Yesterday, I discovered a perfectionism problem that was so big that I had to create another email. For some reason, I decided to look at which Google products were linked to my account. For those who don't know, you can find which Google products your Google account is associated with by clicking your name at the top right corner of your browser on almost any Google page to get a drop down menu. Then press "Account" to show your personal information as well as a list on the left. Finally, click "Products" at the very bottom of that list to see icons of your Google products. Most people don't care about the list, but I'm a perfectionist and I care about every detail.
After doing some homework, I suddenly decided to look at the product list again so that I could feel more perfect. Somehow, Google Calender and Google Docs were added to my list. I think they may have been added when I filled out an online form for Speech and Debate club that probably used Google Docs while I was logged in to my perfect email.
With Google Calender and Google Docs, as well as the slightly imperfect YouTube (I accidentally watched a few YouTube videos while logged on to my email), I immediately knew that I had to create a new perfect email. So I spent a good half hour yesterday night creating and perfecting my new Gmail, as well as transferring my Starcraft II account and this blog to my new email.
You can find my new email address by viewing my profile, which should be at the bottom of this post as well as at the bottom of the column to the right. Because I transferred full access of this blog to my new email and removed my old email, you can no longer press the "WZY" at the bottom of posts older than August 26, 2013.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Monday, August 26, 2013
2013 Season 5 - Silver League
I may have gotten into Gold League by the end of the previous season of Starcraft II, but I still think Silver League is where I belong because I rarely won any of my Gold League matches. I only had to play one placement match for this season because the Starcraft II uses data from the previous season.
Unfortunately, I lost my placement game to a Terran player who early expanded and built an army bigger than mine. I seriously need to practice my early expands because as long as you build a bunker in your expansion, the expansion is impossible to be destroyed early game.
I decided to play another match, because I thought that I was good enough to defeat most players who are in Silver League. Well, it turns out that my second opponent of the day was a Zerg player in Gold League. I didn't scout out his base fast enough (because it was a 4-player map) and didn't build my bunker in his early expansion fast enough. He had enough time to make Zerglings and easily destroyed my bunker.
Somehow, he mass produced enough Zerglings and Banelings to completely destroy me. Because of my two losses today, my losing streak in Starcraft II is now at six games in a row! I know that two of those games were due to my internet crashing (which I talked about in my "Lost Two Games to Internet" post), but I still feel like I'm really sucking at Starcraft II right now.
I hope that once I improve my early expansions, as well as practice my reaper and banshee micro early harass, I'll be able to start winning again.
Even More School Mistakes
I know. I know. All of you are guys are probably extremely tired of all of my posts about my school mistakes already. But I still need to post them. First of all, this blog is kind of like my diary, so I want to record everything that happens. Second, I feel more perfect if I record every mistake since I have no way to fix my mistakes.
For some reason, I always have a week or two near the beginning of every school year where I'm constantly forgetting my homework and making a ton of school mistakes. I can still remember having a bad start to at least the previous two years of school. But soon, I hope that I can adjust myself to school and not make anymore stupid and costly mistakes. Otherwise my grades will be severely damaged. I already have two B's, but they can still change easily because I'm only missing a few points in each class.
Anyways, the first mistake of this week is that I didn't do my math homework. My teacher's syllabus says that the homework was due on September 5, 2013 (a week and three days away). I must have not heard that she changed the assignment or something. The worst part is that I don't even know if she'll give me partial credit for showing her the homework late. Plus I don't have the time to do those problems today.
The second mistake is that I forgot to print out my Spanish homework. Our assignment was to type up over 30 new vocab words with their Spanish definitions (given by the book, I am good enough yet to make my own definitions in Spanish), and their English definitions. The assignment took me an hour last night and I was so tired that I decided to print out the vocab list the next morning. Of course, I forgot to print it. Even if I bring the homework to class tomorrow, I'm still going to be losing a ton of points, maybe even enough to drop me to an F.
I'm still not sure how I'm going to turn myself, and my grades, around. The week has just started and there are so many imperfections. Waiting until next week to try to start perfecting my school life would be too late. For now, my only solution is to power through all of my homework and not worry about perfectionism until next weekend, which is a three day weekend due to labor day!
For some reason, I always have a week or two near the beginning of every school year where I'm constantly forgetting my homework and making a ton of school mistakes. I can still remember having a bad start to at least the previous two years of school. But soon, I hope that I can adjust myself to school and not make anymore stupid and costly mistakes. Otherwise my grades will be severely damaged. I already have two B's, but they can still change easily because I'm only missing a few points in each class.
Anyways, the first mistake of this week is that I didn't do my math homework. My teacher's syllabus says that the homework was due on September 5, 2013 (a week and three days away). I must have not heard that she changed the assignment or something. The worst part is that I don't even know if she'll give me partial credit for showing her the homework late. Plus I don't have the time to do those problems today.
The second mistake is that I forgot to print out my Spanish homework. Our assignment was to type up over 30 new vocab words with their Spanish definitions (given by the book, I am good enough yet to make my own definitions in Spanish), and their English definitions. The assignment took me an hour last night and I was so tired that I decided to print out the vocab list the next morning. Of course, I forgot to print it. Even if I bring the homework to class tomorrow, I'm still going to be losing a ton of points, maybe even enough to drop me to an F.
I'm still not sure how I'm going to turn myself, and my grades, around. The week has just started and there are so many imperfections. Waiting until next week to try to start perfecting my school life would be too late. For now, my only solution is to power through all of my homework and not worry about perfectionism until next weekend, which is a three day weekend due to labor day!
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Lost Two Games to Internet
I am so annoyed right now. I have just lost two Starcraft II games in a row because my internet kept crashing! I actually started my games off today pretty well. I won my first game against a Zerg player by building a bunker at my opponent's early expansion. My opponent immediately decided to quit. I wouldn't blame him. His second hatchery had already completed when I while I was attacking. He would be losing 325 minerals by losing his second hatchery very early in the game, which would cause him to be at a huge disadvantage.
I was feeling confident, so I decided to go for another match. This opponent also tried to early expand, and so I also countered it by building a bunker again. Everything seemed to be going in my direction when my internet suddenly crashed.
For some reason, my internet crashes three times a day every day at around 2:30 pm, 8:30 pm, and 12:30 am. When my second game crashed, I realized the time was about 2:25 and started regretting my decision to play another game. Even after the internet was fixed, I thought that I would be safe until 8:30, so I played a third game to make up for my loss.
Somehow, my third opponent was also a Zerg player who early expanded. I tried to build a bunker, but this opponent was smarter. He used drones destroyed the SCV building the bunker before my marines even arrived. Even so, I was no where near losing. I already built my factory and could have started producing hellions.
Then once again, my internet suddenly crashed. My dad told me that somehow the electricity to the modem got cut off. I'm guessing it's because of the timer that was hooked to the modem. My dad set the timer so it would automatically reboot the modem at around the times when it normally crashes.
Unlike losing one game, losing two is pretty significant, especially since I could have probably won in both games if the internet didn't crash. I'm still not sure how I'm going to get over this, but no matter what, I will never again play a Starcraft II between 2:00 pm and 3:00 pm.
I was feeling confident, so I decided to go for another match. This opponent also tried to early expand, and so I also countered it by building a bunker again. Everything seemed to be going in my direction when my internet suddenly crashed.
For some reason, my internet crashes three times a day every day at around 2:30 pm, 8:30 pm, and 12:30 am. When my second game crashed, I realized the time was about 2:25 and started regretting my decision to play another game. Even after the internet was fixed, I thought that I would be safe until 8:30, so I played a third game to make up for my loss.
Somehow, my third opponent was also a Zerg player who early expanded. I tried to build a bunker, but this opponent was smarter. He used drones destroyed the SCV building the bunker before my marines even arrived. Even so, I was no where near losing. I already built my factory and could have started producing hellions.
Then once again, my internet suddenly crashed. My dad told me that somehow the electricity to the modem got cut off. I'm guessing it's because of the timer that was hooked to the modem. My dad set the timer so it would automatically reboot the modem at around the times when it normally crashes.
Unlike losing one game, losing two is pretty significant, especially since I could have probably won in both games if the internet didn't crash. I'm still not sure how I'm going to get over this, but no matter what, I will never again play a Starcraft II between 2:00 pm and 3:00 pm.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
First Mistake in English
Yep. That's right. I made another mistake. This one is actually pretty big. I was late to my very first English conference of the year today. For those who don't know, my high school does not have a lot of students, so we have private half-period conferences with our English teacher when we are writing an essay.
For this conference, we were supposed to discuss the short story that we wrote over the summer. I scheduled my conference for the first half of my lunch during 6th period. Unfortunately, I completely forgot about the conference today until after eating for about 15 minutes.
I immediately run to the English office. When I turned the corner to the hallway with the English office, I saw my English teacher turning the corner at the other end of the hall. She was probably looking for me. I tried to follow her, but she disappeared. Later, I found out that she actually went up the stairs that was at that corner to look for me in the library.
I was panicking and didn't know what to do. I decided to stay in the English office and wait for her. When she finally returned to the English office, she was pretty mad that I was late. In fact, she made me so uncomfortable during the conference that I trembled the entire time and had tears in my eyes.
On top of that, she didn't even discuss the short story that I wrote during the summer. Instead, we talked about my thesis for the in-class essay that we are going to write tomorrow. I had thought of a pretty good thesis about how stories shape who we are, but she shot it down immediately by saying that that was too obvious.
For the rest of the conference, she tried to force me to come up with other theses about topics in the book that I found interesting. My brain couldn't think straight by this point, so my English teacher shot down everything I said by saying something around the lines of "I don't see the sparkle in your eyes," meaning I wasn't passionate enough about the topics that I told her.
I still remember that I was thinking to myself, are you kidding me? I'm almost going to cry and you want my eyes to sparkle? Fortunately, I eventually came up with a decent thesis before my English class in 8th period about how people are never satisfied with reaching their goals.
For this conference, we were supposed to discuss the short story that we wrote over the summer. I scheduled my conference for the first half of my lunch during 6th period. Unfortunately, I completely forgot about the conference today until after eating for about 15 minutes.
I immediately run to the English office. When I turned the corner to the hallway with the English office, I saw my English teacher turning the corner at the other end of the hall. She was probably looking for me. I tried to follow her, but she disappeared. Later, I found out that she actually went up the stairs that was at that corner to look for me in the library.
I was panicking and didn't know what to do. I decided to stay in the English office and wait for her. When she finally returned to the English office, she was pretty mad that I was late. In fact, she made me so uncomfortable during the conference that I trembled the entire time and had tears in my eyes.
On top of that, she didn't even discuss the short story that I wrote during the summer. Instead, we talked about my thesis for the in-class essay that we are going to write tomorrow. I had thought of a pretty good thesis about how stories shape who we are, but she shot it down immediately by saying that that was too obvious.
For the rest of the conference, she tried to force me to come up with other theses about topics in the book that I found interesting. My brain couldn't think straight by this point, so my English teacher shot down everything I said by saying something around the lines of "I don't see the sparkle in your eyes," meaning I wasn't passionate enough about the topics that I told her.
I still remember that I was thinking to myself, are you kidding me? I'm almost going to cry and you want my eyes to sparkle? Fortunately, I eventually came up with a decent thesis before my English class in 8th period about how people are never satisfied with reaching their goals.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Organization
Organization is always a big part of my perfectionism. If everything is neatly organized, then I feel better. Organization is especially important for school with so many binders and papers and homework every single day.
In order to avoid carrying all of my binders home every day, I devised a plan last year to use a homework folder. With the homework folder, I can place homework into the folder and avoid bringing the entire class binder home. The problem with this system is that I still have to carry all of my binders to class, and usually I still have to carry a few binders home because I don't want to take out a bunch of class notes or reference material out of the class binder.
I still think that this system is still the most efficient, if I remember to always place my homework into the homework binder. For this first week of school, I've been getting kind of lazy and stuffing a lot of papers in my backpack instead of their proper binders. Also, as I mentioned in my previous post, I made a ton of mistakes such as forgetting my binders, causing more papers to be incorrectly placed.
As a result of my laziness and forgetfulness, I began feeling imperfect today. Every class that I went to today, I tried to fully organize the binder for that class. By the end of the day, most of my papers are placed in their proper binders and my organization for school feels pretty much perfect.
Still, I'm going to go through all of my binders very carefully during my classes tomorrow to make sure that everything is organized. By feeling perfect about my organization, I believe that I won't be as worried or stressed about school, which should help improve my grades.
In order to avoid carrying all of my binders home every day, I devised a plan last year to use a homework folder. With the homework folder, I can place homework into the folder and avoid bringing the entire class binder home. The problem with this system is that I still have to carry all of my binders to class, and usually I still have to carry a few binders home because I don't want to take out a bunch of class notes or reference material out of the class binder.
I still think that this system is still the most efficient, if I remember to always place my homework into the homework binder. For this first week of school, I've been getting kind of lazy and stuffing a lot of papers in my backpack instead of their proper binders. Also, as I mentioned in my previous post, I made a ton of mistakes such as forgetting my binders, causing more papers to be incorrectly placed.
As a result of my laziness and forgetfulness, I began feeling imperfect today. Every class that I went to today, I tried to fully organize the binder for that class. By the end of the day, most of my papers are placed in their proper binders and my organization for school feels pretty much perfect.
Still, I'm going to go through all of my binders very carefully during my classes tomorrow to make sure that everything is organized. By feeling perfect about my organization, I believe that I won't be as worried or stressed about school, which should help improve my grades.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Imperfect First Week of School
Today, Tuesday, August 20, 2013, is only the fifth day of school and I have already made so many mistakes that I simply could not avoid writing about all of them in this blog. For some reason, I feel more perfect if I record all of my imperfections.
As I mentioned in the previous post, my first mistake was that I left my Spanish binder in my locker on Friday and couldn't turn in my 40 page summer packet. My Spanish teacher told me to give it to her after class, but I forgot to do that as well.
My second mistake happened on Friday when we conducted a small project in engineering class about dealing with an oil spills. We had to use limited materials to contain and remove as much oil as we could from a container of water. We did the project in order to learn about how to record everything in our engineering notebooks. Because we spent all of our class Friday conducting the experiment, our homework was to finish recording the project. Unfortunately, I didn't hear him and went to class with an incomplete notebook on Monday. Fortunately, he spent a lot of time talking to each person about their notebooks and didn't get to me. In fact, he was just checking the person before me when the bell rang and I ran out of that classroom asap (no joke).
My third mistake, also on Monday, was that I forgot to change binders after lunch. I had decided to switch out my binders during lunch, but I so busy talking with my friends that I forgot and went to 7th period history class after lunch without my history binder. This mistake didn't have any consequences, but it's still a mistake.
Also on Monday, I somehow forgot to turn in my Spanish homework. I'm pretty sure I went to staple the homework and then stuffed it back into my binder. The homework was worth 24 points (at least half of a quiz) because it involved answering like/dislike questions in Spanish. I only noticed that I hadn't turned in this assignment today in the middle of class.
After school on Monday, I also realized that I forgot to pack my shorts for cross country in my backpack and had to do all of the running in sweatpants. At least I'm thankful that I don't wear jeans often and didn't have to run in jeans.
Lastly, this morning, I was in a hurry to pack my backpack, so I forgot to pack my pens. I went to school with absolutely no writing utensil and had to borrow for every class. Plus I didn't want to write anything in my planner because I want everything in my planner to be in pen for perfection.
The start of my 10th grade has been very bumpy, but most of these mistakes will be avoided now that I've already made them once. Not everything can be perfect, especially not school, so you just have to work around mistakes and still feel perfect in order to survive the entire school year.
As I mentioned in the previous post, my first mistake was that I left my Spanish binder in my locker on Friday and couldn't turn in my 40 page summer packet. My Spanish teacher told me to give it to her after class, but I forgot to do that as well.
My second mistake happened on Friday when we conducted a small project in engineering class about dealing with an oil spills. We had to use limited materials to contain and remove as much oil as we could from a container of water. We did the project in order to learn about how to record everything in our engineering notebooks. Because we spent all of our class Friday conducting the experiment, our homework was to finish recording the project. Unfortunately, I didn't hear him and went to class with an incomplete notebook on Monday. Fortunately, he spent a lot of time talking to each person about their notebooks and didn't get to me. In fact, he was just checking the person before me when the bell rang and I ran out of that classroom asap (no joke).
My third mistake, also on Monday, was that I forgot to change binders after lunch. I had decided to switch out my binders during lunch, but I so busy talking with my friends that I forgot and went to 7th period history class after lunch without my history binder. This mistake didn't have any consequences, but it's still a mistake.
Also on Monday, I somehow forgot to turn in my Spanish homework. I'm pretty sure I went to staple the homework and then stuffed it back into my binder. The homework was worth 24 points (at least half of a quiz) because it involved answering like/dislike questions in Spanish. I only noticed that I hadn't turned in this assignment today in the middle of class.
After school on Monday, I also realized that I forgot to pack my shorts for cross country in my backpack and had to do all of the running in sweatpants. At least I'm thankful that I don't wear jeans often and didn't have to run in jeans.
Lastly, this morning, I was in a hurry to pack my backpack, so I forgot to pack my pens. I went to school with absolutely no writing utensil and had to borrow for every class. Plus I didn't want to write anything in my planner because I want everything in my planner to be in pen for perfection.
The start of my 10th grade has been very bumpy, but most of these mistakes will be avoided now that I've already made them once. Not everything can be perfect, especially not school, so you just have to work around mistakes and still feel perfect in order to survive the entire school year.
Saturday, August 17, 2013
First Mistake in 10th Grade
Even though I mentioned in my post, "Start of 10th Grade," that I felt my school year started off perfectly, but after thinking over everything, I realized that I missed one thing. I forgot to turn in the summer Spanish packet that was 40 pages and probably worth a ton of points!
What happened was I have a binder for every class. But because fitting all of my class binders into my backpack is hard, I tried to divide the load by carrying three binders and three binders. Unfortunately, my lunch is 6th period, meaning I have four classes before lunch and only two classes after lunch. With Spanish right before lunch, I decided to to leave my Spanish binder in my locker and pick it up after my 4th period math.
The problem is that I don't have enough time to go to my locker, switch out all of my binders, and go to Spanish class during the 4 minute passing period. So I totally forgot about my plan after 4th period and went straight to Spanish without my Spanish binder. I realized my mistake when my teacher asked for the packets, but she told me I could turn it in after class.
Even worse, I completely forgot about the packet after class until this morning. This means the earliest I can turn in my packet is Monday morning. I'm really scared that my Spanish teacher, Sra. Martin, is going to take off points for being late if she thinks that I worked on the packet over this weekend.
I guess its too late to do anything about this other than not to forget to turn in my packet Monday morning and hope that she's nice enough to not count it as late. The only thing that I'm considering doing is emailing her, but I can't be sure whether that would help me or not.
What happened was I have a binder for every class. But because fitting all of my class binders into my backpack is hard, I tried to divide the load by carrying three binders and three binders. Unfortunately, my lunch is 6th period, meaning I have four classes before lunch and only two classes after lunch. With Spanish right before lunch, I decided to to leave my Spanish binder in my locker and pick it up after my 4th period math.
The problem is that I don't have enough time to go to my locker, switch out all of my binders, and go to Spanish class during the 4 minute passing period. So I totally forgot about my plan after 4th period and went straight to Spanish without my Spanish binder. I realized my mistake when my teacher asked for the packets, but she told me I could turn it in after class.
Even worse, I completely forgot about the packet after class until this morning. This means the earliest I can turn in my packet is Monday morning. I'm really scared that my Spanish teacher, Sra. Martin, is going to take off points for being late if she thinks that I worked on the packet over this weekend.
I guess its too late to do anything about this other than not to forget to turn in my packet Monday morning and hope that she's nice enough to not count it as late. The only thing that I'm considering doing is emailing her, but I can't be sure whether that would help me or not.
Friday, August 16, 2013
Start of 10th Grade
If you've been wondering why I haven't uploaded a single post in the past few days, I finally have time now to tell you I was procrastinating all of my summer homework starting from Sunday, August 11, 2013 until the night before school started. In fact, I went to bed at around 3:00 am on Tuesday night finishing up my 40 page Spanish packet because my school starts on Wednesday, August 14, 2013.
Then for these past few days, I've been doing almost nothing at home except for the bare minimum homework and sleeping at like 8:30 pm or 9:00 pm. I've pretty much been getting around nine hours per day since school has started. I hope that I've made up for the three hour sleep that I got the day before school started.
I seriously hope that I can keep up with sleeping early because its actually quite healthy. Of course, I've only been in school for three days and homework hasn't started to pile up yet. I am trying my hardest to avoid all procrastination. So far, I've barely had to procrastinate, but I'm not sure I'll be able to continue even with the homework due next Monday.
I've also found a great new way to use my planner. I don't know about other schools, but all of the schools in my district gives out a free planner to every single student starting from elementary school to high school. Then again, my district is pretty wealthy. Anyways, instead of writing the homework on the day that its assigned, I now write the assignments on the day that they are due. This way, I don't have to use the space to write when assignments are due if they are not due the next day. Also, I feel like this method helps me feel better about being prepared for the next day.
I'm hoping that I've started my school year perfectly, because as a perfectionist, if even the tiniest thing goes wrong, I'm going to feel imperfect, which will mess up everything else. By perfect, I don't mean 100% in the class, but just well organised and prepared and all that.
Actually, the class that I'm most worried about is English. My teacher this year is Dr. Taylor, and I've heard she's one of the harshest teachers in the school. Plus I'm not exactly good with English, so I'm not sure if I'll survive.
For now, I still perfect in terms of school. I'm going to think over everything that has happened so far over the weekend to thoroughly convince my brain that everything is still perfect so that I can aim for a perfect week next week.
Then for these past few days, I've been doing almost nothing at home except for the bare minimum homework and sleeping at like 8:30 pm or 9:00 pm. I've pretty much been getting around nine hours per day since school has started. I hope that I've made up for the three hour sleep that I got the day before school started.
I seriously hope that I can keep up with sleeping early because its actually quite healthy. Of course, I've only been in school for three days and homework hasn't started to pile up yet. I am trying my hardest to avoid all procrastination. So far, I've barely had to procrastinate, but I'm not sure I'll be able to continue even with the homework due next Monday.
I've also found a great new way to use my planner. I don't know about other schools, but all of the schools in my district gives out a free planner to every single student starting from elementary school to high school. Then again, my district is pretty wealthy. Anyways, instead of writing the homework on the day that its assigned, I now write the assignments on the day that they are due. This way, I don't have to use the space to write when assignments are due if they are not due the next day. Also, I feel like this method helps me feel better about being prepared for the next day.
I'm hoping that I've started my school year perfectly, because as a perfectionist, if even the tiniest thing goes wrong, I'm going to feel imperfect, which will mess up everything else. By perfect, I don't mean 100% in the class, but just well organised and prepared and all that.
Actually, the class that I'm most worried about is English. My teacher this year is Dr. Taylor, and I've heard she's one of the harshest teachers in the school. Plus I'm not exactly good with English, so I'm not sure if I'll survive.
For now, I still perfect in terms of school. I'm going to think over everything that has happened so far over the weekend to thoroughly convince my brain that everything is still perfect so that I can aim for a perfect week next week.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Purpose of Life
In my previous post titled, "Starting School Thoughts," I talked about how I didn't really know my purpose in life anymore. I didn't know what career or direction I should go towards. But now, after thinking a lot about my life, I've made a decision.
I've been reading a few websites about what colleges look for in an application, and I've learned that they actually value creativity and imagination a lot. I've always known that going for the standard way of working towards college, meaning very high grades, perfect ACT and SAT scores, and a lot of awards, was never my style. I've never been able to compete other students in terms of grades and test scores and extracurricular activities.
My only advantage that I might have is my creativity. I've always loved coming up with stories, drawing, and recently creating music. Maybe my creativity will eventually be my key to getting into a good college. On the other hand, maybe there are a lot of creative people and I simply don't know them, because I doubt many people know that I'm creative.
Nevertheless, something inside me still tells me that I should at least try to show the creative side of me. So I've decided for now that I'm going to start drawing as much as possible once I stabilize my grades in 10th grade.
As I've mentioned before, I've always wanted to create an anime movie, so after my drawing improves, I think I'll try to create a short anime as my first project. I've been thinking about adding anime and music to Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" poem.
By doing this, I'll still won't be risking too much because I'll still be able to keep my grades up, hopefully win awards, and continue working on some extracurricular activities such as piano, Chinese, sports, and other clubs. So even if my creative dream fails, I would still have a decent application.
I've been reading a few websites about what colleges look for in an application, and I've learned that they actually value creativity and imagination a lot. I've always known that going for the standard way of working towards college, meaning very high grades, perfect ACT and SAT scores, and a lot of awards, was never my style. I've never been able to compete other students in terms of grades and test scores and extracurricular activities.
My only advantage that I might have is my creativity. I've always loved coming up with stories, drawing, and recently creating music. Maybe my creativity will eventually be my key to getting into a good college. On the other hand, maybe there are a lot of creative people and I simply don't know them, because I doubt many people know that I'm creative.
Nevertheless, something inside me still tells me that I should at least try to show the creative side of me. So I've decided for now that I'm going to start drawing as much as possible once I stabilize my grades in 10th grade.
As I've mentioned before, I've always wanted to create an anime movie, so after my drawing improves, I think I'll try to create a short anime as my first project. I've been thinking about adding anime and music to Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" poem.
By doing this, I'll still won't be risking too much because I'll still be able to keep my grades up, hopefully win awards, and continue working on some extracurricular activities such as piano, Chinese, sports, and other clubs. So even if my creative dream fails, I would still have a decent application.
Starting School Thoughts
Just an hour or so again, my mom gave me that talk once again about how I'm playing too much video games and not focusing on getting into a good college and not practicing competition math problems and procrastinating my summer homework and on and on and on.
I would like to completely ignore her speech and pretend that it never happened the way that I usually do, but this time, she's caused me to think a lot. A month or so ago, I wrote a post title "Fading Idealism," which talks about how I'm becoming more pragmatic and less idealistic. Well, now that I feel like I'm still too idealistic. Instead of changing the world or creating a Utopia, now my dream is to draw manga and create anime. Yet that career is completely different from the medical career that my parents want me to pursue.
So now I'm really stuck once again. I have no idea about which direction I should work towards or which career I should aim for. As of now, I'm simply going about in school as you typical Chinese student with mostly A's and participating in a bunch of extracurricular activities.
I know that I'm slowly running out of time, and the sooner I can confirm a career, the sooner I find a purpose and direction for my work in high school, thus improving my chances of getting into a good college.
The problem is I have absolutely no idea what career I want. Going into medicine seems kind of boring, and I don't really like seeing the insides of people. I'm even going to try out engineering in 10th grade by taking the "Principles of Engineering" class. But still, a part of me really want to go towards art and manga. But the problem with art is that it won't be as stable as medicine or engineering, and my parents wouldn't be the happiest.
I've been thinking about maybe trying to create an inspirational anime movie with good animation and music before the end of high school. That would definitely be something that colleges would be interested in. But on the other hand, I would be gambling a lot of time and effort on a single enormous project that might not even be completed or might not be any good.
My only plan right now for 10th grade is to simply stabilize my grades, and then work on improving as many extracurricular activities as I can handle. Unfortunately, thousands of other Asians just like me do the exact same thing, so I probably won't get be able to get the attention of colleges without something extraordinary.
I would like to completely ignore her speech and pretend that it never happened the way that I usually do, but this time, she's caused me to think a lot. A month or so ago, I wrote a post title "Fading Idealism," which talks about how I'm becoming more pragmatic and less idealistic. Well, now that I feel like I'm still too idealistic. Instead of changing the world or creating a Utopia, now my dream is to draw manga and create anime. Yet that career is completely different from the medical career that my parents want me to pursue.
So now I'm really stuck once again. I have no idea about which direction I should work towards or which career I should aim for. As of now, I'm simply going about in school as you typical Chinese student with mostly A's and participating in a bunch of extracurricular activities.
I know that I'm slowly running out of time, and the sooner I can confirm a career, the sooner I find a purpose and direction for my work in high school, thus improving my chances of getting into a good college.
The problem is I have absolutely no idea what career I want. Going into medicine seems kind of boring, and I don't really like seeing the insides of people. I'm even going to try out engineering in 10th grade by taking the "Principles of Engineering" class. But still, a part of me really want to go towards art and manga. But the problem with art is that it won't be as stable as medicine or engineering, and my parents wouldn't be the happiest.
I've been thinking about maybe trying to create an inspirational anime movie with good animation and music before the end of high school. That would definitely be something that colleges would be interested in. But on the other hand, I would be gambling a lot of time and effort on a single enormous project that might not even be completed or might not be any good.
My only plan right now for 10th grade is to simply stabilize my grades, and then work on improving as many extracurricular activities as I can handle. Unfortunately, thousands of other Asians just like me do the exact same thing, so I probably won't get be able to get the attention of colleges without something extraordinary.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Promoted into Gold League
Remember how I said that I had another perfectionism problem when I lost a game due to our internet crashing in an earlier post? Well I'm completely over that problem now that I've been promoted to Gold League.
How did I get promoted to Gold League? I simply played two games after I lost that game due to my internet crashing and I was automatically promoted. Even better, I got into a newly started division of a Gold League, so there are only a dozen or two players in the division and I'm in second place!
I kind of deserved the promotion, because I was seriously starting to get bored because for the past three days, I've played nine games and have only lost two of them (including the internet crash match). I still remember joking with my little brother, saying that all I want to do is create a large army, but I usually always win with an early-mid game rush.
I'm glad I've been blogging about my Starcraft II career since the beginning as hard evidence that I started my career in Bronze league, because I'm going to end this season in Gold and no one will know that I started in Bronze this season without reading my blog posts.
Lost Starcraft II Game Due to Internet
For the entire day today, the internet connection at our house has been shutting off every few hours, forcing us to reset the internet modem, wait for the connection to go back online, and then log in to the parental control program, and then waiting for the internet to work again. Of course, doing all of this in under a minute is impossible.
Why a minute? Because that's all the time that you are allowed to stay disconnected from a Starcraft II match before you automatically lose. Yep, the internet crashed in the middle of my Starcraft II match. Even worse, I was only a few minutes away from winning that match. We were still in early game, not even to the 10 minute mark, and I've just destroyed a Mothership Core and two Zealots with my army of at least two dozen Marines and Mauraders. All that my opponent had left were two stalkers and one or two more Zealots.
I was so close to winning, but instead, I lost! All because the internet crashed! Fortunately, the loss didn't cause too much damage. I only lost a dozen or so points from my bonus pool as well. But the main thing about the loss is that I feel so imperfect.
Actually, a few weeks before I created this WZY account a few months back, I created a WZY account with Starter Edition and then changed that account's name and abandoned it to create my current WZY account. My reason for abandoning the old WZY account is that I accidentally left a Matchmaking game VS. AI (not even against a real player) and it showed up in my match history as a loss.
But with this WZY account, I can't abandon it as easily because I've spent $60 buying both Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm. Plus, I've been playing on the account for so long and it pretty much is the beginning of my Starcraft II career.
Nevertheless, I have a really annoying imperfection feeling. I was so annoyed that I didn't even go to the swimming pool with my mom, dad, and little brother. I hope I can lose the imperfection feeling soon because I still have a ton of summer homework to finish.
I hope I can get rid of my imperfection feeling by convincing myself that I can't simply abandon $60 and the beginning of my Starcraft II career. Plus, losing that one game pretty much didn't cause any changes for my ranking. I may have given the other player a free win, but I also got a free win myself earlier when I was still in Bronze League (that free win actually promoted me to Silver League). Lastly, even if that even was imperfect, at least I'm recording it on this blog so that I will never forget it.
I hope my brain will stay convinced that everything is still perfect so I can move on, but I'm not sure. My dad turned off the internet for my computer when he left for the swimming pool, so I can't even play any more matches right now. Sigh.
Why a minute? Because that's all the time that you are allowed to stay disconnected from a Starcraft II match before you automatically lose. Yep, the internet crashed in the middle of my Starcraft II match. Even worse, I was only a few minutes away from winning that match. We were still in early game, not even to the 10 minute mark, and I've just destroyed a Mothership Core and two Zealots with my army of at least two dozen Marines and Mauraders. All that my opponent had left were two stalkers and one or two more Zealots.
I was so close to winning, but instead, I lost! All because the internet crashed! Fortunately, the loss didn't cause too much damage. I only lost a dozen or so points from my bonus pool as well. But the main thing about the loss is that I feel so imperfect.
Actually, a few weeks before I created this WZY account a few months back, I created a WZY account with Starter Edition and then changed that account's name and abandoned it to create my current WZY account. My reason for abandoning the old WZY account is that I accidentally left a Matchmaking game VS. AI (not even against a real player) and it showed up in my match history as a loss.
But with this WZY account, I can't abandon it as easily because I've spent $60 buying both Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm. Plus, I've been playing on the account for so long and it pretty much is the beginning of my Starcraft II career.
Nevertheless, I have a really annoying imperfection feeling. I was so annoyed that I didn't even go to the swimming pool with my mom, dad, and little brother. I hope I can lose the imperfection feeling soon because I still have a ton of summer homework to finish.
I hope I can get rid of my imperfection feeling by convincing myself that I can't simply abandon $60 and the beginning of my Starcraft II career. Plus, losing that one game pretty much didn't cause any changes for my ranking. I may have given the other player a free win, but I also got a free win myself earlier when I was still in Bronze League (that free win actually promoted me to Silver League). Lastly, even if that even was imperfect, at least I'm recording it on this blog so that I will never forget it.
I hope my brain will stay convinced that everything is still perfect so I can move on, but I'm not sure. My dad turned off the internet for my computer when he left for the swimming pool, so I can't even play any more matches right now. Sigh.
Library Summer Reading Rewards
I know a lot of teenagers who don't like to participate in summer reading programs at public libraries. I totally understand them. Most of the prizes that they give out are usually pretty childish or useless. I thought the same way until last year.
As a prize for reading 20 and 40 hours over the summer at my public library, teenagers between 6th and 12th grade can choose any paperback book available at Barnes and Noble. This means that if you read 40 hours, you can get two free books, which is approximately $20 for free. The librarians actually order the books from Barnes and Noble right when you request the books.
I know my library is different from other libraries and your library may not have such an awesome prize, but all of the libraries that I've every been to have similar prizes. A lot of my friends have never even heard of summer reading programs and most people don't even know what prizes they give out.
Especially because of all of the books that I had to read for school, reaching 40 hours is really easy. Why not get free stuff for doing something that you have to do anyways? As my middle school gifted teacher, Mrs. Sermos, would say, "Why not get more bang for your buck?"
I finally picked up my two books while I was at the library two days ago, and of course, they are both manga books. I got Bakuman volumes 2 and 3 because I already own volume 1. Basically, Bakuman is about two teenage boys trying to work together to become the greatest manga artists ever.
I'm pretty sure the beginning of the series is based off of the actual lives of the authors. The same writer and artist for Bakuman also created the famous Death Note series. Unfortunately, a lot of people dislike this series. Most of the conflicts deal with love and cooperation and goals, instead of action, so this series is more like a Shojo manga (for girls) than Shonen (for boys). And with twenty volumes of pure conflict and no action at all, I can understand why this series is disliked so much.
For me, this series not only because the art is so good, but also the main character is so similar to me and has inspired me to draw more manga. I'm pretty sure the first few volumes of the series are actually based off of the writer or the artist's actual life. The characters deal with problems similar to ones I'm facing now, such as finding a career and love. However, I suspect that the later volumes of this series will turn into bizarre and meaningless conflicts that are there to make the series more interesting.
As a prize for reading 20 and 40 hours over the summer at my public library, teenagers between 6th and 12th grade can choose any paperback book available at Barnes and Noble. This means that if you read 40 hours, you can get two free books, which is approximately $20 for free. The librarians actually order the books from Barnes and Noble right when you request the books.
I know my library is different from other libraries and your library may not have such an awesome prize, but all of the libraries that I've every been to have similar prizes. A lot of my friends have never even heard of summer reading programs and most people don't even know what prizes they give out.
Especially because of all of the books that I had to read for school, reaching 40 hours is really easy. Why not get free stuff for doing something that you have to do anyways? As my middle school gifted teacher, Mrs. Sermos, would say, "Why not get more bang for your buck?"
I finally picked up my two books while I was at the library two days ago, and of course, they are both manga books. I got Bakuman volumes 2 and 3 because I already own volume 1. Basically, Bakuman is about two teenage boys trying to work together to become the greatest manga artists ever.
I'm pretty sure the beginning of the series is based off of the actual lives of the authors. The same writer and artist for Bakuman also created the famous Death Note series. Unfortunately, a lot of people dislike this series. Most of the conflicts deal with love and cooperation and goals, instead of action, so this series is more like a Shojo manga (for girls) than Shonen (for boys). And with twenty volumes of pure conflict and no action at all, I can understand why this series is disliked so much.
For me, this series not only because the art is so good, but also the main character is so similar to me and has inspired me to draw more manga. I'm pretty sure the first few volumes of the series are actually based off of the writer or the artist's actual life. The characters deal with problems similar to ones I'm facing now, such as finding a career and love. However, I suspect that the later volumes of this series will turn into bizarre and meaningless conflicts that are there to make the series more interesting.
Starcraft II WCS League Finals Live!
You can go to wcs.battle.net/sc2/en to watch the live broadcasts of the competition matches. Unfortunately, Day 1 of the season 2 competition are over at the time I'm writing this post. Luckily, season 2 doesn't end until August 15, 2013. You can still visit the website right now to find the schedule for tomorrow's games as well as watch videos of previous matches in this competition. I've even seen famous commentators such as Day9TV and HuskyStarcraft broadcasting matches live.
There are three regions (called Leagues, different from Matchmaking Leagues) where this competition is being held: Korea, America, and Europe. All three regions have different players, and each region will have its own winner. As of now, Korea's winner is already decided to be Maru. But as for the America and Europe regions, they both have only reached the final four players who will face off tomorrow.
I'm probably not going to write any update posts for WCS because you guys can check out the results at wcs.battle.net/sc2/en, but I will definitely have another post explaining how WCS is set up because there are tons of different brackets and events that take place throughout the year. I'm still currently researching how everything works, but I will explain everything to you guys soon.
If you are a Starcraft II fan, you simply cannot miss this competition because you will undoubtedly watch some of the best Starcraft II matches ever. Even better, all of these players are the best of the best, so they usually do unusual builds. You'll definitely be able to learn a ton from these matches.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Starcraft II Password Trick
Starcraft II passwords have annoyed me since the beginning. Starcraft II has one of the highest account securities that I've ever seen. For example, yesterday, when I tried to log in to the us.battle.net/sc2/en/ (the website for Starcraft II) at the library, I accidentally typed in the wrong password once and my account was locked.
Most of the time, Starcraft II's high security means less hackers, but there is also a negative side to high security. The most annoying problem for me is that you can't have more than three letters/numbers that match any three letters/numbers in your email. My email is awzy2013@gmail.com and the usual password that I use also has a 2013 in it, so I am always forced to make up another stupid password.
The second annoying problem with Starcraft II's security is that its not very flexible. If you travel anywhere (even to the nearby public library), your account will be locked if you mess up anything. Then you have to go through a ton a security checks as well as resetting your password before you are able to access your account again.
Because my WZY account was locked when I typed a wrong password at the library, I had to reset my password. But here's the trick that I noticed: when you reset your password, it no longer requires you to not have three letters/numbers in your password and email match. So I was finally able to reset my password to usual password with 2013.
Of course, this trick only works once, because if you have to reset your password again, you can't use the same password. I know not many people have the same problem that I do, but if you do and you are a perfectionist like me, now you know how you can fix it.
Most of the time, Starcraft II's high security means less hackers, but there is also a negative side to high security. The most annoying problem for me is that you can't have more than three letters/numbers that match any three letters/numbers in your email. My email is awzy2013@gmail.com and the usual password that I use also has a 2013 in it, so I am always forced to make up another stupid password.
The second annoying problem with Starcraft II's security is that its not very flexible. If you travel anywhere (even to the nearby public library), your account will be locked if you mess up anything. Then you have to go through a ton a security checks as well as resetting your password before you are able to access your account again.
Because my WZY account was locked when I typed a wrong password at the library, I had to reset my password. But here's the trick that I noticed: when you reset your password, it no longer requires you to not have three letters/numbers in your password and email match. So I was finally able to reset my password to usual password with 2013.
Of course, this trick only works once, because if you have to reset your password again, you can't use the same password. I know not many people have the same problem that I do, but if you do and you are a perfectionist like me, now you know how you can fix it.
Blogging Tip #1: Uploading Images
Recently, when I've been looking back at some older posts, I realized that some of the images had turned into blanks. I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure that images turn into blanks if you copy and paste them from another website and the website removes the image.
My reasoning for this is that none of the images that were either screenshots or ones that were still saved on my desktop disappeared. Also, when I tried to search for the images that disappeared, I couldn't find the exact same image.
So now I've pretty much looked at every single one of my blog posts and replaced images that had turned into blanks. However, there are still images in my blog that were still copied and pasted from another website, so please notify me in a comment or by email at awzy2013@gmail.com if you find a blank image.
If any of you readers have a blog of your own, then you should never copy a Google search image or an image from another website directly onto your blog. Instead, save the image onto your desktop and upload the image onto your blog post the same way you have to upload a video.
I know that the title says Blogging Tip #1, but don't count on me writing another blogging tip because I am no where near a professional blogger (and because Blogger is so easy to use). I hope you guys learned something and never make the mistake that I've made.
My reasoning for this is that none of the images that were either screenshots or ones that were still saved on my desktop disappeared. Also, when I tried to search for the images that disappeared, I couldn't find the exact same image.
So now I've pretty much looked at every single one of my blog posts and replaced images that had turned into blanks. However, there are still images in my blog that were still copied and pasted from another website, so please notify me in a comment or by email at awzy2013@gmail.com if you find a blank image.
If any of you readers have a blog of your own, then you should never copy a Google search image or an image from another website directly onto your blog. Instead, save the image onto your desktop and upload the image onto your blog post the same way you have to upload a video.
I know that the title says Blogging Tip #1, but don't count on me writing another blogging tip because I am no where near a professional blogger (and because Blogger is so easy to use). I hope you guys learned something and never make the mistake that I've made.
Internet Fixed Again
As I suspected, my dad totally forgot that he turned off the internet for my computer. If you've been following my previous posts, you know that I have a writing lesson today that I have to do a ton of preparation for.
One of my homework assignments for my writing lesson is to read a short story called "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" on the internet. I finally had a reason to get my dad to open the internet up again. When I asked my dad to turn on the internet for my computer, the first thing that he said in Chinese was something along the lines of "Oh, you don't have internet?" It hasn't even been a week since my dad turned off my internet, and he's already completely forgotten! And he didn't even ask me for a reason for using internet!
Because of my dad's "bad memory," I've been forced to stop writing posts for this blog, play Starcraft II until I went to the library yesterday, or read any manga. This is why I hate my dad. At least now I know that if he turns off my internet for more than a few days, then it means that he has probably forgotten that he turned it off.
One of my homework assignments for my writing lesson is to read a short story called "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" on the internet. I finally had a reason to get my dad to open the internet up again. When I asked my dad to turn on the internet for my computer, the first thing that he said in Chinese was something along the lines of "Oh, you don't have internet?" It hasn't even been a week since my dad turned off my internet, and he's already completely forgotten! And he didn't even ask me for a reason for using internet!
Because of my dad's "bad memory," I've been forced to stop writing posts for this blog, play Starcraft II until I went to the library yesterday, or read any manga. This is why I hate my dad. At least now I know that if he turns off my internet for more than a few days, then it means that he has probably forgotten that he turned it off.
Friday, August 9, 2013
No Internet Again
Sigh, once again, my dad has blocked my internet connection completely. Whenever my dad is angry and sees me playing Starcraft II, he immediately goes downstairs and blocks out my internet. Then he forgets about taking away my internet until I tell him to turn it back on. But if he's really happy and sees me playing Starcraft II, he doesn't care. Once,when he was happy, he even said that he should learn how to play.
My dad can be pretty nice when he wants to be, buying food from restaurants and talking with us. But every few days a month, my dad always has to be angry and he does whatever shit he wants. He turns off anything he dislikes, as well as argue with and insult everyone. Starting from when my family moved to the US, which isn't even a decade yet, my dad has literally turned off everything possible before. This includes electricity, air conditioner, television, gas (for stove cooking), and now recently internet.
Yeah, I'm still pretty frustrated that he turned off my internet many days ago. Right now, I'm forced to use the internet at the library once again. Luckily, school starts next Wednesday, so my dad will be forced to turn on the internet once school starts.
On the other hand, I haven't done much of the summer homework throughout the summer, so I'm procrastinating it all now. I'm close to finishing half of my English assignment and I still have an entire packet (at least 40 pages) of Spanish that I haven't even started. Sigh. All I hope is that once I start 10th grade, I don't want to procrastinate anything every again.
Anyways, because I haven't had internet, I've been watching a lot of anime movies on my mom's laptop. Yes, I know I could have wrote a post for this blog on my mom's computer, but I don't like using my email on any computer other than my own because it just doesn't feel perfect.
I've watched Cowboy Bebop the movies as well as pretty much all of the Cowboy Bebop episodes. I just watch 5 Centimeters Per Second, all of the Date A Live episodes, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, The Castle of Cagliostro, Grave of the Fireflies, and Akira. I probably watched some of those before I lost my internet, but I haven't talked about them on this blog anyways.
I am so addicted to anime movies right now. They can be very emotional and exciting at the same time. I only wish that I could draw better so I can make my own anime movie or manga. I've even have some pretty good story ideas.
My dad can be pretty nice when he wants to be, buying food from restaurants and talking with us. But every few days a month, my dad always has to be angry and he does whatever shit he wants. He turns off anything he dislikes, as well as argue with and insult everyone. Starting from when my family moved to the US, which isn't even a decade yet, my dad has literally turned off everything possible before. This includes electricity, air conditioner, television, gas (for stove cooking), and now recently internet.
Yeah, I'm still pretty frustrated that he turned off my internet many days ago. Right now, I'm forced to use the internet at the library once again. Luckily, school starts next Wednesday, so my dad will be forced to turn on the internet once school starts.
On the other hand, I haven't done much of the summer homework throughout the summer, so I'm procrastinating it all now. I'm close to finishing half of my English assignment and I still have an entire packet (at least 40 pages) of Spanish that I haven't even started. Sigh. All I hope is that once I start 10th grade, I don't want to procrastinate anything every again.
Anyways, because I haven't had internet, I've been watching a lot of anime movies on my mom's laptop. Yes, I know I could have wrote a post for this blog on my mom's computer, but I don't like using my email on any computer other than my own because it just doesn't feel perfect.
I've watched Cowboy Bebop the movies as well as pretty much all of the Cowboy Bebop episodes. I just watch 5 Centimeters Per Second, all of the Date A Live episodes, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, The Castle of Cagliostro, Grave of the Fireflies, and Akira. I probably watched some of those before I lost my internet, but I haven't talked about them on this blog anyways.
I am so addicted to anime movies right now. They can be very emotional and exciting at the same time. I only wish that I could draw better so I can make my own anime movie or manga. I've even have some pretty good story ideas.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Personal Info Challenge
If you've has been reading this blog since the beginning, you know that I am always reluctant to give out personal information on the internet. In most blog posts about my personal life, I try to avoid using specific names or details. However, sometimes, I am forced to use specific details and names in order to avoid sounding unclear. After nearly 50 total posts currently on this blog, I've actually given out a quite a lot of information about myself.
So as a fun challenge for those who want to read my previous posts and those who have been reading my posts from the very beginning, I'm creating a challenge where you have to answer several questions about my personal life. You can find the questions on its very own page in the "Personal Info" tab that can be found under the title of my blog. Once you have found all of the answers on this blog, email your answers as well as which post or page you found each answer on to me.
As a reward to the first person who correctly answers all of the questions correctly, I will announce that person in a separate post on this blog.
I'll even throw in a hint in this post to kick off this challenge: pictures may be helpful.
Disabling Google Web Search
Being a perfectionist, I and pretty much obsessed with making every slight setting exactly the way I want it. So after playing around with the Google Web History settings, I found out that I can delete all of my search history and prevent Google from continuing to save my search history.
By deleting all of my web search history and preventing Google from continuing to record my search history, I am able to never again be able to look up what I searched (I sometimes search really random stuff when I'm bored). Even better, I'm pretty sure less of your hard drive storage space is used, and Google can't use your search history to customize their advertisements. The best thing (in my opinion, probably not in anyone else's opinion) is that "Web History" does not show up in the products section of your Google account. The less products and websites that my perfect awzy2013@gmail.com are connect to, the better I feel.
So next I'll explain how you can delete your Google Web History if you want. In the picture below, you can see some of the features of Google Web History. Near the top, there are three graphs showing you how much you used Google to search (pretty useless). Below that is a list of every single word or phrase that you searched.
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| This screen shot is not from my computer because I've already deleted all of my web history. |
In order to get to the page shown above, just Google search anything and a settings icon should appear at the top right of the screen. Click on the icon and a drop down list should appear. Click on "Web history," not "Search settings." Now you should be on the page shown above.
In order to disable Web History and delete all web searches, click on the settings icon at the top right again and choose "Settings." A page similar to the one shown below should appear. Read the text and click on the "delete all" link in the middle of the text to delete all of your search history. Finally, choose the "Turn off" button on the same page and you're done!
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| This is actually a screenshot of my computer. lol Starcraft II is open. |
Monday, August 5, 2013
New Online Manga Website
In my previous post, I talked about how Viz Media forced the most popular manga websites to remove all of their Shonen Jump manga series, including three of the most popular manga series in the world, Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece. www.mangahere.com, the manga website that I used, was one of the websites that had to remove Shonen Jump manga series. I love Naruto and Bleach, so I had to find an alternate website.
Another popular website that I found really soon via Google is www.kissmanga.com. Actually, I think www.kissmanga.com is even better than www.mangahere.com. Not only am I able to bookmark manga series, my bookmarks can automatically change status from read to unread when a new chapter is released. Even better, every time I read a chapter, the title of the chapter darkens slightly, so I know exactly which chapters I've read. I really wanted to create a perfect www.kissmanga.com by using my awzy@gmail.com account.
Then I realized a problem. www.kissmanga.com is the fourth result from a Google search of "online manga." Because www.kissmanga.com still has all Shonen Jump manga series, www.kissmanga.com is most likely to become the most popular manga website soon. This also means that www.kissmanga.com might be threatened by Viz Media just like www.mangahere.com.
So I decided to look for a less popular manga website that had a smaller chance of being forced to remove Shonen Jump series. However, I still wanted a good quality website that the three following features:
1. a login that was not for a forum on the website
2. a way to bookmark manga series
3. a way to tell which chapters I've read (such as darkening chapter titles on www.kissmanga.com)
www.kissmanga.com had all three features, and finding anther site with all three, especially the third feature, was very difficult. Finally, on page 5 of my Google search of "online manga," I found www.xreader.net, which had all three features. I continued searching many pages after that and didn't find another website that had all three features.
Unfortunately, the problem with www.xreader.net, which I just noticed while writing this blog post, is that www.kissmanga.com has 154 pages of manga series, while www.xreader.net only has a list that would only be about three or four pages on the www.kissmanga.com list. Therefore, I have to use www.kissmanga.com and hope that it will not be forced to remove popular manga series in the future.
Another popular website that I found really soon via Google is www.kissmanga.com. Actually, I think www.kissmanga.com is even better than www.mangahere.com. Not only am I able to bookmark manga series, my bookmarks can automatically change status from read to unread when a new chapter is released. Even better, every time I read a chapter, the title of the chapter darkens slightly, so I know exactly which chapters I've read. I really wanted to create a perfect www.kissmanga.com by using my awzy@gmail.com account.
Then I realized a problem. www.kissmanga.com is the fourth result from a Google search of "online manga." Because www.kissmanga.com still has all Shonen Jump manga series, www.kissmanga.com is most likely to become the most popular manga website soon. This also means that www.kissmanga.com might be threatened by Viz Media just like www.mangahere.com.
So I decided to look for a less popular manga website that had a smaller chance of being forced to remove Shonen Jump series. However, I still wanted a good quality website that the three following features:
1. a login that was not for a forum on the website
2. a way to bookmark manga series
3. a way to tell which chapters I've read (such as darkening chapter titles on www.kissmanga.com)
www.kissmanga.com had all three features, and finding anther site with all three, especially the third feature, was very difficult. Finally, on page 5 of my Google search of "online manga," I found www.xreader.net, which had all three features. I continued searching many pages after that and didn't find another website that had all three features.
Unfortunately, the problem with www.xreader.net, which I just noticed while writing this blog post, is that www.kissmanga.com has 154 pages of manga series, while www.xreader.net only has a list that would only be about three or four pages on the www.kissmanga.com list. Therefore, I have to use www.kissmanga.com and hope that it will not be forced to remove popular manga series in the future.
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Online Manga Problem
Manga has always been a very important part of my life since the beginning of middle school. The story of how I started reading manga is actually a very interesting story that I'll talk about in future History of My Life posts. Like most other manga fans, buying manga books can be extremely expensive. Take Naruto for example. Right now, there are 63 volumes of Naruto and each costs about $10, meaning $630 to buy the entire series. Along with the high cost, manga books take a long time to be professionally translated and published by Viz Media (for Shonen Jump manga) or other professional companies.
Therefore, almost every manga fan reads manga for free from websites such as www.mangahere.com or www.mangareader.net. These websites are not only free, they are also release the most recent manga chapters much faster than professional companies. The only problem with these websites is that they're not exactly legal and they violate a lot of copyright laws. Luckily, all manga series are copyrighted in Japan, and do not affect these websites from releasing free manga chapters.
However, recently, Viz Media, the company who officially releases all Shonen Jump manga, including Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece, decided to threaten to start lawsuits against the three of the most popular manga reading websites, which are www.mangahere.com, www.mangareader.net, and www.mangafox.me. In order to not have to shut down their site, the three manga websites had to take down all manga series that were copyrighted by Viz Media, which includes the most popular manga series in the world (Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece).
I personally Viz Media is being really stupid because by not allowing those three manga websites to upload Shonen Jump manga series, the most popular series such as Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece will lose thousands, if not millions of fans. Plus, there are hundreds of other manga reading websites on the internet, so people are still not going to purchase the paperback books. I understand why Viz Media would do this and they definitely have the right to do it, but business-wise, it doesn't help them that much at all.
Because I'm not able to read Naruto or Bleach (sorry guys I'm currently not reading One Piece because it's too long) on www.mangahere.com, which was the website I used before, I decided to find an alternate website for reading manga. Because this post is going to be way to long, I'm going to talk about my alternate manga website in the next post.
Therefore, almost every manga fan reads manga for free from websites such as www.mangahere.com or www.mangareader.net. These websites are not only free, they are also release the most recent manga chapters much faster than professional companies. The only problem with these websites is that they're not exactly legal and they violate a lot of copyright laws. Luckily, all manga series are copyrighted in Japan, and do not affect these websites from releasing free manga chapters.
However, recently, Viz Media, the company who officially releases all Shonen Jump manga, including Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece, decided to threaten to start lawsuits against the three of the most popular manga reading websites, which are www.mangahere.com, www.mangareader.net, and www.mangafox.me. In order to not have to shut down their site, the three manga websites had to take down all manga series that were copyrighted by Viz Media, which includes the most popular manga series in the world (Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece).
I personally Viz Media is being really stupid because by not allowing those three manga websites to upload Shonen Jump manga series, the most popular series such as Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece will lose thousands, if not millions of fans. Plus, there are hundreds of other manga reading websites on the internet, so people are still not going to purchase the paperback books. I understand why Viz Media would do this and they definitely have the right to do it, but business-wise, it doesn't help them that much at all.
Because I'm not able to read Naruto or Bleach (sorry guys I'm currently not reading One Piece because it's too long) on www.mangahere.com, which was the website I used before, I decided to find an alternate website for reading manga. Because this post is going to be way to long, I'm going to talk about my alternate manga website in the next post.
Perfectionism Problem and Solution #3
I've been having so many problems with perfectionism lately that I've just decided to compact every problem and solution into a single post because I am usually able to find a solution a day or two after the problem.
So yesterday morning, I opened my computer and suddenly discovered that there was another wireless connection that didn't need a password, so I connected to that network instead of our home network. Because of my dad's parental controls, I'm not able to use the internet in the mornings and YouTube is blocked. But with the new network, there were no parental controls, so I immediately went on YouTube. Unfortunately, I was logged in to my new awzy2013@gmail.com email, so all of my watch history was being recorded.
After watching some HuskyStarcraft videos, I went back to Husky's page and found out that the video thumbnails had a little "watched" tag. I did not want the "watched" tag to show up because I like watching a lot of random videos and don't want everything I watch to be recorded.
I played with the settings for a while, but I still couldn't get rid of the "watched" tag. Just then, the network I was connected to disappeared (probably because the network owners realized I was using their network for free) and I didn't have internet through my home network. Even worse, we had to go to Six Flags that day, so I didn't even have time to figure out what to do.
Finally, just this morning, I wanted to fix this problem on my mom's laptop which didn't have any parental controls. I went on my old dreams.wzy2013@gmail.com YouTube account and realized that that account never had any "watched" tags. I thought that the reason was that I didn't have a YouTube account. However, my new awzy2013@gmail.com account was automatically signed up for Google+ and thus automatically signed up for YouTube. I deleted my Google+ account (that I never used), and then realized that I didn't clear my watch history on YouTube.
After clearing my watch history, the "watched" tags finally disappeared. I'm pretty sure I didn't have to delete my entire Google+ account, but I don't like Google+ anyways. However, the only problem left is that YouTube still shows recommended videos that are impossible to get rid of. Thankfully, the recommended channels are really random and doesn't bother me too much.
So yesterday morning, I opened my computer and suddenly discovered that there was another wireless connection that didn't need a password, so I connected to that network instead of our home network. Because of my dad's parental controls, I'm not able to use the internet in the mornings and YouTube is blocked. But with the new network, there were no parental controls, so I immediately went on YouTube. Unfortunately, I was logged in to my new awzy2013@gmail.com email, so all of my watch history was being recorded.
After watching some HuskyStarcraft videos, I went back to Husky's page and found out that the video thumbnails had a little "watched" tag. I did not want the "watched" tag to show up because I like watching a lot of random videos and don't want everything I watch to be recorded.
I played with the settings for a while, but I still couldn't get rid of the "watched" tag. Just then, the network I was connected to disappeared (probably because the network owners realized I was using their network for free) and I didn't have internet through my home network. Even worse, we had to go to Six Flags that day, so I didn't even have time to figure out what to do.
Finally, just this morning, I wanted to fix this problem on my mom's laptop which didn't have any parental controls. I went on my old dreams.wzy2013@gmail.com YouTube account and realized that that account never had any "watched" tags. I thought that the reason was that I didn't have a YouTube account. However, my new awzy2013@gmail.com account was automatically signed up for Google+ and thus automatically signed up for YouTube. I deleted my Google+ account (that I never used), and then realized that I didn't clear my watch history on YouTube.
After clearing my watch history, the "watched" tags finally disappeared. I'm pretty sure I didn't have to delete my entire Google+ account, but I don't like Google+ anyways. However, the only problem left is that YouTube still shows recommended videos that are impossible to get rid of. Thankfully, the recommended channels are really random and doesn't bother me too much.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Trip at Six Flags
Wow. I've just been back from Six Flags just a few hours ago and I'm still really tired. I found out that our $25 per person ticket included free parking (which is usually around $20), and free lunch at the World's Fair Grove (which is at least another $20). Talking about this trip is going to be really hard without giving away the names of the rides and places that I went to, so I'm going to be using the real names of the rides and places that we went to today. Of course, this allows you guys to easily search up which Six Flags I went to, but so what?
Anyways, I also found out that my little brother had a swimming lesson in the morning, so I had to wait until after his lesson before going to Six Flags, which is about a half and hour drive from my house. We arrived at Six Flags at about 12:00 pm and instead of going to lunch, we decided to first ride the Tommy G. Robertson Railroad around the park. That was actually a really dumb idea because most of the time we could only see trees and the entire ride took an hour.
After the train ride we immediately rushed to the World's Fair Grove because our free lunch would end at 2:00 pm. They had a buffet of Sloppy Joes, chips, cooked beans, potato salad, and chicken tenders. We could also get unlimited fountain soda. At least the food is better than what my school had at the World's Fair Grove during physics day. On physics day, we only had chicken tenders and hot dogs that tasted like rubber.
After lunch, we immediately went to the water park, Hurricane Harbor, because it closed earlier than the rest of the park (even though the water park closed right when we were about to go home). We only played in the big wave pool, as well as relax in the long lazy river on doughnut shaped tubes. The funnest part of the lazy river is trying to keep my brother close to me because he was on his own tube. I've already been on both of those things while at the Big Surf Waterpark in the Ozarks. However, swimming was still fun.
After the water park, I wasn't sure where to go. My mom didn't like roller coasters, and my little brother was too short for most of them. So I finally decided to ride the Log Flume, which is a pretty slow roller coaster with people sitting in fake logs that are floated down a water slide. Most of the ride has nothing exciting, until the very end, where there is a small drop. I wanted to see how my little brother liked that sinking feeling in his stomach. Surprisingly, my brother actually liked that feeling and wasn't scared of roller coasters at all.
Then I decided to take him to ride the River King Mine Train. It is one of the easier rides, but it still had a bigger drop at the end and went a lot faster. Surprisingly, my brother liked that as well. I'm pretty sure my brother is too short for the other big rides, so we went to the nearby children's area, called Bugs Bunny National Park. My brother rode on two spinning rides, and my mom even joined him on the second ride.
It was getting late, so we decided to ride one more. My mom picked Thunder River because it was another seemingly easy water ride. passengers sat in a small round boat that can hold about eight people. The boat would slowly drift off in a circle until it returned to where it started. My mom even wanted to ride this one. But little did we know what was coming. Even though the boat was slow, the water had a ton of ups and downs, similar to rapids, meaning a ton of water was pouring into the boat and onto people sitting in the boat. My brother and I got completely soaked, and my mom got completely wet on one side. I had to stay wet for over an hour before I got home and immediately took a shower.
Finally, we bought funnel cake, which is one of the best tasting cake I've ever eaten. For those who don't know, it a bunch of twirls of fried cake that is topped with powdered sugar and chocolate syrup. The cake has to be warm, and it takes really good, but really unhealthy. Because my friends had already bought some normal funnel cake for me last year, I decided to try the funnel cake sundae, which is a warm funnel cake with a really cold whipped cream. It tasted so good, but after eating most of it with my little brother, I felt really sick.
After funnel cakes, we finally drove home. I was really wet the the whole way back and I will never go on Thunder River again, but what's done is done. Overall, we may not have gone on epic rides, but we still had fun and our money was definitely not wasted. I said that I would post some pictures, but we ended up playing more rather than taking photos.
Anyways, I also found out that my little brother had a swimming lesson in the morning, so I had to wait until after his lesson before going to Six Flags, which is about a half and hour drive from my house. We arrived at Six Flags at about 12:00 pm and instead of going to lunch, we decided to first ride the Tommy G. Robertson Railroad around the park. That was actually a really dumb idea because most of the time we could only see trees and the entire ride took an hour.
After the train ride we immediately rushed to the World's Fair Grove because our free lunch would end at 2:00 pm. They had a buffet of Sloppy Joes, chips, cooked beans, potato salad, and chicken tenders. We could also get unlimited fountain soda. At least the food is better than what my school had at the World's Fair Grove during physics day. On physics day, we only had chicken tenders and hot dogs that tasted like rubber.
After lunch, we immediately went to the water park, Hurricane Harbor, because it closed earlier than the rest of the park (even though the water park closed right when we were about to go home). We only played in the big wave pool, as well as relax in the long lazy river on doughnut shaped tubes. The funnest part of the lazy river is trying to keep my brother close to me because he was on his own tube. I've already been on both of those things while at the Big Surf Waterpark in the Ozarks. However, swimming was still fun.
After the water park, I wasn't sure where to go. My mom didn't like roller coasters, and my little brother was too short for most of them. So I finally decided to ride the Log Flume, which is a pretty slow roller coaster with people sitting in fake logs that are floated down a water slide. Most of the ride has nothing exciting, until the very end, where there is a small drop. I wanted to see how my little brother liked that sinking feeling in his stomach. Surprisingly, my brother actually liked that feeling and wasn't scared of roller coasters at all.
Then I decided to take him to ride the River King Mine Train. It is one of the easier rides, but it still had a bigger drop at the end and went a lot faster. Surprisingly, my brother liked that as well. I'm pretty sure my brother is too short for the other big rides, so we went to the nearby children's area, called Bugs Bunny National Park. My brother rode on two spinning rides, and my mom even joined him on the second ride.
It was getting late, so we decided to ride one more. My mom picked Thunder River because it was another seemingly easy water ride. passengers sat in a small round boat that can hold about eight people. The boat would slowly drift off in a circle until it returned to where it started. My mom even wanted to ride this one. But little did we know what was coming. Even though the boat was slow, the water had a ton of ups and downs, similar to rapids, meaning a ton of water was pouring into the boat and onto people sitting in the boat. My brother and I got completely soaked, and my mom got completely wet on one side. I had to stay wet for over an hour before I got home and immediately took a shower.
Finally, we bought funnel cake, which is one of the best tasting cake I've ever eaten. For those who don't know, it a bunch of twirls of fried cake that is topped with powdered sugar and chocolate syrup. The cake has to be warm, and it takes really good, but really unhealthy. Because my friends had already bought some normal funnel cake for me last year, I decided to try the funnel cake sundae, which is a warm funnel cake with a really cold whipped cream. It tasted so good, but after eating most of it with my little brother, I felt really sick.
After funnel cakes, we finally drove home. I was really wet the the whole way back and I will never go on Thunder River again, but what's done is done. Overall, we may not have gone on epic rides, but we still had fun and our money was definitely not wasted. I said that I would post some pictures, but we ended up playing more rather than taking photos.
Friday, August 2, 2013
Going to Six Flags Tomorrow!
Tomorrow will be the second time that my family has gone to Six Flags with me. For those who don't know, Six Flags is one of the biggest amusement park companies in the US and has multiple amusement parks all around the US.
I've actually been going to Six Flags every single year starting in sixth grade. Our school orchestra in middle school takes us to Six Flags every year during April or something for a competition. After we play a few pieces in the morning, we get to spend the rest of the day playing at Six Flags. But after I entered high school, we were too old to participate in the competition. However, the entire Freshman grade goes to Six Flags for physics day (yes we learn physics first and biology last at our high school). I'm probably not going to get the chance to go to Six Flags next year for school.
Recently, my dad's hospital offered discounted Six Flags tickets (from $55 to $25), so my mom decided to buy three tickets for her, my little brother, and me. Unfortunately, my mom is scared of roller coasters and my little brother has never even been to Six Flags, so I'm afraid that we'll simply be wasting our money. Even I'll admit that I'm afraid to go on some of the rides that include falling.
The first time that my family went to Six Flags, we went with two other families. My brother either wasn't even born then or he was too small to do anything. Basically, we had three kids who had never gone to Six Flags and our parents. In that entire day I think we only rode three or four rides with most of them not being actual roller coasters. I did go on one of the bigger roller coasters with my dad only because my dad convinced me that it would be slow (even though it was definitely not slow).
Fortunately, I finally got past part of my fear of roller coasters during the Freshman physics day trip. I didn't want to be embarrassed in front of my friends or have to wait hour after hour for them to ride the rides that they want. So I decided to go on the second big ride that they wanted to go on. Just as I started feeling more confident that I wasn't afraid of roller coasters, we didn't have any time to ride anymore and had to finish a lot of roller coaster related physics work. Even though now I'm okay with extremely fast roller coasters, I still don't like the sensation of falling, which still limits me from many of the biggest roller coasters.
My guess is that when my mom, my little brother, and I go to Six Flags tomorrow, we'll only go to the swimming area, the children area, and maybe the arcade. If I'm in the mood for a big ride, I'll probably be able to go on one alone. All that I can hope for tomorrow is that I'm not bored to death while wasting a bunch of money. I'll definitely take a ton of photos and hopefully post a bunch of them on my blog to show you guys!
I've actually been going to Six Flags every single year starting in sixth grade. Our school orchestra in middle school takes us to Six Flags every year during April or something for a competition. After we play a few pieces in the morning, we get to spend the rest of the day playing at Six Flags. But after I entered high school, we were too old to participate in the competition. However, the entire Freshman grade goes to Six Flags for physics day (yes we learn physics first and biology last at our high school). I'm probably not going to get the chance to go to Six Flags next year for school.
Recently, my dad's hospital offered discounted Six Flags tickets (from $55 to $25), so my mom decided to buy three tickets for her, my little brother, and me. Unfortunately, my mom is scared of roller coasters and my little brother has never even been to Six Flags, so I'm afraid that we'll simply be wasting our money. Even I'll admit that I'm afraid to go on some of the rides that include falling.
The first time that my family went to Six Flags, we went with two other families. My brother either wasn't even born then or he was too small to do anything. Basically, we had three kids who had never gone to Six Flags and our parents. In that entire day I think we only rode three or four rides with most of them not being actual roller coasters. I did go on one of the bigger roller coasters with my dad only because my dad convinced me that it would be slow (even though it was definitely not slow).
Fortunately, I finally got past part of my fear of roller coasters during the Freshman physics day trip. I didn't want to be embarrassed in front of my friends or have to wait hour after hour for them to ride the rides that they want. So I decided to go on the second big ride that they wanted to go on. Just as I started feeling more confident that I wasn't afraid of roller coasters, we didn't have any time to ride anymore and had to finish a lot of roller coaster related physics work. Even though now I'm okay with extremely fast roller coasters, I still don't like the sensation of falling, which still limits me from many of the biggest roller coasters.
My guess is that when my mom, my little brother, and I go to Six Flags tomorrow, we'll only go to the swimming area, the children area, and maybe the arcade. If I'm in the mood for a big ride, I'll probably be able to go on one alone. All that I can hope for tomorrow is that I'm not bored to death while wasting a bunch of money. I'll definitely take a ton of photos and hopefully post a bunch of them on my blog to show you guys!
History of My Life #2: Childhood Stories
In my previous History of My Life post, I talked about pretty much everything that I could remember about the first five and half years of my life in China. However, because I was so young, I could not have possibly remembered everything. So in this post, I'm going to be talking about all of the stories that my grandma and my parents have told me.
Like I said before, my parents worked all the time, so my grandma took care of me all the time. One story that she just recently retold me about is about the apartment area near our apartment area. For security, each apartment area, which has a bunch of apartment buildings together, has closed gates with someone guarding the gate. Near our apartment area was another wealthier area, where my I loved to go to bike or play because it had new buildings and very nice walkways and gardens. Usually, the guards were nice and would let my grandma and I in, and even play with us a bit. Once, there was a new guard, and he wouldn't let my grandma and I in because we didn't live in that apartment area. My grandma argued with the guard for a long time before one of my grandma's friends walked outside and finally the guard let us in. But my grandma still continued shouting at the new guard.
My grandma has also told me that once, when I was playing near the window, I saw a little girl playing near her window in a nearby apartment building on approximately the same floor. For some reason, we started comparing toys to see who had the biggest toy. I'm not sure who one, but I'm pretty sure the last toy that I pulled out was a huge excavator toy or some other construction vehicle. I used to really like construction. I even remember watching people build a brand new apartment building right next to ours. However, I left before that new building was complete, but I did see it when I went back to China last summer. My grandma told me that I wanted to be a construction worker when I grew up. Typical childhood dreams.
My parent's favorite story to tell me is that once, when one of my parent's friends visited our apartment and held me in his/her hands, I accidentally pooped all over him/her. My grandma never believes in diapers, so I was walking around without a diaper before I was potty trained. My parents love telling me this story to say that I was not the best kid growing up.
The next few stories are a mixture of memories and what my grandma tells me. Once, I accidentally knocked over a pot of boiling water that was sitting on a stool under the kitchen counter. The boiling water flowed out and completely burned my foot. I still remember my pinky toe swelling up a lot and turning really red. Another time, I didn't drink water for so long that one morning I couldn't even wake up. My parents had to take me to the hospital. When I woke up, I still remember my hand being tied to a board with an IV needle sticking out of the back of my hand. That was probably the first time I ever saw a real needle that I can remember.
I know that these first two History of My Life posts seem very trivial, but these are just mainly for me to look back at when I grow older. If any of you readers have tried to remember stuff from a decade or more ago, you know how hard it is. This is why taking pictures is so important, or keeping a journal of what's happening in your life. In my case, I am basically using this blog as my journal.
Like I said before, my parents worked all the time, so my grandma took care of me all the time. One story that she just recently retold me about is about the apartment area near our apartment area. For security, each apartment area, which has a bunch of apartment buildings together, has closed gates with someone guarding the gate. Near our apartment area was another wealthier area, where my I loved to go to bike or play because it had new buildings and very nice walkways and gardens. Usually, the guards were nice and would let my grandma and I in, and even play with us a bit. Once, there was a new guard, and he wouldn't let my grandma and I in because we didn't live in that apartment area. My grandma argued with the guard for a long time before one of my grandma's friends walked outside and finally the guard let us in. But my grandma still continued shouting at the new guard.
My grandma has also told me that once, when I was playing near the window, I saw a little girl playing near her window in a nearby apartment building on approximately the same floor. For some reason, we started comparing toys to see who had the biggest toy. I'm not sure who one, but I'm pretty sure the last toy that I pulled out was a huge excavator toy or some other construction vehicle. I used to really like construction. I even remember watching people build a brand new apartment building right next to ours. However, I left before that new building was complete, but I did see it when I went back to China last summer. My grandma told me that I wanted to be a construction worker when I grew up. Typical childhood dreams.
My parent's favorite story to tell me is that once, when one of my parent's friends visited our apartment and held me in his/her hands, I accidentally pooped all over him/her. My grandma never believes in diapers, so I was walking around without a diaper before I was potty trained. My parents love telling me this story to say that I was not the best kid growing up.
The next few stories are a mixture of memories and what my grandma tells me. Once, I accidentally knocked over a pot of boiling water that was sitting on a stool under the kitchen counter. The boiling water flowed out and completely burned my foot. I still remember my pinky toe swelling up a lot and turning really red. Another time, I didn't drink water for so long that one morning I couldn't even wake up. My parents had to take me to the hospital. When I woke up, I still remember my hand being tied to a board with an IV needle sticking out of the back of my hand. That was probably the first time I ever saw a real needle that I can remember.
I know that these first two History of My Life posts seem very trivial, but these are just mainly for me to look back at when I grow older. If any of you readers have tried to remember stuff from a decade or more ago, you know how hard it is. This is why taking pictures is so important, or keeping a journal of what's happening in your life. In my case, I am basically using this blog as my journal.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
History of My Life #1: Memories of China
I mentioned this History of My Life project a long time ago in my "Rest of the Summer Plans" post. However, with internet, Starcraft II, and perfectionism problems everywhere, I just haven't had time to begin this project. Because I'm starting this project so late, I'll continue working on this archival project during the school year.
Of course, I don't want to give away all of my personal information, so I'll keep some details vague. I mean, the point of this project is not to have someone be able to pinpoint me, but instead to simply enjoy my story and maybe even learn something about life.
In 1998, I was born in China. However, my dad moved to the US in 2003 and my mom and I followed him in 2004. I left China when I was only about five and a half years old, so my memories of China aren't very clear. Around the time I was born, the hospital that my parents worked for were issuing apartments, so my parents moved from their old apartment to a new one. All I know about the old apartment is that the number of our unit was 805 (eighth floor, fifth unit). Our new apartment unit was 704, and my uncle's family is still living there right now. The new apartment has two bedrooms, one bathroom, one living room, and very small kitchen, and one study room.
My parents were really big on education (like all Chinese parents), so I was sent to a pretty expensive private preschool (where I learned nothing). I remember about my preschool is that on Fridays, we were allowed to bring in a toy, and I would usually bring in a Chinese transformers. Once, when I was learning how to jump rope, my mom said if I jump roped 300 times, she would buy me a brand new transformers toy. I was so bad at jump roping that I could only jump once or twice, so it took me a week to get even a few dozen jumps. Then one of my relatives came and simply bought the transformers toy that I wanted.
I also remember playing a lot in the small garden right outside our apartment as well as in front of the hospital that was right next to our apartment. I used to ride my bike or scooter up and down the ramp in front of the hospital with my friends. Of course, I don't remember anything about my friends, except from photos and stories that my grandma tells me. Even when I met them in China last summer, I had no idea who they were.
Lastly, I remember doing a lot of walking and riding buses. We weren't rich enough to buy a car back then, and the buses were really convenient. I used to be with my grandma a lot because my parents worked so much, so I can still remember going to the farmers market with my grandma. I thought that the farmers market was gross, dirty, disgusting, and smelly (I still think the same).
This is pretty much most of what I know of my earliest years in China. In my next post, I'll talk about all of the stories that my grandma told me about my childhood after I grew up.
Of course, I don't want to give away all of my personal information, so I'll keep some details vague. I mean, the point of this project is not to have someone be able to pinpoint me, but instead to simply enjoy my story and maybe even learn something about life.
In 1998, I was born in China. However, my dad moved to the US in 2003 and my mom and I followed him in 2004. I left China when I was only about five and a half years old, so my memories of China aren't very clear. Around the time I was born, the hospital that my parents worked for were issuing apartments, so my parents moved from their old apartment to a new one. All I know about the old apartment is that the number of our unit was 805 (eighth floor, fifth unit). Our new apartment unit was 704, and my uncle's family is still living there right now. The new apartment has two bedrooms, one bathroom, one living room, and very small kitchen, and one study room.
My parents were really big on education (like all Chinese parents), so I was sent to a pretty expensive private preschool (where I learned nothing). I remember about my preschool is that on Fridays, we were allowed to bring in a toy, and I would usually bring in a Chinese transformers. Once, when I was learning how to jump rope, my mom said if I jump roped 300 times, she would buy me a brand new transformers toy. I was so bad at jump roping that I could only jump once or twice, so it took me a week to get even a few dozen jumps. Then one of my relatives came and simply bought the transformers toy that I wanted.
I also remember playing a lot in the small garden right outside our apartment as well as in front of the hospital that was right next to our apartment. I used to ride my bike or scooter up and down the ramp in front of the hospital with my friends. Of course, I don't remember anything about my friends, except from photos and stories that my grandma tells me. Even when I met them in China last summer, I had no idea who they were.
Lastly, I remember doing a lot of walking and riding buses. We weren't rich enough to buy a car back then, and the buses were really convenient. I used to be with my grandma a lot because my parents worked so much, so I can still remember going to the farmers market with my grandma. I thought that the farmers market was gross, dirty, disgusting, and smelly (I still think the same).
This is pretty much most of what I know of my earliest years in China. In my next post, I'll talk about all of the stories that my grandma told me about my childhood after I grew up.
Movie Review #1: Pacific Rim
I know this movie came out almost half a month ago, but I've been busy with Starcraft II and piano and other work that I didn't have time to write a review about this awesome movie. Luckily, I'm pretty sure the movie isn't on DVD yet, so at least this review will still be useful to people who don't go to movie theaters.But before I review this movie, I'd like to say that I saw a ton of promotions for this movie before it was released on July 12, 2013. A ton of ads on YouTube were trailers of the movie and even HuskyStarcraft was involved in making a short film about three giant Jaeger robots against one giant Kaiju monster. I know that Unfortunately, because of the parental controls on my computer, I can't upload the video onto this blog or give you guys more details about the promotional short film, but you can always find it on HuskyStarcraft's YouTube channel.
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| Releigh Becket and Mako Mori. |
The main character Raleigh Becket and his brother used to be the two pilots for a Jaeger, until a Kaiju killed Raleigh's brother. Raleigh decided to quit piloting Jaegers and help construct a huge anti-Kaiju wall that didn't work at all. Jaegers are the only way to fight against the Kaijus, but there are not enough people who are good at piloting a Jaeger, so the leader of the Jaeger program, Stacker Pentecost, contacts Raleigh again to pilot a Jaeger.
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| The main heroes' Jaeger. |
The combination of action and emotion and creativity is what makes this movie so amazing. Of course, this movie isn't the best because it doesn't use extremely complicated ideas like the ones in The Matrix and Inception. Nevertheless, the biology of Kaijus and how they are connected to Earth is still complex and creative.
Perfectionism Solution #2
I know I've been doing a lot of catch-up posts about my Starcraft II life days after they actually happened, but I've just not been feeling like blogging as much lately. It's probably because school is starting in two weeks, but I'm not sure. Anyways, I'm going to be doing another catch-up post about something that I did on Sunday, July 28, 2013.
Remember my old post called "Perfectionism Problem #2?" Well I finally solved that problem four days ago. My biggest problem was that I felt that my emails weren't perfect. I was using two emails, one with my real name and one with my nickname. I didn't like using two emails, and I felt my emails were imperfect because I had a bunch of games that I no longer played attached to my email, as well as a PayPal account.
So finally I decided to create another email that merges my two identities into one email. My new email is awzy2013@gmail.com, with AW being the initials of my nickname and WZY being the initials of my real name. Pretty neat, huh? Even though a new email does mean a new start, I could have not possibly given up this blog or my Starcraft II account. So I immediately switched the blog administrator from my old email, dreams.wzy2013@gmail.com, to my new email.
However, I hesitated a day or two for my Starcraft II account. I once again began feeling like my Starcraft II account was not perfect. Not only did my nickname show up in my account (which I talked about in my original "Perfectionism Problem" post), but also a day after I created my new email, I got into Bronze league and accidentally played a game before using Unit Preloader.
However, I finally convinced myself that I was not going to spend another $60 Starcraft II, so I finally added my my WZY Starcraft II account to my new email. I'm planning on using this new email for my personal life as well, such as school and friends.
However, I finally convinced myself that I was not going to spend another $60 Starcraft II, so I finally added my my WZY Starcraft II account to my new email. I'm planning on using this new email for my personal life as well, such as school and friends.
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