are you hallucinating yet?

i love 2pm so much right now, it's ridiculous. watching wild bunny makes me so sad that jaebeom left. D:

i don't believe in political parties. maybe it's because i'm just not a well informed child, but i really don't believe in the idea that people should be loyal to a party over their own ideology. the fact that third parties in america basically have no chance of winning presidency makes me even more doubtful of parties. obviously, there's a wide encompassing range of people in america; i don't expect to share many of the same views a person in the bible belt might expect to share, but this just pulls democrats and republicans closer to being moderates. i'd rather everyone be listed as independents and vote for candidates that interest them, not to only vote for candidates in their party.

also, i don't like how much money is being poured into supporting the candidates. that is a ridiculous amount of money for crappy advertisements on the telly that do nothing to show any of what the candidates stances are. it seems impossible, but i want clear cut politics -- i'd much rather see a boring t-chart of the different views of the candidates and to see them debate over issues than to have posters, ads, etc. shoved into my face. people shouldn't be voting for which candidate's name sticks in their head better, but for whichever candidate they think best serves them as president. money plays much too large a part in pushing forward special interests of certain industries over the interests of the people.

we talked in class about how well bush the second would fare being rated by historians. while many of my fellow classmates advocated for his his position in "average", i'm pretty sure he's at most "below average" (the scale going from great -> failure). the fact that he managed to destroy america's image so completely in his two terms leaves me at a loss for how that could be considered average.

obama is meeting with the dalai lama. if they discuss anything political, i will have to shoot someone in the face, because the dalai lama should have absolutely no political power and be removed from the political scene. perhaps they'll discuss what it means to win the nobel peace prize and how they can use it to promote understanding throughout the world [/sarcasm]. us is really on the attack -- selling arms to taiwan, communicating with the dalai lama, google & china censorship fighting,... haha.

i got my first b in 6 years today. a bit of disappointing, but it was a perfect 85. guess it's fate or something like that; whatever happens, happens, right? tbh, i don't want to tell my family at all. my grandma and my pops are usually so proud to show my grades, i feel like getting the b is a bit of a downer. i don't know whether i'd rather my family be angry or disappointed with me but disappointment is such a shitty feeling.

my watercolour painting class is a delicious 5 hours of fun. too bad it starts at 9.




i told my parents and my sister. i have always mocked those who cry over a b, but what a hypocrite i am. it's a bit like a first break-up. my pops has always been the untactful kind, but he compared my b in lit. to chairman mao's english-learning!fail and math!fail. there's something about that that kind of lifts my spirits. i think my mum is pretty disappointed though, even though she's trying not to show it.

5 months left of high school

i meant to write something reflective on new year's day, but then i spent it finishing my uchicago application. yay
after writing the "why do you want to go to uchicago" essay, i really really really want to go now. it also helps that their website is nice and colourful. speaking of pretty things, columbia's crown is adorable. i ended up applying to 8 universities: ucberkeley, ucdavis, ucla, ucirvine, ucsandiego, caltech, uchicago, columbia. 5 public, 3 private... i have no idea why i applied to ucirvine and ucsandiego considering that the uc app costs $60 per university. two alumnis came to our class and spoke to us about applying to mit and now i kind of regret that i didn't. one of my must-haves in university was a study abroad program and mit apparently is awesome about sending students to work abroad. i figured that i already had enough schools out of my reach though, but... oh well.

my only goal for the college applications was that i'd be as sincere as possible in replying to the prompts, and i'm pretty satisfied with what i produced. i hate how my writing style sounds though, it's so casual and... bloggy-like! haha. reading good writing makes it really easy to critique my own weak points, but i wish i knew how to improve on it.

it's the 8th of november and i literally have 0 words for nanowrimo. 

i'm reading china witness by xinran, which is basically a collection of stories from people living in modern china who have survived the cultural revolution. i don't know why i really long for that traditional china, pre-mcdonalds dominated and before terrible capitalistic influence. i haven't lived through it, but just reading about the disappearing pieces of tradition {old buildings torn down, new development being built} in beijing, hk, everywhere makes baby eunice shrivel up inside. i can't believe how poor china is about maintaining their own history. the china i kind of wish for -- people drawn carriages, loud bright markets selling literally everything, slippers -- seems to have disappeared with the cultural revolution. but then, i'm also too much an idealist, so i guess it was just an idle dream anyways.

it also doesn't help that cantonese and hoisanwa are dying. i really love speaking and hearing cantonese. it has a nice variety of tones and a good balance of crunch and smooth words. there's something that's just so much more expressive about cantonese, and there's so much snark built into the language, it just lends itself to speaking. i know most people think cantonese as loud and obnoxious, but there's something comforting in the open loudness of the language. people also say that cantonese people are bitches but that's applicable to every language. mandarin is such a... smooth and vowel-y language, it just sounds so pretentious and fake to me. the more i hear it, the more i feel fake sincerity radiating off of each word. i'd rather be given outright rudeness then sneaky, behind-doors gossip.