:)

Anyone can sing

2007-05-04T01:45:00.000-07:00

The entire senior class is expected, no, required to sing a good handful of songs for graduation and baccalaureate, each with four parts: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. In a short month and a half, we are expected to sing these songs beautifully, hitting all the chords, notes, and words with strength, grace, and good tone. I personally enjoy music ( I play the flute and am addicted to my ipod) and have a pretty decent ear/ ability to sing, but tone deaf people do exist. What about them?

Is it true that anyone can be made to sing fairly well? On American Idol, the singing contest TV show that has captured our attention (well, not really my attention that much, but a large portion of the American population) young people belt their hearts out and are either slammed or praised. Often the top 12 is a mélange of both good and not so good singers, all of whom think they rock. but the bad ones don’t really get better, we just accept their mediocrity. Is that what happens with senior sing?

So far, I think that on the whole, our class sounds pretty good and with practice will be even better. But some people cannot be helped and hopefully, will be overpowered by people who CAN sing.

car wash

2007-04-23T00:55:00.000-07:00

With the hot sun, beaming down on face and back and feet, perpetuating , worsening slipper tans. Garden hose in hand, spraying thousands or millions of small water droplets, or continuous streams of water, with high speed and intensity at the bushes, and the garnenias in the planters, or more like the wall behind the gardenias because otherwise that would probably be too much impact for the fragile flowers. At the ground and the sky and the dirty car. all the while with a miniature rainbow shimmering on the spray as the sun shines through the water.
There is a certain peace attained from washing cars. Most times I don't want to wash anything, simply because it is a Chore that I am required to do if my mother says so. But this time was different. the water was mesmirizing to watch and felt good as the spray rebounded off the vehicle and onto my skin. the simple action and motion of scrubbing the entire surface was relaxing. And the feeling of completion on a day when I had otherwise done nothing was good.

prom

2007-04-23T00:27:00.000-07:00

Aside from getting into college and academic related stresses, it seems that prom is a huge issue of senior year. there are so many different things that need to be considered, so many costs, issues, and things to keep track of.
first of all, before thinking about anything else pretty much, if you aren't in a relationship slash don't already have a date in mind, you need to get on that. getting a date is the first essential task of prom. this can be quite stressful, because you want to find a good date or be asked by someone who you'll actually enjoy being with - ok, you want to wait to be asked by someone good, not have to turn anyone down or be turned down by anyone, and not wait to long so that you basically either go alone or with .. hm. someone you don't want to.
next task is to get that wardrobe down. get a gown that #1, fits well and is pretty. #2, doesn't wreck your wallet completely, you have to save some of the wrecking for the rest of the prom expenses. #3, that no one else will have your dress. not that the dress will look as good on the other person as it does on you (at least that's what you hope/worry about if it'll look better on her than you). you also have to make sure that you buy the right shoes, accessories, etc. oh. and make sure that your date rents a tux with the tie and everything matching your dress.
next, limousine. these are quite expensive as are the bids, photos, and if you chose to and are planning to continue the fun even later into the night with all your friends at a hotel, getting a room as well.
in all honesty, i've grown quite tired of discussing prom details with everyone and figuring out hair and makeup and everything related and don't want to keep hyping it up so that everything wil seem fresh and great when the actual event finally comes. it seems like a huge amount of money and effort being spend on one night. i wonder if it is all worth the effort. we'll see...

IHS

2007-04-12T00:26:00.000-07:00

Our visit to IHS was a very interesting experience for me. I had never been there before, and had generally avoided the type of situation where I would be in the presence of homeless people. First of all, it was quite an adventure for Patricia, Paige and I to try to get to the women’s shelter. Despite the directions given to us, all of our parents advised us to park at Kmart. So we drove to Kmart, saw the men’s center and wandered around thinking the women’s center would be very close by. While walking and trying to find the way, I saw maybe 15 – 20 men all just standing around outside, aimlessly. They were smoking cigarettes and had nothing to do. Further down, we passed two guys smoking pot in the middle of the road and I wondered how they got the pot, or how the other guys got the cigarettes. We finally got in the car and drove around to find it, and when we got there and got out of the car, a big scary dog jumped out of the bushes in attack mode, and some guy down the street started yelling at it. He was situated on the sidewalk w/ some other people, with shopping wagons, plastic bags and blankets.
Once we finally joined up w/ the rest of the group, we were assigned to pick up trash outside the shelter. I was surprised at some of the stuff we found. Besides the regular cans and food trash stuff, I found a used needle, a couple of little plastic bags w/ white powder residue, and Paige found a water bottle filled with feces. The next task was to clean the mattresses that the guests slept on. They were very heavy and didn’t seem all too comfortable, but I guess it’s probably better than sleeping on the sidewalk or a bench somewhere outside. Next job I did was help to clean up the family room. I actually went outside and picked up a ton of trash, but one thing that really caught my attention (besides how much trash was out there, I’m guessing from the guests simply not picking things up) was that above the sink inside was a laminated and illustrated paper with instructions on how to wash your hands.
Working at IHS and seeing people in worse situations and how they live was really eye opening to me. The idle time, lower standards of living and sanitation, living on someone elses’ watch and generosity, and sometimes even the drugs. And many of the people who I saw seemed like good decent people, and I wondered what must have happened in their life, what misfortune, to put them in this place. It is tough and dirty, although many of the homeless are not really dangerous or criminal, they have fallen on bad times or have been predisposed to have some disadvantage in life.

ipod = ihappy

2007-04-12T00:19:00.000-07:00

i can honestly say that i love my ipod. i rarely leave home without it, i go running with it, i download new music nearly every week, i even have a roadtrip in the car so that i can play it while i'm driving (the roadtrip is way better than the itrip,by the way, b/c it actually has a holder for the ipod and charges it while you drive instead of draining the battery like the itrip did) . I think that part of this obsession with my idea of the greatest technology/ made available to consumers on a mass level since the cell phone is that i actually just really love music. But as I was thinking about how ridiculously successful Apple has been with the device and all its variations and accessories (and the sales of songs in itunes) and why this occured. What kind of society are we that Steve Jobs and all the people at Apple can create a small, cute little thing that just sells.
The ipod basically allows you to listen to whatever music you want, whenever and whereever you want. If you have the video ipod, you can even watch tv shows, movies and music videos too. it is quality entertainment in your pocket. And in our very individualized and high speed lives, it fits the spot perfectly.

college

2007-04-11T22:20:00.000-07:00

Now it is mid april and everyone has heard back from all their colleges: the anxious wait is finally over, or at least for the admissions decision part of it. Some people are still waiting for financial aid packages, so there's a little anxiety there, since finances are often such a large part of the college decision. With this in mind and after reading Malcolm Gladwell's Getting In, I couldn't help but reflect on the college application process.
I don't know if I have ever gone through a more drawn out process than the college application process. Because in actuality, the process begins far before your senior year even begins. For me, my parents really wanted me to go to a good, private elementary school, I suppose because they thought I would have a much better education and more opportunites because of going there as opposed to a Hawaii public school. So there is step one. Near the end of my elementary school experience, getting into a good middle school was the important issue. Punahou, Iolani or Midpac. Punahou was a fantastic college prep school. so was Iolani. obviously i chose PUnahou, and then worked hard to get good grades in 7th and 8th grade to get on the honors track for high school. In high school, continue the hard work to maintain a good GPA and transcript which colleges will most certainly weigh heavily in their admissions decisions. You join clubs and do sports because you are interested, but also because people keep telling you how colleges want you to have those qualities. well rounded.
In junior year the actual college application bit finally came into play. we all got college counsellors and took the semester long college guide course, and figured out where we should look to apply. SATs, SAT IIs, retesting, AP exams, all in preparation for the day when the college admissions committee was to review your application. And actually preparing the app as a senior. HOUrs and hours of writing an essay to express who you are and why you belong at such and such a school. getting recs, requesting transcripts... all these things take time and organization, and while i do realize and appreciate how good the PUnahou system works for these kinds of things, it was still a stressor. And then finally, you make the deadline. all that work is behind and the waiting begins.
Well, now the wait is over, and it is the student's turn to evaluate and assess what each school has to offer. all that work for a few envelopes in the mail. from this perspective, it seems like a strange system

blogging promotes procrastination

2007-03-14T04:17:00.000-07:00

Using a blog to record my writing and supposedly /optionally take over my journal entries has been an intersting experience and I've discovered some pros and cons to this new, more technologically advanced method of writing.

The positive aspects of using the blogs and the wikispace is that I can read what other people write about, thus inspiring some ideas in myself, which is important because I am not used to writing so much about so many different (and often random) things. It is also useful because you are able to leave comments on people's blogs and receive them on your own writing, which can inspire more ideas or better writing on existing pieces. It is also good because it forces you to write better and to proofread everything, which I don't necessarily do when completing a handwritten journal entry. Usually when I write in the journal it is very fast and I generally try simply to follow my thought process in writing as best and fast as I can. On the blog I feel more need to actually strucure the writing and make it readable, since it will be reaching a much wider audinece than my journal ever has or will.

The bad side, and this, mind you, is a very bad side, is that it promotes PROCRASTINATION. This is bad because I've already developed the horrible tendency to be lazy and procrastinate and it's gotten worse as the second semester of my senior year has progressed. But using the blog to do all my english homework is bad because it means that I am connected to the interent. WHich means that I am logged onto AIM and having engaging conversations with several people, am checking my emails and the ever addictive facebook for any comments that make me feel important and popular. it means that instead of focusing on making new posts on my blog or reading my classmates writing, I am watching videos on youtube and downloading new music off itunes, that I am playing solitare and minesweeper rather than doing my homework.

Natto

2007-03-14T03:35:00.000-07:00

Reading James' post about how people could have discovered using fat, which is usually very dirty and somewhat repulsive, to make soap and clean things with made me think about something I have long pondered. Who decided that natto was an okay thing to eat?
Seriously. Every year on new years day, we go to my grandma's house and she makes ozoni - mochi soup, and my grandpa and uncle crack open a container of natto, much to the dismay of pretty much everyone within the smelling radius of the slimy, fermented soy beans. I have always wondered how people can eat that with it smelling so foul and looking so rotten, because it actually is rotten, in a way. If I lived in feudal Japan and were presented with something that someone said was food but smelled and looked like natto does, I would have probably refused to have anything to do with it just as I do now. Unless of course I was utterly starving. But anyway, why would somene choose to eat it? How did the first person to eat it know that it wasn't going to make them sick?
In an attempt to answer my own question about the origins of natto and other related info to the natto, I of course went directly to wikipedia. The most reasonable explanation for it is that people were in fact starving and ate the soy beans after several days even though they were fermented. They tasted good to the starving japanese and became a regular part of the japanese diet.

significance of holidays

2007-03-09T12:49:00.000-08:00

I just watched the movie "For your Consideration", which has Michael Guest and his entire usual crew and is quite hilarious at times. It's about a small film getting all this hype about possible Oscar nominations. The little movie that they are making though, is called "Home for Purim" and is about a southern american jewish family in world war 2 and a dying mother and tensions and sadness with her about her daughter, who she finds out is a lesbian. Anyway, I thought that the title and the emphasis that they place on Purim was super funny. According to my dad (who's jewish, although extremely reform) Purim is like the second least significant holiday on the Jewish calender next to sukkos. This got me to thinking about lots of other holidays that we sort of tend to pump up, commercialize, and overemphasize when they really aren't that important, or we change their meaning.
To start, lets stick with the Jewish theme we got going here. Chanukah is another one of those holidays (Purim was only made out to be a big deal in the movie... apparently only real hardcore orthodox jews celebrate it with the whole shebang and everything nowadays). Now don't get me wrong. Chanukah is a pretty significant holiday on their calender - the celebration of lights! - and maybe not as big as passover, or roshashona, but it's still big. But it's much bigger here in america now than it traditionally has been. And I think it's because of Christmas. Chanukah generally falls around the same time as christmas does, although it varies from year to year because the jewish calender is lunar based, but because it is within the holiday season it is made to be a bigger commercial holiday. For example, before, kids never really received presents every night of chanukah, but might get a little bit of gelt, or gold coins. Nowadays, thanks to commercialization and our capitalistic society, chanukah is like christmas for jews.
Then there's halloween. Once a pagan holiday, now halloween is an excuse to buy loads of candy. For children to dress up as their favorite character from tv, movies, or whatever, and for adults to spend tons of money on extravagant costumes for various parties. without candy companies and party stores, halloween would probably not be perverted if you will to what it is now. it would probably be a much more low key, religious holiday as it once was.
And an upcoming holiday is Easter. I'm sure that the holiday that is supposed to celebrate the resurrection was not intended to be focused on bunnies and eggs, and pastel colors and marshmellow and chocolate candies and dying eggs into pretty colors.

Early Morning Surprise

2007-03-06T07:03:00.000-08:00

From the corner of the room, a scratching. Like a mouse or rat, quitely walking past or across a piece of cardboard, their nails with the pressure of their small bodies descretely sliding over the smooth surface. That quiet scratching normally would not be heard. But because it is four in the morning and no one else is up but me because I have a calc. test today, I can hear it.
And I think it is a mouse, which is slightly disturbing in its own right, but I also think that it is in the attic or something. Somewhere where I won't have to actually see the creature, or deal with it. So because it doesn't seem like a serious threat to me, I try to ignore it, and then the sound stopped. But then it returns, only upped by two or three notches of volume, and I know that whatever it is, it is in my room, behind some pieces of cardstock (which had been pieces of art carefully crafted more than two years ago in foundation art) in the corner between my dresser and the hot-pink wall.
Really hoping not to find anything at all but afraid and almost sure that I will, I stand atop my chair, cautiously peering over the art into the dark gap between it and the wall. Two long antennae (maybe three inches) slowly and methodically wave to greet my gaze. A roach. A huge cockroach. It is crawling up the back of my art and now stops to rest near the top, so that the top of it's head, the two front legs, and the antennae can be seen. I cringe. At the thought that this roach has invaded my space, and that now it is coming out of wherever it had been hiding, and could now start flying around the room, landing all over everything, getting lost and impossible to kill, or just start antagonizing me. I hate roaches. I realize that they will not do me much harm, but something about them, is just so.... disgusting. the way their antennae twitch, the strange texture of their wings - shiny but almost veiny, and crunchy if you were to break it - and their legs with the little hairs on them, and their plump but thin and fragile bodies beneath the wings, and all the beginnings of the legs beneath the body, and how if any part of the body besides the wings get dismembered, they continue to twitch anyway..... disgusting.
I wonder what would happen if all the roaches in the world were to die. Or simply disappear from the face of the earth. Because sometimes, when I am being selfish and hating the roaches in their grossness and the way that they're not actually afraid of you and will run straight for you after you've tried to kill them with Code 3 or Raid, I wish that that would actually happen.

Trust

2007-03-05T22:41:00.000-08:00

I feel so great when people entrust me with their secrets, or something special to them; their trust. Like somehow, I have been accepted by them and proven to them that I am worthy. That as a person, I am important, and that the bond of trust we share adds significance and meaning into my life.
There is a girl, who I've seen every sunday for the past year, and also quite often during sophomore year. I never really knew her until a month ago, but she is so nice; she just has this ability to put you at ease and be happier than you were two minutes before. Shortly after we actually hung out together for the first time (complaining about school, the food where we were, and listening to her ipod) and talking several times on aim, she asked if I was "anti", to which I replied, "anti what?'. She wanted to know if I was against gay people.
I most certainly am not against them. Although I know people who "know" that homosexuals are going to hell and often try to argue their point with me, I know actual people who are gay. And I know them as people, and that I love them because of their personalities. (And also, there is that whole biological explanation and how people don't generally chose to be gay - it's genetic, and that it is probably in our genetics in the first place as a natural way to keep down the population. ) Anyway, so she tells me that she is gay.
I told her then, that that was cool, that i'm not anti, and that i have friends and relatives who are too, so everything is cool. I think she was trying to figure out if I would continue to accept her now that I knew there was this element of "different" about her, and was happy to find that of course, I accept her. In fact, I think I respect her more as a person, simply because she has come out and accepted herself in a society which, while more accepting now than, say fifty years ago, still sometimes associates homosexuality with a bit of stigma. And I also respect her because she has to deal with parents (hers' and her girlfriend's) who hate that they are gay, and won't even let them be together if they can help it, which means they can't see each other outside of school, ever. I admire her for dealing with that. And I feel good that she wanted to share that part of herself with me. She asked if i knew, before she told me. I kind of thought about it; i wasn't surprised when she told me. She said that she tries to hide it from some people but is more open with it with people she likes and feels comfortable with. Which in this case, was me. She put her trust in me to be accepting. And I trust her for that.

Interesting Personality

2007-03-05T22:36:00.000-08:00

I met an interesting person once. Well, obviously I've met many interesting people over the course of my life and I anticipate meeting many more. But for some reason, I was reminded of this boy today, possibly because I heard another boy, probably about the same age, speaking as though he were a three-year old for a semi-extended period of time. This boy was annoyed that his mother was unable to pick him up and take him home until later, and consequently, he was whining in that sort of "it's not fai-yer... I want to go ho-me" whiny cadence, and complaining to anyone who'd listen
The boy who I met before was almost exactly like this. Everything had to be what he wanted at that moment. He used his parents' credit card to go shopping and spend hundreds of dollars on each excursion, he'd get people to drive him out to lunch where he'd get some gourmet lunch and coffee drink at least once or twice a week. He was very self-indulgent. And sometimes he'd be fun to have around because he could be very funny. In a way, he was like a local boy version of a valley girl, which proved at times to be hilarious. But other times, I could actually get a headache just from listening to him talk for ten minutes. He had an interesting personality.
What causes people to behave in this manner? As i think about it, I'v concluded that it probably has much to do with how one is raised and what types of behavior are deemed acceptable. If as a young child, whining got him everything he wanted and no real limits were ever set, this pattern of behavior could have carried on until the present day, or whenever they discover that that particular method of getting what they want no longer works.

Food

2007-03-05T20:17:00.000-08:00

Generally, I am a trusting person. When I go to a resturant, I never even think to question to food i'm presented with, unless the resturant is sort of sketchy looking - you know the type; with dirty floors, greasy countertops, greasy workers, and a strange scent. At home I don't question the integrity of food either, because obviously food at home is prepared by someone at home, ie myself or a family member, and i trust them and myself with safe food preparation whole-heartedly. But sometimes, what if something bad has happened to or is in the food you eat and think is perfectly fine?
You don't actually usually know where your food has been or what it has gone through or how old it really is before it gets to your plate and into your system. In AP environmental we had a whole unit of nutrition and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and now we are learning about pesticides. I find it really interesting, because I've never thought much about it. GMOs are often used to increase good qualities and decrease bad qualities in crops or livestock, but no research yet can show whether there will be tremedous affects of this on human health and the environment as well. And pesticides - they are sprayed on plants (although not as much now due to restrictions) to eliminate bugs, but ultimately end up being consumed by us, and in great enough quantities have a negative effect on our health. Unless the produce that you buy has a USDA organic label on it, who knows what chemicals and gene splicing are part of your salad.
In AP euro, we've been reading Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, and in it, the main character describes in detail the innerworkings of a hotel cafeteria, which are to say the least, completely disgusting. If a health inspector were to inspect this particular hotel, they would be put out of business immediately. Things fall on the floor and are picked up, wiped off, re-plated and served. Waiters spit in the soup, and assistant cooks sweat drops onto the food. What if this was actually happening behind the scenes at places that I eat at?

We went grocery shopping and bought some fruits and vegetables, since we have none at my house right now, and also a big piece of salmon, for dinner. We got home and my mother started putting everything into the fridge except the salmon, which she began to prepare. Soon, I could see her, suspiciously inspecting it, smelling it. I smelled it too. It was as if someone took a beautiful piece of salmon, and magically aged it a week without changing its appearance. That's how it smelled. like it should have just been tossed into the garbage. or more specifically, like the tray the salmon comes on after its been in the garbage can for a little while - faint, but distinctively unpleasant. My mother called the store, and they will take it back and we wont consume it. I guess sometimes you can tell if something is unfit to eat without that much thought or speculation.