Wow, again, life has gotten really busy with everything... Moving up to Poughkeepsie, New York for school... (wait, does that mean I should change my profile information??? Hawaii is my home...) Getting used to the idea of no rice everyday or college food in general... Getting used to the lack of Asians or haupas... (sorry, that kind of sounds insulting... but it's true)... Trying to keep myself healthy in between my busy schedule of a full load of classes and diving... Adjusting to my new diving coach's ethics... Trying to help my new friends understand Hawaii slang... (I can't even say "spam" without anyone freaking out or telling me not to ever say it again haha) Remembering the time zone differences between the East Coast, West Coast, Idaho (my dad and brother moved up there for Dad's job), and home... (by home, I mean Hawaii)
In terms of media, I've been watching various episodes of dramas, but never a complete set of drama episodes to understand the entire plot line. But I did rewatch SMILING PASTA (微笑PASTA)and loved it all over again.
Oh, also, I have a new favorite saying: 幸福的权利不要放弃! Don't let go of your right to happiness.
It's in simplified, but I'll put the traditional characters up as soon as I can get to a computer that can convert simplified to traditional characters. ^^
That's all I have time for now. But since I've just about figured out my schedule for now, I should have more blog posts.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
First Post of 2009
Wow. It's been a while since I've posted on here... Hmm... It's the year of 2009! (Graduation is right around the corner for me! Woo!) There's a lot of new things going on for me. Surprisingly, none of them are New Year's resolutions. I think I won't have time to commit to resolutions if I made any. Let's see... What will I be doing?
1) ILH Diving— Very important. I think it's about half of my life right now. 1 1/2 hours of diving practice Monday-Friday in preparation for my LAST Hawaii State Diving Championships which will be on Valentine's Day. I might do this in college so I have to give it all I got this season.
2) School— As always, school is very important for a student (especially to a soon-to-graduate senior). The reason I put this second on this list is due to the fact that I'm doing very well in school and it is now second nature to me. I must say that this is a major accomplishment for me because I would have to put a ton of effort into school. Whereas now doing/concentrating on school isn't such a hard/'painful' thing for me to do.
3) Variety Show— This is a 'senior' thing at my school. It's a 'play'/stage production that most of the class participates in. (You have to audition. Then the directors assign you to acting, singing, dancing, or a combo of something. At first, I was a singer/dancer a 1980's scene. But they had too many girl dancers, so I was cut. (I didn't really like the dance and wasn't putting much effort into learning it. I didn't feel very 1980's to me.) At first I was sad because I would only have one part. But I realized that I wouldn't have to go as many practices: more time for homework, diving practice, college apps, etc.
4) College Apps— Actually, I'm almost done with this item. The actual applications are in. But the financial aid papers will be my next step towards college. The thing I'm now always wondering about is why applying to college is one the most complicated things possible... But one could say that all the frustration and effort put into the application process makes the acceptance letters have more sentimental value.
5) Continuing "The Red Flower"— Mm, I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I wrote a story during my sophomore year, about the time I started this blog. I will be continuing the story as my Senior Independent English project. By completing this part of the series (—I'm hoping it to be a trilogy—) I will graduate with a full credit extra of my high school English courses.
Mmm... I think that is all I can remember at the moment. Okay, it's late and I have a 7:30 Creative Writing class tomorrow morning. See you next post! =D
1) ILH Diving— Very important. I think it's about half of my life right now. 1 1/2 hours of diving practice Monday-Friday in preparation for my LAST Hawaii State Diving Championships which will be on Valentine's Day. I might do this in college so I have to give it all I got this season.
2) School— As always, school is very important for a student (especially to a soon-to-graduate senior). The reason I put this second on this list is due to the fact that I'm doing very well in school and it is now second nature to me. I must say that this is a major accomplishment for me because I would have to put a ton of effort into school. Whereas now doing/concentrating on school isn't such a hard/'painful' thing for me to do.
3) Variety Show— This is a 'senior' thing at my school. It's a 'play'/stage production that most of the class participates in. (You have to audition. Then the directors assign you to acting, singing, dancing, or a combo of something. At first, I was a singer/dancer a 1980's scene. But they had too many girl dancers, so I was cut. (I didn't really like the dance and wasn't putting much effort into learning it. I didn't feel very 1980's to me.) At first I was sad because I would only have one part. But I realized that I wouldn't have to go as many practices: more time for homework, diving practice, college apps, etc.
4) College Apps— Actually, I'm almost done with this item. The actual applications are in. But the financial aid papers will be my next step towards college. The thing I'm now always wondering about is why applying to college is one the most complicated things possible... But one could say that all the frustration and effort put into the application process makes the acceptance letters have more sentimental value.
5) Continuing "The Red Flower"— Mm, I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I wrote a story during my sophomore year, about the time I started this blog. I will be continuing the story as my Senior Independent English project. By completing this part of the series (—I'm hoping it to be a trilogy—) I will graduate with a full credit extra of my high school English courses.
Mmm... I think that is all I can remember at the moment. Okay, it's late and I have a 7:30 Creative Writing class tomorrow morning. See you next post! =D
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Old Reflection: Interviewing Project
**NOTE: This post was actually supposed to put this entry up a really long time ago, but I never got around to do it. So enjoy! =D
I have a really weird feeling that I was supposed to post another entry for journalism... I don't remember what the subject was supposed to be, but since we just finished a video project, I guess I'll reflect on that.
Assignment briefing:
Video interviews. TOPIC: alumni of my school and why they came back as faculty/staff.
I thought that the concept was my group's topic was very interesting. There are many places alumni of my school (Punahou School) can end up, as recently demonstrated/proved by Barack Obama. So why in the world would they want to return to their school?
The answers from our three interviewees were interesting. Two of the interviewees were teachers and one was a dean. The teachers both said that they really liked the environment at Punahou. The dean said that he actually didn't want to become a dean, but came back because Punahou let him "discipline the way [he] thought was correct." But after thinking about his response (in relation to the rest of his interview and his time as a student), his return also had to deal with the environment at Punahou.
I was assigned to interview the dean, Mr. Hata. After asking, "Why did you come back to Punahou?", I thought it was necessary to ask how student life was when he was a student. He said, "There's a lot of differences. It was suffocating! I lived to break the rules. It was a block schedule, unlike now. There was a break that wasn't a break. Freshmen and sophomores had mandatory study hall while all the juniors and seniors had breaks. All I did was stare at them and be jealous."
I found it interesting when he answered my second question because it made his answer to my first question crystal clear... If he thought that his time at Punahou was suffocating, it makes sense that he would want to change the way Punahou disciplined its students. => The less suffocating the environment is, the better time a student will have at school.
Maybe it was reverse psychology that forced Mr. Hata's final decision to become real. I wonder if something like this will happen to me sometime during my future.... We will see...
I have a really weird feeling that I was supposed to post another entry for journalism... I don't remember what the subject was supposed to be, but since we just finished a video project, I guess I'll reflect on that.
Assignment briefing:
Video interviews. TOPIC: alumni of my school and why they came back as faculty/staff.
I thought that the concept was my group's topic was very interesting. There are many places alumni of my school (Punahou School) can end up, as recently demonstrated/proved by Barack Obama. So why in the world would they want to return to their school?
The answers from our three interviewees were interesting. Two of the interviewees were teachers and one was a dean. The teachers both said that they really liked the environment at Punahou. The dean said that he actually didn't want to become a dean, but came back because Punahou let him "discipline the way [he] thought was correct." But after thinking about his response (in relation to the rest of his interview and his time as a student), his return also had to deal with the environment at Punahou.
I was assigned to interview the dean, Mr. Hata. After asking, "Why did you come back to Punahou?", I thought it was necessary to ask how student life was when he was a student. He said, "There's a lot of differences. It was suffocating! I lived to break the rules. It was a block schedule, unlike now. There was a break that wasn't a break. Freshmen and sophomores had mandatory study hall while all the juniors and seniors had breaks. All I did was stare at them and be jealous."
I found it interesting when he answered my second question because it made his answer to my first question crystal clear... If he thought that his time at Punahou was suffocating, it makes sense that he would want to change the way Punahou disciplined its students. => The less suffocating the environment is, the better time a student will have at school.
Maybe it was reverse psychology that forced Mr. Hata's final decision to become real. I wonder if something like this will happen to me sometime during my future.... We will see...
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Viewers....
*Sigh... Although the privacy settings for this blog is on private, I am going to change it back to the public availability. I think it's a hassle to figure out who's who and getting permission to read my blog. Besides, not many people have requested to read my blog except for my English classes and a few of my long distance friends (which comes in handy since I'm in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and they're all on the East Coast, haha.)
Sure, I know that it is for the security of my classmates for the usage of my journalism class, but I think that if I had just left it on public availability, I think I could've spent much more time on my blog entries making the entries better.
**EDIT: Heyy! Woo! Just found out that I can definitely put the blog on pulbic setting because my journalism class is done with the blogs! (Unless extra credit is wanted.) So I won't get into trouble. Haha. =D
Sure, I know that it is for the security of my classmates for the usage of my journalism class, but I think that if I had just left it on public availability, I think I could've spent much more time on my blog entries making the entries better.
**EDIT: Heyy! Woo! Just found out that I can definitely put the blog on pulbic setting because my journalism class is done with the blogs! (Unless extra credit is wanted.) So I won't get into trouble. Haha. =D
Monday, November 3, 2008
Second blog.... (second part of 1st quarter crammig)
Yes, this is my second part/post of my almost late blogger posts. (Ha, ALMOST. note that word. ha... =D) TOPIC: Identify FOUR factors of quality article writing and discuss how you incorporate it into your own writing.
Hmm... well in the previous post I think I identified three out of my four personal standards of writing: voice, knowledge, eloquence. I'm not quite sure what my fourth standard of quality writing is/would be... OHP! CONFIDENCE! Although, according to my previous post, confidence falls under my definition of eloquence, it does have a very high significance in (my) writing.
VOICE: Most of my written pieces have a lot of voice (or so says many of my current and previous English teachers). I really value this aspect of writing because a person is most likely writing to show what they think, and in turn, to voice their opinion about a topic.
KNOWLEDGE: I really like to have the necessary amount of knowledge to make my writing valid. (Seriously, who wants to make an embarrassment out of themselves because they said something wrong?) And if my knowledge can help me in a discussion, then I can have bragging rights to say "HA I KNOW MORE THAN YOU". (I know, it's mean, but that's how I function... so DEAL WITH IT. lol.)
ELOQUENCE: This is my weak point as I notice my grammar is not up to par in parts of my writing. It's kinda sad really, because I remember being the 'grammar queen' so to speak in seventh grade. My friends call me the "English queen" as a joke, especially when they want me to edit one of their papers. When editing, I usually won't find anything wrong with the paper unless the writing is inconsistent with the author's voice and knowledge. I know that I need to work on this as I have received comments from my teachers and my more hard-core writer friends.
CONFIDENCE: This is not necessarily my weak spot nor my strength. I guess it depends on how my voice of my written piece ends up. My confidence usually works very closely with the voice of my piece, which is usually greatly affected by the topic I am writing about. If I can't bring myself to believe/agree with my writing topic, my voice won't come out into the piece for display, then I don't feel very confident in my writing. It shows when I don't have confidence in my writing and I end up with lower grades and lower quality papers.
I will continue to incorporate these and improve these aspects of my writing in whatever form I come across. Hopefully, I'll be a lot better in my eloquence and more consistent with my topic confidence.
Hmm... well in the previous post I think I identified three out of my four personal standards of writing: voice, knowledge, eloquence. I'm not quite sure what my fourth standard of quality writing is/would be... OHP! CONFIDENCE! Although, according to my previous post, confidence falls under my definition of eloquence, it does have a very high significance in (my) writing.
VOICE: Most of my written pieces have a lot of voice (or so says many of my current and previous English teachers). I really value this aspect of writing because a person is most likely writing to show what they think, and in turn, to voice their opinion about a topic.
KNOWLEDGE: I really like to have the necessary amount of knowledge to make my writing valid. (Seriously, who wants to make an embarrassment out of themselves because they said something wrong?) And if my knowledge can help me in a discussion, then I can have bragging rights to say "HA I KNOW MORE THAN YOU". (I know, it's mean, but that's how I function... so DEAL WITH IT. lol.)
ELOQUENCE: This is my weak point as I notice my grammar is not up to par in parts of my writing. It's kinda sad really, because I remember being the 'grammar queen' so to speak in seventh grade. My friends call me the "English queen" as a joke, especially when they want me to edit one of their papers. When editing, I usually won't find anything wrong with the paper unless the writing is inconsistent with the author's voice and knowledge. I know that I need to work on this as I have received comments from my teachers and my more hard-core writer friends.
CONFIDENCE: This is not necessarily my weak spot nor my strength. I guess it depends on how my voice of my written piece ends up. My confidence usually works very closely with the voice of my piece, which is usually greatly affected by the topic I am writing about. If I can't bring myself to believe/agree with my writing topic, my voice won't come out into the piece for display, then I don't feel very confident in my writing. It shows when I don't have confidence in my writing and I end up with lower grades and lower quality papers.
I will continue to incorporate these and improve these aspects of my writing in whatever form I come across. Hopefully, I'll be a lot better in my eloquence and more consistent with my topic confidence.
Another post... (after a super looong while)
As I expected, I haven't really kept up with my blogging assignments... (>_<) Therefore, here I am again, writing (more like cramming) another longer set of blog posts than I would have needed to if I kept up with the assignments. (Haha, oh, the irony of my lazy stupidity...)
First topic (of my required minimal two posts): Quality in journalism in any aspect:
Hmm... QUALITY... Well, especially in regards to journalism, I really value voice of the writer. Quality (in writing) to me shows what a writer is thinking, and uses their ability to use/PLAY with words to explain his/her thoughts. I mean, the best people I have come across are the people who have exciting personalities, and not totally dry and strict on themselves.
It is possible that I like the pieces of writing that convey the best of someone's personalities. Looking at the previous sentence, the best of someone's personalities means the good AND the bad aspects. A piece of writing could be one of the best pieces of writing and have one of the darkest points of views on the planet (i.e. EDGAR ALLAN POE => one of the best poets known to the English writing world). I actually like it when a person can take the opposite side of the common argument. I think about taking the opposite side of an argument, but don't do it very often due my lack of knowledge to back up my reasoning.
KNOWLEDGE: A KEY FACTOR IN JOURNALISM... I think that having valid information is one of the most important factors of making a journalism piece. I have seen this one article (in the University of Hawaii's school newspaper) regarding my school's (Punahou School) annual carnival and where all the funds go towards.
LINK: (You might find it interesting, depending on your standpoint.)
http://media.www.kaleo.org/media/storage/paper872/news/2007/02/01/Editorials/Dont-Go.To.The.Punahou.Carnival.Its.Social.Injustice-2794231.shtml
FOLLOW UP ARTICLE:
http://media.www.kaleo.org/media/storage/paper872/news/2008/01/31/Commentary/Revisiting.The.Punahou.Carnival-3179994.shtml
The author, probably (in my opinion) didn't do very much research to back up his story. Although some of it does make sense, a lot of it can be considered a logical fallacy. (Haha, a Humphrey's moment... Nolan'll get this.) There were many comments from Punahou students and alumni and carnival fans (as a follow up article stated) criticizing this article. It was interesting to read the article and comments as the comments had a lot of facts to back up the criticism. At times, I thought that the comments were stronger than the article because of the supporting facts that were stated. Facts are also important because if a writer gets the information incorrect, the article will most likely be taken as a joke (or something of a fool's paragraph) by the readers.
ELOQUENCY: A KEY FACTOR IN VOICE...
Eloquency can make or break a person's writing voice in a way. Eloquence doesn't need to a sentence with long and complicated words. It just needs to make sense, HAVE CONFIDENCE in what the author is writing about, and show the writer's voice. A person could have one of the best writing voices, but how they put out their writing voice is crucial to display the 'fullness' of the voice. The eloquence of a person's writing is also important to show the degree of his/her opinion on the matter (news or editorial). Again, as I stated in my paragraph about knowledge&facts, if a journalist writes in a very confusing way that the message and/or voice is unclear, the article will most likely be taken as a joke (or something of a fool's paragraph) by the readers.
.... *reading over post...* I think that sums up my personal key factors to a quality article (news or editorial). I guess that's one down, another one to go! =D
First topic (of my required minimal two posts): Quality in journalism in any aspect:
Hmm... QUALITY... Well, especially in regards to journalism, I really value voice of the writer. Quality (in writing) to me shows what a writer is thinking, and uses their ability to use/PLAY with words to explain his/her thoughts. I mean, the best people I have come across are the people who have exciting personalities, and not totally dry and strict on themselves.
It is possible that I like the pieces of writing that convey the best of someone's personalities. Looking at the previous sentence, the best of someone's personalities means the good AND the bad aspects. A piece of writing could be one of the best pieces of writing and have one of the darkest points of views on the planet (i.e. EDGAR ALLAN POE => one of the best poets known to the English writing world). I actually like it when a person can take the opposite side of the common argument. I think about taking the opposite side of an argument, but don't do it very often due my lack of knowledge to back up my reasoning.
KNOWLEDGE: A KEY FACTOR IN JOURNALISM... I think that having valid information is one of the most important factors of making a journalism piece. I have seen this one article (in the University of Hawaii's school newspaper) regarding my school's (Punahou School) annual carnival and where all the funds go towards.
LINK: (You might find it interesting, depending on your standpoint.)
http://media.www.kaleo.org/media/storage/paper872/news/2007/02/01/Editorials/Dont-Go.To.The.Punahou.Carnival.Its.Social.Injustice-2794231.shtml
FOLLOW UP ARTICLE:
http://media.www.kaleo.org/media/storage/paper872/news/2008/01/31/Commentary/Revisiting.The.Punahou.Carnival-3179994.shtml
The author, probably (in my opinion) didn't do very much research to back up his story. Although some of it does make sense, a lot of it can be considered a logical fallacy. (Haha, a Humphrey's moment... Nolan'll get this.) There were many comments from Punahou students and alumni and carnival fans (as a follow up article stated) criticizing this article. It was interesting to read the article and comments as the comments had a lot of facts to back up the criticism. At times, I thought that the comments were stronger than the article because of the supporting facts that were stated. Facts are also important because if a writer gets the information incorrect, the article will most likely be taken as a joke (or something of a fool's paragraph) by the readers.
ELOQUENCY: A KEY FACTOR IN VOICE...
Eloquency can make or break a person's writing voice in a way. Eloquence doesn't need to a sentence with long and complicated words. It just needs to make sense, HAVE CONFIDENCE in what the author is writing about, and show the writer's voice. A person could have one of the best writing voices, but how they put out their writing voice is crucial to display the 'fullness' of the voice. The eloquence of a person's writing is also important to show the degree of his/her opinion on the matter (news or editorial). Again, as I stated in my paragraph about knowledge&facts, if a journalist writes in a very confusing way that the message and/or voice is unclear, the article will most likely be taken as a joke (or something of a fool's paragraph) by the readers.
.... *reading over post...* I think that sums up my personal key factors to a quality article (news or editorial). I guess that's one down, another one to go! =D
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Assignment #1 (JOURNALISM)
sigh... i cant believe i wasted about 1 1/2 trying re-figure out (haha, i bet that's not even a word =D) how to work this blog again... now it's late and i'm probably gonna feel like i procrastinated this assignment... >_< sigh... here i go!
ASSIGNMENT: FIND TWO ARTICLES ABOUT THE SAME TOPIC, DIFFERENT STAND POINTS AND COMPARE/CONTRAST/COMMENT.
TOPIC OF MY CHOICE: GOOGLE'S NEW BROWSER
Links:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i6zJy-N11opc0PCJUIK6GyriOkpw
http://timesonline.typepad.com/technology/2008/08/microsoft-takes.html
The first link is supporting Google's move while the second link seems to have a favor towards Microsoft.
I chose this topic because I didn't want to touch upon some of the more popular issues of today [which will include the poverty of the world etc and presidential elections, even if I find the elections very exciting]... (I have this weird attitude that if something is too redundant, it'll get on my nerves so I won't discuss it.) I randomly heard someone (I think it was my Dad) say that Google launched a new internet browser. Now, I'm not super good with computers, but I am one of the main sources of internet knowledge in my family. So it was natural that it sparked my general interest to ask if it was really true. My dad then went on to say that apparently the person in charge of this project was part of now two non-existing companies that got beat out by Microsoft, so it's his motivation for success. Random? Maybe, but it was enough to get my interest. I remembered about this topic while I was brainstorming for my article topics. So, what better idea than to look it over?
When I did, there was a lot of terms I didn't really understand. But from what I gather, there's a lot of changes with the Internet Explorer application and still more to come. Unfortunately, I cannot say much because of my personal biased: I grew up with Apple computers and have naturally sided with Google. Actually, scratch that! HA! I am with the special minority... I think. [dang it... sleep is getting to me... I'll come back and edit later.]
Okay! I went over the article again and I figured out my stance [present and past]. I grew up with Apple computers being used for school and used Internet Explorer (which is Microsoft) for a good amount of the time. But I switched to Safari (which is Google) because my friends suggested to it and I thought the overall appearance looked cool. [I was not as computer savvy as I am now so I couldn't tell the true differences.] In sophomore year I switched to Mozilla Firefox (which is also Google) due to more obvious usage possibilities by using it. [First actual reason for switching was for this blog... Thanks Mr. Schauble! =D]
I am actually surprised that Firefox is used less than Internet Explorer. Most of my friends use Safari rather than Internet Explorer if they don't use Firefox. But of course, I don't know everyone in the world, so it is sort of expected. Reading these articles showed me how much competition there is everywhere in the world, even in the 'worlds' that I do not understand or know of its existences.
ASSIGNMENT: FIND TWO ARTICLES ABOUT THE SAME TOPIC, DIFFERENT STAND POINTS AND COMPARE/CONTRAST/COMMENT.
TOPIC OF MY CHOICE: GOOGLE'S NEW BROWSER
Links:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i6zJy-N11opc0PCJUIK6GyriOkpw
http://timesonline.typepad.com/technology/2008/08/microsoft-takes.html
The first link is supporting Google's move while the second link seems to have a favor towards Microsoft.
I chose this topic because I didn't want to touch upon some of the more popular issues of today [which will include the poverty of the world etc and presidential elections, even if I find the elections very exciting]... (I have this weird attitude that if something is too redundant, it'll get on my nerves so I won't discuss it.) I randomly heard someone (I think it was my Dad) say that Google launched a new internet browser. Now, I'm not super good with computers, but I am one of the main sources of internet knowledge in my family. So it was natural that it sparked my general interest to ask if it was really true. My dad then went on to say that apparently the person in charge of this project was part of now two non-existing companies that got beat out by Microsoft, so it's his motivation for success. Random? Maybe, but it was enough to get my interest. I remembered about this topic while I was brainstorming for my article topics. So, what better idea than to look it over?
When I did, there was a lot of terms I didn't really understand. But from what I gather, there's a lot of changes with the Internet Explorer application and still more to come. Unfortunately, I cannot say much because of my personal biased: I grew up with Apple computers and have naturally sided with Google. Actually, scratch that! HA! I am with the special minority... I think. [dang it... sleep is getting to me... I'll come back and edit later.]
Okay! I went over the article again and I figured out my stance [present and past]. I grew up with Apple computers being used for school and used Internet Explorer (which is Microsoft) for a good amount of the time. But I switched to Safari (which is Google) because my friends suggested to it and I thought the overall appearance looked cool. [I was not as computer savvy as I am now so I couldn't tell the true differences.] In sophomore year I switched to Mozilla Firefox (which is also Google) due to more obvious usage possibilities by using it. [First actual reason for switching was for this blog... Thanks Mr. Schauble! =D]
I am actually surprised that Firefox is used less than Internet Explorer. Most of my friends use Safari rather than Internet Explorer if they don't use Firefox. But of course, I don't know everyone in the world, so it is sort of expected. Reading these articles showed me how much competition there is everywhere in the world, even in the 'worlds' that I do not understand or know of its existences.
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