Chinese New Valentine
Yep, today was both Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day. Clearly, for Chinese people, the former outshines the latter. In fact, the latter was pretty much forgotten, I think.
During lunch today, we were talking about J, who joined the army. I told my mother that his mother had told us that he had sent a postcard saying, "I'm tired. Don't mail back." It was hilarious, but both mothers (mine and his) suspect that the vaguely brief message suggests that it isn't easy over there. Then my mother began to talking about how hard work will result in a good future, the concept of which, in my mind, I began to question. If you work hard now, you will have a good future, my mother preached. But when can you stop working hard to ensure that your future will be in good enough standing? Today, tomorrow, next year, next decade? It occurred to me then that you don't know, and you never will. Even if you unfathomably did, it probably only means that you'll work hard every single day of your life, for the sake of your life. Actually, I stand corrected. Regardless of whether or not you know, it means that you will work hard for every single day of your life.
After having typed that possibly seemingly incomplete paragraph, it suddenly dawned on me that this is what I have been contemplating about high school and what I have been doing throughout it in preparation for a "good future", which, under current circumstances, is college. You see, to my very own demise, I had always thought that only junior year of high school counted toward the "future", so I didn't particularly study the previous two years. Last year was when I began to actually study like never before. I began to work hard, thinking that as long as I did well then, I would be set for college. Come November of 2009 (seems like so very long ago), I realized that the hard work hadn't stopped at all. In fact, it was just piling higher and higher. College applications were a handful, if not more. The following month or two, I kept telling myself that all the stress and work would be over after January application deadlines. I thought that I would finally be able to relax. Oh, boy (feel free to change the gender as you please), was I wrong. To make a potentially long story short, the hard work is never over. Especially not if you continually think about that good future.
But what about tomorrow? Why is it that we put sweat and blood into attempting to guarantee ourselves a good long-run future but seemingly nothing much, if at all, into guaranteeing ourselves a good tomorrow? Instead, we work hard today; we work hard tomorrow; we work hard the day after. For when, I ask? When?
Define "future". Define a good future. What is it if not a pleasant tomorrow?
That was my meaningful rant for... Well, I haven't had one in a long while, huh? In case you missed those, I hope that the one just now suffices for your possibly insatiable thirst for my wisdom and revelations.
Now I shall return to my run of the mill style of blogging.
Today, I woke up at the unpleasantly ungodly time of 6:50 a.m. to go run, which I hadn't done in about two weeks, if not longer. I ran/ walked eight miles. At the end of the run, Mrs. J reminded us that the "Friendship Run" is this upcoming Sunday, and I gasped. I had thought that we had two weeks left! Then again, I guess that was what I had thought two weeks ago, too. I absolutely dread the 18-miler. It is absolutely dreadful, the worst running route ever. Ever! I said this last year after the run and I will say it again this year, beforehand: DAM THAT DAM. Ugh.
Anyway, after the practice run, S and I walked home and I just lied on the couch, watching nothing in particular on television and then eventually falling asleep. I was alone for a good two and a half hours, and I did not like it at all because it was supposed to be family or significant other day! And I was with neither! But afterward, we finally came to the house with our baby cousins (the youngest of the three is actually six now, I think), and then the party began!
Okay, we only ate while our parents chatted. And then we made a weird fruit juice with D's electric juicer. It involved orange, apple, jackfruit, pomelo, and carrot. It was good for a while. I liked it until I realized that the exotic concoction could possibly induce a poop war within my stomach/ intestines. So now there are two or three liters' worth of that stuff left for D to enjoy all on his own! Haha. Oh, and the babies also made cookies. I suppose that "cooking" was how we cousins bonded today...
Then the babies left, and everything quieted down. So S and I just watched Friday's episode of "Days of Our Lives", followed by February 8th's episode of "One Tree Hill", which made us cry. Afterward, I sashayed to my dearest neighbors of cousins and painted my nails, watched a bit of a Chinese movie, and left for dinner over here.
And then I started doing this!
This entire time, I have been listening to "For All Time" by sweet Albert Posis. What a beautiful song. I hope he gets a record deal one day. That is, if it is what he wants. But then again, how would I know what he deserves or not? I only know his voice through his music.
I feel a bit bad. I haven't done anything productive or academic at all this weekened. And I don't think that I will tomorrow, either. I probably should at least read for lit...
Oh, gosh. I have great news! Old news (oxymoron!), but great nonetheless. Several weeks ago, I began worrying about the grade point average I will be graduating with because I had a 4.012 and knew I was going to have a B in at least biology. The way I figured and calculated it, that B was going to drop my cumulative GPA to 3.9948decimaldecimal, and all I could think about for days was how upset and disappointed I would be upon the occurence of that. A kept telling me to not worry about it because one B should not drop me that much, especially considering that I'm taking four AP classes. I stopped worrying and hoped that he would be right. On Friday, I found out that he was right. I thought that my final GPA was too good to be true, until S told me how to calculate it and I got the same number as that on the paper Ms. I gave me. That event early in the morning made my day. And although I'm not currently brimming with the excitement from that day, I am still so very glad, because I now get to graduate as a "valedictorian". Yes, a, not the.
Hmm, it is now 9:39 p.m. I shall go shower. Speaking of which, I got a haircut yesterday, and I feel like I have no hair now. What I thought would be a two-inch trim turned out to be a... I don't even know. All I know is that I am now lacking much of the hair I had before 5:40 p.m. yesterday. Anyway, back to my shower. Oh, wait, I haven't even been there (since last night).
During lunch today, we were talking about J, who joined the army. I told my mother that his mother had told us that he had sent a postcard saying, "I'm tired. Don't mail back." It was hilarious, but both mothers (mine and his) suspect that the vaguely brief message suggests that it isn't easy over there. Then my mother began to talking about how hard work will result in a good future, the concept of which, in my mind, I began to question. If you work hard now, you will have a good future, my mother preached. But when can you stop working hard to ensure that your future will be in good enough standing? Today, tomorrow, next year, next decade? It occurred to me then that you don't know, and you never will. Even if you unfathomably did, it probably only means that you'll work hard every single day of your life, for the sake of your life. Actually, I stand corrected. Regardless of whether or not you know, it means that you will work hard for every single day of your life.
After having typed that possibly seemingly incomplete paragraph, it suddenly dawned on me that this is what I have been contemplating about high school and what I have been doing throughout it in preparation for a "good future", which, under current circumstances, is college. You see, to my very own demise, I had always thought that only junior year of high school counted toward the "future", so I didn't particularly study the previous two years. Last year was when I began to actually study like never before. I began to work hard, thinking that as long as I did well then, I would be set for college. Come November of 2009 (seems like so very long ago), I realized that the hard work hadn't stopped at all. In fact, it was just piling higher and higher. College applications were a handful, if not more. The following month or two, I kept telling myself that all the stress and work would be over after January application deadlines. I thought that I would finally be able to relax. Oh, boy (feel free to change the gender as you please), was I wrong. To make a potentially long story short, the hard work is never over. Especially not if you continually think about that good future.
But what about tomorrow? Why is it that we put sweat and blood into attempting to guarantee ourselves a good long-run future but seemingly nothing much, if at all, into guaranteeing ourselves a good tomorrow? Instead, we work hard today; we work hard tomorrow; we work hard the day after. For when, I ask? When?
Define "future". Define a good future. What is it if not a pleasant tomorrow?
That was my meaningful rant for... Well, I haven't had one in a long while, huh? In case you missed those, I hope that the one just now suffices for your possibly insatiable thirst for my wisdom and revelations.
Now I shall return to my run of the mill style of blogging.
Today, I woke up at the unpleasantly ungodly time of 6:50 a.m. to go run, which I hadn't done in about two weeks, if not longer. I ran/ walked eight miles. At the end of the run, Mrs. J reminded us that the "Friendship Run" is this upcoming Sunday, and I gasped. I had thought that we had two weeks left! Then again, I guess that was what I had thought two weeks ago, too. I absolutely dread the 18-miler. It is absolutely dreadful, the worst running route ever. Ever! I said this last year after the run and I will say it again this year, beforehand: DAM THAT DAM. Ugh.
Anyway, after the practice run, S and I walked home and I just lied on the couch, watching nothing in particular on television and then eventually falling asleep. I was alone for a good two and a half hours, and I did not like it at all because it was supposed to be family or significant other day! And I was with neither! But afterward, we finally came to the house with our baby cousins (the youngest of the three is actually six now, I think), and then the party began!
Okay, we only ate while our parents chatted. And then we made a weird fruit juice with D's electric juicer. It involved orange, apple, jackfruit, pomelo, and carrot. It was good for a while. I liked it until I realized that the exotic concoction could possibly induce a poop war within my stomach/ intestines. So now there are two or three liters' worth of that stuff left for D to enjoy all on his own! Haha. Oh, and the babies also made cookies. I suppose that "cooking" was how we cousins bonded today...
Then the babies left, and everything quieted down. So S and I just watched Friday's episode of "Days of Our Lives", followed by February 8th's episode of "One Tree Hill", which made us cry. Afterward, I sashayed to my dearest neighbors of cousins and painted my nails, watched a bit of a Chinese movie, and left for dinner over here.
And then I started doing this!
This entire time, I have been listening to "For All Time" by sweet Albert Posis. What a beautiful song. I hope he gets a record deal one day. That is, if it is what he wants. But then again, how would I know what he deserves or not? I only know his voice through his music.
I feel a bit bad. I haven't done anything productive or academic at all this weekened. And I don't think that I will tomorrow, either. I probably should at least read for lit...
Oh, gosh. I have great news! Old news (oxymoron!), but great nonetheless. Several weeks ago, I began worrying about the grade point average I will be graduating with because I had a 4.012 and knew I was going to have a B in at least biology. The way I figured and calculated it, that B was going to drop my cumulative GPA to 3.9948decimaldecimal, and all I could think about for days was how upset and disappointed I would be upon the occurence of that. A kept telling me to not worry about it because one B should not drop me that much, especially considering that I'm taking four AP classes. I stopped worrying and hoped that he would be right. On Friday, I found out that he was right. I thought that my final GPA was too good to be true, until S told me how to calculate it and I got the same number as that on the paper Ms. I gave me. That event early in the morning made my day. And although I'm not currently brimming with the excitement from that day, I am still so very glad, because I now get to graduate as a "valedictorian". Yes, a, not the.
Hmm, it is now 9:39 p.m. I shall go shower. Speaking of which, I got a haircut yesterday, and I feel like I have no hair now. What I thought would be a two-inch trim turned out to be a... I don't even know. All I know is that I am now lacking much of the hair I had before 5:40 p.m. yesterday. Anyway, back to my shower. Oh, wait, I haven't even been there (since last night).
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