Category: feelings

untitled

unicornownerLeave a comment

I started my junior year one month ago, which I have been waiting for pretty long time ago. I heard this year will be super tough, taking tons of AP courses, preparing for quizzes, tests, exams, and finals that come one after another. Besides, also need to take care about extracurricular activities, social relationships, being a student leader or something like that. All of those things are taking up both my time and energy. 

photo credit: jjhsfocus.com

It has been 4 weeks since this school year started.

What did I do so far? I don’t know. Probably nothing. 

Nah. I definitely did something, not just something, I have done a lot of things.

I wrote four reading journals and rewrote them several times, three short answer questions, two stories, one lab report, took the first unit exams for all my classes…… Almost every day was extremely busy, I got super exhausted every night, and need to refill my energy level back up every morning.

Actually, the school itself, does not seem to be that much more challenging compared to last year. And the challenges I am struggling with now are not really difficult, they’re just new to me.

There are always ups and downs in life. I am happy I have someone to share both my happiness and unhappiness. 

where my eyes cease to look

icaruswithwarmwingsLeave a comment

If I may,

through ye rivers

through ye trees

it is you who have suffered

by the hand of me

with starlets faded

and trumpets drowned

ye murky streams

stood idle

held fast in winter sounds

– you’re a river –

ancient winnings left unsung

you’re my peer, my equal

yet you still leave me stung 

ye valley, ye hillside, ye marbled dismay

covered in oleander

onward ye May

ye gargling, ye moving, ye ponderous brook 

(struck through me!)

a center it took

“Tear me to pieces

cut out where my eyes cease to look”

and just then will they open to see

the face of summer laughing at me

with eyes open wide 

my love it did wander

for bitter I was

my heart it did squander:

ye forest, ye mountain, ye breeze

ye sunglass driving, ye proliferate bees.

Suppose I am the offspring of thine shepherd:

you are the hunt,

that which I am after.

and with the fall comes the rapid convergence:

mine sweet love’s resurgence

But once again the autumn leaves took

to a different stream or babbling brook

and forevermore I am wandering in a forest ever stranger

of perilous rot

and cavernous danger

All that which a summer could bring!

but once again I am searching for a longer sting

and what of the prospect? What this winter will bring!

while more I could say might strengthen the pressure 

I leave with you no words, no rhyme, no measure

that might contrast mine song of May

it tingles, it trickles, and just may delight

in telling a story of our precarious plight

with the sincerest intentions on an immeasurable scale,

all that you’re left with is a tacky email

and no words, no sermons, no divine light

could bring you back the way it would 

into my life.

minutes later you answer:

true love is true love’s killer

Credit: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1992.5112/

How to make a better OVS

hwan6031Leave a comment

OVS for sure is a great school, however, I believe there are some parts that could be better in future perspective. For example, breakfast check in. In my opinion, breakfast check in is inefficient for both boarders and teachers. Derived from my experience, it is hard to finish the school work within study hall period, so I would stay up late to finish my work. However, OVS requires borders to check in by 7:35. As a result, students who stayed up late struggle to make it to check in. Students would have to wake up super early to get ready for school.

Credit: gettyimages

If school gets rid of breakfast check in, or if school could make breakfast check in as punishment for misbehavior. Student would start off day lively and they would better perform in school by focusing more in classes. Therefore school should not force students for breakfast check in for students, which would benefit the school as a result.

Remember

slimjimsilversLeave a comment

By no standards are my Chinese skills any more than proficient. After moving away at the age of 12, things started to fade for me very quickly. After six months I forgot how to write; after a year, my reading; then finally, my identity.

By the time I entered the eighth grade, I had been thoroughly white-washed. Granted, I am only half Chinese, but I was raised to embrace my Chinese background, to be proud of my heritage. But it was slipping away.

I went back to China the summer before I entered my Freshman year of High School. I wasn’t able to handle the street-food, my 8-year-old cousin was speaking better than I was, and I had lost a connection with the country that raised me.

Before I left my Grandmother repeated something to me that she had told me before I moved away. “Remember,” she said simply, “Remember where you come from.” When she said this, I realized it was a plea for me to clasp onto my cultural identity that was on the cusp of being extinguished. I had a life in China, friends, family, and a part of myself that never seems to board the flight to LAX when my visits end.

So I listened to her, I pushed myself to retain the identity I found in being Chinese, I acknowledged the comments of being only half, being unable to communicate, but they don’t bother me. When I listen to songs from my childhood, when I go back to visit, when I speak my native tongue, no matter how poor it is, I feel like myself again.

There are certain things in everyone’s life that hold invaluable, unspeakable significance to their sense of self, to their state of being, that without it, they feel like a bulb without its filament. To me that is the ability to speak in Chinese. As soon as the words escape me, I feel that connection again, I remember the people, taste the food, experience the culture. I am eternally grateful to my Grandmother for what she instilled in me because I know that at my lowest moments I always have something to lean on.

Happy Birthday Derek

shower thoughts

djrendezvous3Leave a comment

The entire day, I have been thinking about what to write and what to say. Quite frankly, I have nothing to say. So here is everything that has been swallowing me alive this week:

  1. This week, I have exhausted my opinions and today, I feel indifferent about all those previous feelings.
  2. Being a Libra, one of my qualities, more like flaws, is that I am indecisive. Sometimes, I cannot make a decision even if my life depended on it and that scares me as I apply for college.
  3. I am so excited to vote next year.
  4. I am done with the cliches that I hear in music and see on TV. Why can’t the world be real with me?
  5. How much water is too much water to drink?
  6. The sun is literally going to cook me alive and sunscreen will not stop it.
  7. Why did all my teacher’s decide to give me tests in the same week? Just wondering.
  8. I believe that we are not alone in this universe and I want to be the one to truly prove that.
  9. The world is crumbling under our feet and so many people are careless about it.
  10. Clouds are crazy.
  11. I am a consumer and I hate it.
  12. Even though its 100 degrees, I want to be in a hot tub.
  13. Is it okay if my conditioner is my best friend?

This is a brief look inside my brain and conscience this week.

Photo Credit: i-love-png.com

Education Abroad

unicornownerLeave a comment

Nowadays, personal knowledge becomes much more important with the high development of technology, since the machine and robots can replace the manpower.  Almost everyone is eager for studying more knowledge or letting their children get a better education. Based on this, more and more people choose to attend a boarding school overseas, and the most popular destination in America. However, attending a boarding school in the U.S. is still a controversial issue.

From my own experience of studying and living here, my feeling is very great. I remember the first day I came here, I was so nervous and confused. A totally strange environment with unfamiliar people speaking a language that I could barely understand. But with time, I felt more and more comfortable. I started to laugh again. I could communicate in another language and make my own opinion in class. I made a great number of new friends and we have fun every moment. Without my family’s company and help, I started trying some things that I had never done before. I can put my room in order and sweep the room by myself. I can pack my things for a trip and go to homestay during the break. I can take care of myself and know what do to when I get sick. I feel much more independent and confident than before.

To sum it up, although studying abroad will cost a great amount of money and stay so far away from home, in my opinion it is worth it. What you will learn and what you will experience in studying overseas can not be bought by money. It will make your own life become unique from others.

Photo credit: eliteoverseaseducation.com


Half-Life

americanapolloLeave a comment

It is common knowledge that Junior year is (most likely) the hardest year of a students high school career. At least that is the case at OVS, where AP courses dominate one’s time and extra curriculars are essential. Senior year is supposed to be different though. There’s the anticipation of college, of being an adult, of spending the last year with people that you’ve grown up with. That’s what I thought when I arrived a week late to school. I expected a general sense of positive anticipation, of laxness and comradery. At first that was true. Everything had a tinge of refreshment and independence. But there was a feeling there that I didn’t expect, but that I was strangely familiar with. And as the days progressed, that feeling expanded, suffocating those sentiments of senior status. Then I began seeing it in other people. Not everyone. Not to the same degree that I was feeling it. But it wasn’t just me.  It’s something like this, quoting a good friend of mine: “It feels like I’m rotting on the inside and out, if that makes sense.” To me, it makes perfect sense. That was the feeling that had been growing. A general sense of self degradation. I wasn’t the person that I used to be. Maybe it’s change. Maybe it’s stress. Maybe it’s life experience. I don’t know the cause, but it’s there nonetheless. It’s frightening, even more so when two of your closest friends express those same sentiments to you within a week. Maybe it’s just me, and those of you reading this don’t feel it at all. But if you do feel like something is hollowing you out, if you feel like there’s an unstoppable source of existential decay, then try smiling a little more. Tell your friends you care about them.  Do something good every day.

Who knows, maybe you’ll end up on our thumbs up segment of The Wednesday Briefing.

Credit: ojaivisitors.com

Year III

mypetlobster1Leave a comment

This is my last year in high school where my grades need to be A’s, where my extra curricular activities matter. This is my last year where cramming in PSAT prep will benefit me, and the last year where SAT prep is a dreaded ritual.

After this year, the hours on hours of work, sleepless nights,  cramming for texts, student leadership applications, struggles I faced, fun memories I had, volunteer activities, extra curriculars, and sports achievements will all be put on to a single document… The last three years of my life will be put on a document; an application.

By the end of this year I’m supposed to have a general idea of my life plan, my career, and my identity.

By the end of the year I’m supposed to have perfect SAT scores, ACT scores, and 5’s on AP tests.

By the end of the year I’m supposed to be a person who will stand out amongst millions of other applicants.

This is my last year to become who colleges want me to be while still trying to stay true to the person I want to be.

In less than 365 days, I will need a paper explaining who I am, what I want to do, what I stand for, what sets me apart, and why I belong at the college receiving the paper. All of who I am, all of why I’m special, and all of why I belong in 650 words.

A transcript and 650 words which will determine my future, career and where I will be for the next four to eight years.

A lot to think about… a lot to do, a lot at stake. Welcome to junior year.

Photo Credit: artsy.net

iCARus

icaruswithwarmwingsLeave a comment

if this car dings at me one more time

if another ding reverberates through my ears

i swear to god

have i missed something? does the whole world revolve around this car’s dire need for washer fluid?

well you know heckin what, car

i dont care that your washer level is low

i dont care that your tire pressure is a potential threat to my safety

i dont care that maintenance was required a substantial amount of months ago

or that your entire existence rests on trying to prohibit me from listening to Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!

(finally some much needed radio silence, my normally needy car gives me a breather, i turn into 89.3 KPCC like any self-important masochist. ahhhh. how lucky i am to tune into the sweet sweet sonorous sound of the voice of Peter Sagal the host of NPR’s greatest and only radio game show. my car obviously understands the pleasurable tones created by the one and only Bill Kurtis, the narrator of this great weekly hour of radio. and my car picks now as the perfect time to send a certifiable fuck ton of alerts, ranging from topics as important as aforementioned washer fluid or that the car is in need of a software update, blaring through my car speakers. now quite honestly i didn’t know cars could even have software updates, let alone that they were so important that i should miss an important line of NPR’s most high-quality comedic banter, but i swear to all the gods that may be, if this self important piece of german engineering chimes at me again there will be a germany sized whole in the continent known as europe)

your chorus of chimes and beeps and brrrungs remind me the second i turn the key that my seat belt should be on. i was just about to put it on, but obviously im not quick enough for you and your quarter of a second delay.

a vehicle is anything that moves or transports. this car is more something that annoys me more than OSX updates.

(OSX updates that the lovely folks at apple think are priority numero uno, however we know this to be false, i have to put new windshield wiper fluid in my car.)

forgive me oh state farm for i have sinned i have wronged mine car. my car that moves or transports like it is meant to; that roars and tears into its intricacies, generating a herd of horses to move or transport me to and from school; that pairs, through the magic that is bluetooth, to my phone bringing me summer reading audio books as well as crosby, stills, nash, and young all the same.

my car which takes me to coffee and groceries, that supplies a warm butt in the mornings and cool AC in the afternoon.

you defrost thine own windows, you display thine own manual. you know thine own tire pressure, you never cease to tell me about it.

you’re a mechanical beast that does so much more than moving and transporting. you purr when you idle, content to cool and blast NPR. you roar when i press on the gas in neutral by accident. and you alert me with hope in your chime about the absence of washer fluid in your stores.

but you, oh vehicle of my dreams, oh vehicle my parents so rarely let me drive, you annoy me so deeply and to the core i am tempted to just walk.

Forget about the car on the bike or the guy sitting on the car hood! Look at the cow in the balcony:)

day dreaming

djrendezvous3Leave a comment

I like to live in my head a lot. My mind is racing constantly with ideas, things to say, ways to approach conflicts, what to wear the next day. But most prominently, I see myself taking several different paths in my life, each of them dramatically different and in each of them, the same me.

I see myself going to New York after school and being an assistant to a high-up, liberal lawyer who defends the rights of the people.

I see myself traveling the world, opening my mind and not settling down until later in my life.

I see myself never coming back to Ojai.

I see myself becoming a cook and writing about my connection to food and the happiness it brings me and others.

I see myself being a complete activist who stands up for social and environmental causes resulting in a better, happier planet.

But I also see myself doing exactly what I currently plan on doing, going to school and becoming educated.

Even though each of these potential futures that I have created for myself are drastically different, there is a common thread, and that’s my happiness. I find myself extremely joyed in each of these positions. I am able to be myself.

I am at a point in my life where, for the first time, I can choose what I want to do in my future without restrictions. Now, taking my life into my own hands is a reality. But I have to ask myself, what am I prepared to do to get to one of these places?

credit soflete.com