But I’ll lament about the horrors of grade 11 in some other post. Right now, I have a bigger issue to address.

One of the new classes that I am taking this year is Contemporary World Issues (hi, Mr. Spivey ) and our homework assignment over the weekend was the watch a 20 minute video from TED.com. If you don’t know what TED is then… ugh just read the About page here I’ll link it for you: click.

So yes, it’s an awesome place. It doesn’t get the attention that it should be getting. Think of it as a youtube with one, huge, very effective filter that screens out atrocious videos such as Joe Jonas dancing to Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” in a tight black bodysuit. I mean really Joe Jonas, 1) you’re not a lady 2) you sure as hell are going to stay single after that monstrosity. But I digress. TED is full of great minds speaking out their ideas to the world – and the best thing is, it’s free! Or so they say. There is no such thing as a free lunch. But whatever, you don’t have to pay money.

******

THE POINT IS, for homework I had to watch a speech by edit: Larry Lessig and his speech was basically about why the copyright system in America right now is not as good as it seems. (The link to the speech is at the end of this post. So you’ll HAVE to read this before you can watch it! HA)

He says the copyright law stifles creativity. He says that it stifles the “Read-Write” culture of our generation and tries to turn it into a “Read-Only” culture. This is not to say that people can rip anything off and completely call it as their own, but people do have the right to “remix” their world. He says that the young generation – our generation – cannot be stifled because the “instinct” to use technology to express ourselves and our opinions about life and the world. We have the “instinct” to “remix” what we get in our lives and spit back out to the public.

Mr. Lessig is right. As part of the Next Generation (and I capitalize that because yes, I think we’re important, kthanks), I can definitely feel the oppression of the copyright law wherever I go in cyberspace. Am I being melodramatic? Probably, but in all seriousness, our generation does have the “instinct” to “remix” our world. Pop culture is thrown at our faces in the form of magazines, TV shows, commercials, internet sites, and ads, why can’t we take it and throw it right back? What’s wrong with “remixing”?

The “remixing” of the world can come in the form of anime music videos, parodies, video projects, amateur documentaries, music videos of characters of One Tree Hill kissing to Nickleback… anything. The “remixing” of the world by the Next Generation doesn’t have to be academic. It doesn’t have to be enlightening. It doesn’t even have to be classy. Actually, most of the time, it’s not really classy. But it’s important.What’s so important about the infestation of Naruto AMVs on youtube, the videos of failed dirt bike tricks to hardcore metal, or Joe Jonas dancing to “Single Ladies”?

It shows that we, as the youth, are interacting with each other. We are “participating” in the global culture. We are “writing” as well as “reading” culture, instead of, as the speaker said (seriously I’ll try to find his name ASAP), passively “only reading” the culture manufactured and doled out to us. The people who make videos shipping (definition here) their favorite Twilght characters, as moronic as they may be, are at least “participating” in the world around them. At least they are giving some sign of response that shows they know what’s going on in their lives. We cannot filter out this participation – either by law or by personal disdain – or else we would be making a “Read Only” culture all over again.

******

As most should know, Youtube is like a huge barrel of apples. Occasionally, there are a few really awesome apples (users), but more often than not you will run into an apple that is rotten, deformed, and ugly. Youtube is THE place for racist comments, for sexist criticisms, and for generally ignorant and slap-worthy remarks. But in a way, we kind of need that. We need someone to say something so stupid it evokes a response. By “participating” in the global community, the ignorant people are giving something for the better people of the world to care about and respond to.

I seriously don’t know if what I’m saying is making any sense right now. I kind of have a problem with expressing the ideas in my ahead precisely to the public. But hopefully, you catch my drift, and may be I’ll edit this post later if I find a better way to phrase my thoughts.

******

So this means that technically, I should thank Joe Jonas for his video because it shows that he is “participating” in our world, regardless of whether his participation is wanted. He is not only a figure of culture, but also a consumer, and more importantly, a builder of our culture as well. People like him are the people making our society a “Read-Write” culture, not a “Read-Only” one.

So I guess thank you to Mr. Lessig who made this speech in the first place, and thanks Mr. Spivey for assigning such inspiring and fun homework for CWI. I can only cross my fingers and hope that future assignments are as easy as this one was. (But I already get the feeling that my chances are looking bleak. Ugh.)

– JANE

Top Ten things I can’t wait to do over the summer:

1. Run by the Han River park area. The place just got newly renovated with fountains and artifical islands and biking areas and stuff, plus the Hannam bridge was modified to create a walking area for pedestrians. Basically, I can cross over the river on foot now
2. Go to the beach. This will probably happen only once, if I’m lucky. But I still can’t wait to go.
3. Go to Caribbean Bay. Again, this will probably happen only once. Or maybe twice? As long as hakwon doesn’t get in the way…
4. Go to the COEX Aquarium with Elaine and DEEDEE! Because we’re cool like that. And also I want to see the fish and sharks there again.
5. Actually have time to read. And I will probably be forced to because of summer reading assignments (joy). This whole year I’ve barely been able to make time for school reading, and reading for pleasure was completely out of the picture (save for KIS Reads…which is the most useless club block ever. I hate reading at school; I only like to read in the comfort of my home).
6. Forget everything that I learned in AP World History.
7. Having Criminal Minds marathons, Jenn included.
8. SHOPPING!:D Haha sorry, I had to throw that one in. I think that’s the best part. Now if only my supply of money was endless…
9. Sleeping until 12 PM every morning.
10. Anticipate the beginning of next year. We all hate school, but I think after two months of hakwon and hakwon homework, school might sound a bit more enticing.*

* But not for long.

- JANE

—————

In the words of good friend of mine, while watching the opening credits of the movie:

“Oh, I thought it was Angels versus Demons. This is gonna suck.”

LOL.

Sadly, my friend was right, though not exclusively due to a misinterpretation of the title. Still, the movie was quite a disappointment. Who am I kidding, I totally walked into that movie theatre expecting something akin to a victim of bad plastic surgery. Why, you ask? I’ll break it down for you in five digestable parts (but considering horridness of those five parts, you may suffer from indigestion). (I am so full of weird metaphors today).

1) Tom Hanks.

This man was a subject on my friend’s blog (Dongju) that I think she covered quite nicely. I’ll just throw in some opinions of my own. First, WHY Tom Hanks? Just let that question sit there for a while. Ponder it. Contemplate it. Shake your fists to the sky in despair about it. WHY TOM HANKS? I was always under the impression that Dr. Robert Langdon would be one of those nerdy-yet-irresistably-cute-and-strangely-attractive professors, like Michael Gubler on Criminal Minds as Dr. Reid. I mean thats how Dan Brown wrote him in his books. But wow, I guess the casting team of The Da Vinci Code and consequently Angels and Demons didn’t share my impression.

Here’s what I saw in the book:

“Although not overly handsome in a classical sense…Langdon had what his female colleagues referred to as an “erudite” appeal – wisps of gray in his thick brown hair, probing blue eyes, an arrestingly deep voice, and the strong, carefree smile of a collegiate athelete. A varsity diver in prep school and college, Langdon still had the body of a swimmer, a toned, six-foot physique that he viligantly maintained with fifty laps a day in the university pool.” (Brown 5)

Here’s what I saw in my head:

<3

+

<3

=

oh yes.

Here’s what I saw on screen:

+

=

Leonidas does not approve.

Not only does the passage written provide a new SAT vocabulary word to know (”erudite: having or showing great knowledge or learning”), but it provides a VERY CLEAR DESCRIPTION of what dear old Langdon looks like.

THICK hair: This man has none.

DEEP voice: Again, this man has none. But he does have the nasal voice of a middle-aged man trying too hard to be sarcastic and witty.

CAREFREE smile: Well, it depends on how one defines “carefree”. I, however, do not define it as “Tom Hanks baring teeth”.

BODY OF A SWIMMER: Well, so Tom Hanks was swimming in the movie. That got that much right. Can’t say much for the body.

TONED, SIX FOOT physique that is VILIGANTLY MAINTAINED: Fail.

NOW, if Tom Hanks still looked like THIS:

Then why the monkey not? But oh wait, he doesn’t. FAIL.

2) Max Kohler

Or lack thereof. Ok ok, I understand that Angels and Demons was BASED off the book, not a literal page-to-screen translation of it. But it really annoyed me how little detail the movie actually had about the very things that made the book so intriguing.

For one, MAX FREAKING KOHLER was completely cut out of the script. In the book, he is one of the central characters of the story. He’s the one who calls Robert Langdon for help. He’s the one that Dan Brown makes off as the bad guy until the very end when the truth is revealed. Sadly, they deemed him unimportant and disregarded him. Not only did the scriptwriters cut out one of my favorite characters, but they all cut out a character that added significant meaning to the whole point of the book. The book was trying to reflect the struggle between SCIENCE and the Catholic Church. Now in the book, Max Kohler represents the scientist and Church represents, well, the Church (bet you didn’t see that one coming).

Max Kohler is shown as the skeptical science freak trying to bring down a thousand years of human faith. He exemplifies the theme of church vs. science. But he isn’t there in the movie, so now theme of church vs science is all muddled up because it’s the CHURCH that invites Langdon in yet it’s still science vs church but science actually plays a very small role in the movie WHICH IT’S NOT SUPPOSED TO and just…fail.

3) Art

So much more important than it looks.

While the book makes the hunt for the four churches look like some sort of amazing, intellectual, artitsic treasure hunt, the movie makes it look like a deranged life-size version of Clue. With cardinals that have punctured lungs. Or something. In Angels and Demons the book, art plays a fundamental role in the plot and the message of the book. The moving force of the plot is Bernini and his sculpture, and his apparent placement of pagan symbols in Christian churches and works of the art. Whether Dan Brown’s analysis and assumptions are correct or not, it’s still extremely interesting. The book makes you realize the depth of art, the possibilities of interpretation and the double meanings artists skillfully and cleverfully place in their works. In the movie, it’s more sort of like brain vomit:

“OMG! Pyramids in a Christian temple? A star – a pentagon! It leads to…the SOUTH! Tombs worshipping the sun! AHHH! WE’RE TOO LATE! IT’S 10:00! BURNING CARDINAL! SKULLS! SKULLS!”

Sense: This picture makes none.

Which leads to my next point…

4) Incoherency and what happened to the demons?

Watching Angels and Demons is kind of like experiencing a fragmented dream…One moment you’re here, and another moment you’re there, but you’re not quite sure what happened in between. In Angels and Demons, one moment Tom Hanks is showing off his bod in a pool, the next moment he’s choking in the Vatican Library, the next moment he’s standing above a 20-foot-deep hole, next he’s in the hole and running over a huge pile of SKULLS (referring to the “SKULLS! SKULLS” remark from before), suddenly Tom Hanks gets a flash of brilliance and runs across to the other side of Rome, then he’s in the Vatican church again, then out of nowhere the antagonist of the story jumps into a car which promptly explodes with NO EXPLANATION GIVEN (was it a suicide? was it an attack? was it a fart gone wrong? WE MAY NEVER KNOW), and then KABAMASPLODE end credits. So perhaps I’m exaggerating things slightly, but it’s not far off. At least in my opinion. And hey, that’s the only thing that matters, right?

Huh? What? How did that happen? Why is he on the roof of the Church?

Not only that. but the entire theme of the book (as said before) is entirely misrepresented, if represented at all, in the movie. This book is about (surprisingly) angels and demons, good and evil, man and god, science and faith. This is not to say that science is a “demon” or anything like that, but the point of this book is to show what happens when two seemingly opposite forces collide. Heck, Dan Brown even threw in matter and antimatter bit if that doesn’t make the theme any clearer (if it doesn’t, go back to English 10. Fail.). The book centers around the reconciliation between scientific progress/natural law and the spiritual faith in man. And what does the movie center around?

.

.

.

This guy right here.

And finally, the last part of my justification as to why Angels and Demons was a huge insult to the work of Dan Brown…

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

5) Will Smith.

Because everything is cooler with Will Smith.

Indeed.

– JANE–

PS) I suck at promises.

You know, sometimes losing weight isn’t as hard as it is made out to be. It’s just that we associate losing weight with unpleasantness because, well, we make it unpleasant. We force ourselves to devote an hour of our time to exercise, and we make a concious effort to curb munchie cravings at 12 AM (and any person knows that curbing those cravings is PAINFUL). But if you want to lose weight without the dread, then you should find ways to incorporate health into your life naturally so that you don’t have to think about or force yourself into doing them.

So here is a list of ways to help you:

1. Brush your teeth after every meal, especially after dinner. You know that nasty sensation when you eat an orange or a piece of chocolate (or basically anything) after you’ve JUST brushed your teeth? Yea, well, it’s ugly, and no one likes an ugly taste in their mouth. Use this as a weapon against those after-meal cravings. Brush your teeth as soon as you finish lunch, and so when you see a rogue Ferrero Rocher laying around the house, your fresh and minty breath will serve as a reminder of the ugliness you will suffer if you do choose to eat that Ferrero Rocher.
2. Carry around less money. If you’re going out for a walk or jog, carry just enough money for a bottle of water (usually 800-1000 won in Korea). If your going on a grocery trip, carry around just enough cash to get what you need (so plan your budget out ahead of time) or at least promise yourself to not go over on the card. What I’ve found out is that if I ever have a lot of money when I leave the house, I end up buying snacks even if I’m not hungry just because I have the money. Imagine how much money you spend on snacks. WHAT A WASTE. And the only things you get out of using money on snacks is fat and a fleeting moment of joy. So if you limit the amount of money you carry around, you’ll be forced to give up buyingsnacks on whim and on the go.
3. If you have retainers, wear them more often. Especially after every meal. This tip only applies if you actually have retainers, but it can go hand in hand with tip number one. First, you need to brush your teeth before putting on retainers unless you want to risk having decayed food particles stuck between the plastic/metal and your teeth. This already sets up the “minty taste that ruins everything” barricade. Second, retainers are bulky, and it is impossible to eat with them, unless you’re a disgusting person. Once you go through the trouble of brushing you teeth and then washing your retainers and then putting them in, you’ll be too lazy to go through that AGAIN when snack cravings come around.
4. Walk wherever you can. This one is kind of obvious. If you can get to some place by walking (or biking I guess) rather than bus, car, or taxi, then walk. Not only is it better for the environment, but it throws in exercise that you don’t have to set aside separate time in the gym for. You won’t even remember that you’re exercising because you’re too focused on getting to your destination.
5. Or if you do plan on setting aside some time to exercise, listen to music so that you have something else to focus on other than your own panting breath and sweat. This one is obvious too.
6. Adding on to this exercise thing, if you like sports, then play sports. If you’re like me and would rather kiss the feet of John Travolta (who I despise by the way. Hairspray? Drag? Really, John, really?) than play sports, then play WII sports! If you have Nintendo Wii, that is. If you don’t then…GG.
7. Do you eat snacks when you’re studying or working? Do you eat snacks when you’re watching TV or surfing youtube for the latest update of Susan Boyle? Figure out your regular snack eating locations and then put your snacks as far away as possible. Humans are usually lazy, and you, dear reader, are most likely human, and therefore you will most likely be very lazy as well. “But I love snacks so much I’d walk miles for them!” Yeah, no. Don’t count on that. I usually do homework in my bedroom and I watch TV in the living room, and in order to get to snacks I have to walk to the other side of the apartment, into the storage area, and dig through miles of Tupperware containers in order to grab a cookie or some chips. It gets tiring after a while. So even if I want a snack while working on an English essay for a blog post, I’m just too lazy to go through that entire ordeal.
8. Start replacing the unhealthy snacks with healthy ones. Okay, so nothing can really replace the sweet and joyful sensation of eating a piece of Cadbury chocolate (cue saliva), but most of the time when you want to eat a snack, you don’t want the snack and you don’t want to eat. You just want something to do. And eating snacks not only gives your mouth something to do, but it throws in some fun for your tastebuds as well. Really guys, that’s stupid. So if you start placing some HEALTHY snacks around your house (in some easily accessible locations), then you will solve both problems of a bored mouth AND losing weight. Eat peanuts, almonds, or cashews instead of chips. Naturally sugary fruits instead of gummy worms and cookies. Just healthy stuff in general (you can google search this on your own). And if you’re allergic to fruits and nuts and whatnot….then just don’t eat, damnit.
9. To Korean people especially: STOP WITH THE RAMEN!! ESPECIALLY THE CUP RAMEN!!! I personally don’t like ramen so I never had a problem with it, but i mean COME ON PEOPLE. IT’S BASICALLY A CUP FULL OF OIL, GREASE, CHEMICALS, AND GOD KNOW WHAT ELSE. Hell, there could be something like rat feces in that crap. Who KNOWS what gets into those cups of doom and cellulite?! (Actually, that’s kind of redundant in a way.)

See people? It’s not all that hard. It’s easier than forcing yourself to do 30 grueling minutes of Stairmaster at the gym. I’m not saying that Stairmaster is useless, but there are easier ways to lose weight and get healthier for those of us who are less motivated. Like me. I hate Stairmaster. If you’re actually serious about losing a lot of weight, then you’ll have to do much more than the things I listed above. But you know, small steps always come first.

–JANE–

I really don’t feel like blogging these days.. I don’t know why. Too much AP stress? But I do need to catch up on blogging.

I promise that I will have a much better post later. Like SOON later.

I’ll leave you with a picture that describes my feelings exactly:

I AM ABOUT TO BURST.

APs DIE DIE DIE

– JANE

————-

So I pretty just wasted about, oh I don’t know, EIGHT HOURS OF MY LIFE. And no, it was not wasted on some weird, overly-drawn out Indian movie, but on a book. Breaking Dawn to be exact.

Ok, let me rephrase. Technically, I have wasted 8345834 HOURS OF MY LIFE by reluctantly trudging through the dungpit-esque books of the “Twilight saga.” From Twilight to New Moon to Eclipse, I have dragged my self through the possibly non-existent plot in a strange love-hate relationship with the books, despising and craving at the same time. I don’t know how to describe it…it’s kinda like when you’re watching a seriously dumbtarded movie and yet you’re still compelled to watch it to the very end, only to scream in frustration and throw a hatchet at the TV monitor when you DO reach the end. (A perfect example would be this Japanese movie I watched a long time ago, where a ton of useless crap happens and then the main character dies of ovarian cancer or something.)

But dude. Woah. Breaking Dawn?

DO. NOT. WANT.

Breaking Dawn is where I had to draw the freakin LINE. Man, it wasn’t even a line. It was like the Great Wall of China with barbed wire and tasers on top. I couldn’t even finish the book. You know what I had to do? I had to go to wikipedia and read the spoilers, which is the number one thing i hate doing when it comes to reading books.

Where to start?!

First off, throughout the whole series, it pissed me off so much how

a) Bella was ALWAYS like “omfg edward so hotttt” and just wouldn’t st*u about it.

b) Bella has like seriously, NO SELF ESTEEM WHATSOEVER. “I feel like a lumpy piece of coal when I stand next to Edward.” (or something to that effect.) WHAT KIND OF MESSAGE IS SHE SENDING TO HER AUDIENCE, WHICH IS MAINLY COMPRISED OF BORDER-HORMONAL, PRE-PUBSCENT TWEENY BOPPERS THAT DRULZ AT EVERY EDWARD SPARKLE?! (Despite the fact that its “young adult fiction”.) If Bella, who is madly in LURRRVE with her “shimmery, eyed” bloodsucking stud muffin (aka Edward), keeps comparing herself to him at every chance she gets and puts herself down, how do you think young girls would feel next to their boyfriends or some guy that they deem hotter than themselves?

c) And this damsel in distress party got sooooo old. And her being all clumsy and awkward, but endearingly so. And also her being oblivious to the advances of the guys in her school, claiming that she’s just “ordinary” and “plain.” (But she is.)

d) i HATE how she led Jacob on SO MUCH. WHAT THE HAELL MAN?! During that one period Edward was gone, she literally used Jacob like a drug (I’m pretty sure she admitted herself in a chapter, in fact.) Then Edward pops out of nowhere, and its like, “o hay, lulz sry mah bad bb but ilyily!!!<33 kthxbi.” She can’t even let him go later on; every single chapter she keeps saying “But Jacob I love you so much you’re a part of me!”

SHUT UP!!!

wtfink is that even possible? What is going through Meyer’s mind?

But all this is whatever. Just nagging itches at the back of my head, compared to the asplosion of my brain cells that occurred after reading Breaking Dawn.

One, I know tthe books are young adult fiction, but honestly the REAL age group the books are attracting is again, the tweeny boppers. And Breaking Dawn, let’s just say that there are a lot of….”mature” scenes, even though the author narrates them like a prude (and I ask myself: WHY include mature scenes if you’re going to narrate them in the same way a father might have an awkward birds-and-the-bees talk with his wide-eyed son? Is the author trying to make the characters seem more “real”? There’s NOTHING real about a perfect romance with a freakin vampire.) Reading through those scenes, and trust me there are quite a few of them, just made me feel really awkward and bothered.

Also, I don’t know if it’s just me, but Stephenie Meyer seems to emphasize external beauty so much. Bella, who constantly compares herself to everyone, says she feels “sick to her stomach” when she’s in the same room as Rosalie because she is such a “knock out.” Gee, thanks for the ego boost there. Even on her wedding day, Bella is unable to look at her reflection in the mirror because she fears that it is ugly. Wouldn’t that be called some sort of body-image disorder or something!? And in the end, she becomes a vampire, through really weird and disturbing means, and at first all she can do is admire herself in the mirror and gloat that finally she feels “equal” with Edward.

Speaking of weird and disturbing, what the hell is up with the demon child sprouting up in Bella’s belly and killing her from the inside out? How can a vampire and human have a baby?! I thought vampires….nevermind. And then there’s this whole gory thing where she has to drink blood and then suddenly she starts spewing fountains of blood so finally Edward has to literally gnaw his way through Bella’s utureus to free the baby. With his teeth, since apparently vampire teeth are the only things strong enough to tear the placenta of a half-human baby.

I’m serious.

And to top it all off, the ONE character that I liked, the ONE character that made me push myself through all three and two-thirds of these books, imprints himself on a newborn (talking about Jacob here). A NEWBORN!!! THAT WILL BE IN A PERPETUAL STATE OF CHILDHOOD! Dude, now this is getting too ethically touchy. I mean…pedo, much? After I figured out that Jacob imprints himself on the baby, I shut the book and shook my fists to the heavens in despair.

And then all this useless drama happens where the Volturi are like “o noez half human demon child! must exterminate!” but Bella and the gang are like “no wai r yooh tuchin mah babi!” etc.

I must give Stephenie MEyer credit for one thing, however. She has a talent for cracked writing. Why else would I read all four books.

I need a life.

———–

I still feel the same way.

GRAPHJAM is one of my top ten websites that I visit multiple times a day. Users upload graphs that often reflect observations of life, and there is usually no actual mathematical element in the graphs. Some of the graphs are so witty and true, I just want to print them out, laminate them, and frame them. When you go to a site like graphjam.com, you realize two things:

1) There are a lot of funny people in the world.

2) There are a lot of funny people lacking lives in the world.

A few personal favorites:

I’m sorry, but…

1, 2, 3, 4…

Things Read on the Toilet

How Expensive Things were… (here’s a nice one)

How Much I want Something (LOLOLOL I cannot relate enough to this one)

Popular Colors of Residential Submarines (A perfect example of sweet simplicity)

Causes of Fire Alarm going off…. (I bet this will be me in a few years)

And here’s a real kicker:

Things My Roomates Talk about…

Have I gotten you addicted yet? I probably already have. Say good bye to those precious hours where you could be finsihing Jane Eyre annotations or getting around to those logarithm problems for math, GRAPH JAM HAS NOW ENSNARED YOU IN IT’S STICKY, GRAPHISH, APPEASINGLY-COLORFUL GRASP.

Now that we’ve established the awesomeness of graph jam, I shall proudly present my own very first work. Since we have recently finished Dracula, I thought this would be a nice finishing touch…

YAY!

- JANE

EDIT:

In dedication to our very own Office junkie, Susan:

No seriously, this post is pretty whiny.

Last warning.

Don’t give me crap about how I didn’t warn you and about how immature and spoiled I sound.

This post will be a stream of consciousness because I am not in the mood to think about a specific subject to talk about. Who said that that has to be a rule for blogs anyway. -_-

I understand that teachers probably do know and care more about us that we actually believe, but sometimes I think they fail to remember we have a life outside of class. I know it’s my duty as a student to meet those expectations and that I shouldn’t be complaining, but I’M GOING TO COMPLAIN ANYWAYS. Because I feel like my life right now is all messed up and confused and it’s not working out, so everyone just bear with me. (There aren’t any people who read this anyways.) Yesterday I finally slept for over 10 hours and what was my punishment for sleeping well? A project due the next class. Homework I didn’t know about. (Ok this might not make any sense to people reading this because I’m not naming any specific classes or assignments but hopefully people will know what I mean). I had a test today and I feel so stupid because I forgot to memorize certain formulas for it when I was confident that I had covered everything.I AM SO UNHAPPY RIGHT NOW. And SOMEONE will be like “Well Jane you should feel thankful that you’re attending such a nice school and living in such nice conditions blablabla” well DUH who said I wasn’t thankful?! Who said that I don’t realize how lucky i am? I do! But there are times, my friends, when you should just shut up and let people rant. We can’t live our lives in constant comparison to other’s lives. If you put it that way am I lucky compared to the billionaire stock owners on Wall Street, or to the beautiful and loved celebrities that make up 1% of the world’s population but 500% of the global media who probably eat gold for breakfast or some such thing? I guess I sound really immature right now but…if you’re already reading up to here then that means you decided to ignore the warning, and now that’s your fault. Back to my main point, I am so unhappy right now. Third quarter is always the hardest quarter. I feel my academics slipping and really i am trying my best, but I have so much going on…It sounds like another stupid excuse but it’s not. It’s just that I don’t feel like going into detail about what is going on in my life. And I try my hardest in school but I have to balance that with APs and volunteer work and tutor and eating and sleeping and breathing. Since when has our world created such high expectations of everyone. I guess some sort of qualification process is needed to lead in today’s society, but I think our current system of academics is NOT IT. It’s just stupid. ANd when you take a good look at some of the people with wealth or power or fame, you realize that education had nothing to do with it (e.g. certain presidents….cough cough just saying). Our current system of academics is basically “Just how far can go to kill yourself every night and still maintain a perfect GPA with honors and extracurriculars? Just how perfect a human can you be?” Or maybe it’s just Korean society that dictates this. Or maybe it’s just KIS society. I don’t know. Whatever it is, it is RETARDED and it is killing me. It is literally LITERALLY not figuratvely LITERALLY draining the happiness out of my life. When I shower, I can see the happiness drift down with the shampoo suds. When I wash my hands, I can feel the happiness slipping with the soap. I have no life.

Hopefully my next post won’t be as ranty as this one.

A goldfish. I have a goldfish swimming around in a bowl just a couple feet from me. Well rather than swim it’s more like drifting about and vacantly goggling at its distorted surrondings, but anyways. (Actually now it’s kind of freakin me out by sitting at the bottom of the bowl…how does a goldfish even manage to sit at the bottom of a bowl?!).

In the eyes of humans, especially the smallish ones with eternal sticky stains on their mouths and missing front teeth, goldfish aren’t even living organisms anymore. I even forgot that goldfish had the ability to reproduce…I had had the vague idea that they popped out of the walls of Walmart tanks or some such non-organic method of reproduction. Right now I’m watching my goldfish sleep, and it’s so awkward because I never thought about goldfish sleeping before. Don’t they just hover around until the next time you feed them?

See, this is why I would hate to be a goldfish. No one would value me for ME; I’d be just another prize at state fair or some little kid’s appeasement to his or her constant demands for “Nemo“. I would be a three week replacement until my poor little fish body wouldn’t be able to handle the stress of constant bag-shaking, glass-tapping, “FISHIE WAKE UP“-ing and pass over to Goldfish Heaven, presumably some sort of divine Japanese koi pond. (But I digress. As always.)

Goldfish are so disposable and no one even cares. Does something have a life if no one values it? So some sort of biology nerd could be like “Well, it’s breathing and eating isn’t? It’s heart is beating, isn’t? It’s excreting long strands of poo, isn’t it? Then of course it’s alive you dumb*** next question please!” Well shut up, that’s not the point. It’s kind of like that paradoxical riddle everyone asks: If a tree in the forest falls and no one hears it, does it make a sound? So I must ask the question again: If someone exists and no one really cares, is he/she really living?

In AP world history, I learned that the religion of the first agricultural settlers in the Yellow River Valley (China, for the history/geography incompetent ones out there) was based around ancestor worship. This tradition can still be seen in Confucianism today. Basically, their version of the afterlife was a vague sort of spirit world, where the souls of the deceased hung around in. Here’s the catch: The spirits of the deceased only remained in the spirit world for as long as their descendents remembered them. Once the descendants forgot about their greatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreat-grandfather who got lost somewhere in the family tree, his spirit would vanish forever. I don’t know about anyone else, but the thought of that made me a little sad. And I realized that that religion really reflected the basically psychology of us humans: our lives are made up of other people and our relationships with those people. Of course, above all people you need to value YOURSELF the most, self-confidence is extremelly important, but really…I don’t think I would be able to value myself if I knew that no one cared about me at all.

And now writing this blog post has made me really thankful for all the people who do care about me, my existence. My family, my friends, my teachers…I don’t need to the whole world to care about me. Because the people who do care about me care about me A LOT. Thanks everyone<3 I care about you too!

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And what the hell, I think my fish just ate it’s own poo. -_- lolol nasty creature.

Well.

SIGNS is one of the bests films I have ever seen. It’s more heart-touching, more sweet, and more sincere than any big-shot Hollywood movie I’ve seen to date (except for I Am Sam and a few other notable exceptions. But I Am Sam deserves a blog post of its own so I’ll leave that for later).

Click here to watch the movie

I would write a response to the movie itself, but I think what Nathan said to me after I was done with the film was more interesting.

Nathan:
we all need love now
Nathan:
lol
Nathan:
yeahhh
Me:
ughh hahaha
Me:
but we’re still too young for that in my opinion
Nathan:
ha ha ha
Nathan:
not that kinda love
Nathan:
i mean like a person who you can rely on and talk about anything without any anxiety

Nathan is right. Romantic love is nice and tingly and gooey, but more than anything else we need understanding love. As Nathan put it, someone we don’t have to filter our thoughts and worries to, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be romantic. But my question is, can we really find a love like that? Find someone that will hold back our hair while we literally figuratively brain vomit?

In my opinion, no, we cannot. Or a very lucky, select few will be able to. Humans are humans, and we’re just as stupid and selfish and immature as the next monkey -it’s just that we make that stupidity, selfishness, and immaturity a lot more complicated. Do you really think that there is someone out there that will listen to your every worry and your every wish? People get sick of things. They’ll get sick your (bringing back the metaphor) brain vomit.

I would not like to subject anyone to my retarded cognitive backwash and I do not want to listen to anyone else’s for too long. And even if you do find someone who will listen to you, it doesn’t mean that they wil react. Maybe I’m just a little greedy or selfish, but if I tell my problem or worry to someone else, I want them to respond. They don’t need to give advice but something should show that they were actually listening to me. (It pisses me off when I’m talking about something important to me and I am met with blank stares or a simple comment such as “lol” or “that sucks”. I do realize that no one is actually obliged to care about what I say, BUT STILL. God. I like to be heard. Anyways I DIGRESS.)

If you’re not the kind of person to care whether you get a response such as breathing or blinking from the other person, just as long as they sit quietly and listen, then I guess finding that sort of “love” would be easy for you. But really that is not love at all, that’s just you being whiny, ignorant, and vain. Now I know some of you may be like “But you expect people to care about everything you say Jane! That’s MORE vain!” Well I resent that. If i actually expected people to hang on my every word, then yes, that would be quite egocentric of me. But I DON’T expect people to do that for me, which is my whole point. In the end, you are the only one who can deal with your own crap – and trust me, even that’s painfully difficult.

Yes, there will be friends and lovers that you can open up to. If your close with your mom, then she may end up being your most stable rock. But you should never be emotionally dependent on others. Not just because you’ll get hurt, but because you won’t be able to clean up your own mess. And when you can’t take care of yourself, then there is no way that you can take care of anything or anyone else in your life.