CRANK. the book.

After looking through several blogs when there weren't as many this afternoon, I saw a blog post by Nawara on her winter break, and decided to read it.  She started to talk about Crank, so I couldn't help, but to respond to it.

I read Crank and Glass, by Ellen Hopkins. These books are very well structured and written. I recommend the Crank series to everyone in the whole world. It is so good-- I cannot stress it enough. I literally could not stop reading it. Although I had to use the bathroom a few times, I just held it in because I wanted to know what was going to happen next. Every page became more tempting to know the next.

Before break, Nawara and I started talking about books after she saw me reading Fallout by Ellen Hopkins.  It is the third book in her series, with Crank and Glass as the first two books.  I showed her a few pages from the book, and told her to read it.  She thought it was kind of strange, but interesting how the book was written.  The book looks big, but it isn't that long, because the books written in somewhat of a poem format.  Whenever anyone looks inside the book, they always ask me if its written in poems, and even though it looks like its a poem, its basically just a story with regular sentences just like any other book, but instead of the sentence being complete and written to completely fill a line up, Ellen Hopkins breaks apart her sentences to create images at times, or some pattern.  It takes a while to get used to, but it's not confusing or anything like that.

The book talks about a girl, Kristina, and what happens to her life after she visits her father and gets a taste of crank with him.  Her life seems better at first, but then it starts to go downhill after she loses her grasp and gets high too much, and she loses control of her life and her body too.  It's really dramatic, and like Nawara says, once you start to read about her life and find it interesting, the book is sooooooo hard to put down.  When I read the book, I would normally read it during times I was busy and had a ton of stuff to do still, but I needed to know what happened to Katrina.  I would continuously tell myself, "One more section, then that's it," but still, I kept on reading, until thirty or fifty pages later, I'd actually put down the book because I had things to finish or I had to go sleep because it was so late (after midnight :).  I highly suggest this book, it is an amazing book, and Ellen Hopkins has become one of my favorite authors.

Psst!!! Nawara! Read Impulse asap. (all you other people too :D) its sooooooo gooood. My favorite book by her so far.

On Appreciating Substitutes!

On Jackson's blog, I found a response he wrote to Luis's post on substitutes.

Subs want to help us and care about all of us. We need to in turn show our care for them too. If you don't appreciate your education, leave the classroom instead of wasting the sub's time. Teachers are extremely important figures in society and everyone should realize that; they care for our future, even subs.

Like Jackson mentioned earlier in his post, substitutes are also teachers, but they are temporary.  Even though they may not know all our names or the norms of the particular class, they still have valuable knowledge that they can share with us, but oftentimes, students tend to disrespect and take advantage of substitutes.

Many times, when a teacher sets a rule in the classroom, when the teacher is there, a vast majority of the time, we follow the rules to avoid getting into trouble.  When there's a sub though, we choose to ignore those rules, and just do things as we'd like.  We take advantage of the substitute's minimal knowledge of the rules at the school and in the class, and use electronics or eat, and often do not do the work assigned, but on rare occasions, we do.

It's true though, just because the substitute doesn't stay for a long time at the school, dedicated to teach students at the school everyday, it doesn't mean that they don't care about your education or want to teach students.  We should appreciate substitutes more often, we under-appreciate them and all the effort they put into teaching or at least just watching us at school.  ASTI subs are extremely generous in my opinion, for being willing to find our small campus, and to stay with a room full of teenagers for a day.  It doesn't sound like a very fun or easy job.

Just a little story I'd like to mention about a substitute in fifth grade:
I remember back in fifth grade, I had (what I thought was) the coolest teacher ever.  He was nice, our history lessons were super fun, he had awesome books, lots of free time, and I always enjoyed my time in his class.  One day he was absent though, so of course we had a sub.  The trouble-maker of the class and the girl he liked (who btw was a goody-two-shoes) both teamed up and set up a string in the front of the class, where'd she would walk by, a few inches away from the floor.

I remember seeing her tripping over it, falling, and all the students began to laugh at her.  She started to cry.  Yet, the ignorant elementary students we were. people continued to laugh.  I think I probably did too.  But still all these years later, whenever I remember that moment, I feel guilty.  She was a nice person, she didn't deserve it.  She didn't do anything, but come in to substitute for us, which the students decided to take an advantage of, and use it to their entertainment.

Please don't do anything like that to a sub. Ever. It's not nice. At all.

Just saying.~

Response to I Love, I Hate, I Move On.

In Susan's blog post, I Love, I Hate, I Move On, I found this quote particularly interesting.

Sometimes I think life couldn't get any better than this, that everything is perfect and the world just keeps throwing better and better moments in my direction. Other times I wonder why I should even bother. What reason is there to drag my ass out of bed every morning? To even try to keep up with the rush and flow of every day living?

Sometimes, I feel exactly the same way.  I love life, it seems perfect, and I'm perfectly content living the rest of my life the same way, but other times, I feel like life is a waste, and I see no reason at all for living on and trying to make a change, because of that constant reminder that "one person can make a difference," and sometimes, I want to be the one to be able to make that difference.  Still though, I constantly find myself sitting around, wasting time, and not wanting to be productive at all.  I lose the will to try to do anything, and I don't want to do anything other than sit there and read a book, unmoving, and not changing anything (other than my mom's temper).

I try to look toward the happier times in life when I feel that way sometimes.  I just think, if I keep on going, living through these days, someday, I'll find that happy place again, I'll find happiness, I might even find my reason for life, a purpose for living through each day, attempting to keep up with life, and fitting in with everyone around me, in an attempt to blend in and not be seen as weird as much as possible, but it's still hard to do that every day.

You're an amazing writer, Susan, and you've got so much potential.  There's always a reason for getting your ass out of bed every morning and to keep up with the dramas and action of everyday life.  Although it may seem corny, you have the ability to make a difference, just wait, and with time, you'll see the difference you can and have made.(:

Amazing Night at the Silent Auction

Kimchi, my grandmother in my strange family tree, wrote something in her blog post, Silent Auction SUCCESS/Response to Peter:

I'm pretty sure that throughout the night, the only thing running through everybody's mind, especially the sophomores was that we had HW due, and that included this post, a book post, 2 essays to work on, math hw, a study guide for science, and a STD brochure for science. On the weekend of the Silent Auction. How convenient.  I wanted to say my thanks...without any of you, we would not have raised OVER $2-3000.

 Last night was very hectic, with many volunteers, the PTSA board, and especially Ms. Harhen running around to make sure that everything was going well and in order, and that everyone had enough food, and that entertainment was good.  Luckily, there were no major problems, and things went well.  We fundraised so much money to go to ASTI, and many people left happily, from a nice night.


There is so much homework this week though.  The two blog posts for English, a group essay and short story for Writing, lots of "fun" math homework from the textbook, study guide questions and vocab for science, and   a "super fun" group science brochure on STDs to work on.  The group projects are particularly hard to work on, since it is difficult to get all the group members to work on the project, and sometimes, especially at the same time, and to communicate with one another.  My essay for writing was hard to write because half of my group didn't do much work *ahem, kimchi*.  The short story went a lot better though, since I had awesome group members, and we all managed to work on it at the same time, so we completed that fairly quickly.  The math homework I still have yet to finish, and same with the study guide questions and vocab.  I at least finished half of it though.  I spent most of my day working on the brochure, working on fitting all the information onto one page, and the formatting of the brochure constantly confused me, and was unwilling to cooperate with me.  


Thank you very much, all you people who helped contribute to the fabulous night yesterday at the ASTI Silent Auction.  The entertainment was stunning, despite the problems that Music Club ran into, trying to figure out how to perform with the microphone.  Let's hope next year's Silent Auction will be just as amazing or even better!~

People Are Not What They Seem

You know those quiet people who seem the most innocent?  They're not.  In fact, they could be the most evil people you ever meet.  Just talk to Phuong Ha or Shiyun Yang more often, and you'll see what I mean.  On Phuong's Blog Post about Shiyun's Evilness, she warns others about Shiyun:

She cannot hide her innocent image for long to those she talks to a lot. One random comment I would make is that she and Amber can lead the world to destruction when they are together, and sadly, they do sit next to each other in history. 

I must say, out of Shiyun, Phuong and Crystal, Crystal is the most innocent and least evil (but only because I don't poke her like I did last year.  She was a lot more evil last year.), then Phuong is the sort of innocent, it really depends on who you are and how well you know her, but Shiyun is for sure, the most evil.  I think that if you are evil and stay around Crystal, your evilness will spread and she will start to become a bit evil, but not evil enough to bring chaos and destruction.  Phuong is an interesting case.  She likes to call everyone evil and insult and complain about how evil Shiyun and I are, even though she is almost just as evil as we are.  She looks so quiet and innocent, but it's the opposite of her true self.  She's an evil emo hater.   Shiyun is just plain evil, but at times, she can be nice.  She pokes, and plans such evil things, like Phuong said in her blog post, to rob a bank when there is a blackout.

Phuong says that Shiyun and I lead the world to destruction when we sit next to each other in history.  That is somewhat true.  We actually are not very evil when we are together.  On (I think it was) Wednesday, Shiyun borrowed Phuong's water bottle and waterfalled from it, because she was thirsty.  I decided to do a huge favor for both of them, and lent Shiyun my Sharpie.  We decorated and made Phuong's water bottle more unique, cute, and enjoyable to look at.  Of course, Phuong decided to be evil, and started to call us evil for drawing all over her water bottle.  It was totally not an evil act, but we decorated her water bottle with love.  How is that evil?!?!?

Shiyun is only evil in Mr. Sutherland's class, where she turns around once every while, and shows me something she stole from me.  After class, she tries to take something from my desk, hoping I don't see her taking it, but I see her most of the time.  If she takes something really obviously, I tell her it was obvious, and she gives it back, but when she takes one of my electronics and asks me if I know what she took, I say I do, but I let her keep it for a while.  She definitely needs to practice her skills if she wants to rob Phuong one day...

Psst! Phuong!!! Don't read this!
When there's a blackout, Shiyun, Crystal and I will rob Phuong.  Shiyun will do the robbing, and Crystal and I will assist her.  Crystal said that she was going to make Phuong pass out, and if there are any complications, I will be the one with a gun(a toy one of course, but Phuong isn't supposed to know that...).

I miss you D;

Gomez made a post about how much she misses Kylie.  I was thinking about commenting, but I don't think a comment is enough to talk about how I feel too.

Gomez's blog about Kylie is here.

"I don't know what happened, but we used to be such amazing friends. You were that one guy I could talk to about anything. You, Amber, and me were so close."

You know, blogging about this makes me feel weird, because Kyle's already so far away from us, but I'm going to do it anyways.  Also, even though I'm mostly talking to Kyle, part of this is to Gomez too.

Kyle, what happened to you?  What happened to our days spent at the water stop, those hours we wasted away talking about everything?  You act like it never happened, but it has, and maybe it's because Gomez and I are girls (not trying to be sexist or anything) or maybe, you never intended to stay with us in the first place.  We entrusted our friendship to you, and expected you to return it, but now, all those happy moments have faded away from my memory, and all I can remember is the betrayal, the gossip, the bumps in our friendship, and the empty space there is now when we bike.

Let me start from the beginning. I've known you since kindergarten.  We had the same teacher, Ms. Yoon and Ms. Goldspring.  We never talked much, but we still knew each other.  As the years progressed, we became middle schoolers.  I still remember those lunches.  Sixth and seventh grade, my friends and I would sit on the ampitheater stage for lunch, and we would constantly be bombarded by you and Calvin's pineapples and grapes.  Same with Eighth grade, except you sat on the stage then and us on the steps.  We still were attacked.  After a while though, you began to sit on the steps next to us.  My friends disliked you, and you knew that.  In PE, I would tease you and I still remember always hitting you with the hockey stick.  We got along okay in Mr. Hill's class too.  I would tsk at you for eating your lunch in his class, and you never bothered to hide it.  We never had close bonding moments or anything though.  We were mutual "friends" if you can call that friendship.

When I found out that you were going to go to ASTI, I complained so much.  I kept on claiming that I would kill myself if we ended up going to the same college, because I was so annoyed with you. (I was joking. I wouldnt. Really.)

Since we lived so close to each other, we decided to start biking together.  You, Gomez and I.  We originated with the water stop after getting Starbucks on the first week of school.  After that, we started to stop there when we biked, to drink water, Starbucks. or in my case, chrysanthemum tea.  Soon, we began to sit down, and talk.  Those conversations soon got more personal, and we would talk about our secrets, crushes, and problems.

Halfway through the year, we got into all those trust issues, and you would say things that I told to you privately, to Gomez, and vice versa.  Soon, you started telling her that I was saying things behind her back, and someone else told her that I was telling others about her secrets, and she even thought that I was making up things to try to keep her and her special someone apart, even though I wasn't.  I nearly lost a good friend three times that year.  If I did, I don't know how I would've gotten through high school, seeing a person who I would've easily said was my sister in a second, but no longer could really talk to as best friends.

All those moments we've shared, our days of friendship, deep conversations, venting, and ranting, have all gone down the drain.  You're a different person, so much more different than the ones you changed into last year.  You left us for others a few times, but you still came back to the friendship of the Ambers.  I don't think that's ever going to happen again.

In some sense, I'm mad.  But still, I'm sad.  For me though, I cannot bring myself to tears over this loss friend.  It's not worth it for me.  I'd just be crying for something that has been lost, never to come back again, and crying won't make it any better or fix it in any way.  It'll only leave a deeper impression and gaping hole where you're friendship used to be.

Now, as I go through everyday, I still see you around, but no longer is that sadness still there.  Its been replaced by a wall of cloth.  Blocking away the pain, but still the pain can slip in and remind me of those days we once shared together.

I've got to go now, but Kylie, I miss you.

Response to Ms. Valdez

From Vy's blog post about Ms. Valdez, I decided to respond to a few lines in the first and second paragraphs.

Last year at ASTI we had an English teacher name Ms.Valdez. She was one of the most mmm..interesting teacher ever. Ms.Valdez always had to have it her way and be right no matter what. She even said “when I’m right I’m right and when I’m wrong, I’m still right,”... Ms.Valdez love her food, her fridge was full of food that’s been there for weeks. It was her punishment to her students, mess with her and you would have to deal with her fridge, that thing stinks.  

 Ms. Valdez was one of the most difficult teachers that we had last year.  She had a different method to teach English that any other teacher I've ever had, and her policy was often "If I'm comfortable, then you're comfortable." To be honest, I liked Ms. Valdez more as a person, than as a teacher.  I didn't learn much from her class, because her method to teach was unhelpful and pointless.  She often gave us handouts to fill out that were designed to help us organize our ideas and create the basic outline to our essays.  At the beginning of the year, she demonstrated to us how to make a dialectical journal (DJ) and how to write a log.  The point of the dialectical journal was to write a quote on one side of the t-chart and our annotation, opinion, and perspective of what happened.  The DJs weren't as helpful as annotating in the book though.  She had a fairly sustainable classroom environment that wasn't amazing, but it wasn't that terrible either.

Like Vy said, if you messed with Ms. Valdez and made her mad, the consequence was often to clean her fridge.  She kept a lot of food in there, and I remember a classmate complaining about how it took forever to clean the fridge and how there was orange stuff stuck to the walls of the fridge.

Overall, Ms. Valdez wasn't a terrible teacher, but it was hard to accept her grading style and classroom procedures.  She rarely paid attention to the other amounts of homework we had to do, and once even made us read over 60 pages of a book in one night and do a DJ on it too.  She was really amusing in class though, and friendly with students most of the time.

Vampires? Response

After honestly reading over ten blog posts, I decided to write about Vampires from Jasmine's Blog.

"Twilight basically ruined vampires for all of us vampire fans."

  Even though I am no longer a fan of Twilight, I have to disagree with the claim Jasmine is making.  Twilight is what first introduced me to the world of vampires, and without it, I would most likely not be the vampire fan that I am now.  The Twilight series (the books) written by Stephenie Meyer were truly amazing, and they captured me from day one.  The first few chapters were honestly, not that interesting, but like all other books, they set up the setting and introduced characters.  Rarely are the first few chapters truly interesting.  After reading further (my friend strongly recommended the book, so I decided to give the book a try for her sake), I found that the book wasn’t boring at all.  It was actually very creative and unique. 

I have to admit though, it is ridiculous that vampires sparkle.  It’s not normal.  Even for vampires like Edward.  Other than that though, I can make no complaints about the books.  They kept me up until two in the morning, reading under the sheets with a flashlight, at camp.  I could only fall asleep when I began to feel guilty for staying up so late, but I would still fall asleep to the thought of Bella, Edward, Jacob, and their many problems. 

The movies, unlike the books, were terrible.  They could’ve chosen much better actors to portray Bella and Edward, and directed better.  The acting was poor, and didn’t capture the essence of Twilight, and the mysteriousness that the books held.  The story was easily predictable, and effects, poor.  Even the make-up was obvious.  The vampires were much to pale, and Edward seemed very constipated and awkward.  The character Edward did not meet Robert Pattinson’s character, and he portrayed Edward much too oddly.  The scene when he first got a whiff of Bella scent made him seem like he felt sick, not nervous and uncomfortable because of how much he wanted to taste Bella’s blood. 

The movie was what led me to begin my dislike of Twilight, but I still give the books the responsibility and honor of introducing and hooking me onto vampires.

What HAS happened to our teen movies?!?

As I was reading through all the blogs, I found about five blogs that I really wanted to write about, but in the end, I decided on Kim's Blog on "What happened to our teen movies?"

KimBO considered the differences between the current teen movies, to the movies from "yester-year":

"With these movies and TV shows that are broadcast to us, I start to wonder whether or not the people that watch them ever get tired of seeing the same people on their screens. I mean, back in the day, the ‘heartthrobs’ had distinct features that made them who they are. Now, all the males have the same attractive eyes, most of them the same skin tone, and all of them with that mop of hair."

 Not trying to be cliché or anything, but honestly, the best thing I can think of to say here, is simply, Kim is right.  She constantly goes on her movie obsessions and rants, and it oftentimes annoys me after more than a week of it.  I was really surprised to read that she did not like the movie Fame from 2009, but loved the movie from 1980 better.  She talked nonstop about Fame for a few weeks too.

With so much media influence in the teenage world now, with movies, TV shows, ads, and commercials, it's amazing that we teens still manage to stay alive under the many judgmental eyes that we pass everyday of our lives.  Although there are so many different movies and TV shows, most of them still have the same cliché storyline: "Boy meets girl, boy breaks girl's heart, boy wins girl again." or else, it's another vampire story or musical drama.  With all the similar faces and appearances on screen, and similar story lines, it is an interesting question of if people actually do get tired of seeing the same styles for appearances on screens.  Like Kim mentioned, in the past, each actor/actress all had different unique characteristics and features that easily kept them clearly different than other actors or actresses.  Many actor/actresses had a different way of being "attractive."  Nowadays, most people have the same standard for "pretty" or "sexy."  The faces on screen are the people who meet these standards, and are acceptable to teens.  And I just love how Kimbo says that they all have that "same mop of hair".  It's true though.  They all have very similar hair styles, and little variation.  Everyone and everything on screens are slowly become more cliché and less unique.

Classmate Response

After looking through a few blogs, I decided to take a quote from a freshman that I honestly don't know very well, but I found Stan's blog interesting, and found good quotes that related to the ASTI Constitution a lot.

"When you are the one bullying you feel powerful and you feel very that you are in control of what ever it is that is going on. Sometimes you feel like you have to bully to fit in with a certain group of friends and in this situation your options are limited because if you bully them then you are friends with the new people but then you feel bad because you hurt the feelings of the kids who were being bullied, and then if you don’t bully them you feel good because you did the right thing but then you are the one who is bullied."

"When you are the one bullying you feel powerful and you feel very that you are in control of what ever it is that is going on. Sometimes you feel like you have to bully to fit in with a certain group of friends and in this situation your options are limited because if you bully them then you are friends with the new people but then you feel bad because you hurt the feelings of the kids who were being bullied, and then if you don’t bully them you feel good because you did the right thing but then you are the one who is bullied."

What Stan says connects to the ASTI Constitution in a few ways.  The ASTI Constitution reminds us to include, not exclude other students, and when Stan talks about how you feel like you need to bully others to fit in with some groups of people at times, you are not included in the group unless you decide to join the group and bully others.  To make the ASTI environment more friendly and inviting, we need to accept other for who they are, and like them for their perfection and their flaws.  We should learn to utilize each other’s differences to make friendships stronger, because that is also what brings us closer together, and makes us more diverse and unique. 

At ASTI, we also need to accept others for who they are, instead of trying to change them, so they aren’t themselves, or excluding them for being different.  We need to accept that everyone is different and can’t always be what you want them to be: nobody’s perfect.  We shouldn’t have to do things (especially mean things) to gain acceptance into a group.  We should be accepted for who we are and not who we try to be or act like we are.  Each and every one of our personalities are unique, and if one characteristic is changed so you can fit into a group, we are not being truthful to ourselves or others.

Another way that Stan’s blog post relates to the ASTI Constitution is that he talks about how others feel when people bully them, and he understands the view of where other people are coming from, and are empathetic to how they feel in situations where they are bullied by others or when someone is in the predicament where they have to choose between bulling others to impress a group of people, or to be nice to others and not bully them, but often times become a victim of bulling themselves.  

P.S. my internet crashed, so I'm posting this at Borders >.<