7:00 something PM

So I finally bought a legitimate journal! It's absolutely beautiful! Thinly ruled, 240 pages, lovely cover, and all thanks to my lovely friend Grace Chang! Apparently all I did was help her with math, and she gave me a gift card in return! So thank you very much, Grace!

As you can see by the date, today was basically my last day of high school. It wasn't as emotional as I had kind of expected it to be. The weather was gloomy because of stupid global warming and it felt like we all still had to attend classes next week. We still are doing senior check-out and attending graduation practice, but that's another story. It's just that this routine life of school has finally come to an end. And it still hasn't hit me yet. I feel like some part of me needs to do some math homework, or fiinish up on some Econ reading. And I think it is as of this moment that once all this ridiculous schoolwork has been finally ppulled away from me, I realize the privelege of education that I have been blessed with for the past twelve years, and begin to ravenously crave for it. Basically, you don't know what you've got until it's gone.

And I feel very indifferent about all of this. Yet some part of me feels like crying. I'm not completely heartless. Though I have grown to dislike my school, it's where I learned and grew a lot. Maybe it might hit me at graduation next week. Or maybe when college starts in the fall. Or perhaps never.

There are definitely many things I regret doing. I wish I wasn't so shy. Being shy hindered my being able to grow as a person. And the hint of death was what basically pushed me out of my bubble. But if that's what it takes to do so, then so be it. Some people attain this sort of maturity throughout their lifetime, while I had to be scared thinking that I was going to die. Have I had grown up earlier, throughout high school, there would be people I would have never spoken to, and people I had talked to more often. But it's okay - college is the time to test the new me out.

I told myself that I wouldn't discuss my "high school testimony" by hand, but seeing that my laptop's broken, and I have not a lot of things better to do, I'll just write it all out by hand first. I could actually play some music or clean my room. But cleaning is reserved for the afternoon only, and it's way into the evening at the moment. Playing music would mean occasional silence and I'm home alone at the moment (I'm listening to music as I write).

Anyways, here I go.

As a freshman, I remember being ecstatci about going to high school. And on the first day of school when I discovered that my crush was in one of my classes, boy, was I nervous. He never noticed anyways. That's the nice thing about guys, haha. They can never seem to take a hint. I discovered that I was terrible at understanding and grasping a lot of economics concepts, which influenced my senior year decision to take regular Economics (as opposed to the advanced placement one). I liked my biology class during freshman year, so I decided to take the AP class of it junior year - which was a stupid idea. PE was alright. I didn't really meet any new people and began looking down on people I once knew. My Chinese III class was a complete waste of time. Choir was pretty fun, and I absolutely loved my literature class and Mrs. Otto.

Freshman-sophomore summer was when I was once again introduced to Maplestory. I ended freshman year with a 4.0, and with Maplestory, I could care less about school, thus I did not make any effort to work to my full potential. My Chinese AP class was alright. My Algebra II/Trigonometry class with Mr. Kim was the one math class I learnt the most math in. Who cares if his assessments were ridiculously stupid and difficult? At least I learned a whole lot of interesting things about math than I probably ever will again. If it weren't for his class, I would have been dead in Precalculus and Calculus. I wish I had Mr. Kim for Precalculus as well, though. Chem honors was stupid, Dance got me a bit more flexibility (which I have lost since), and world history was ridiculous as well. It's just very hard for me to want to work hard in a class if the teacher isn't very organized her/himself. World literature was when I first began to read books that made me cry. I finally learnt how to properly analyze text with Ms. Combs, and all of us learnt a lot about the outside world. I never knew literature classes were supposed to be philosophical and were to get one contemplating about certain issues. If it weren't for Ms. Combs, I would have been suffering greatly in American Literature (which is EXTREMELY boring, by the way).

My junior year was the year I got the chance to refine my photography skills. Though I didn't like to use the equipment that everyone else touched, I guess it was a pretty enjoyable class. Though APUSH was interesting, I barely got through with a B as my grade. For AP Biology, I continued to get borderline A/B grades, but eventually ended up with a B both semesters I got a 4 on my AP biology and APUSH test. Precalculus was stupid and unhelpful. American literature was fun only because of the people. And that was the year I became close with a fellow sister in Christ! My Japanese I class was only fun because it was an easy class, and two of my senior (at the time) friends were in it.

And then senior year. Ah, senior year.

One marvelous thing that happened this year was that I got to catch up with my lovely childhood friend Sarah and become close with her again. And from that, I got to join her little singing group and catch up with two more childhood friends! This year I also only applied to four UC schools, when I totally should have given other schools a shot. But I ended up being rejected by all of the UCs. Some reasons being may have been that I should have marked my majors as "undecided" (rather than the business majors I applied for), and the severe budget cuts, which basically rejected 30,000+ students into the UC system. Our government is so stupid.

Anyways, I had six classes in the beginning of the year. I eventually dropped Physiology because I realized I didn't really like it and that it's kind of pointless to what I want to do in the future.

This particular schoolyear, my wanderlust began to develop, and I was very determeined to travel to Japan again someday. So for the longest time, I worked hard in my Japanese II class, and had a pretty good grade for a while. Then, the earthquake and tsunami of the year hit the poor island nation, and radiation from broken nuclear structures leaked throughout the country. Thus, my desire to travel there vanished, as did my motivation to keep up with the class. As of now, I'm not sure if I have an A or a B in the class.

I had lots of mixed feelings while in Chamber Orchestra. I absolutely loved hearing all the strings play. But when it came my turn to play, I would always feel so ashamed because I could never be as good and talented as the rest of my classmates. I thought that some day while listening to the strings, I would grow tired of it, but I never once did. Even up to today, I was still amazed by the performance of the last small ensemble group. I actually didn't play much piano in this class, but I mostly got into this class to listen, not to play as much. And I just feel so honored to have made an audition music class, and to be the classmate of a world-class child prodigy violinist! (by the way, this notebook has a pocket in the back haha)

I actually started becoming a little interested in very kiddie British literature in the beginning of the last year, reading the Chronicles of Narnia and whatnot. I also became a bit interested in British politics and pop culture through this very strange yet interesting British pop culture website (as a resultof watching this other British movie). And during junior-senior summer, I also began to have this little celebrity crush on this British actor. So those were some of the reasons why I wanted to take British literature. I also took it because I thought it would be wonderful to be in Mrs. Otto's class again, even though I know she'd only teaching one semester (the interesting semester!). After watching Pride and Prejudice before even finishing the book, doing a project on beautiful places in England, and with friends going crazy over British boy musicians, my obsession for British culture just hit off like crazy. Friends and I would constantly try to imitate the famous British accent (but ours was mostly Cockney), my wanderlust began turning from Asia to England and the rest of Europe, and I also enjoyed listening to British radio for a while. Thus, my British literature class also began to become very fun and interesting for me, and Mrs. Otto was the perfect person to teach it. I also feel like during second semester when Mrs. Otto returned, everyone began to open up more, and that was nice. I was just talking to a friend earlier today that there's something magical about being in Mrs. Otto's classes, the way everyone feels comfortable interacting with each other. Even though I may not have gotten the grade I wanted this semester, this semester's experiences were definitely very fun and will be missed greatly. It's also because of my growing interest in British literature that my English has improved so much! I shall read some over the summer.

Calculus was ridiculous. Enough said.

Econ/AP Gov were okay. I didn't entirely dislike those classes, but I won't say I enjoyed the material. Mr. Recktenwald is a pretty good teacher, confusing at times, but alright I guess. I also was not so interested in the content of the material either. He taught us a cool way to ease the condition of writer's cramp which I am finding very helpful at the moment, writing all this cursive.

I guess I appreciate the fact that I have grown academically and socially this year. The change is so big that even I can sense it myself, and various events and friends have allowed me to become this way. There was that frightening event in February, and Sarah kind of whitewashed me to a certain extent haha.

This year I also have done may strange/stupid/new things. I finally found non-Chinese people attractive, and eventually began taking interest in people who weren't Asian at all! I did something extremely stupid this year but ended up making a wonderful friend out of it, haha. It just wasn't the smartest way to meet people. I also finally brought a guitar, had to have my camera shipped to Indiana twice for repairs, and three of my photographs made it onto flickr's Explore! I became more confident about my looks and my singing, and thus more confident about myself. i am actually somewhat comfortable with my own smile now! Oh and I also had surgery for the first time... that's an experience I'll never forget. I also became closer with my sister, which I guess I am thankful for.

This year I also realized how extremely sheltered my school is, and also learnt of the certain corruptiveness in people. I was reminded of God's furious love, and how He is delightfully planning the rest of my life for me.