Fried

In response to Michael’s blog post about sleep, I very much agree to the fact that “I would much rather be sleeping than doing this blog right now”.

Junior year of high school is the “hell year”. I, in fact, have a total of eight classes, 4 advance placement classes and the rest are honors or “extras”.  Furthermore, my “extra” classes takes up more time of my sleep than my actual AP classes. I wake up, then go to swim practice, then learn in school, then have more swim practice, then sometimes go to class again, then go home, then knock out, then repeat again. Yet, I still put in the effort into everything I do even though the students and teachers may not think so.

The “hell year” is suppose to impress colleges because… college. Just thinking of college and what I want to do later in life poisons my brain.

Sleep is a getaway from reality. The reality of school, college, and more school. My mother told me that I got chubbier and more fit this year because she noticed that I have been sleeping a lot. My naps are not “cat naps”. I call them “lion naps” because I nap for at least three hours a day after school.

2012, freshmen year, I did not have any sleep. I was overworking way more than junior year and it got to the point when I start to procrastinated and stopped eating. The fear of not being able to finish homework or studying for a quiz or test wrapped around me as I tremble in school. 

Chart of my weight

I was not only brain fried, but my body was crushed as well. My brain wasn’t functioning correctly and I went into a depression stage. People told me that I look sick because of my hollowed face and skeletal arms and legs. They thought I was a vampire because of how pale my faced looked. I lost more calories than gaining them because of water polo and swimming.

I realized how much weight I lost in a short period of time after visiting doctors and saying

“I’m fine.”

I was never fine nor happy. I wanted sleep and food and so I changed my diet in the beginning of sophomore year when I actually was healthy. Instead of skipping breakfast and lunch, I told my mom to pack me more food and the portion of food got bigger every time. I slept more than I have ever slept. I was back to normal.

I feel blessed every time when I sleep because I think about others who are not able to sleep because of the work they have to do. Now I’m preparing to give up sleep again, but this time I won’t harm myself in anyway. From a person who was fried, I became fresh again.

Featured photo source.

Crushing

Coming out from a relationship, you either feel free, heartbroken or mad. Your emotions from the past relationship depends by the situations between you and your former significant other. As an inexperienced girl who hasn’t been in a “real” relationship yet because I am only in high school, just hear me out. I know the beginning of love.

It all starts with seeing that certain person for the first time. Knowing that you will date the person from the first you’ve seen him/her is rather absurd; if not, it’s totally normal to see the person as how you see ’em. Opinion varies off of looks, then personality. For example, if I were a guy who sees an attractive girl, in my head I would say:

“Oooh, girrrrl”.

And depending on the girl’s personality, the view of the attractive girl may change. If she were to act what you do not like, you’d be uninterested. This applies to everybody.

Note: I am also implying that you should NOT date the person within the first second, or minute, or hour, or day, or week, or month after seeing them for the first time. 

Crushing, however, is acceptable and one of the greatest feelings in the stages of a relationship with that person. Stranger, acquaintance, friend, close friend, coworker, boss?, whomever it may be, the rumbling butterflies can burst out of your stomach every time you think or see him/her.

It is not recommended to have more than one crush because you are committing your patience for a response on whether your crush will accept your “love” or hashtag creepiness. At one point, everybody had stalked a person because they looked interesting and was curious about any certain information about them. For a crush, you are 85% interested in that person. You want to know if you share any common interests. You want to know what they are like. You want to know your crush. 

To make a move on your crush, you have to make the first approach. If you are crushing on a person you first saw online, do not send them a message unless you already have experience of online dating. I use to always talk to this one guy back in middle school on Facebook and we barely had the chance to see each other. When we saw each other in person, it was awkward because we weren’t use to talking each other face to face. It actually depends on the situation because we all have different strategies to talk to our crush; nevertheless. I sure wasn’t sociable and neither was he. Sure, it was back in middle school but as a person who had many online crushes, but it wasn’t worth the time if you will barely see your crush.

Be comfortable. You’ll be seen as a different person as soon as he/she will start to know you, possibly asking, “What happened to the person I used to know?” Let your heart out and be chill. If someone likes you, comes to you and becomes hesitant while talking to you, then you would wonder what’s wrong with them.

Be con•fi•dent. How will your crush know that you’re interested in them? Do not be cocky though because they will think that you are trying too hard to get their attention.

Be serious sometimes. Joking around is acceptable, but joking all the time is irritating. Instead, your crush(es) will find you as an annoying. Again, you would be trying too hard to get their attention.

Take care of your crush, unless you are invisible to them then move on or be visible to him/her.

Crushing is a stepping stone in a relationship and the same goes as well as for marriage proposal. You already feel ready to get into the deeper relationship; you just have to wait for the answer, unless you’re the one being asked. So if you have a crush on someone you know, go out there and have some fun. If you’re awkward like me, here’s another tip, be cute and awkward at the same time. It works every time. Shy girls/guys come out when you’re both smiling.

Good luck! If you’re already with someone, cool, then you would probably agree with me at least once.

For the people I know personally, you won’t be able to guess who I have a crush on unless I told you.

Featured photo source.

Life Tip Tuesday #3

Truth

I grew up to be sincerely honest. It is a trait that my friends and family love and hate. Every time I tell a lie, it becomes very obvious for others to tell. Last year of 2014, I was interviewed for a position in a club CSF (California Scholarship Federation). It was my very first official interview. At first I was excited because my friends said, “I believe in you June!”. But-a but-a but-a but, believing became a breakdown. I was scarred for life. I turned red every time I spoke the lies of the qualities I was suppose to possess. It was so noticeable that it would be no difference telling from a tomato to my face. It hurts when I say words that are not true about myself.

Sometimes, when I tell the truth to friends, it may be a little brutal. My ex-boyfriend responded to a question on Ask.fm, “Describe the girls you dated” and answered about me with

“[She was] sassy to say the least.she loves beyonce and can be a little too honest at times but she is funny….a bit indifferent a lot of the time..She’s smart and comfortable with herself”

Okay, thank you very much ex-boyfriend. But yes, I prefer more of telling the “brutal” truth rather than lying about anything to anyone. If truths were to be out of hand sometimes, I would back my claim up, just like using any examples in essays. This one time, I told my sister that her derriere was too fat. She would get really offended because it is the only body part that did not come from either my mom or dad. However, I said my truth with love because I did not want my sister’s tush to be hanging out while wearing a skirt that barely fits her appropriately.

Usually when I tell a truth like that to anyone, I would raise two hands and say

“Truth had to be told.”

I rarely tell harsh truths to offend anyone on purpose though. Like said before, I would give an explanation why I would say that and would frequently apologize after that if they took it a little to personal.

It’s like the phrase, “If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say nothin’ at all” by the character Thumper, from the movie Bambi. Lying isn’t nice and I wouldn’t say very bitter truths at all – which would also explain why I’m quiet most of the time of my life *wink wink*.

As much as I hate to say this conclusion starting phrase but, all in all, I am a good, honest person. Honesty leads to loyalty. Loyalty leads to good friendship. Good friendship leads to trust. I got to say, I really love that part about myself, being honest.

Featured photo source.

K-Pop Robots

Every year, more and more people listen to one of the most hit genres, K-Pop, also known as Korean Pop that was originated in South Korea. I was practically forced to listen to K-Pop because my little sister blasts it ‘all day er’ day’. My ears bleed every time when I hear my sister sing, but what’s even worse is knowing the fact that idols, or K-Pop singers, are captive of ‘Slave Contracts’.

Most known artists and groups of K-Pop are perfect, and a plethora amount of K-Pop fans wonder about their personal lives or may have asked, do they even have a personal life? Media and paparazzi and stalkers and fans follow these idols everywhere and these idols most likely never get to be in trouble. 

A well known, all-girls K-Pop group called Girls’ Generation or SNSD (“So Nyuh Shi Dae”/”the era of girls”) originally had nine members:

1. Taeyeon
2. Tiffany
3. Sooyoung
4. Jessica
5. Yuri
6. Yoona
7. Sunny
8. Hyoyeon
9. Seohyun

However, one “quits” or got forced out of the group because she broke the contract that each of the idols must follow. Jessica Jung was an original member of SNSD and she was one of the perfect girls of Seoul, South Korea. She is still perfect, but the company (S.M. Entertainment) that basically owns SNSD did not like the fact that Jung was earning money outside of S.M. Entertainment. Jung announced that she was working on a clothing line BLANC and this shocked all of the fan-base of SNSD because Jung’s actions broke the rules of the ‘Slave Contracts’.

Photo of the original nine members of Girls’ Generation. Source.

‘Slave Contracts’ are contracts that idols signed and agreed to “obey” because it is what keeps the idols “idols” and in control. There are many companies and groups to keep up with, but situations like Jessica Jung from SNSD makes it embarrassing for the company, S.M. Entertainment. There are rules such as: no dates, no drugs, no stupid actions, no embarrassment for the company, no anything.

Little by little, members of EXO leave. EXO comprises into two groups, EXO-M (Mandarian-Korean) and EXO-K (Korean) and had a combination of 12 members with six in each group. Now in EXO-M only remains two Chinese members Tao and Lay. EXO rose to fame till their fall of losing members because their negotiations with their company, also S.M. Entertainment is not so great.

Photo of all the original EXO members. Source.

These kind of ‘Slave Contracts’ imply to most idols of South Korea. These idols are mind-controlled by the company that owns them. Do not be fooled by what they are doing and whom they are dating and what not because everything was and is set up. The idols are stuck in a perfect body with a “perfect” life. No fan base understands what they are going through and they will only see the idols break free when they are not singing anymore.

Winning?

Lately, I have been playing the Kim Kardashian: Hollywood game app on my iPod as a distraction from stress when I cannot sleep. For those who does not know who Kim Kardashian is:

1. She is a famous for being famous.
2. She has absolutely no talents.
3. She is married to one of the most arrogant people in the world – Kanye West.
4. She named her child “the point of the horizon midway between north and west” (Dictionary.com) a.k.a. North West.

On the left is my character and on the right is Kim Kardashian

The point of playing this role-playing game as yourself or anyone else is to reach to the top “A-List” rank. You start off working at a clothing store and then you meet the O The Great and Glorious Kim Kardashian by giving her a dress for free, simply because she’s Kim Kardashian. Anyone who begins the game will have to realize that all they’re going to do are completing attainable quests and achievable goals such as modeling, dating, filming, and other special quests.

The amount of goals one performs will gain “fans” – the stepping stone to the “A-List” rank. Certain number of fans will tell what kind of rank one is in.

What kind of energy does it take to win the Kim Kardashian: Hollywood game? Winning any game is a lengthy process despite hacking and cheating. Usually hacking and cheating only makes the process of winning games shorter. The other factor of these unmoral actions is just having “nicer” equipment and. For any game app on the iTunes store, it is easy to hack them.

I, in fact, have two different Kim Kardashian: Hollywood accounts. One in my Kindle Fire HD. And the other in my cracked 4th generation iPod. In my account on the Kindle Fire HD, I play the game like any ethical person and I hacked the other account on my iPod. In both accounts, I have reached the “A-List” rank but the case is, the process on either account did not matter because the known results were unbearable to accept.

The only differences between the hacked game and the regular game were that you get unlimited cash and “K-Stars” -the more valuable, alternative cash. With “K-Stars”, you can buy “energy” which is the only way to do quests to speed process, buy better clothes, and “charm” characters in the game to make the game easier or as the game says it, have “better opportunities”.

Shown in the picture above is my level, the amount of energy I have, my unlimited cash, and my unlimited “K-Stars”. In the top right corner is my rank and out of 500 characters in the story, I have the most fans with “194.8 million”. There’s me with the fabulous “one hand on the hip” pose.

Although the non-hacked version of the Kim Kardashian: Hollywood is more challenging, it’s rather more of squandering time and real money if one is reckless to save themselves from losing fans, a date (boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband), and rank. Playing the non-hacked version without lingering on the the lowest position, the “E” rank, is required to stay devoted. Since not everyone can afford 50 bucks for 100 energy every 5 minutes, it takes time to fill the energy bar which is customarily only limited to around 20-40 energy. Certain quests require certain amount of energy used.

Depending on how well the quest is done within the assured hours that must be finished by, one gets the x amount of fans. Because I did not want to lose fans, I had to wake up in the middle of the night to play three minutes of Kim Kardashian: Hollywood before quest(s) gets timed up.

Eventually, I made it to the top rank in the non-hacked account and and towered all of the “A-Listers” on the other. I stopped playing the non-hacked version because too much commitment to the game impeded my sleep schedule. In the end, I just had the status of being “the top of the top”. My emotions when I reached the #1 rank went from being super excited for five seconds to “why in the world did I waste my time for this”. Thinking I was getting something good out of this really gave me the motivation to tap on the devices every hour or so, but noooo..

Do I regret playing this? As much as I enjoyed how much the game was all about me, I can’t say that I love this game nor hate it. It’s like finishing a television series or any game; now I have to tolerate the fact that I have to move on. I still have a mass amount of quests to do, but in the end it’s like I don’t have a goal anymore. So yes, I do regret playing this. Persevering for nothing!

No goals – Kim Kardashian: Hollywood game app on the cracked iPod 4th Generation because the screenshot wouldn’t work while the app was open.

The Why of Things

Changeling

Two years ago, I sat still “listening” to my English teacher’s rant about how much he loves the television show, The Game of Thrones. From there, he lists his celebrity crushes: Emilia Clarke, blah blah blah, and then Angelina Jolie.

“Angelina Jolie…”

Is the most beautiful and talented person in the whole wide world. I later come home with my dad just chilling on the couch watching movies from our USB device. One of Angelina’s best movies, Changeling, pops up on the screen.

“DAD! We have to watch this movie!”

“It says rated R.”

“Whatever! You’re here to parent guide me!”

A sad song plays in the background as the the movie introduces their movie title. After watching this movie, I cried. I watched it for a second time on a different day, different month, and I still cried. The movie Changeling is about a mother, Christine Collins (played by the great and gorgeous, Angelina Jolie), was in search of her missing son, Walter Collins. The days, months and years pass by in the movie and she was still looking for her son, no matter what or who tried to stop her. The setting was based on the 1930’s and those were the time when women gain more power and started to enter workforce at a rate twice that of men—primarily because employers were willing to hire them at reduced wages. However, the men were still more powerful than the women.

The character, Christine Collins, is an actual person, meaning that the movie is based on a true story. Collins was on a journey where she never gave up to look for her son, Walter. Because the police force was only employed by men, Collins has no say to express her words about how the LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) were not doing their jobs, in her case, looking for her son. Because the LAPD did not want Collins to embarrass them, they held her in a mental hospital because “she wouldn’t shut up”. She managed to get out because the church and the people who supported her got her out and proved that she was framed.

Every time someone tells her to give up and stop looking for her son, she says “never” or strongly disagrees. She did not let the negativity get in her way of finding her son. Eventually, she was the talk of the town (Los Angeles) and had many supporters. I can’t say anything more about the movie and Collins’ story because it will spoil the movie if any one of you guys will actually watch it. Disclaimer: some scenes are gruesome. However, what matters is that Collins never gave up to find her son even though her “obstacles” gets in her way. She aggressively never gave up hope.

Angelina Jolie did a great job playing Christine Collins and I promise that you will not be disappointed watching this. Changeling is a great movie that shows a strong example of perseverance. Peace out G Scouts!

Photo citing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changeling_(film)

Where I wanted to stand

Everyday when I come from school, I “slide to unlock” my iPod and tap on Instagram. Double tap, scroll, double tap and it goes on until I reach to the pictures I’ve already seen day(s) before. Most of the pictures I see are of girls wearing expensive clothes and at nice places. I see the likes on their pictures..

“Wow. 100 likes within 3 hours..”

I pretend like I’ve never seen those pictures and then “lock” my iPod.

“Why don’t I delete Instagram? Why do I get jealous so easily? Why can’t I be like them? Why am I stuck at home?”

I think to myself again..

“Actually, nah.”

And then I drift off to sleep.

A goal of mine is to be beautiful. When I was in my immature stage of life, I use to only think of looks and didn’t care about how my weird and awkward personality can corrupt my relationship with my classmates of elementary and middle school. Since my past of the most embarrassing stage of life is such a blur, I can only remember that I was really weird – or crazy – to people of my age. Still to this day, I am considered as a weird person but a friend of mine since the third grade declared that I make it work now.

Now, being beautiful to me is to act beautiful. How does one exactly act beautiful?

“Just BEE yourself.”

– Genie, Aladdin

Acting weird is being beautiful? Not exactly. I act weird because I want to put smiles on other people’s faces, not only making myself smile. Earlier today at 4 PM, I volunteered at a church [Fish Fry] event for a Catholic tradition when we, as Catholics, fast meat and snacks on Fridays for 40 days, also known as Lent. Our “boss” of the Fish Fry, Arlene, wanted every volunteer there to be put at a shift with different people. Since the event started from 4 till 9 PM, I knew that I was going to be stuck with a volunteer I wouldn’t know for five hours. Thinking I would just focus at working my shift, I thought..

“Hey, why not.”

Since I’ve worked at the Fish Fry before, I tend to make a various amount of friends just to kill the boredom. But then at the same time, not only I was thinking that I was just killing boredom, I could also practice expressing a true form of myself. The new friend I made today is named Emily. She learned a few things about me and I learned a few things about her. I wouldn’t have been able to know a couple things about her if it weren’t for me to act like myself like how I usually act with friends I see daily.

Being fake is not everything. I use to think that it was a shortcut to a way to being where I wanted to be – to be happy. It only made things worse since I found out after my 8th grade graduation. So I just be myself and let other nonsense fly by. I am happy where I stand now.