Countdown to the end of summer school

So yeah, cell bio and writing intensive (more the former than the latter) dominated my summer this year. I seriously spent a lot of time studying for cell bio, but I still end up with a B+ (so far) in the class. I just don't like how the professor makes each question at least a paragraph long, with 99% each question being fluff. Writing intensive...well I would spend around 3 hours writing my 5-10 page papers the day they're due and get A's on them. I guess my worries about this class were overrated. Now I need a 92 on my last cell bio test to get an A in the class. I hope I do well.

In other news, my family plans to spend Christmas in Taiwan later this year, although that's only a plan. It depends on several other circumstances, like my sister and my vacation schedules for winter break. But considering that's the last time that I'll actually enjoy a break (the next break after that, I'll prbly be cramming/preparing for Human Structure and Function and Neurology, @#$%ing classes), I'm pretty sure my parents won't be cheap-ass and would actually let me go to Taiwan, even if it's just me on a tour, as I can probably get by over there with my Taiwanese and cruddy Mandarin.

So my current plans for my wonderful break (albeit a short one):

Possibly meet up with old middle/high school friends
Watch the Olympics when my dad's at work (think he's "boycotting" the Olympics or something because of Taiwan, but he's probably gonna still end up watching it anyways and even cheering for China if it's China vs. any non-Asian country)
Not study...seriously, two weeks off and I still have to study??
No practicing cello...seriously, it's been a while since I've seriously practiced; my fingers are rusted already; I probably can't even play scales properly now, let alone my pieces; my tuning skills went down by 99% (aka can't tune anymore without a tuning device which happens to be broken); and I'm really not into cello or classical music as a whole anymore (Mr. A in high school just brought my interest level in classical music down from near-obsessed to minimal/none).

And I know that 100% of the people in the world don't give a shit about my rants/life, but this blog is purely for myself...a place to write my thoughts out and rant.

thoughts in my head

Recently, I've been studying a lot. A lot more than I did in my first year at college. I'm starting to become like my old high school junior year self, where I didn't play around or did anything fun. All I would do is study, study, and study. I think this return to my old self stems from the thought of shaming my ancestors whenever I don't study. My ancestors worked really hard as farmers in China and then in Taiwan after Xinhai Revolution. The more recent ancestors of mine in Taiwan would study really hard just to scrape a living in Taiwan. I consider my sister and myself lucky to be in America. My dad and my mom both worked really hard in Taiwan. In elementary school, they would be sleeping at midnight everyday because of their massive amounts of schoolwork and getting up at around six o' clock to walk to school. My mom got into Tainan Nu Zhong, but she moved to Canada after junior high school so she didn't experience any more pain in school, but my dad at Kaohsiung First Senior High School worked like a mofo. I think he once told me that he slept at around 2 o' clock everyday, doing homework, studying for tests, and most importantly, preparing for the college entrance exams that are like 10x harder than the SAT I in America. And at Taipei Medical University, my dad would also study his ass off. Comparing that kind of work ethic to myself, I feel really embarassed for not studying that hard. In high school, I only went to sleep at around 11 o' clock, once past midnight cramming for my SAT IIs the following day. Furthermore, those high schools that my parents got into were like some of the top schools in Taiwan in their days. So yeah, in order to not shame my ancestors, I am now resolved to work harder and harder...up to my limits in my present and future classes.

random stuff no one's interested in

Yeah, so on Thursday, I'm going to my sister's graduation in Northwestern University. The more I think about it, the more I get pissed off. Like going to NU is like slapping myself in the face for being such a disgrace to the family for not getting into HPME when I was so close to getting in. This close . Basically, the only thing that stood in my way was the damn interview that I totally failed. So yeah, all of my high school efforts just went to waste when I came to UMKC med program as a failure to my family name. And I don't know what's wrong with her. She like keeps getting smarter every year. Like in high school, my sister was pretty pwnage at school (i.e. graduating second in the class, owning the SATs, and only one in Irvine district to get HPME in her year), but then she got...even better in college. And like, her undergraduate major is biology, but somehow she does better in her math/physics classes than in her bio/chem classes. I find that strange.

Cell biology. Well yeah, in this class, we learn about...cells. It's so damn boring. Like today in the library, I had to literally slap and pinch myself to keep myself awake and finish the two chapters that I was supposed to finish reading today. Wow, I better like, get an A in this class, or else that'll be really sad and pathetic.

Writing intensive. The latter word is not an overstatement for this course. The first day, our assignment was to write a freaking 5 page essay commenting on two different pieces of work. That was so freaking gay. I'm like shivering with fright on what we're going to do later in the semester.

Back to School

Fuck this. Seriously. I'm back at the shittiest school I've ever visited. The food here's gonna suck again. Sigh. I went down from eating intestine noodles and dan dan mian to eating pizza that sucks. Sigh again. Also, I have to actually study seriously now. Sign once again.

Raw fingers

So after probably like five months of no serious practice of my cello, I played a humble amount of 30 minutes today of my cello. Ouch. I never knew playing thirty minutes would make my fingers feel as though they have been playing for two hours straight. My left index finger feels as though the five layers of my epidermis will peel off any minute and my finger being slashed by a bunch of knives (which was kinda wat was happening there cuz I kept on sliding my left index finger up and down the damn steel strings). This is just sad. I remember the good old days when I can play for like one and a half hours straight without feeling any pain and when pain starts at two hours. Other than the negative factors mentioned above, playing my cello was actually pretty fun, as for the past five months, I haven't done anything except study, take tests, stare at my computer, and occasionally hang out with friends. It was a little bit of a divergence from my usual routine.*

*Note: The grammar may be a bit screwed up because I haven't cracked a grammar book since two years ago SAT I. Come to think about it, I actually see some mistakes, but w/e. I'm too lazy to fix the errors right now because I don't feel like it haha...

Wow, this looks...interesting

http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=IeWRTcaXYNU

Yeah, so I hope that most Chinese people aren't like this. I personally know very nice Chinese people with upright morals, so I'm sure that people like this girl are a minority. I hope that the victims will be helped.

Anyways, I got back to LAX around 9:00 pm last night. I was freaking excited, but then today, the excitement went down like 50%. Irvine seems so...boring. I mean, most of my friends that I usually hang out with are still in school, and the friends that are out...well, I either didn't contact them or couldn't contact them. Oh well.

I worked out yesterday at the gym in UMKC, so my body's sore like a mofo. I gotta go sleep some more. Peace out.

私のブログにようこそ!

For the people who don't know Japanese, this says "Welcome to my blog." And no, I am not Japanese. I am Taiwanese. White and black people in Kansas City and other red-neck towns, please recognize the difference. Taiwanese and Japanese are not the same thing.

Anyways, I think I had a blog before in my freshman year at high school, but I forgot the email address and the password I used because I haven't updated that in four years. So yeah, I'm starting over.

To start off, I finished my first year at umkc today after I left hospital team (early, with David Camejo cuz we were kinda sick of staying at the hospital when there is literally NO ONE there). I sincerely hope year 2 will be better than year 1, since year 1, I was still in the senioritis mode for most of first semester, which was bad. I'm thankful that I'm still in the program though, cuz some people had already decided to extend one year or just totally dropped out. At first when I started my first year at UMKC, I thought I was going to basically dominate this program. It didn't happen. Basically, after high school, I like cut down my study time to half of what I studied in my junior year at high school, while people here basically doubled their study time from what they had in high school. Therefore, as I studied less, people studied more. Hence, the appearance of the Asian-failing "B's" on my report card both semesters. Thank God I didn't have to take physics since I AP'ed out of it, but I kinda wish I could sign up for some math class here. My brain had dulled ever since I came here, since all I did here was basically memorize. Also, the single-variable calculus class here is like easy as sh17. I know that sounds weird, since the calculus at IHS is also easy as sh17, but I was looking at the problems on the exams here, and they were like the no-duh questions. Man, I should have taken that class, so I could have gotten a decent grade in that class. Anyways, I have decided to set a study schedule that would basically force me to study all night. Ouch, that's painful, but since I have decided to boycott anime and manga for the rest of med school (if I didn't, I would probably fail in the spring semester of my second year), it shouldn't be too bad.

So anyways, I'm leaving for LAX tomorrow. So excited to go back home, rest, and catch up with old friends from middle and high school. Since I'm going to have a full day tomorrow, I better stop blogging and go to sleep. *Crash on my bed.*