and all, but it wouldn’t be fun if each and every one of my friends was there. I am so thankful for that.



Adios Iraq

therightliberalLeave a comment

This past week, President Obama announced that all troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of 2011, just months away.

What fantastic news! It was not our place to go in to Iraq for oil in the first place and we are finally getting out of there.

Hopefully our role as the World Police is fading. Unfortunately the fact that it is fading has more to do with our financial situation than our realization that our invasions of other countries is unethical.

So for a celebration and a little fun, let’s look back at some of our idiotic invasions.

Chile: A CIA led coup to overthrow the government of Chile in 1973. We went in because we did not agree with Marxism, which when you think about it is a really stupid reason. It shouldn’t matter what we think of another countries government, it should matter what the people think about it.

Cambodia: Really the whole invasion of Southern Asia but Cambodia was the most ridiculous in my mind. We had no right to be there and yet our bombings and war tactics lead to the deaths of over 2 million people. Not soldiers, not corrupt leaders, just people.

Lebanon: Our military actions against the Shi’a “rebels” was just ridiculous. They were not killing their own people and they were not going after other countries. And even if there were some questions regarding their positions on social issues, what authority was given to us to go in and invade?

Saudi Arabia/Iraq: 1990 saw some of the most obvious forms of the World Police. We took sides in the Kuwait and Iraq conflict. We killed over 200,000 people in Iraq (yes that is people again, not just soldiers and leaders, people) because we felt Kuwait needed some protection. This spelled a huge turning point in the US’s foreign policy in the Middle East, it all went down hill from there.

There are many that I did not include, many other very important instances of the US overstepping their authority. Now spells the end of another chapter of these, frankly stupid, invasions.

I hope that we have learned, that we realize that all these invasions do is cause death and debt. But history tells me there is no point in having hope, that our need to dictate the “proper” forms of government and social treatment outweighs our common sense.

So just try, try to realize the lack of progress each one of these invasions spells. Let’s learn something.

Sunsets

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No enhancements were made to these photos.

I love sunsets.  They’re in bad romances and lame, angsty teen novels, unforgettable movies, and great literary master pieces.  Artists and poets have colored miles of canvas and thousands of pages depicting and describing their radiant beauty.  Twilight (ironically the unfortunate name of another angsty teen novel) is an enchanting hour.  It is the time of day when all three of the great celestial entities exist together.  The sun sets, the moon rises and the stars just begin to emerge.

Kona, 2003:

I’m lucky enough to live by the beach.  The bay we live near faces south instead of west, so the sun never sets in front of my house, except for a short time in one season.  All year, I look forward to winter sunsets.  As December rolls around, the sun inches slowly south on the horizon, sinking into the sea right over the Channel Islands.

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I Met My Super Hero

bedghostLeave a comment

Growing up in the age of violent video games was the best.

Teens around my age and time, who are major video gamers, will always recognize the numbers “117.” Yes. I know…awesome. For those who don’t know, the numbers refer to the beloved alien killer “Master Chief” of the Halo series. The Character is so world-wide known. You might even call him a super star. And like all super stars he has to have a wax statue of himself in the famous Madam Tussauds Wax museum. The statue stands at 7.2 feet tall and weights about 275 Lbs. The Chief took more than 800 hours to be immortalized as wax.

master chief

It was great seeing one of my childhood heroes face to face. For a second, it took me back to when I was 13 again.