There are many things I would like to write about in this journal, but the reality is that not all of it is the kind of content that I would honestly show to the public. Every Friday comes around and I spend all day trying to wrap my head around what to write about, and the name of the blog. I can honestly say that I feel like I have already written most of it down.
Today I want to write about something I’ve been into lately. Before I came to this school, I had barely touched a computer. The computer I am using now is the first one I got in my life. To be honest, I feel like it is about to reach the end of its useful life, so I would like to get a new computer this winter break. Something that my roommate and I have been into lately is playing typing games. You get points for typing for 5 minutes. Before I came to this school, my highest score on that test was 32. But the other day, after a long time, I got 78 points. I think it is a big improvement for me. This skill will help me in many things in my life, both in my work and in my studies. I am now looking forward to my score going up a little bit at a time. My goal is to be able to do blind touching perfectly by the time I graduate.
It was actually the best experience I’ve ever had. If you don’t know what SLDC is I’ll explain it.
It’s the student leadership and diversity conference, otherwise known as the POCC (people of color conference) At the conference we talk about things that normally aren’t addressed at our PWI’s (Primarily white institutions) We talk about microaggressions, inappropriate comments, or jokes, codesiwtching, and being proud of our culture. We have amazing inspirational strong guest speakers, who talk about their experiences as people of color. We have family groups that intermingle everybody of all races, cultures, sexualities, and ethnicities. They are huge groups of about 70 people. Home groups are smaller groups in our family groups where we can talk about topics more in-depth. We address things like abortion laws, cancel culture, and socioeconomic status. It is safe to say all these people were on a totally different level of maturity that isn’t in most teenagers. Not only that but they understood what it was like being in a PWI and related to the problems we went through. When I thought I was the only person going through this stuff at least 20 other people spoke up about similar if not the same experiences.
It wasn’t all serious talks and guest speeches. We didn’t sit for hours listening to one guy speak over and over. we would joke around, laugh, rap, dance, and party. The guest speakers would rap their speeches reaching into the depths of your soul.
It was life-changing.
I met the most amazing people ever. I got a whole new familia. My affinity group, the Latinx group, the loudest best most fun group, was probably the highlight of my trip. I met the most amazing people, I came out of my shell and was dancing with everyone. we had our own dance party at dinner which continued into our affinity group time right after. I have never felt so at home. I never wanted it to end.
alas it did, I cried a lot. The closing ceremony was a lot. One of the main speakers had us do an exercise where we found people we love, people who changed our lives, and people who made our experience. I didn’t last two seconds without crying. People came up to me thanking me for dragging them into the dance circle and teaching them to dance. I cried while hugging people I literally met two days ago. i probably cried for hours that day, my friends all made fun of me. I miss them.
I plan on using what I learned there to make OVS better. Making people aware, it’s hard but I’m working on it.
The title doesn’t lie. School seems to get harder and harder, with college, student government, and planning things for our affinity group. Although academics aren’t a lot of pressure, I sure did give myself many extracurricular things to do. Balancing everything is a lot of work. I’m pretty sure every senior can agree with that. The work is like a tapeworm. They find their way into you and eat all the nutrients you eat, and once they are done with that, they move on from you.
You’re left drained
If I’m being honest, I’m not sure what I’m writing. All I know is that I have a lot to do, but I’m not even sure where to start. I also feel like time is just moving on and I’m so busy doing everything that I’m not enjoying it. But I do have the most beautiful memories, I have some of the best people surrounding me. I’m looking forward to break but that’s also the halfway mark of my whole senior year. I also have to turn everything in for college.
Very scary stuff
I just hope I get to finish everything soon as I can finally look up and enjoy senior year.
I am terrified by the finals that I need to take next week. All year I’ve been talking about how I was going to make an academic comeback but instead, my grades just keep on dropping. This semester, my grades were pretty average and not too bad but I know that all of my grades will drop so far down once I take my finals. In English and ap world, I’m not too nervous because I understand what is happening. I am better at just keeping a summary of what we are doing. In chemistry and in Algebra II, I have no clue what is going on. There is way too much to memorize and since the first week of school, I have given up on these two subjects. Whenever I fail a test, which is a lot, I am always able to help myself by doing corrections. Unfortunately, there are no corrections for finals. I need to get lucky and hope that everyone in my class fails their exams so the grade can have the most insane curve.
When I was fifteen, I kept telling myself that I would have my license as soon as I turned sixteen. However, I didn’t start driver’s ed until I turned sixteen. I took months to start it, forget about it, and then finish it. I took the permit test two weeks ago, which was four months after I finished driver’s ed. However, I finally got behind the wheel and drove around a parking lot for the first time! Thirty seconds in I told my dad there was no way I would ever drive on the street. I don’t think I drove faster than ten mph at any point; the fact that people drive at seven times that speed every day baffles me. Driving reminded me that cars are completely operated by people (most of the time). Sitting in a car or seeing cars moving everywhere every day seems so natural and instinctive that everything almost seems automatic; it feels as if the cars move on their own the way that clouds or birds do.
I spent Thanksgiving this year in Mammoth. I essentially did nothing and that in itself was amazing. I got to catch up on family time including going on hours of dog walks with my mom. I also loved seeing that there was finally some snow on the ground.
I’m not sure if it’s surprising to me or not but the highlight of Mammoth was going to see the new Hunger Games movie with my family. What was surprising was how much my brother enjoyed the movie. That was something I didn’t expect. I’ve always loved watching all the Hunger Games movies but my brother hadn’t even seen all the movies in the series. Since watching the Prequel I’ve successfully gotten him to watch them all; As his sister, this is a big accomplishment.
The best part of the movie though was when my mom emulated every Karen in the world and told 3 annoying girls to stop talking. The greatest thing about this spectacle was the way multiple other random people in the movie theater joined in and told them to be quiet.
Being a dormer you really start to appreciate the time spent with your family because it unfortunately becomes few and far between.
The enthusiasm for watching movies then continued throughout break as my parents and I later watched the movie NYAD. I liked the movie but I did find the main character rather annoying. She was so intense and abrasive the entire time. I wouldn’t want to be friends with her. Despite my feelings about her, the movie was great. My mom loved it the most out of the three of us; she loves movies about crazy athletic achievements.
It’s not your fault, I know we are both very busy.
But are we really? If I have the time to lay on the floor and scroll on my phone for hours, if I have the time to sit and do nothing everywhere- in lunch lines, in cars, in classrooms, shouldn’t I have found a moment for you? I should have and I’m sorry.
It’s not all my fault though. You lay on the same floor, scroll the same phone, stand in the same lines, sit in the same car, wait out the same classes. You should have found time.
I think sometimes, I just don’t like you very much. I’d just rather scroll on my phone and think about nothing than work through anything with you. You’ve let me down a lot, and sometimes I don’t even know if I trust you. You forget things that you really should have remembered, and you say things when you really should have kept your mouth shut. When I am feeling down, I play those things over and over again in my head sometimes, until I feel worse. But I know I shouldn’t. It’s not your fault you can’t be perfect all the time, even though sometimes I wish you were.
You are a person that is allowed to make mistakes, and sometimes that comes in the form of a lapse in memory or a slip of the tongue. I know you try to do what you think is right, and you have grown as a person and will continue to do so. It’s not fair for me to judge you so harshly, because I don’t judge anyone I love so harshly, and I, of all people, should have some love for you.
For the first time since I came to the U.S., I am spending Thanksgiving with my friend outside of school. The thing I was looking forward to the most during this vacation was seeing my friend who graduated last year. When the holiday started, I thought it would be a bit long, as if I would have 10 days off, but now that it has started, I am surprised that it is already Friday. Friday is the deadline for this blog, which is a little depressing, but Friday and Saturday are my favorite days of the week, so I’m happy about that. To be honest, not going to school and not seeing my friends are the parts of the vacation I miss a little. This morning I went to Beverly Hills to see a friend who graduated last year. She was my roommate in my freshman year. She is very kind and has a beautiful heart. I was really looking forward to seeing her again. She usually goes to college about 5 hours away by car, so I can’t see her. We had lunch there. We had a variety of fish dishes, which were very tasty. After that, we walked around the area. There I bought a dog doll that I had been in love with for a while. I am sure I would have regretted not buying it, so I think I made the right decision. After that, we came home and made cabbage rolls. My mother’s cabbage rolls are one of her top 10 favorite homemade dishes. I couldn’t make it as well as my mother, but I was very happy that everyone liked it. After that, we watched a Korean drama while eating gelato, which I had been curious about for a long time. I was very happy to spend time with them after a long time. I hope to see her again soon.
Making a Christmas and Hanukah list gives me so much anxiety. My parents always want my list by a certain day, and I never know what to put on it. Sure, I want plenty of things. I am addicted to shopping, but I am almost guaranteed to get what’s on the list, and I don’t want to waste it on something I don’t absolutely adore. This leads me to a serious of questions to decide if the item is worth making my list.
Will it match with my other clothes?
How likely am I to wear this regularly. (will it just sit in my drawers and be worn a few times)
Do I own something similar already?
These questions narrow down the options and help me make my list. Last year, I forgot to turn in my list and just got money, which I was grateful for, but I love Christmas. My favorite part is opening gifts while listening to music. I celebrate both Hanukah and Christmas and although my family doesn’t light all the candles or eat a Christmas dinner altogether, I still love the holidays. I also love drinking pumpkin chai, wearing sweaters, and rewatching Gilmore Girls. Summer of course is still my favorite season because nothing can beat being tan and spending nights driving and blasting music.
So we all know what van life is and I’m pretty sure you can guess what bus life is. I’ve wanted to live in a van for a long time and wanted to convert one with my own hands and make it exactly how I want it, but recently I’ve been having doubts about whether I should live in a van because vans don’t have a lot of space so I couldn’t put a lot in there. However, a bus has quite a lot of space to put all the things I want there which is a lot. For example, there is almost no way I’m going to be able to fit a moped in a van like it’s not gonna happen. Also, I need a lot of power for everything and the best way I can get that is through solar and I could fit a lot more solar panels on a bus than a van. The bus is not perfect though it takes a lot of gas and I can’t get into certain places as easy compared to the van which is a big issue since I want to go to a lot of places that would need go like if I ever wanted to park in a normal parking lot i would need to take up about 5 spaces but in a van i could just do one. I might try and meet in the middle and do a box truck because that can get to most places but still has a good amount of space. I guess I don’t have to think about this to much right now but there’s a lot to think of so maybe I should start planning now.
OVS Journalism Blog 
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