I'm Thankful for Maroon Leaves, Fabric Softener, and Grace

Before my aunts, uncles, and David, my favorite cousin, come to eat stuff with us, I thought I'd blog...and fold a load of laundry. I've just spent the afternoon doing my favorite thing in the world: I read 2 pages of this new book I started (The Book of Ruth), and then I fell asleep for 4 hours in my warm, cozy bed with the fuzzy, staring teddy bears at my side. (By the way, I'm thankful for warm beds, books, and teddy bears.) So anyway, I decided to make myself a little useful. But you know, I love the feel of warm clothes right from the dryer. And I'm thankful for fabric softener. I'm not sure what it does (I suppose it makes your clothes softer?), but yeah, whatever it is, I'm thankful for it.

Yesterday, as my mother drove us home from school, I noticed, for the first time this year, the long row of red, orange, and golden leaves splashed across baring branches and scattered across Middle Lane. It was truly a most pretty sight; I was just disappointed I hadn't noticed before. For some reason, trees comfort me. They remind me that even though I'm a black dot on the face of the earth, I'm not alone. How they do that, I don't know. ~ Later, I watched my mother cook...she prepared Thanksgiving dinner the day before. But I don't know what she was thinking because I swear she cooked enough to feed the entire Junior class. The pot of curry she cooked (my favorite) was so big, she had to stand on a chair to add ingredients! I realized it was the first time I've ever seen my mother cook curry, and I found it utterly fascinating and comforting to watch. I offered to help, but my mother doesn't let me anywhere near the stove (I'm an abysmal cook, so I might burn the house down). But yeah, I'm thankful for pretty leaves and pretty mothers who cook pretty curries.

That's what I love about Thanksgiving, that today especially, we are thankful for the little things, things we sadly never notice on a daytoday basis. It's a nice, contentment-filled kind of feeling. And I realize Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

And I'm thankful for God's grace. That He loves us and cares for us and never leaves us and allows us to be thankful and have so many things to be thankful for.


Well, my family has eaten their fill and gone home, and I'm so full I can't even sleep. Seriously, I think we're going to have leftovers for three months. We even had 2 turkeys this year because Foodnet make a mistake and accidently gave us 16 turkeys instead of 15, so I guess you can call that a blessing. But anyway, dinner was fun. I found out my cousin's pregnant (my grandmother is going to be a great-grandmother soon), my other cousin's getting married (yay, I love weddings), my great-grandmother died sitting up (terrifying story), and that my mother would kill me if I don't marry an Asian guy (I was seriously taken aback).

All in all, this was a great Thanksgiving. I'm pretty thankful.

Up the Down Staircase

Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman; it's a novel I started reading, and I liked the title a lot. That's what life feels like sometimes huh? Walking up a down staircase. Or well, walking up the down escalator. Which is very unadvisable. Trust me.

And then again, I suppose you're able to get up to the top of the steps nevertheless. It's just trip-able and foolish-looking. No, I don't know what kind of analogy I'm trying to make.

I s2 my JV Volleyball Team (see picture). I bet you can't find a better bunch of silly, giggly, adorably cute (okay, not really) jv volleyball girls anywhere! I actually looked forward to pratices and games this year! And we beat OMI. Twice! Haha. It's so sad that it has to end when we're just starting to get really into it.

I think my life is starting to revolve around AP Bio. I started this post 3 days ago typing AP Bio notes, and now I am redoing and writing up an AP Bio lab, and yesterday I spent around 7 hours studying for AP Bio test. This is pathetically insane.

Life is hard.

Did you know they're thinking about legalizing prostitution in SF now? And that in Nevada, it is legal for parents to abandon their grown kids at police stations if they can't control them? Huhm.

My Thoughts Are In English

I wonder what language other people's thoughts are in. I mean, what if you spoke like 10 languages and you were, like, 1/10 Chinese, Scottish, Irish, Phillippino, English, Jewish...etc. And you lived in...Turkey. What language would your thoughts be in? What language are God's thoughts in?

I like being an upper-classmen. There's this feeling of confidence and a sense of, I don't know, smoothness? And then again, it's probably because I've been at CCS way too long, so maybe this is why the familiarity is really kicking in now.

If I didn't believe the government was such a sham, I'd probably be a staunch, unmoving Republican. And I'd probably vote for John McCain. Yes, now I have actual reasons behind it besides "people like the wife more than the other wife." Which isn't true anymore anyway, I think haha.

I talk too much. My tongue gets me into too much trouble.

Melissa's Summer Was Very Fun

"Harriet? Is that a banana in your trousers? Or are you just happy to see me?" (It's a banana, don't worry.) -> Haha, I'm going to miss all this.

Melissa's summer was very fun.
Melissa napped too much in the sun.

Now lazy Melissa realizes scary school's almost begun!

So poor Melissa won't have fun again until her AP homework's finally done.

Darn, I just wasted 10 minutes trying to make that poem rhyme. Okay. The next 17 days I shall not be distracted from bio reading, chinese pods, or essay writing. OH WHO AM I KIDDING.

What comes around, goes around. -> When I was, like, 6, I was too lazy to throw my gum away in the trash can, so I stuck the gum under the chimney bricks behind the TV. Now, since we are remodeling the room, I was forced to scrub that nasty, shriveled, absorbed gum off. It was horrible. Boy, did that bring back memories.

When I Was 5, I Looked Up To...

Arthur Reed. And I still do. There was once a time when my sister and I would daily watch D.W. verbally push Arthur off his checkered circle thing, his dorky glasses falling of his dotty eyes during that ridiculously catchy theme song. He stuck. Well at least his voice...in my head. During my theatre class, I thought about Mr. Ratburn's puppet plays. Whenever I make paper fortune tellers, I think about the show; Muffy and the other tall girl drove me into a fortune teller obsession for a while. That stuck too.

I was 4 when Arthur was first born as an 8-year-old. Man, I envied him. He was so cool. He could swim, ride a bike to his bunny friend's house, do community service by himself, go to parades, and change the world. Don't you think he was pretty independant and responsible for a third grader? (Yes, I know he's a TV show.) But I was always like, "In just FOUR THREE TWO ONE years, I'm going to be EIGHT JUST LIKE ARTHUR!"

Now I'm 16, and Arthur's still 8. Twice his age. SO THERE. Nanananna, you can't catch me!

I still can't believe it though. I'm older than my childhood hero. Isn't it strange how things like this happen? Nevertheless, he's still my hero. Through him and his 1/2 hour shows, I learned what a compassionate, patient, and quirky little kid looks like. One that tolerates his sister, loves his parents and grandparents, has a sense of humor, treasures friendships, and plays piano (maybe that's why I want to learn).

And while I got to surpass him twice in age until I reached 16 and go through a bunch of headachy problems and stresses and AP summer homework, Arthur gets to stay an innocent, not-as-stressed third grader. Goodness, will I ever cease to envy him??

Everyday when you're walking down the street, everybody that you
meet...something something something...and I say HEY! What a wonderful kind of day, where we can learn to walk and play, and get along with each other!

On Writing...and Reading

I finished Stephen King's On Writing yesterday. I read it in 2 days and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's hilarious. I totally forgive the guy for allowing that absurdly ridiculous Mist movie to be made. And I started Reading Lolita in Tehran today, and it's nice too, but the other book is considerably easier to read. But anyway, I'm just happy that I finally started summer homework.

But anyway again, due to those two AP Lang books, I'm now inspired to add 2 things to my these-are-the-things-I'm-going-to-do-before-I-die list. So besides learning to play piano and ballroom dance, I'm going to WRITE A NOVEL and START A BOOK CLUB!

I want to write a BIG book, the size of Great Expectations, Oedipus, and To Kill a Mockingbird combined! Except the font will be 10x bigger because I abhor tiny font (plus I don't have to write as much) and there would be pictures! Lots and lots of pretty pretty pictures. And it's going to be hardback, the binding scarlet-purple color. And my huge face plastered in the back! Okay, maybe not. And I'm going to get a special clear glass case for my book, like the ones they use to exhibit special jewelry, the one that lights up, and I'm going to rope off a section of my house just to display it! Okay, maybe not again. But I can just picture it in my head haha.

(I was bored, and I thought this blog is getting drab, so I drew my future book. I think it looks ugly. =( I shall need to find myself an illustrator.)

I just can't picture what's going to be inside the book....yet. Ashley's the creative one; maybe she'll dictate a story, and I'll write it. When we were younger (and we still do this), we would create our own worlds, our own identities, and our own futures. It's been so long ago, but I think I was "Chloe," in my late 20's, married to a guy named "Carlos." We lived in Colorado on a snowy mountain while Ashley (she had a name too, but I forgot) and her husband lived in the middle of Pennsylvania. By the way, I had like a bazillion kids. And we had plot lines too! Some days we had magical powers, some days explosions happened, and somedays we had more children (teddy bears, so each stuffed animal was an addition to the family somehow). I had a good life.

So maybe I'll write a book about my old life. Ahahha. I don't know.

I'll just wait and see until I'm a retired psychologist/school counselor/broadway actress or a bored housewife on Wysteria Lane to start my novel. Oh, and the book club.

My First Day at College Theatre Class Was Intimidating

So I'm taking a college theatre production class this summer at Chabot College with my sister and Alex Deng. It's not really a class, more like a student-run theatre production. We make up 3/5's of the high schoolers in the class. One of the other two is a girl from Arizona and the other a huge 6' 5" guy with curly hair. Ashley, Alex, and I are the only Asians. We are also probably the smallest, puniest people in the room along with the nice girl from Arizona. We're huddled together like "Don't hurt us!" But it's okay; everyone's nice...and interesting.

The first thing Dov, the teacher guy, had us do was the usual ice-breaker game, like we had to tell our whole life story to someone you don't know in like a minute. So mine goes, "Hi, I'm Melissa. I was born in Hayward, and I've gone to Chinese Christian Schools my entire life. I fractured my knee when I was in fifth grade; I love green tea ice-cream....etc." My partner was named Ryan. He's pretty cool, hecka tall though; I'm like half his height. His life story goes like this: "I'm Ryan; I'm 24, and I go to Chabot College. I came out of the closet when I was 16. When I was a freshman in highschool, I got busted into Juvi selling drugs. When I got out, I got deeper into drugs and alcohol and had no idea what to do with my life. And then I when to rehab, turned my life around, and now I'm into acting. So yeah." When he was done, I'm embarrassed to say my mouth was like hanging open and all I could say was, "Oh. Wow." *Shrinks* How real and intimidating and inspiring is that? I'm not really used to real life yet.

Real life. Which is what Director Dov said is what this theatre production is aiming to portray. I realize I'm too young and inexperienced to know what real life really consists of. And Dov says he is teaching a college class, not a high school class, so he is unobliged to censor anything for us poor, innocent high school students. Like we were playing some theatre games, and someone told my sister to do the most innapropriate thing, and she was helplessly like "UM." One of the plays they are thinking of doing is called "Lesbian Draculas of Sodom and Gomorrah." *Chokes* UM. I don't think I'm ready for anything like that yet. I don't even think my mother would let me watch anything like that on TV!

And who am I kidding?! I can't act! I realize I don't even like acting that much. I find it difficult to act like I'm picking my belly button lint or pretending there's no gravity, which is a couple things I had to do today. And I really hope that if I do get cast in any role, that I won't have to like cuss or kiss anyone or anything. Oh goodness. But I love theatre; the sweat, rehearsals, funniness, and togetherness of it all. I like seeing how weeks and months of pain turns into a nice little play. Haha, now I have a new dream where I'm writing my own play and directing it. I think that'd be fun.

Yeah, I'm in for a fun, interesting, weird summer.