Barriers

Dear TOP,

I'm shivering even though I'm not cold.

I'm crying for what seems like no reason.

Why is that?

I'm going to the dentist tomorrow.

If I ask nicely, can I get Novocaine in the part of me that controls emotions? Because I don't want to feel whatever this is anymore.

Yes, cheesy, I know. But still...

It still hurts.

Your uncharacteristically depressed blogger,
[redacted!]

What Is This Feeling?

It's not loathing... well not all of it, anyway.

I just have to say, in relation to my last post (which was a very, very long time ago...), that I really, really despise American Airlines. I took AA back from MIT, and we were supposed to take off at 5pm. When I got there, however, I found out that the flight was delayed till 5:45. A 45 minute delay... not too bad, I can deal with that. What I am NOT ok with was the fact that we didn't go anywhere until 7pm!!! I mean... really.... a two hour flight? Victoria's flight was at 7:30 and she showed up at the airport before we even boarded!!!! I was so sadddd... but Google provided Logan with free internet, a fact that I am extremely happy with, because otherwise I would have drowned in boredom. Thank you, Google.

The most amusing thing? The delay was once again caused by a plane flying in from London. Deja vu? Yes.... but in the most terrible of manners. )<

Alright, ranting about incompetent airlines is finally finished. (: Moving on...

It's finally winter break! The first semester of college is over! (Only seven more left...) I have to say.... I think I really like it. College, I mean. Well, aside from the killer academics and the slightly-too-cold weather, MIT is freaking awesome! The people are so nice and talented... I don't think I've ever seen so many amazing people congregated in one place... It's amazing and wonderful and everything I really could have asked for.

One thing's for sure, however: "An education at MIT's like drinking from a firehose."

Man... it's a really big change from academics at Whitney.. Sure, I mean, Whitney was harder than most high schools... but, for example, I studied more for my first physics midterm at MIT than I had all my physics tests at Whitney... and I still failed. -____- It's quite the ego-deflator, let me tell you that! At the very least, I passed all my classes!!! So happy about that! Well actually I don't know about my HASS class yet... But that's just sad if I fail my humanities class after passing everything else... -____-...So hopefully I passed. (: That's the good news. hehehe

So right now I'm in this interesting limbo between ridiculously happy and really really sad... Passing my classes made my day!! Visiting Whitney again and seeing everyone again was really fun(: (Although I have to admit I don't know how to act around him anymore... but that can be a story saved for sometime else... hahaha) But then at the same time... I dunno. It was a really big disappointment.

It's been bothering us for a really long time, and I don't really know how to feel about it anymore. I honestly thought I was apathetic and only angry because WC were angry.. But then they told me of the success story when they visited, and then I actually felt hope! Maybe my little talk actually did something useful?! But then when he sort of failed today I felt really really sad... This shouldn't bother me that much.

Should I have said bye today when he walked away? Are we just overreacting? I don't know. I just know that it really shouldn't hurt this much. I shouldn't care so much. Isn't it all "pointless" anyway?

There's something wrong with me because I think I feel like crying.

Stupid stupid blahhh.... Damn you for making me feel this way...

And the other one... isn't happening. NO. I REFUSE. I am not going to miss you at all this winter break. )< In fact, I'm not gonna think about it at all.

Ha. Take that.

Dear TOP,

Teach me how not to care about things I don't want to care about. It hurts less that way.

Your very happy about passing and being home but waaayyy more depressed about other things than she should be,

[redacted] hehehhehe

Crush[ed]

I have never wished more to be rich and have a private jet-- rich enough that I could easily spend $700 dollars without a single thought, or rich enough not to have stupid problems with stupid air crafts.

I really really hate disappointment. This was actually something I was really looking forward to, too.

Damn you, American Airlines. T___T

心跳

Europe is amazing.

I don't even know where to start! The people, the culture, the history, the food. Ooooh yes, the food.

Well... let's start from the beginning, shall we?

Dear TOP,

The past week has been splendid. I never thought I could enjoy going anywhere better than going to Asia. I mean, come on. Asia has cute things, cute guys, good food, cheap things, and it's just... fun! (Not to mention the places in Asia I go use language that I can understand) I mean-- please, Europe? The land where they don't eat rice (how am I going to survive), no cute idols that I can ogle, and where half the countries use languages I can't even begin to understand. Why would I ever want to go to Europe?

Well, maybe I wasn't that pessimistic about this trip; I was actually pretty excited (although I must admit the language barrier worried me quite a bit), but my expectations weren't high.

Europe blew me out of the bloody water.

First stop! London, UK. When I first stepped off the plane the constant presence of the infamous British Accent kind of drove me insane, but I learned to deal with it. We started off by going to our hotel, where we learned that they had transferred us (free of charge) to this brand new, brilliant hotel that was literally just across the street from St. Paul's Cathedral. The room was huge and very comfy, and the water in the shower came from the spout at the top AND straight out of the wall. .___. That was decidedly weird...

But nevertheless, the hotel was a pleasant surprise, and a wonderful way to begin the trip!

So we set our stuff down and took a walk along the river and across the Millennium Bridge (the one that got torn apart in HPHBP ahhahhaha... it was cool to know what that was :D) and ate a dinner of fish and chips and pie. I swear the UK has the largest fish slabs I've ever seen. -______-

Anyway, it would take me hours to describe the rest of London, so here it is in a nutshell! The food was normal, decent stuff, but the attractions were beautiful. I snuck pictures in St. Paul's (but I swear I didn't know at first T_T... oh! and the cute ticket guy said "cheers!" to me when I said "thank you". That made me smile ^___^) and we climbed billions of stairs to get to the top (there were at least 500 stairs. holy crap I was so tired-____- AND they were spiral stairs, so I was dizzy.). The Towers of London were really cool! I've always liked medieval stuff, and it was like walking through a castle! Oh... and those crown jewels are beautiful and amazing. -______- London Bridge was a really pretty bridge, but it was really windy at the time hahaha.

Buckingham Palace was amazing. The fuzzy black hats will never cease to amuse me. And the horse guard change was pretty cool... if you want tradition, England's got it for sure -__- Big Ben was really really pretty, but we didn't really do anything there but walk around.

The British Museum was filled to the brim with history. AND it was free! I loved the Egyptian exhibit, and it was just really really cool to wander around and have so much history at my fingertips to explore (says the girl who abhors studying history... but looking at it through my leisure time is fun. :D).

I can't remember anything else we did in London at the moment (except for the fact that I went hunting for Platform 9 and 3/4 in King's Cross. ehehehhe), so let's move on to Paris.

Paris is beautiful. We took the Eurostar over (which was actually kinda boring, considering it was mostly dark tunnel outside anyway- -) and had an unpleasant experience communicating with this snotty French ticket booth lady, but she's the only French person I've met so far that was snooty. Humph.

The hotel was so cute... I felt like I was living in a dollhouse!! Except I'm not nearly as doll-like as a doll, but that's not the point. Paris itself was crowded and very compact-- there were so many people wandering the streets (I'm willing to bet at least half the people were tourists...), and the monuments and museums were ridiculously crowded, but despite that it was still wonderful!

The first day was the visit to the Louvre. The place was amazing (the pyramid is beautiful close up), but there were FAR too many people, and that detracted from the experience rather well. -_____- I laughed when I saw a giant blank wall... and a tiny Mona Lisa in the center. HAHA The museum was too big. It would have taken weeks to get through the whole thing. -____- Anyway, after that we went to Notre Dame, which was pretty but overall decidedly boring, as we were too tired of people to stand in the line to wait to get to the top. -_____-

But after that was dinner. Which meant food.

Wow. I have never had better food in my life. The fish in Paris is amazing. T____T And the steak, and the freaking dessert!!! Tante Louise is a must-go restaurant if you're looking for excellent dessert and food. The only problem was it was crazy expensive. ): Let's all become rich and dine in Paris. Please.

Anyway, we went to Versailles the next day. The golden gates were magnificent, but the 2-hour long line was decidedly less so. I spent two hours alternating between sitting and staring at people walk by and standing in line. -_____- I did get to eat a rather tasty salmon and cheese sandwich though. That was good.

Inside the castle the only thing really worth seeing was the Hall of Mirrors and the King's and Queen's chambers. Wow. Glorious place. Hard to describe adequately in words. Ah well.

But what blew me away was the garden. Goodness. Louis XIV must have had a fun time in his stupid garden, because the bloody thing was about the size of El Dorado Park. Maybe even bigger. -________- It was beautiful, and I had lots of fun rowing the boat on the lake. I'm a good rower!!! :D

The Eiffel tower is pretty much just a big hunk of metal... but it's a wonderous work of engineering. And the view is beautiful. But once again, Paris' biggest flaw-- WAAAY too many people. -_____- I am sick of tourists.

The Arc D'Triumph is pretty much the same thing. Really nice and majestic! And looking at the roads branching out from it is pretty cool. Didn't bother going up top though. hahahaha

Anyway.... That was pretty much the end of Paris! The shopping districts were ridiculously expensive, but that's about it. -_____-

Next up is Nice.

I got back to the hotel room at around 11pm, but even then the streets are alive. I love this place hahaha. We got here when the sun was starting to set, and the views are amazing. It reminds me more of Italy than France, which I guess makes sense because it's a Mediterranian area, but nontheless.

The ocean is breathtaking. It's this brilliant shade of blue with just a hint of green that sometimes shines out and sometimes doesn't. And when it reflects the sun... just wow. hahahah

Anyway, dinner was nice! As you walk the streets there are lots of performances going on (you can't really get more than ten meters without running into something), and there are lots of ogle-worthy cute guys. ^__^

While we were eating icecream at the Haagan Daaz restaurant, there was this guy who had painted himself gold and was pretending to be a moving statue.

He was pretending to be Jack Sparrow.

I was so happy. I gave him money and then he took a picture with me. I couldn't stop smiling for... a long time after that. HAHA

But yeah. The first day in Nice has been so relaxing and just plain breathtaking. It makes my heart jump!!!

...Yeah, lame. sorry. ehehhhe

It can only get better from here. I'm excited.

Your writer, who is guilty of letting the quality of her writing deteriorate as she kept going because this post is too long and there was way too much crap to talk about,

New Divide

This is a useless post to basically everyone but me. Just a journal recollecting my day(s?), and I don't think anyone will have the patience to read through it all. So why not?

Dear Diary,

I went swimming yesterday-- and subsequently found out that I can't tread water to save my life. oops. So... if I ever wind up in the middle of the ocean, I'm screwed. I'll sink like a... very heavy rock.

But I've discovered that, while I was in China, I really missed a lot of things. One of them was friends. I missed just hanging out, just spending time together. Even if it was sitting in a pool and watching idiots make bubbles of air in their swimming trunks.

Why was that so amusing again? Heeheeheee(:

Yesterday started out with me waking up at 11 (oh goodie. normal schedule is back!) I picked up Wes (and for the first time in my life had a conversation on the phone with him that lasted more than 5 seconds... even though I think we repeated "Hi" about a billion times. It mirrors our AIM convos HAHAA), and then went to pick up Caro. So I call her, and she says "ok!". And then she hangs up.

Two seconds later Caroline calls me, and the first thing she asks me is "HOW DO YOU CHANGE THE STUPID TIME."

Now, if you, my dear diary, were a fully functioning, thinking, human being (not saying that you can't, you know, function and think. for all I know you could be scoffing at my lack of recognition for your ridiculously capable cognitive ability, but I digress), wouldn't you, too, think that our darling little Caroline was talking about... a clock?

I did. So I sat in the car and kind of stared at Wes. We shared an "are you serious" moment. Then I got out of the car and went to help Caroline "hit the clock".

Turns out she was playing Kingdom Hearts. -_______- That idiot. sighs.

Anyway, we left the clock, and we picked up Thadd. Then we went to some korean restaurant that served Teriyaki! That was fun. And then we went to TeaStation<3. I miss that place HAHAHA I discovered that I drink incredibly slowly. Whoops.

After we all successfully finished our drinks, we once again left, and then spent awhile parked in the random neighborhood next to Wes' house as we decided what to do. This appears to be a reoccuring issue... -______- Welllll, we finally decided to go swimming at Caro's house. So we picked up swimming trunks at Wes' house, and then drove off to Caro's house.

Speaking of which, I've been driving quite slowly since I've come back from China. I blame the fact that their speed limit is 40km, which has now become the standard driving speed for me. Too bad that equates to about 25 mph. ehehehhe

Anyway, so I borrowed a shirt and pair of gymshorts from caro and we went inside the pool! Then the hobos came in the pool and we had an afternoon of rather childish fun. They tried to teach me to tread water, but, rather unfortunately, that failed miserably. I remember Wes finally acknowledged his birthright as a water bender, and we had a lot of 2 on 1 water fights where Caro was stuck in the middle.

I wonder how much water was upended from its home. D: Poor water.

Yeup. Then shortly after that we parted ways! That... was quite a fun day, actually. hahaha

But man... at the end of the day, I realized how much I missed everything. I missed Caro's innocent... uh... idiocy? :D I missed the hobos'... mean niceness. And all in all I just missed them. hahaha I still miss all those idiots who are in Taiwan right now, and would totally not like to point out my hipocrisy in leaving for Europe in 2 days. (: I'm a great person.

Today... was supposed to be a date with Julia and Caroline, but some last minute stuff got in the way and we couldn't play anymore. T___T But we had lunch at Mimi's!!! And then we're going to play tomorrow, so it's ok. AHHAHA

Speaking of which, tomorrow I need to pick up my diploma. If I feel nice enough I might drop by the yearbook room. Who knows.

Anyway... China was really fun. I'm going to miss my relatives. Being quarantined was a really interesting experience, but what was not a great experience was having ALL MY SITES BLOCKED. For example, Youtube was blocked, this (blogger) was blocked, all my d/ling sites were blocked... and at one point Facebook was blocked. I was SOOO DEPRIVEDDDDD.

Oh well. I can live without internet. No biggie.

I want to go back. hahahah But it's ok. Time to look forward to Europe!!!

And... I have to somehow relate this entry to the title. uhhhhh..... wow this was long. O_o

I'm scared of losing you all. I won't let there be a new divide when I go to college next year! I'll miss you, and I probably won't see you for months on end, but I'll be thinking of you!

It'll never be the end!!!!! NEVER.

Man. Aren't I so darn eloquent? (: I know it's something that you, my diary, loves about me!

Hmm. I feel like an idiot talking to a diary. -_____- How about I name you so I don't feel like I'm talking to inanimate objects?

Percy. Percy Jackson.

...Ew no.

...Ah well, I'll think of something.

Regards,
Your endearing writer, who is in a ridiculously weird mood at the moment. -_____-...

Falling Slowly

I took a five hour nap today at 7.

Then I woke up, heard my mom getting ready to sleep, and realized how stupid and selfish I was.

I've been spending more time with my parents lately, but today, I realized (especially when Mr. Z was ranting about it) that maybe I just haven't been spending enough.

In the future, will I regret it that I didn't play with my parents when I had the chance? I love my friends, I really really do, but is it worth it to forgo my parents for them?

It's just... my parents have never been home (I grew up in CALTOP, for crying out loud) and when they were they were tired from working. I guess I've grown used to leaving them to their own devices.. and with the recent divorce I guess I just drew further into my own world. Hm.

I'm going to miss them next year. Maybe I should do something about it then.

And... other things going on in life that I don't feel like talking about.

Damn I wish I could be perfect sometimes. Even if perfect is dreadfully boring.

Because everything would be so much easier if i were perfect.

I wrote this song about you

...no I didn't, but that is the song I'm listening to right now. But I digress.

Although, technically, my blogs never have a point, so I can't really digress, but whatever.

Anyway, I was supposed to play today, but then my mom made me feel guilty by pulling out the whole "you never spend time with me!" argument, so I played a little and then came home for dinner. Unfortunately, now that I am spending time at home, I am also terrifically bored.

Oh look, "Second Chance." I like this song too! Of course I do-- why else would it be on my favorites playlist? I'm a flipping genius.

But now I forgot what I was about to say. It's alright. Let's move on to a new topic.

So many things have happened since my last entry. AP tests (both of which were RIDICULOUSLY HARD. Seriously. I had to leave one free response blank on each one. One entire free response question. Weep weep.), retreat, International Day, and of course, the subject that probably isn't the best to record online. HAHA. One day I'm going to be reading this and have absolutely no idea what I mean. Hopefully it's way into old age, where I'm potentially losing my mind anyway.

Well, seeing as AP tests are horrifically boring topics, we shall move on to retreat! It was alright, I think. It was super dusty, and the cabins were tiny, but seriously, everyone knew it was camping. I was actually expecting worse! At least the showers were good. People really need to stop complaining so much. -___- That, I must admit, was very annoying. If you don't like camping, don't come. Don't come and annoy everyone else with your constant complaints. Entirely too negative, that might have been what it was.

There was also mild drama during retreat. That was quite.... interesting. I can't believe it involved sleeping habits. -________- I still don't believe that anyone would go to retreat just to sleep, but I guess both sides were wrong. Wrong to stay up late when some of the cabin wanted to sleep (I swear it wasn't a majority), and wrong to call up another friend to rant. Also wrong to rant loudly in the morning and then slam the door on sleeping people while screaming certain phrases. Also wrong to standby and rant but not do anything to prevent said argument, in my case. But it's alright. That's what happens with 12 girls on pms/periods are stuffed in a cabin in the middle of the wild. Chaos!

Aside from those unpleasantries, however, I have discovered that I rather enjoy archery! It's fun. Even if I now have a giant bruise on my arm. Horseshoe throwing is also surprisingly fun... Glonchak and Z are so good at it. -_____- Freaking amazing. Oh well.

I'm so easily... i dunno. Emotional these days. It's so easy to make me emo, I don't even know why. -_____- Also very tired. sighs. There's too much to think about these days.

It's ok. All that's important is smile. All I've got to do is smile, and everything will be ok!

If I believe that enough, I'm sure it will definitely come true.

Because life is so much nicer with a smile and a laugh!

And my, that wasn't a cheezy way to end this at all.

What a bad person I am.
Oh well.