I read and watched “All the President’s Men” this summer. The movie did away with a lot of the excess detail I felt the book was packed with, so I recommend it a little more. They’re about the infamous Watergate Scandal, and how these two reporters (Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein) induced the first Presidential Resignation in U.S. history. This all happened after they investigated and reported on this conspiracy that was heavily covered up. The scandal was essentially before Richard Nixon’s re-election, his administration broke into the opposing party’s headquarters trying to find dirt on them. This is very bad and illegal so the stakes/tensions were high.
I think investigative journalism, which is fading today, is pretty interesting. It shows how hard journalism can be: persistent phone calls, traveling, waiting hours for minute-long, sometimes fruitless, discussions. Everything the reporters chose to publish was risky too, their reputations and jobs at The Washington Post were at stake. I don’t know how the portrayal of Woodward’s and Bernstein’s journey compares to actual journalism but I still was really impressed.
Today the OVS surf club opened the year with essentially a perfect dawn patrol. Although the waves weren’t incredible, we had 24 people in the water, and the OVS kids’ energy was immaculate. Even Liam (who was snaking and tackling kids off waves) was keeping everyone in a good mood. For me, that’s what surfing is all about; just having fun in the water. I’m stoked to have such a large surfing crew at OVS. Although I’m not the only surfer and certainly not the best, I was basically the only one pushing Byars for more surf-related activities last year. I mean most of us live less than 30 minutes from the beach and we’ve (at least since I’ve been here) never had this many kids willing and excited to wake up at 5:00 am to get into 64° water. Also with Mr. Mundingbecker being a new edition this year, it seems like we are going to have a real surf team and hopefully, it will add a piece to the OVS Outdoor Education that I think the school has been missing.
This is a vignette I wrote over the summer at a creative writing camp I attended. Enjoy.
Syracuse wound through the maze of a prison, following behind his human who led him by the reins. He kept catching Riven’s eye beside him, but neither of them dared to snuffle or neigh to each other for fear of alerting the things their humans feared to their presence. Their humans seemed anxious enough just from the quiet clacking of their hooves on the concrete.
The deformed humans in the cells stared, but were unable to vocalize in any way. The gouges and scars covering their faces were horrifying even without their monstrous, misshapen bodies, so Syracuse tried to keep his eyes anywhere but on those creepy humans. Riven’s skin twitched when something skittered behind him and brushed against his fetlocks, but he did his best to remain calm so he wouldn’t set off his human.
The ground gradually shifted from concrete, to bricks, to carpeted floor. Syracuse and Riven’s hooves were nearly silent on the carpet, and they stared up in wonder as the scenery around them changed to reveal a room bigger than their stable with gold-embellished bookshelves lining every wall from floor to ceiling. However, no matter how much they wanted to explore, their humans kept tugging at them fretfully and they ended up hurrying through the room without being able to get close enough to see a single book title.
Syracuse and Riven were led through several more halls that seemed like they were part of a residency wing of the castle. After what felt like eons to them, their humans brought them up to a massive set of oak doors.
Riven’s human stepped up and pulled one door open. Despite how immense they were, the hinges were perfectly greased and made no noise as the door swung in and flooded the dark entryway with blinding light.
Syracuse and Riven squinted into the sun as their humans took them outside. When their sensitive eyes finally adjusted, they had to stop to gaze upon the gorgeous, sprawling mountains and sheer, marble cliff sides.
Their humans pulled at the reins again, urging on the horses with clucking noises and kisses, and Syracuse and Riven reluctantly moved. They were led down a winding path, and when the road straightened out again, their humans stopped them so that they could mount.
There was no more time to admire the views once their humans were on their backs. Heels dug into their ribs as the humans nudged them into full gallops to get as far from the dreadful castle as they could.
I’ve started a new school, which, of course, is a challenging transition. It’s easy in times like these to get caught up in anxiety and needless worry, so I find it helpful to redirect my focus to the positive aspects of my life right now. Whether life-changing or minuscule, there is no shortage of things that I LOVE.
Old books: The way the weathered pages feel between my fingers, the smell, the inky typeface.
Pina colada smoothies: I seriously think I would live on these if I could – especially in 100-degree weather.
Sleeping: There’s something so comforting about getting in bed with the AC on so I can snuggle up between the duvet cover and clean sheets.
Shooting stars: I saw one the other day and it was magical.
The sea: The floating, bobbing over waves and swimming with all the fish beneath me.
Gilmore Girls: I will always aspire to be a Rory Gilmore.
Sushi: What I would do for a spicy tuna, avocado roll, or a Lemon Flush special from Hakane…
I have gotten into a lot of discussions recently about the best way to organize one’s music library. This discussion goes beyond the typical Apple Music vs Spotify discussion. While that discussion is equally important, there is a right answer (the right answer being Spotify). The discussion of what is the best way to organize music is open-ended and transcends the void of the preferred listening platform. That is unless you use a platform like Pandora, a radio station, and if you use Pandora, I will respectfully avoid interactions with you.
I organize music by just shuffling my liked songs. This is mainly inefficient. Unless I find new music consistently, I end up listening to the same songs way too often. Also, when I play music while hanging out with friends, I have to put a lot of attention into making sure the music fits the “vibe”. I used to organize music by having one playlist for every day of the week, and while this worked for me, once again my playlists did not always fit the “vibe” of hangouts due to the mixed-up genres.
Probably the more efficient way of organizing music is having one playlist of all the songs I like, which I would listen to while driving or working by myself. Then I would have a few playlists of some different “vibes”; like summer beach days, light night vibes, or just chilling. Which would allow me to have more versatility when playing the role of DJ.
The other day I gave my speech for student council vice president. I wasn’t feeling nervous for like the entire day up until about five minutes before I was supposed to give my speech. I felt like I was gonna puke all over the place. Anyway, supposedly my speech was really good, I got a lot of compliments and people told me that they weren’t sure who to vote for until they heard my speech, and they decided that they would vote for me, so that’s pretty cool. I’m not really sure why people think it was so good, I mean I feel like it was a pretty mediocre speech and there were better ones that people didn’t really seem to pay attention to, but whatever the case I’m glad people liked it. I mean I really just talked about representing the Students and like putting them and their desires first and stuff, which I feel like is kinda basic stuff when it comes to Student Council. But whatever, people liked it and maybe I’ll win tomorrow, I guess we’ll see.
We’re supposed to start writing our essays for college applications, but I’m a little stuck. The issue is, I have an essay that I really like, that is probably the best thing I’ve ever written, but there’s a limit to how many words our essay is. The limit is 650 words. Want to guess how many my essay is? 1371 words. One thousand three hundred and seventy-one. That is over double the maximum amount of words allowed for an essay. This means I either have to start from scratch or somehow trim down the essay until it’s only 650 words, both of which would be very difficult. And of course, these essays are going to be really important to my applications because, for the UCs at least, colleges won’t look at my SAT score which was actually pretty good and which I will probably improve upon. They only look at GPA, extracurriculars, and essays, so my essays have to be good. Anyway wish me luck, I’m gonna need it.
Recently I’ve finished a Netflix show called Itaewon Class, I will say it is one of my favorite tv shows. It was so popular in 2020, but I never get a chance to watch it. It’s a k-drama, but it’s not the same as the other k-drama that only talk about love or are so exaggerated. This show talks a lot about the issue in this society, and also relationships, of course. However, I don’t know how the director did this. Every time when I finished an episode, I just wanted to work harder every other day. I told myself that I don’t care how long it takes, I’m still going to study hard and work harder, so I can be happy in the future. I don’t want to expose too many details, but I highly recommend you to watch it. It’s really good!
For some reason, ever since my senior year started, I have been physically incapable of actually committing to finishing a show. I have literally started eight shows and have only finished three, one of which I barely finished. I seriously do not understand why but for the past year I have had the attention span of a goldfish and only play video games or watch youtube in my free time, and yet I have like seven really good shows outstanding right now.
First is the plethora of actually great animes I have just stopped watching. I started Dimension W which was great but canceled my Funimation, I started Mushoku Tensei which was great but forgot about it, and then I started Devilman Crybaby which is easily the best anime I’ve seen in forever, and yet every day I just forget to watch it because I’m too busy watching someone try to beat Elden Ring with a torch for 2 hours.
Photo Credit: The Verge
And then there’s both Breaking Bad and Black Mirror which I’ve been watching for years now. I love both shows but for some reason, I just never want to watch them when I’m at home and can play a game or watch youtube. It’s so weird because there was a time wherein a three-week period I watched, Tokyo Ghoul, Death Note, Chivalry of a Failed Knight, and Soul Eater. Now I can’t even finish a 24-episode anime in a year.
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