Tuesday, April 30, 2013

What's Been Up Lately

1. Prom was April 20th. If I was on my own computer, I'd post pictures here. However, downloading and re-uploading on my school's internet seems like a pain.

2. Drama. Being in high school is dramatic.

3. Sleepover. I slept over at Marianna's house on Saturday night. It was pretty entertaining to get lost going there first because she couldn't remember her lefts from her rights.

4. AP Euro. Boring, miserable, but oddly amusing.

5. Breathing. Despite everything that's gone on lately, I haven't dropped dead from exhaustion.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Let It Be

It's been a while since I've posted on this blog. Lots of things have been happening, but I haven't had the willpower to write about any of it.

Prom was April 20, the day after my mother's birthday. I keep meaning to post pictures but I'm actually using my mother's computer since my computer's battery died. Since then, I've created a lot of drama within my group of friends. I appear to be good at this.

I'm a teenager, which means in many ways I'm still learning. Today, I learned the full extent of how much I've broken my reputation. It's going to be what it's going to be, and there's only so much I can do to change it.

At the end of the day, I'm going to try and do what makes me happy. I don't care what people think of me anymore, and I don't want to think about their opinions of me anyways. So, let it be.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Sunday Sweetheart

Today was a really boring day. I woke up around time for lunch, then decided it would be a good idea to try and do some homework. Too bad BLACKBOARD, the website we use to get our homework off of, was down! Ultimately I started trying to do a practice SAT, which was extremely boring. I think that's the problem with the SAT- it's not horrifically hard, it's just dull.

This evening my dad and I did a prom dress shoot. I can't post pictures yet in case Hansen reads this blog, since he can't see the dress early! He was downtown at some point today and dropped off a snack for me... macaroons! Except that I didn't realise he had left something at my doorstep and left them outside for a couple of hours... Well, they still taste good. I love macaroons, but my dad can't eat them because they have almond flour. More for me and my mom!

So, Hansen wins the newly-created "Natalie Award" of Sunday Sweetheart ^.^


Can't wait for prom! Six days to go :)

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Blurry

Today is a blurry day. One of my contacts fell out really early this morning so I only have one in. That makes the world blurry.  Confusing. Hard to see, hard to distinguish what is real and what is not. The stupid PTA is barbecuing hamburgers and hotdogs today, so the foyer of the school is filled with smoke. It sort of feels like the world is out of focus. 

It's disturbing to think that the school year is almost over. Though prom appears to be eclipsing it for the large part, exams are coming up. Exams, then graduation. Just like that, the majority of my friends leave.

Yesterday, tech club announced their new officers. And I'm not one of them, but Marianna is. A fair number of underclassmen are as well. While I'd like to say it doesn't bother me, naturally it does. Once you put a lot of time, money, and effort into something, you grow attached to it. However, I've been trying to dance again and it wasn't realistic to do Dance Performance, tech theatre officer, and four APs.
There's so much resentment and drama in tech that I don't know if it's really worth doing again next year.  Maybe it's best to go back to dance and be lonely for a while. Or do something crazy like focus on schoolwork as everyone is supposed to but no one wants to actually do.

Well, there have been a few good things going on. I qualify to be inducted into Thespian Honor's Society, which will look nice on my college applications. I will probably qualify for Dance Honor's Society next year, though to be honest I have no idea how these things operate anyways.

Also, I'm finishing this post late at night. Anyways, even though the world is blurry and sometimes seeing the path to go down is hard, I've concluded that it's always possible.


Sunday, April 7, 2013

Prom Dress Shopping

Prom dress shopping is easily one of the most exhausting things I've ever done. Thankfully, I got my dress a while ago and have nothing to worry about. My friend Abbey, on the other hand, hasn't got a dress yet even though prom is two weeks away. Yesterday, she and I went out in search of a dress for her, and it turned into a bit of an adventure.

We started out in Takashimaya, but didn't really see anything of interest there. She's always worn short black dresses to prom, so I wanted to get her into a long dress. After getting lost in the underpasses for a bit because I couldn't remember how to get to Tangs to save my life, we ended up at Far East Plaza. Far East appears to be the easiest place to get a prom dress. There's about a million stores there, and prizes range from rather cheap to easily over six hundred dollars. Anyways, we started by going to the shop where I got my dress, which is Lisa Penny. I actually bought my dress from them last year and I find that they are not only well-made, but reasonably priced.

Anyways, Abbey tried on a couple of short dresses but wasn't really finding anything interesting. To "humor me", I threw a couple of long dresses at her. One was ice blue and peacock themed, which wasn't terrible but made her look like she was either going to perform a peacock dance, or go to an Indian wedding. Not a contender by a long shot. The second or third dress she tried on was massive, but when pinned up looked absolutely amazing. It was long, black, strapless with an accent down the body and set off her figure nicely. 

But then of course we decided to wander around for another two hours looking for dresses, only to have her keep going back and thinking about the one she had already found. 

Oh, prom dress shopping. I love and hate you at the same time. I love you, because it gives me girl time and an excuse to see my friends look beautiful. I hate you, because it makes me walk around for hours. 

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Strike My Heart

For those of you that haven't figure it out by now, I'm adopted from China. More specifically, I'm from Changde, Hunan. And at the moment, I'm pretty proud of it.

I just googled "Changde" while proving to my mother that we've been mispronouncing and spelling the name of the city I'm from for quite some time. In addition to the Wikipedia page for "Changde" coming up, there was also a page called "Battle of Changde". My heart dropped when it showed the dates of the battle being between 1942-43, World War II. While many people are familiar with the horrors of the Holocaust, few are aware of the true nature of the horrors performed by the Japanese.

The Japanese had chemical and biological warfare units, but the most prominent is Unit 731. Unit 731 is most famous for its black plague bombs, vivisection, and creation of Mycoplasma. In short, it was a pretty nasty ordeal overall. I learned about this in history. I gave a cold, heartless presentation about it to a class of kids who could have cared less about what I was saying. I mentioned the positives of Unit 731's work, which was the massive amounts of research about infectious diseases.


The Japanese used  mustard gas, cyanic acid gas, and other horrific chemicals on the city.
After the Battle of Changde, Unit 731 airdropped fleas infected with the black death.

300,000 civilians died in the Battle of Changde.

I don't know why I had never googled the place I was born prior to today. It's sobering, horrifying, and really I don't know how to feel. I'm even less impressed with Imperial Japan than I was earlier. I don't hate today's Japanese since they didn't do anything wrong, but I think I understand why modern Chinese still don't like the Japanese. It's because they did stuff like this to places we care about.

So today, I found out something about myself that I didn't know prior. But I'm pretty proud of Changde, and being from there, regardless. Because you know what?

The Chinese beat the Japanese, despite all the horrible things that happened.




Tuesday, April 2, 2013

The Future... Perhaps

The amount of questions Juniors get about where we want to go to college, what we want to study, what we want to do when we grow up (interesting people never grow up at all, anyways), and where we want to live is driving me crazy.


So now I'm going to write down what I'm thinking about at the moment, and redirect people to this blog post when they ask me.

At the moment, I'm interested in studying in the United Kingdom. I cango for University of Westminster, or shoot for the stars with Cambridge. Either way, I don't know if I'm interested in an American liberal arts education. Seems like a lot of wasted time studying things you don't care about, unlike the UK when one jumps into the subject of interest on day one.

What I want to study: sociology, international relations. Why? Because I've loved history since I was a small child, but I don't want to be a straight-up history person. I like trends and blending cultures too much. History is very political, while sociology is a little bit of everything.

What I want to do when I grow up: Not leave academia.  Either teach, get my PhD and become a professor, make documentaries, write books or textbooks, tutor, whatever. No business for me!

Where I want to live as an adult: Probably not in the United States. Many European and Asian countries seem pretty cool. So does Canada.


Mkay? That should end the noise for the time being.

Monday, April 1, 2013

Entertainment

Yesterday my mother and I ran around trying to look for shoes for prom. We actually picked up a pair in Sri Lanka, but they turned out to be the wrong colour. So now I have three pairs of shoes purchased for prom (though only one pair is the right colour) and one pair of nude heels for everyday where. I'm really not certain how this happens, but women have the amazing ability to buy an extraordinary amount of shoes. 


It's April 1st, which means in theory there's going to be pranks and such. However, as far as I can remember, SAS doesn't have a huge prank culture. In my old town I remember the French teacher telling everyone that people used to stick little paper fish to each other's backs on April Fool's Day. However, she made that up and successfully pranked over half the school. It was pretty brilliant, though many seniors were upset that she beat them out in the "best prank of the year". 

Mondays are either the best day of the week or the worst day of the week, and at the moment it feels somewhere in between. I pin curled my hair again, but due to Singapore's stupid humidity it's already falling out. Not really certain where my vintage fascination came from, but it's entertaining me.

Hmm... I feel like a song is appropriate today.