Sometimes I just want to sock someone in the nose. I obviously mean this statement figuratively but sometimes I get so riled up over things so stupid. I don’t mean I’m a little b*!/h that cries over everything, but I feel that a lot of stupid stuff happens to me. These emotions that are evoked from my pissed off self may define who I am to some people, however to me the way I deal with said frustrations defines who I am. Sometimes I eat, other times I try to wack golf balls as hard as possible, but most importantly I “sweep it out the door”. This is my twist on the common phrase of “sweeping it under the rug,” however I changed it for myself. I feel that sweeping the dirt under the rug implies its kept there and can’t be erased or forgotten, however under my rug there is an endless pit. There’s nothing going on back there, its void, null. There is no backstage or backstage party, once I sweep it behind the curtain its gone. I simply forget my emotion and uneasiness, what better coping mechanism could there be? In retrospect this may be destructive and it is obviously stupid to neglect self reflection, but hey at least I’m happy.
Recently iPhone 13 just came out. I have been using my iPhone XR for almost three years which means I’m thinking of buying a new phone. Furthermore, I have turned eighteen recently. In Taiwan age of eighteen means, you are an adult. I’m able to drive, go to clubs and do anything. In my family, we usually have a tradition that we celebrate, go to a fancy restaurant to congrats we have turned to an adult. Yet, I’m far from my family while I’m studying here in America. All I could do is celebrate with my friends. For me, I don’t feel the changes from a child to an adult, but I feel sad that I couldn’t be with my family during this huge transition. After my birthday, one of my friends is using the same phone as mine, and he wants to upgrade his phone. At this time, we have decided on buying a new phone together. I have decided to spend this much money to give myself an eighteenth birthday gift. I never spend this much money. I feel accomplish and happy. On the other hand, I feel it’s kind of a waste of money that my old phone didn’t break at all and still buy a new one. Nevertheless, I have done a lot of research that if the user using below than iPhone 11, iPhone 13 can be a great upgrade. There is a lot of features that have been upgraded including the battery life, the super retina XDR display, ceramic shield, and the A15 chip. If you are a user thats using iPhone 11 or below, it could be a huge upgrade for you.
NFL Sundays are great, especially in the foggy/misty Fall.
Waking up on cloudy Sunday knowing football is on is truly of the best feelings in the world. And if you are an owner of NFL Network Red Zone that is 7 hours of commercial free football. I start my NFL Sundays with nice balanced breakfast(which is usually leftovers from dinner the night before). Then I’ll turn on a pregame show and read a couple articles or watch highlights of Saturday’s college football games.
10 o’clock hits and it kick off for the morning games. I’ll flip through the various 10am games that are broadcasted on CBS, FOX, and NBC. Following the completion of the morning games I’ll make my way to kitchen to find lunch. Lunch is either a sandwich of now that the Fall is upon us SOOOOOUUUUP! I’m a massive soup guy, chicken noodle, matzo ball, Italian wedding are some of favorites.
Photo from USA TODAY Sports
Once I find a suitable meal I’ll head back to the couch to watch the afternoon games. Around this time is when I’ll make a deal with myself; the deal is I’ll start my homework during halftime of whatever game(s) I’m watching and I’ll finish it before dinner and Sunday Night Football. This deal fails 11 out of 10 times.
As the afternoon games wrap up I’ll set the table and eat dinner with my family. Following the end to dinner I’ll find myself back on the couch watching kickoff for that night’s SNF game. Once the games reality kicks in, with the sun being down and everyone in the house prepping for bedtime I once again realize that I’m in the same shorts and hoodie from the morning and still have a couple hours of homework to complete.
NFL Sunday’s in the Fall are amazing and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
Cake is just too much. Too much frosting (I’m allergic), too much sugar, too much cake.
My mom makes the best apple pie, I might be biased. The Schuette family is definitely more of an apple pie family over pumpkin pie. I don’t mind pumpkin pie, but I will get up during dinner to get more than three helpings of apple pie.
We as a family are such big apple pie lovers that my younger sister wrote about the pie.
photo credit: Kristine’s Kitchen
`Recipe:
Ingredients:
1 recipe pastry for a 9″ double crust pie
1/2 cup unsalted or salted butter
3 tablespoons all- purpose flour
1/4 cup of water
1/2 cup white sugar (or slightly less)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar (or slightly less)
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon- to taste (optional)
1 lemon; squeeze juice (add sugar to taste, the lemon will go on top of the apples to stop from browning)
Directions:
Preheat Oven to 425 degrees
Melt the butter in a saucepan, stir in flour to form a paste. Add water, white and brown sugar and bring to a boil. Reduce temperature and let simmer.
Drizzle some of the lemon juice and sugar liquid over apples; just enough to make sure the apples do not brown.
Place the bottom crust in a pan or use the one that came in the package. Put apples in a mixing bowl and drizzle less than half of the sugar/ butter liquid on apples. Put the apples in the crust, mound it slightly.
Cover the pie with a lattice and then pour sugar/ butter liquid over the crust. Brush to make the mixture cover the whole pie.
Line a tray with tin foil and place pie on top. During baking the pie might bubble over, this is a preventative.
Cover with tin foil and bake for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350 degrees; and continue to bake for 35-45 minutes or until apples are soft. Take of foil and let it cool for 5 minutes.
I could eat it for every meal if I had the opportunity. I eat all kinds of soup, from ramen to loaded potato soup. Most mornings I love to make egg drop soup. This type of soup is originally from China.
Egg Drop Soup is really easy to make and very customizable. Different veggies and go in, as well as different forms of protein. You could make full of spinach and crab, or have it plain and add a bit of chili oil. The way I make the soup could feed up to four people, but I end up eating it all by myself.
photo credit: The Woks of Life
Ingredients:
six cups of chicken stock, or veggie stock.
cut 2-4 green onions
2-3 cloves of garlic
Some ginger
four eggs
chili pepper flakes
white pepper
salt
cornstarch
water
sesame oil
whatever veggies and proteins you want to add
chili oil, if wanted
How to make the soup:
Broth:
Boil the chicken or veggie stock in a pot
Mince the garlic and add it to the pot
Grate ginger into broth
Shake white pepper and salt into broth for taste
Egg mixture:
In medium bowl crack four eggs and stir
Dice up green onions, put half into eggs
Add white pepper, salt, chili pepper to taste
Cornstarch slurry:
Add two tbsp of cornstarch into a small bowl
Stir in two tbsp of water
Add chili pepper flakes to the slurry
Soup:
If you want to add any protein or veggies do it now
If the protein needs to be cooked ahead of time, cook it while the broth is boiling
Add the eggs to the boiling broth, let it sit for two minutes
Stir in cornstarch slurry and let sit for another minute
As I joined the workforce over summer I found an underlying passion for making smoothies. From the outside smoothies seem basic and boring; but once I was introduced into the world of smoothie making my eyes were opened for the first time in my life. A good smoothie is defined by a smooth texture and an even yet diverse flavor profile. I mastered my techniques while working full time at a deli, juggling responsibilities and multiple orders at a time, while still sanctioning my control over every ingredient and the overall texture of the cool beverage. In the end, smoothie making taught me to keep a level head through adversity.
Crested Butte, Colorado. The best place to ski during the winters and get bitten by ants in the summer.
The duration of my vacation was about two weeks and it started with driving to TacoTime. The closest TacoTime was at a Vegas truck stop, the food made my stomach hurt. After eating the deep fried burritos, we started driving to St. George, Utah.
The view was spectacular and the climate was hot, like once I stepped outside the car I felt as though I was going to die from heatstroke. My sister and I swam in the pool, she tried to drown me. The next day we went on a hike on the outskirts of Zion National Park. The hike was called Spring Creek and it was in a slot, the different colors of the rocks were breathtaking.
After the long hike we explored St. George. We went to a couple of thrift shops, we did not find anything cool enough to buy, and visited Brigham Young’s winter home. We learned all about the Mormon church and were even approached to join, but we didn’t convert.
The next day we went on a small walk to Dixie rock and drove up Kolob Canyon. We made a couple of pit stops because pictures or it didn’t happen. Eventually we made it to our one mile hike to a lookout spot. While walking back to the car we heard a rattle, we almost got attacked by a rattlesnake.
After a couple of hours, more like nine hours, and a McDonald’s pitstop we made it to Grand Junction, Colorado. I tried Dairy Queen the first time, not worth the hype. We finally made it to Gunnison.
Our trip consisted of hiking, hiking, and more hiking. We hiked down the entirety of Crested Butte Mountain during a lightning and thunderstorm. The weather was bipolar, either too hot or too rainy and stormy. I toured my first college, Western Colorado University. The campus was gorgeous and the school had lots to offer, but Gunnison is the most boring town in existence.
My mom, sister, and I all went rafting. Every time we are in Colorado during the summer we go rafting, and get the craziest photos. Our family met us in Colorado and we went to an insanely late dinner, our reservation was at 9 O’clock pm. We went to a place called Slogars, they specialize in fried chicken.
Overall the trip to Colorado was amazing, but it was time to head back home. We drove to Bryce Canyon, Utah. It was two Best Westerns and that was basically the town. The food was not good, like LAUSD’s cafeteria food was more edible. In the morning we went to hike the Peekaboo Loop trail. It turns out that since there were mudslides before the trail was closed we illegally hiked a trail.
My mom found a nice restaurant in the town over, and the food was actually edible. We ordered pork chops, burrata, bread (OMG the bread was to die for), crab mac and cheese, french onion soup and a carrot salad. We could not leave without getting dessert, so we got three different options: chocolate bourbon mousse, cheesecake, and a rhubarb crumble.
The next day it was time for us to head home, we drove and drove and drove until we home. The trip was amazing but being home and sleeping in my own bed was exhilarating.
There are moments when I find myself caught in the cross fire between my heart and my head. I often cant decided weather or not I should listen to the voices in my head telling me what to do, or my heart guiding me in in the direction of possible heart break. I want to follow the direction of my heart, but my head always stops me and poses the question of “what if”
So now when my mind is blank, the thought of the matter at hand will cross my previously calm mind. And suddenly, there’s a sense of panic that overtakes me and I feel uneasy. As if I am stuck with a decision that for one reason or another, my mind can not physically comprehend because my heart will still get in the way.
One way or another, my heart and mind play tricks on each other, but both only have the best of intensions for my own happiness. So there lies the conflict, when is it that I listen to my head, and when do I listen to my heart?
Is it worth the minor lapses of fear and judgment for potential happiness? Or is it that I should disregard both and simply try and play it safe.
Even that question is too grand to answer for myself. So I still remain to question decisions, or simply protect myself from a risk just to avoid the confusion of my heart. I consistently bombard myself with the age old question of “what if?”
But maybe someday, I will listen to the deep feelings being stirred in my heart and follow that, for it could lead me to my greatest potential happiness. Maybe I will rebut the question of “what if?” with “why not?”.
From here I see my campus from an aerial view. If I turn around, I see the backs of the display books in the library. I feel as if I am spying on my own classes, looking through the glass as if admiring a fish tank. The empty space is filled with reflections of light as the mountains project onto the classroom air. The ceiling is as busy as the ground, as the light blends the air the way water blends light.
The soft, patchy hills feel uninviting up close as the pine needles keep me seated delicately. The towering trees are no mightier than grass in the valley, as the vertical space of campus is dominated by mountains, surrounded by empty air.
The birds aren’t tied to the ground. The space is theirs, and they are free to exist on a higher plane. They have their own conversations up here. They chatter amongst each other as I do with my friends in the confines of the trees.
For this moment, I am with them. I exist on the higher plane, resisting the hour where I will return to my path on the game board of campus. The ground is vast, and I never considered my ability to break my trails. I’ve existed on this campus for years, and I’ve traced the same route each day, etching my footprints into the ground. I’ve left spaces abandoned and ignored. There are pockets in the trees where I’ve never set foot. The heart of campus is in the green leaves, though I experience life on the white concrete, referencing the trees as accessories.
From afar, these trees are the campus. Each little patch on the mountain is a three dimensional plant that stands alone. The buildings are silent amongst the loud winds that rush through the branches, and are invisible behind the deep, warm tones of nature. Before returning to my concrete trail, I will keep in mind where the life of campus resides. My existence circles the trees, and my classroom is not as tall as I once believed.
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