Blog Templates + Olympics + Dirty School

Played around with changing blog templates. Wasn’t successful. Most can say I’m not a computer person. They’re right.

I’ve also looked at other blogging sites to see if their templates are a little bit less, erm, difficult to change, because I have a thing about using other people’s templates. Sure, they’re free to the world and they could care less about who uses it, but even from my art you can see that I don’t like using other people’s work. For instance, I’m very, very picky about using references for drawing poses and stuff, because I’d much rather try to draw from a picture I have in my mind.

But I’m hopeless, because even though I took a Web Design class back in the seventh grade, I still don’t have a moderate understanding of HTML or CSS or this new Blogger thing, which happens to be XML.

*Bangs over-crammed head on keyboard*

And I really shouldn’t be updating my blog, because I’ve got a 3-minute French oral on French culture to compose, and I remember hardly anything from French I. But whatever, I’ll make this quick if I can.

Jessie pointed out that removing all politics from the Olympics is impossible, which I understand. And I didn’t think at the time of my post that the Olympics is the only chance some protesters have of gaining attention from the general public, although I was aware of that, too. So, I realize that having a pure Olympic event is not feasible, but I think it would be ideal. I’m already ecstatic that NBC, America’s main Olympic channel, isn’t reporting about protestors that may be lurking outside the stadium areas while they’re doing their all-day Olympic coverage.

Oh, and I just want to point out that with this thing about two Chinese gymnasts that could possibly be 14 (two years younger than the minimum age for competing in the gymnastics) when their Feb. 2008 passports said that they were definitely fifteen, I saw an online podium training of their team, and I must say, they looked really young. I mean, I probably look fifty years older than those gymnasts did, and they were wearing makeup.

And plus, from a country whose government tried to cover up Tiananmen and SARS, what do you really expect?

But I absolutely LOVED the opening ceremoney. LOVED LOVED HEART LOVED HEART HEART. My dad thought it sucked, especially the last torch-lighting bit, but my mom and I both thought that it rocked. My art teacher said that it was a bit much, that if it had been a little simpler, it would’ve been perfect, but he, too, loved it.

I was pretty impressed that the Chinese government spent three hundred million dollars on such an opening (See? Even more reason not to ruin the Olympics. Oh, but there’s probably people out there who are concerned that the entire thing was produced by sweatshop labor). Although, if I were to critisize it, I would say that the colors on the giant LED screen was a bit much, like when Lang Lang was playing the piano with that little girl. They were glowing green and purple and red and purple and green, and it was like the hallucination period of the 80’s or whatever.

Oh, and I really think they should’ve picked a better singer than Sarah Breckman. The Chinese guy they picked was excellent, because quite contrary to what my dad says (“He’s fat. And he’s ugly.”), he’s got a beautiful voice, probably the best one in China. But Sarah has a seriously high-pitched voice, and it took me several verses before I distinguished what language she was singing in (“Did she say you and me? I think she said you and me. Oh wait, now she’s singing Chinese again. Right?”). I was thinking of someone more along the lines of Kelly Clarkson, although I know that if we had put the pop idol up on that huge globe, it would’ve been a little degrading to the “China: From Ancient History to Modern Times” and “Save the Children and Their Future” themes they displayed.

I really like the raising of the blocks they did. You know, those hundreds of little blocks with the Chinese words on them that were pounding out waves and ripples and the Chinese word for peace and harmony? Especially in the end, when they revealed that the entire act was powered by people.

Oh, and I would so wear those Tang dynasty costumes to prom or whatever dance my school hosts. Although, I would probably ask myself many times whether or not such beautiful dresses belong in a local hotel, where most of our dances take place because my school is just too dirty.

Speaking of which, did you know that King High hasn’t been remodeled since the 1930’s or 40’s when it was first built? It looks like it hasn’t been cleaned since then, either. Going into the bathrooms is like going into a Level 3 Biohazard lab. And they almost always flood by the time the dismissal bell rings. It’s gross and ew and absolutely detestable, but if you really gotta go, you just have to suck it up. It’s not like you can sneak into the boy’s bathroom and hope that it’s better. Because they probably aren’t any better, what with students that’re secretly smoking pot in there.

And there was this whole toilet paper fiasco. It would’ve been like the bathrooms in China, if it weren’t for the paper towel dispensers next to the sinks. The bathrooms in China never have toilet paper or soap. Sometimes the bathrooms in king lack either as well. It’s horrid. When I was finally fed up with the school’s lack of supplies (Not the janitors’ laziness, because they’re already doing enough to keep the ancient school as tidy as it can be), I started toting around my own roll of toilet paper. I would’ve started carrying those little bottles of hand sanitizer as well, but I knew my mom would go berserk once she finds them in the bathroom (I can already imagine her — “ARE YOU CRAZY?! WHY DID YOU SPEND ALMOST TWENTY DOLLARS ON THESE STUPID THINGS?! IF YOUR SCHOOL IS THAT DIRTY, CARRY AROUND A BAR OF SOAP! BECAUSE SOAP IS CHEAP AND AFFORDABLE FOR OUR FAMILY, SINCE WE’RE ONLY ON A SIX-DIGIT SALARY!”).

But back to the Olympics, you wouldn’t believe how crazy I was when I saw Phelps at the 400m finals yesterday night. I was like, “GOLD BETTER COME OUT OF YOUR EYES, PHELPS!” and my friends were accusing me of having a secret crush on him. Uh-huh. Whatever. I only cheer him on once every four years, and particularly this year because he’s on a quest to become history’s greatest Olympian. Hey, maybe he’ll pull a Dara Torres and compete in the next four Olympics, too.

Okay. Back to my French oral. I don’t have any news to report, since I only read Times when I’m bored at the lab or at the library. Maybe I should get a magazine subscription or something.

 

Beijing 2008 + Obama + Other things

I’ve found the 2008 Beijing Olympics quite amusing. Everyone’s absolutely determined to turn it into a political arena, like former Olympian Joey Cheek who got thrown out of a Chinese visa because he wanted to rally up athletes to help the people in Darfur (See Time magazine news, Wed. Aug. 6, 2008, ‘China To Athlete Activist: Stay Out!’). And then President Bush, our nation’s beloved leader (Insert heavy sarcasm here), announced that he will not boycott the Olympic opening ceremony this year to raise awareness about China’s human rights violations.

And you know what? I think Bush has finally done something right this time. Gasp, gasp.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve got very little Chinese pride left, especially since the government is so screwed up. But if people hadn’t noticed, the Olympics is a place where athletes from around the world get together to compete in sports, not where the entire western media relocates and pounces on stuff like Chinese border attacks:

“Chinese Border Attack Kills 16″ By SIMON ELEGANT / BEIJING

… Given that the entire province was under virtual lockdown, the scale and ferocity of an August 4 attack on police in the city of Kashgar that left at least 16 soldiers dead and an equal number wounded was particularly shocking. The incident will undoubtedly cast a pall over the beginning of the Games and has also underlined fears of further such events aimed at exploiting the media spotlight currently focused on China.

Or this picture of a Chinese Tibet activist:

Photo courtesy of www.time.com

or whatever. One of the people at the lab I’m volunteering at, Dr. Tsibris, also argued in favor of the Chinese. He reasoned that the government spent millions of dollars (Or billions of yuan, probably) beautifying Beijing and the one billion people that live in China want to show how proud they are of their country, yet all the media focuses on is humanitarian athletes or these stupid ‘Free Tibet’ protests.

(I’m not saying that the protests are stupid. I’m just saying that the timing and location of these protests make them unnecessary. I’m aware that China did illegally annexed Tibet back in the 1950s or the 60s, and the government does need to clean that mess up before those Dalai Lama monks tear up another city.)

Do you know what the original incentive for Olympians was? Wreaths. Yes, little twigs of leaves wrapped around their heads. I think we should go back to that time. This whole “gold medal honor” business is taking on a whole new meaning. No, I can’t just win a gold medal and be proud of it. I have to save hundreds of thousands of Darfur refugees first, then free the Chinese Falun Gong from detention/torture camps before I can show my face in the Olympics again. Forget athletic competition, which is WHAT THE OLYMPICS WERE ORGINALLY HELD FOR, I must be the perfect humanitarian and bring about awareness to all these other people who just want to escape the miseries of the world and see the freakin’ Olympics.

Which is nice, but don’t you think athletes should use their influence at another time and place?

And okay, half of Beijing’s inhabitants can’t wait until the Olympics are over, because it’s closing down their street shops and wrecking their homes, and the migrant workers that came to build the arenas have to leave even though they want to stay and see the Olympics. But the rest of China is pretty stoked. Besides those people in Sichuan that’re still feeling the effects of that earthquake.

But I must admit, these reports do entertain me while I’m at the lab doing nothing.

As for the 2008 election (Wow, what a year), I can honestly say that I’m not enthusiastic. McCain does seem like an extension of Bush’s presidency, which we DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT want. I don’t know about Obama, but there’s been some pretty interesting things going on with him, besides his European tour (Which I give a semi-thumbs up for because now we’ve got a presidential candidate that actually wants to BE FRIENDS WITH OTHER COUNTRIES! GASP GASP!).

Like McCain’s claim that Obama can be compared to Paris Hilton. That was hilarious.

“McCain’s Anti-celebrity Story Line” by MICHAEL SCHERER / WASHINGTON
Thursday, Jul. 31, 2008

The McCain campaign, under the direction of its new leader, Steve Schmidt, has settled on a story line that could last through the election. It is, at root, an experience argument, adjusted to undercut the enormous enthusiasm that Obama generates. It can be seen in the recent McCain campaign ad that compares Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, or the recent Republican Party ad that compares Obama to David Hasselhoff. It can be seen in the recent self-deprecating distribution of “junior varsity” press passes for reporters on the McCain campaign and in the daily discussion of Obama as “The One” by McCain aides.

It is an argument that amounts to this: Barack Obama is a huge phenomenon, but he does not have the experience, or the judgment, to lead the country. In fact, he is just another politician, an empty suit, who will do whatever he needs, and make as many vague but eloquent speeches as he has to, to get elected. John McCain, on the other hand, is a proven, principled leader you already know.

Which Paris countered with a commercial of her own. And contrary to her reputation, her response pointed out just how stupid that was for McCain’s campaign. Seriously, how did he suddenly make the connection between Obama and celebrities? What did he mean to accomplish? Sounds like he’s getting a little desperate.

And the tire gauge thing Obama did was genius.

“The Tire-Gauge Solution: No Joke” By MICHAEL GRUNWALD
Monday, Aug. 04, 2008

How out of touch is Barack Obama? He’s so out of touch that he suggested that if all Americans inflated their tires properly and took their cars for regular tune-ups, they could save as much oil as new offshore drilling would produce. Gleeful Republicans have made this their daily talking point; Rush Limbaugh is having a field day; and the Republican National Committee is sending tire gauges labeled “Barack Obama’s Energy Plan” to Washington reporters.

But who’s really out of touch? The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030. We use about 20 million bbl. per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone did, we could immediately reduce demand several percentage points. In other words: Obama is right.

I’m starting to like Obama a lot more. Muahahaha. Maybe the Democrats won’t be doomed this year (And possibly the next four years, if everything goes their way). Obama’s heading the polls right now, but only by a narrow margin. If McCain wants to win the race, then he’d better stop flubbing with celebrities and handing out Obama tire gauges.

Me? I don’t have a certain party I belong to, but I do find myself preferring Democrats over Republicans.

Olympic soccer game today. Brazil vs. Belgium. Brazil won, of course, but only with one goal. That’s kinda sad for Brazil, since they won the World Cup like, what, fifty times? Okay, they finished in the top eight last year, but still.

Haha! I can’t believe the US won against Japan. They’ve been in a bit of a soccer stupor for awhile, no? ‘Bout time they got back on track. Go Team USA!

Opening ceremony tomorrow! Too bad I’ll miss part of it because of my volunteering. But the scientist I’m volunteering for has an Olympic channel on his laptop, so I ca watch it during the hours and hours of nothingness we do in between experiments. Whee!

And the Chinese will finally have something to be satisfied with, too. It’s crazy over there, what with depriving Beijingers with more than half of their motor vehicles and ‘green’ing the entire place with energy-efficient appliances and closing down all of the construction sites to reduce air pollution. About time, too. I don’t remember ever seeing blue skies in Beijing whenever I visited the city for summer vacation. Blue skies are very cool. China should have more of them.

All articles and photos in this entry come from Time.com. Shut up, I’ll get more sources soon.

 

Oh, geez. I don’t know about this blog anymore. I can’t even keep up with my traditional journal because I’m just so tired everyday. I’m getting an average of six and a half hours of sleep on the weekdays, and I rarely do anything besides homework and extracurricular. And of course, if I do have freetime, I usually have something else my mom wants me to do, like math or Chinese.

IB is hell on Asians. Especially those who are so active that their parents can’t see them with an entire day off.

 

You should’ve seen my face last week when I found out that I got an A on my World History test. And when I found out that I managed to pull my F up to a 94.9 overall, just in time for the third quarter progress reports.

Yeah. Apparently, World History quizzes don’t matter anymore. You can fail all of them and still get an A, as long as you score well on the test and did your World History notebook correctly. Because, after all, they were worth WAAAAY more points than the quizzes.

My little brother, Jerry, can babble a few phrases. “Baba”, or father, was his first official phrase (“Ge-ge”, or brother, didn’t really count, because that’s what all babies say). Then came “Jia-jia!”, which I guess is baby talk for “Jie-jie”, the Chinese phrase for sister. And then came “Mama” (I’m sure you can figure out what that meant), and then “Nai-nai”, or grandma. So, now he knows the family names of everyone in my immediate family!

Of course, he still has to figure out just who is “jia-jia” and all. I’ve been called jia-jia a few times, but most of the time, it was ge-ge or mama. Well, the mama can be reasonable, seeing as how I spend more time with Jerry than my mom does.

And Jerry doesn’t like regular toys either. He prefers Tupperware! Yes, those little plastic containers that are very environmentally and economically efficient. And some environmentalists even take them to Chinese restaurants to store their leftovers in instead of having to kill more trees and put them in paper containers (Mrs. Hodges, my eigth grade history teacher, was one of them).

But Jerry doesn’t know any of that. He just knows that Tupperware is good for biting, chewing, and drooling on. And when you try to take it away from him, he throws a baby-sized tantrum.

With all the squealing and shrieking he does, he sounds exactly like my mom. Even my dad and grandma think so. Jerry, you aren’t starting life on the right path here…

 

I’m depressed because I got a 50 on my first world history quiz.

This is sad. If I’m depressed because of some silly history score that I can EASILY bring up because it’s only the first grade of the third grading quarter, I’m never going to make it past life.

Well, another part of the reason why I’m depressed is, despite my efforts to stay on top of things, I’m procrastinating on my world history homework, which I need to do not only to earn some more good grades but it’s also good practice for the test coming up on Friday.

But, then again, I have all of Sunday and Monday to do it (Monday’s Martin Luther King Day).

But I still have to start practicing some ballet and catch up on Chinese.

I’m so tired, though. I’ve had an average of about barely seven hours of sleep this entire week. And I really wish that Ms Barreto (My ballet teacher) would move my ballet classes back about an hour because I’m really tired of getting home at ten at night, the time when most of my friends (Asian and white) are already snoring in their beds.

And my mom should be happy! She really shouldn’t be complaining that my PSAT scores weren’t high (I got a 184/240, which is actually eighty-nine percent higher than the nation’s sophomore PSAT scores. Which is pretty sad, if a stressed-out freshman who took this in October can beat nearly ninety percent of all sophmores in this nation. But then again, this test is for high school juniors, so sophomores aren’t really worried about scoring high on the PSAT yet.) enough, when people like Alice made a C on her American Government midterm, and Jason cancelled all of his extracurricular so that he only has piano, when I’m balancing ballet, piano, art, and Chinese all at the same time.

I made all A’s on my midterms (to my great surprise) and all my quarter grades. In total last semester, I made twenty official A’s: Two overall A’s for each of my seven classes, and six A’s for my midterms (I exempted my Creative Writing exam because a) I could, b) I’d have to write a sonnet in class, and c) I didn’t want to come to school that day.).

My extracurricular teachers all say that I’m an exceptional student and talented, I’m beginning to recognize a lot more Chinese symbols than I originally thought I would, and I’m trying out for every single math competition in the Mu Alpha Thetha club I joined (Unlike some people).

So there, mom. See if you can find anyone to compare me to now. Hah.

Oh, who am I kidding? Of course mom is going to find someone else to compare me to. In fact, she’ll probably import someone from China for the sole reason of giving me someone to compete with.

No, no. I think that’s just the 50-in-World-History depression kicking in again.

But in any case, even though I’m improving my math competition scores greatly, my parents still think that it isn’t enough, and now I’m doing an hour of math every week with my art buddy Anna Chang.

And my mom just dug out the Chinese math workbooks we bought oh so long ago during the summer of third grade, and now she’s teaching me even more math.

I don’t know why they’re doing this, though. I’m pretty sure I’ve expressed a clear disinterest in the math subject, even though I’ve won numerous math awards and am passing the Algebra 2 class without doing anything more than the classwork and homework.

But then again, all the Asian teens I know are reinforcing their math skills because their parents are buying them workbooks and making them do extra math everyday, so I shouldn’t be complaining.

Or should I?

After all, if I didn’t have so much stuff going on (Math club, Relay for Life, and the extracurricular) outside of school, I wouldn’t be this exasperated by extra math.

I’m probably going to end up with stomach ulcers and crap like that from stressing out too much.

But really, if I weren’t born Asian in the first place, none of this would be a problem.

I’m expecting to start working on the ORB, our school’s annual literary magazine, soon, because it’s due out at the end of April. Lorne and I went around to various classes, informing all of the students and the teachers about the ORB and encouraging people to submit their writings and art to be published in the magazine.

I wonder why none of the classes we went to were IB classes. It seems like the ORB is prejudice against gifted people, but I guess that in the past, most of the ORB submissions were sent in by IB people, and so they’re trying to get the traditional students to join in as well.

But besides that, and having to write a lot of random stuff under pressure, I’m having a lot of fun with the Creative Writing people. From last semester’s class, there’s Brandy, A.K.A. Music and anime girl, Eric, the science fiction and fantasy addict, Melissa, the dragon-lover (She wrote her entire NaNo story on dragons) and friend of my eigth grade best friend, Shaina (Who went to Wharton High School, so I can’t see her anymore), Lorne, and Chris, the quiet giant who also acts like he’s a violent, emo guy.

And there are a bunch of other students that I’ve never met before, but according to some of the senior Creative Writers, they’ve taken this class before, just in another year.

Yup. We’re quite the normal bunch.

I’m really, really tired.