In general best movie ever: Scent of A woman. Already wrote an entire blog post about how great this movie is, but overall 10/10 across all categories- especially acting, plot, and screenwriting.
Soundtrack: for me, it’s a 3-way tie between Baby Driver, O Brother Where Art Thou, and 500 Days of Summer.
Action: John Wicks- super basic but true like for me it goes in order of chapters 1, 4, (3 and 2 tie). All the action is super satisfying to watch, but an underrated one would be Scarface
Horror: ok the scariest movie I’ve ever seen is the Lighthouse but it’s not really scary. It’s just really gross and made me the most uncomfortable- I really don’t like this movie.
Romance: to be honest I’ve only seen a ton of romcoms, but my favorite has to be Notting Hill, 10 Things I
hate About You, and My Best Friend’s Wedding.
Comedy: Superbad- it’s just hilarious I love Fogell and the Cops, haha.
Best “film bro” movie: The Pianist, French Dispatch.
So I rolled my ankle the day before the league final track meet- an event I’d been looking forward to all season. All my life, there’s been a pattern. I will have roughly 4 days where everything is just fabulous and going my way, life is terrifically smooth and easy but it abruptly comes to an end, followed by an equally long period of just comically terrible rotten awful luck! And this eternal pendulum swings between luck and misery, creating balance in my polarized life.
It’s gotten to the point that I will recognize whatever “phase” I’m in and alter my behavior because of it. If I realize I’m in a bad luck week I will be more cautious and weary of what I’m doing. It’s like a legitimate phenomenon, really, if there are any scientists out there totally out of things to study, this could be it.
Right now, I am definitely in that bad luck phase. My computer just died while I was getting the charger for it WHILE typing this, I am getting bug bites too, and I accidentally spilled a drink on my piano earlier this evening. I realize these are serious first-world problems and it could be so much worse, but dealing with all these little annoyances really makes me mad enough to write a whole blog post about it. You’re not going to believe this- but my first draft of this wouldn’t even save so I had to start over!
To be honest I don’t know if I actually believe in luck or not, but what I do know is I either have it all or not even a smidge.
I love old technology. The analog feel of buttons and dials under my finger, the lights of a stereo amp, the crackle of vinyl, and the warped sound of an overplayed cassette tape––all create beauty we so often lose in the digital world. The beauty of chaos, the unorganized, and the functionless. These devices hold value in their aesthetics but also through the stories that define them.
Such objects fill my room with stories from my own life and the countless others they’ve encountered. Next to my bed sits a CRT TV I found abandoned on the road. It works surprisingly well for a piece of technology made before Facebook, though, like the person who left it behind, not many would think much of it. It’s been replaced by two decades of 4K ultra-HD developments, which produce bigger, brighter images. Why would anyone watch a special effects masterpiece on something with the quality of a cave painting and a screen smaller than a shoebox?
I see its beauty though, the way it needs to warm up before turning on, the way it cracks and clicks when you try to push its archaic buttons, and the decaying colors of the few remaining VHS tapes, long-forgotten.
I imagine this TV didn’t change hands many times. It was probably bought new at Radio Shack in Ventura, six years before I was born. It probably sat in someone’s living room playing movies for their kids on family game night, and then their grandkids, and then it probably sat in the garage taking up space until they finally decided the black hunk of metal, glass, and plastic was an eyesore whose good days were as long gone as its remote. Now it sits as an exhibit in my room, a reflection of others’ memories and a piece of art for me to admire.
Like this old TV, I, too, can easily be overshadowed by things bigger and brighter. I surf with more passion than I’ve ever felt before, but by most standards, I’d be considered unremarkable.
Surfing’s the scariest thing I’ve ever encountered: walls of water like moving mountains, foam like a powerful avalanche, a board that goes from being your greatest ally to greatest enemy the moment it’s freed from your grip. Is the feeling of a wave worth the pain of falling? Often, it is. Small waves, no biggie, a couple seconds of being under frigid water, and then you paddle back out and try again. But when the waves become giants and the board a brute-force weapon, that fall begins to exceed your limits.
I remember going out on a day with waves far beyond my skill set—Goliath and Polyphemus in watery form. Before I even paddled for a wave, a set came in. The first wave blocked the sun as it groaned past me, the second feathered as I crested its peak, the third, I wasn’t so lucky. The avalanche hit me, immediately tearing the board from my hands. The wave was now groaning on top of me, thrashing my body like a ragdoll in a washing machine. Then, it was over. The wave passed, and I was okay. So what pushes me to surf in these conditions? I think it’s because putting myself in places beyond my skill set and comfort, where I’m deeply flawed, has shaped me. I find love and beauty in the places where I know I’ll fall, for it’s there that I find who I am.
I climb, hike, surf, and run, but most athletic is an unlikely yearbook superlative.
Like the TV, I, too, crack and click when I’m pushed too hard. If all that made me was performance, I, too, would be left on the street without a second thought, but I am my story not my statistics. I too, have beauty, which lies not in my achievements but in my imperfections.
Imagine rainfall, accompanied by the sound of warm piano slowly picking away at the layer of your sorrows, that’s how I feel when I play Laura by Erroll Garner. It’s a song I’ve been learning lately, and one of the hardest and technically challenging songs I’ve tackled this year- but most rewarding. The arpeggios are INCREDIBLE.
the rain last week made me want to go back to playing more moody jazz. Pieces with really pretty and new york city-type chords. Songs like Almost Blue (Chet Baker), and Scenery (Ryo Fukui).
amore mio aiutami by Piero Piccioni is perhaps one of the most beautiful songs I learned on the piano. I can’t stop playing it. Another one like it is Lujon by Heny Mancini
I found one of my Dad’s old Billy Joel books, and I’ve been playing the music (that I could play) in there too. Billy Joel is the master of complex and heavenly chord progressions. I especially liked Just the way you are, and The Stranger (interlude).
Surprisingly, George Michael and Sade’s songs, although very slow, are a blast to play on the piano. Their melodies are so satisfying to play.
Last night I found an old video on a cheap little camera of mine. I’m in Joshua Tree on a camping trip, approaching my fifth-grade classmates and interviewing them each in turn. “What’s your name?” I ask. “What do you like doing – what are your hobbies?” Looking back, I realize I’ve always been a reporter.
My first real interview was with Jane Goodall some four years earlier when she came and visited my school in Bali. A few of the best students in the second-grade class, myself included, were selected to ask her questions about her conservation work.
In the sixth grade, I applied for a Scholastic Kids Reporter program after spotting an ad in a magazine. Once accepted, I began covering all kinds of stories and interviewing all kinds of people. Among those I spoke to (or listened to in press conferences) were screenwriters the Russo brothers, actor and writer Chris Colfer, director Rob Marshall, Oscar-winning costume designer Ruth E. Carter, America’s Got Talent winner Darci Lynn Farmer, JoJo Siwa (no explanation needed), Congressional Representative Julia Brownley, and the casts of Captain Marvel, Avengers Endgame, Mary Poppins, Coco, and Young Sheldon. I even got to see Zendaya and John Cena in the flesh. Scholastic was quite possibly one of the highlights of my life.
Up until last month, I thought I was invincible. I had gone the whole school year without getting sick once. Yet, here I am stuck with the fourth cold I’ve got in the span of 30 days. I can’t remember the last time I could breathe through my nostrils when I didn’t have to stand up every 10 minutes or I would drown in snot. What is going on? There is some vicious cycle where everyone around me keeps getting sick- they mutate it, and I get the disease again. I know I’m part of the problem but I am very upset!
And this week, not only did I become re-infected with the same, dreadful disease that I had spent the last month battling, but now I have allergies. I am all for the super bloom California is gearing up for since all this rain, but now I don’t think I will ever feel comfortable again (at least until this Summer).
“There’s a big confusion in this country over what we want versus what we need,” Morrie said. “You have to be honest with yourself. You don’t need the latest sports car, you don’t need the biggest house. The truth is, you don’t get satisfaction from those things. You know what really gives you satisfaction?… Offering others what you have to give…I don’t mean money, Mitch. I mean your time. Your concern. Your storytelling. It’s not so hard.”
Regret, emotions, family, forgiveness, death, marriage, money, and fear of aging are just some of the topics Tuesdays with Morrie addresses. Every chapter is chock-full of valuable lessons that anyone could benefit from. If I could make everyone on the planet read just one book it would be this one. It’s perfect because the book is extremely motivating and reflective, however, it’s not too deep and a pretty easy read. I genuinely believe the world would be a way better place if everyone just picked up this book.
Before reading Tuesdays with Morrie, I hadn’t read anything by Mitch Albom. Actually, I hadn’t read much non-fiction (at least not much that wasn’t in a textbook), so I wasn’t sure what to expect. But the story drew me in very quickly. Mitch Albom spent each Tuesday with Morrie, his former professor, who was very ill. As I read about these visits, I realized that this book was really about how we spend our time.
Tuesdays with Morrie reminds us to slow down and appreciate each other. I’m not much for reading but I have absolutely enjoyed this book.
Something is special about summer, it’s probably the almost total lack of responsibility but I like to think about the subtler parts like the way everything is always bright like an overexposed photograph. I love the way the sun casts shadows in the summer and how leaves perfectly block the suns beating rays making glowing green arrows that flutter in the wind. I love how the heat overwhelms you and forces you to jump in a pool or the ocean or maybe close the windows turn on the ac and watch a movie. I love eating snacks with friends and doing things too energetic for the stresses of the school year. I loved last summer when we went to the beach in the morning and started the day at the beach, or, after a hot day jumping into the cool seawater as the sun set or when it was pitch dark out yet the sand still held the sun warmth from the previous day. I loved the summer of covid. I’d sneak out for a ‘bike ride’ only to lounge at the river preserve for hours on end. I loved 8th-grade summer, that warm night in woodland hill sleeping on the living room floor with my dad, or the night after seeing my whole life packed into boxes in the foreign garage I now know so well. I’m glad I was here for summers, playing GTA and eating those sour candies, late nights in the RAV with the AC on, or learning to surf on the shitty red board. I’m scared about losing summer—being so caught up in my life that I forget to enjoy it. Still thinking about school, work, and money all while the sun glistens down and the tree makes its perfect shade. Im scared to be like my parents, unaware of how beautiful it is outside. Lost in my own head never letting out that final sigh, that feeling of needing nothing more and wanting nothing less. Im scared I was going to never have summer again. I don’t want to lose something special about summer.
I’ve been thinking about doing more creative story writing, I probably won’t, but, here’s an idea for one:
There’s a person in a village/town of some sort in a cold somewhat barren landscape. Some bushes and plants grow but for the most part, there’s just not much life. But there is a lot of ice, specifically a large glacier. He’s lived in the same house his whole life on the edge of the town. When this man was just a child the glacier was miles above the town but slowly the hundred-foot wall of ice crept up toward the village. Now, while the town does have history there, the fact that this glacier is going to wipe it all out was well known for years beforehand, people could watch it over a year travel a few hundred feet, over a decade travel a mile, and so the town moved everything except for the building out of the glaciers path. Everyone has a new house not far from the original town but kind of live between the two. Until the last few months, the man has been fine to leave with only some memories attached to the shabby old town, but in the months before he notices a plant growing just beyond the confines of his backyard. He becomes attached to the little sprout, and then the plant, and then the small bush, and as it’s growing his attachment to it is growing. He becomes almost obsessive sitting next to it all day watching the wall of ice get closer to destroying this little thing that he loves (I think there’s an element of him being alone I want to explore in the beginning) and then the wall is 10 feet away from this little plant, and then its three and then one. And on his last day with the plant he watches as this wall gets inches away from everything he loves and then it’s getting pushed to the side and finally it’s gone mixed together with everything else that the glacier has picked up.
Idk just what I’ve been thinking about the last few days
Just 20 minutes ago, I tripped over a chair and a white man told me, “you gotta pull your pants up.” This made me livid, I looked back at him with a black man’s rage in my eyes, and I looked him up and down, pounced, and attacked. Flinging myself at the boy I begin by attacking his eyes, I begin to dig my fingernails deep into his retinas and claw them out. Working my finger through the eyes I take my other hand and shove it down his throat and pull from the back of it his Uvula. I then jump off, and with the boy screaming in agony on the ground I walked away and began to write this story. I know that may have been a little harsh, however, this is what will happen to you if you tell me to pull up my pants. PANTS DOWN FOR LIFE!!
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