The Good, the Bad, and the Utterly Strange of Summer
I love busy days. However, today will not be one of them. Summer has been pretty darn good to me so far, but there's one thing that continues to annoy me...
Procrastination haunts my being wherever I go. Thus is my life (even if it IS, after all, summer). I desperately need to wrap drivers ed up SOON. Soon soon soon, because otherwise I'd have to deal with this sort of embarrassment for an ungodly duration of time. Ugh, it's already ungodly; if I were a normal person, I would have my license now! Honestly, do you know how many times I've been asked by relatives and new acquaintances, "So are you driving? WTH you aren't?!?!" It would be nice to have a different answer for once.
And that's been the only downside for the time being. Well, just that and having to spend too much (in my opinion) time with my family. Actually, I'm 100% sure that my parents would agree with me in that aspect. Haha. Oh and my chores have increased. Sigh.
Now for the good/happy/fun stuff! Huzzah.
Life has been fairly eventful; exciting enough to satisfy my craving for activity, yet low-key enough to spend moments by myself in the pool or poring over some summer reading (currently The Crystal Cave by Mary Hoffman and Across the Wall by Garth Nix, simultaneously).
For the last two weeks of June, my main focus was working as a sempai (assistant teacher) at Nakayoshi Gakko. It was an undeniably rewarding experience, and despite suffering rapid energy loss from coaxing kids to participate and being mildly tormented by those that just couldn't have enough attention, I'll definitely re-apply next year. The last day, open house day, was completely awesome. Having dinner with the other sempai was definitely one of the highlights of that day. I was also extremely proud of my class (they were the youngest ones, 1st graders! So cute.) when they went up and performed their song. Anyway, they were an entertaining bunch-- I swear, each day could have been made into a comedy show.
Fujikawa Sensei (instructing the class): You can only to use the black, brown, or yellow clay for the dolls' hair. Are we going to use the blue clay?
Class (in unison): Noooo
Fujikawa Sensei: Are we going to use the purple clay? Or the green clay?
Hiromi: Not unless you're adopted!
Kids never fail to surpise me with unexpectedly deep musings, too.
Lucy (tearfully): Cortney is always so mean to me. She shouldn't even be at this school! Nakayoshi Gakko means Friendship School, and she hasn't been a good friend to anyone.
Moving onto other summer events, I fulfilled one of my goals for this summer, which was going up Mission Peak! There, it occurred to me that I was insanely out of shape because I don't remember it being so difficult! It was pretty fun, though, hiking with Chris and Scott, hiding out in the big tree, finishing an entire loaf of bread in our ascent, and pointing out every single visible landmark from the top (the view is amazing! Although it's not necessarily gorgeous what with the depressingly smoggy horizon, you can see EVERYTHING. It's like Where's Waldo, but minus the Waldo part.)
I went kayaking for the first time with my family friends. Great arm workout, and we got to see seals and pelicans super up-close. And sea otters too! They're an endangered species! I think that seeing an endangered species in their actual habitat is equivalent to seeing a celebrity in real life.
I airsoft-ed with Johnathon, again, another first. It's a lot of fun, and now I want an airsoft gun, but I assume they're pretty expensive. Plus the plastic bullets are not biodegradable-- so how does one clean them up? Do you even do that? It's really fun, though. And it doesn't hurt too badly when you get shot.
Got AP scores back!! It was pretty much what I expected, except I was able to prove to my parents with concrete evidence that I'm not an academic screw-up. I passed English with a 4, but I wasn't so fortunate with History (2).
Enough of the Good, how about the Strange?
I got my eyebrows done, and I can't decide whether or not it looks better. I think I now look, I don't know, meaner? Hahaha.
I'm going to Journalism Camp tomorrow and I'm... scared. Not only will nobody that I know be there, but everyone else who's there is most likely going to be with a bunch of people from their staff. I do hope there's others who are open to meeting people. And the orientation letter said that there would be assignments, and didn't describe what kind. So that worries me. Please wish me luck; I'm thinking I might need it.
Okay, that's all. And you there, I hope you're enjoying your summer to its full extent. Because that's what summer is there for, eh? :D
Procrastination haunts my being wherever I go. Thus is my life (even if it IS, after all, summer). I desperately need to wrap drivers ed up SOON. Soon soon soon, because otherwise I'd have to deal with this sort of embarrassment for an ungodly duration of time. Ugh, it's already ungodly; if I were a normal person, I would have my license now! Honestly, do you know how many times I've been asked by relatives and new acquaintances, "So are you driving? WTH you aren't?!?!" It would be nice to have a different answer for once.
And that's been the only downside for the time being. Well, just that and having to spend too much (in my opinion) time with my family. Actually, I'm 100% sure that my parents would agree with me in that aspect. Haha. Oh and my chores have increased. Sigh.
Now for the good/happy/fun stuff! Huzzah.
Life has been fairly eventful; exciting enough to satisfy my craving for activity, yet low-key enough to spend moments by myself in the pool or poring over some summer reading (currently The Crystal Cave by Mary Hoffman and Across the Wall by Garth Nix, simultaneously).
For the last two weeks of June, my main focus was working as a sempai (assistant teacher) at Nakayoshi Gakko. It was an undeniably rewarding experience, and despite suffering rapid energy loss from coaxing kids to participate and being mildly tormented by those that just couldn't have enough attention, I'll definitely re-apply next year. The last day, open house day, was completely awesome. Having dinner with the other sempai was definitely one of the highlights of that day. I was also extremely proud of my class (they were the youngest ones, 1st graders! So cute.) when they went up and performed their song. Anyway, they were an entertaining bunch-- I swear, each day could have been made into a comedy show.
Fujikawa Sensei (instructing the class): You can only to use the black, brown, or yellow clay for the dolls' hair. Are we going to use the blue clay?
Class (in unison): Noooo
Fujikawa Sensei: Are we going to use the purple clay? Or the green clay?
Hiromi: Not unless you're adopted!
Kids never fail to surpise me with unexpectedly deep musings, too.
Lucy (tearfully): Cortney is always so mean to me. She shouldn't even be at this school! Nakayoshi Gakko means Friendship School, and she hasn't been a good friend to anyone.
Moving onto other summer events, I fulfilled one of my goals for this summer, which was going up Mission Peak! There, it occurred to me that I was insanely out of shape because I don't remember it being so difficult! It was pretty fun, though, hiking with Chris and Scott, hiding out in the big tree, finishing an entire loaf of bread in our ascent, and pointing out every single visible landmark from the top (the view is amazing! Although it's not necessarily gorgeous what with the depressingly smoggy horizon, you can see EVERYTHING. It's like Where's Waldo, but minus the Waldo part.)
I went kayaking for the first time with my family friends. Great arm workout, and we got to see seals and pelicans super up-close. And sea otters too! They're an endangered species! I think that seeing an endangered species in their actual habitat is equivalent to seeing a celebrity in real life.
I airsoft-ed with Johnathon, again, another first. It's a lot of fun, and now I want an airsoft gun, but I assume they're pretty expensive. Plus the plastic bullets are not biodegradable-- so how does one clean them up? Do you even do that? It's really fun, though. And it doesn't hurt too badly when you get shot.
Got AP scores back!! It was pretty much what I expected, except I was able to prove to my parents with concrete evidence that I'm not an academic screw-up. I passed English with a 4, but I wasn't so fortunate with History (2).
Enough of the Good, how about the Strange?
I got my eyebrows done, and I can't decide whether or not it looks better. I think I now look, I don't know, meaner? Hahaha.
I'm going to Journalism Camp tomorrow and I'm... scared. Not only will nobody that I know be there, but everyone else who's there is most likely going to be with a bunch of people from their staff. I do hope there's others who are open to meeting people. And the orientation letter said that there would be assignments, and didn't describe what kind. So that worries me. Please wish me luck; I'm thinking I might need it.
Okay, that's all. And you there, I hope you're enjoying your summer to its full extent. Because that's what summer is there for, eh? :D