i dont know how i remembered to write my blog for this week since ive been so busy studying for my exams. i have seriously never spent so much time on studying. i guess the thought of failing these exams has scared me enough to make me put an effort into studying. last year, during the 10th grade exams, i dont think i studied at all - a couple hours maximum, but now being in 11th grade, its different.i have to start worrying about my future and bringing up my GPA to get into a decent college. its really freaking me out.

last summer, my cousin christina who had just graduated from cornell, went on and on about how i really needed to stop fooling around and start focusing on what i needed to do to get into a good college. she said that when she was in 9th grade, she was just like me. rarely did her homework, rarely studied (if she did, she would study a couple hours before the test), barely passed her classes and always played around. like me, everytime she doubted ever slacking off or wondered if she should actually be studying, she would always make up this excuse to make herself believe that playing around was fine. her excuse was: life is short, so you might aswell enjoy it. i mean, it sounds right. why not enjoy life and its benefits while it still lasts? then christina went on to tell me that by 10th grade she felt the "fear". the fear that hits you when u realize that you might not actually go anywhere or be somebody if you dont put your act together. sadly, that "fear" didnt hit me until the beginning of 11th grade.

in 10th grade, my grades were horrible. i had never failed a class in my life until 10th grade where i practically failed all my classes, and to top it all off i did some things (which im not particularly proud of) that put me into such a complicated situation. at that time i was still oblivious to the situation i was in and didnt realize that i was digging myself a really deep hole. it wasnt until some said to me, "you know laura, dont act as if everything's going to work itself out. if you keep acting like this, dont expect to get into college. you have to work your way to get there." now, being in a family that takes education really seriously, that hit me really hard. how embarrassing would it be to be the only person in your family whose it too stupid to get into college? since then i officially had the "fear".

the beginning in 11th grade i knew i had a lot of things to make up for and i tried me best to get my grades up, but over time - like most things do - the fear started to fade. i started not to care anymore. it wasnt until i received my first report card. it was definitly better than any of my 10th grade report cards, but it wasnt good enough to get into a good college and 1st term was supposed to be the easiest.

these exams coming up are scaring me half to death because i need to do well in them but i know that there's a pretty good chance that i wont because these things always happen to me. when i study and study and study, and i feel like i did well on the test, i end up flunking it. i just hope that if i flunk these exams, ill do better on the later ones.

but as my brother likes to say, "dont bother stressing out. if you've studied all that you could and tried your hardest, the best you can do is get a good nights rest and relax. there is no benefit gained from stressing out."

have you ever forced yourself to like somthing you previously felt like barfing on everytime you looked at it? well i have, and it seems so stupid to do so, but i cant help it. i like being in on the fun, and when i see someone enjoying something that i cant, it gets me feeling really irritated. im not talking about forcing myself to like someone i dont. im not talking about forcing myself to join a sport that i hate. im talking about forcing myself to like food that i hated tasting.

i know it might sound weird, but one of the things that i had to force myself to like was the kraft's macaroni and cheese pack thing. there was nothing particularly disgusting about it - i liked the taste of cheese and i liked macaroni - but there was just something about that didn't taste right. maybe it was the mixture of cheese and macaroni that seemed awkward to me. anyway, i just didnt like it. i think my want to like macaroni and cheese started when i saw how much my brothers enjoyed it when they were eating it. i would see them stuff their faces and eat more and more boxes until they were about to pop, but when they had me try it, i couldnt help but feel dissapointed. when i say that i forced myself to like it, i dont mean that consiously said to myself "EAT THE MACARONI AND CHEESE! EAAAT IT!!" but it was more of a subconcious thought saying, "aw cmon, look at your brothers eating it. they make it look so good. you know it tastes good. u just have to believe it tastes good... yeeaaaa its so yummy." and eventually i grew to love it. i would join my brothers in their want to stuff their faces with mac and cheese and i would have such a fun time doing it. i hate to admit it, but i also think that there was another reason i forced myself to like macaroni and cheese. i think it was because i wanted to be apart of my brothers' lives. i mean, i was always the one left out becuase i was so young in their eyes and also because i was a girl. just once, i wanted to be invloved in the fun to. im ashamed to admit it, but its true. =)

there is one other thing i forced myself to like. Durian.
when i was little, my family and i would very frequently drive up to Puncak and stay at my grandparents' villa and everytime we went, we always brought durian. i suppose it was some sort of tradition. anyway, my brothers always went on and on about how yummy durian tasted (i guess by now you can tell how much influence my brothers had on me)and that i should try it. by the way they described the taste of this spikey looking fruit, i imagined it to be the best tasting fruit i have and will have tasted in my whole entire life, so u can imagine my dissapointment when i took the a bite so big that my felt like the sides of my mouth were going to tear, into this so called amazing fruit and discovered that it tasted like poop. i couldnt believe that my brothers thought that this tasted good. ofcourse i didnt want to dissapoint them so i pretended that it tasted OK. the next time i had a taste of the durian fruit, wasnt until 2 years after. what possessed me to try this disgusting fruit was the thought that maybe my taste of things had changed over the last 2 years and i might actually enjoy its taste this time. after all, my brothers are in love with it, so how bad could it be? i quickly remembered why i had stayed away from this fruit for so long. i still tasted like poop. over the years my brothers were insistent on making me try the fuit again and again, and i was insistent on making myself like it. i suppose i grew to like it over time becuase it was given to me to try several times and today im actually happy that i had come to like this fruit because it actually tastes really REALLY good. best fruit in the world.

even though i have made myself like different foods, there are still some out there that ive given up on. i cannot bring myself to like mooncake, even though my whole family loves it, and i cant bring myself to like mushrooms. so you see, it is possible to force yourself to like food if the want for it is great, but there are just some things people cant force themselves to like so dont put pressure on those who dont share the same taste in food as you!

Labels: foooooooooooooooood

For B.I class, we were given the task to research about a sickness and present our choice in front of the class using the microsoft power point program on monday. At first i was thinking of doing some boring, old sickness like the cold or the flu, but then i figured that my presentation wouldnt be that interesting if i wasnt interestd in the topic itself, so i asked myself, what is the coolest more nasty disease in the world, and then i remembered the episode on Grey's Anatomy where this woman got the disease called the "flesh eating bacteria" and had to practically cut her leg off to get rid of it. i researched it on the internet to more find out more information about this cool disease and found out that the proper name for the disease was necrotizing fasciitis.

Necrotizing Fasciitis(nekro-tie-zing fah-she-eye-tis)is the most scary disease i have ever seen in my life. it is not a disease that people get often, but it a disease that you would want to avoid at all costs. well, i guess you would want to avoid all diseases at all costs, but this one should be at the top of your list.

people who end up having this disease are healthy prior to the disease. this bacterial infection destroys the skin and the soft tissues beneath it, including fat and the tissue covering the muscles. becuase the skin starts to rot away very quickly, a person with necrotizing fasciitis is sometimes said to be infected with "flesh-eating" bacteria. the only way to get rid of the bacteria, once it has entered the body, cut it out so it is better if the bacterial infection is caught at an early stage, rather than having it spread throughout the whole limb, forcing the person with the infection to cut it off or risk having the infection reach the vital organs which then would ensure the death of the person. most people get this infection just from a small cut they get when in the water. in the Grey's Anatomy episode, the woman who was diagnosed with this disease said that the rash started to appear after she scarped the bottom of her foot on an oyster shell.

im not telling you to rush yourself to the doctor's office everytime you get a small cut, but if you start seeing this red rash spreading VERY rapidly across any part of you body, u better get yourself to the doctor's office as fast as you can to get it checked out becuase you might actually have the "flesh-eating" bacteria.

kinda scary.

So i have been thinking about what to blog on here [since i haven't blogged in like 2 months!]. And today i was doodling in econ as always...[sorry mr eric!!] and i started drawing hearts. then as i was looking at my paper i realized that it looked alot like a love note or something with all the hearts i drew on it. and all of a sudden i got to thinking, why is it that a heart it the symbol of love? I mean why not a kidney, or a liver? sure it sounds a little wierd to say "i love you with all my liver!" or "you broke my kidney!" but seriously, why the heart? okok maybe i can see why it is the actual heart...afterall we can all talk about the time our grandma died and we felt the little twinge of pain in our hearts...or the times we see our crush walking down the hallway towards and our heart litterally skips a beat. but why the symbol of the heart...real hearts dont look anything like that. and i can guarantee that if we did draw the exact shape of our own heart on the cute red paper for valentines day..it would not be as romamtic. so i looked it up and here are some peoples take on it: the "heart" shape is the shape of the seed pod called the silphium. i guess that has something to do with love but i still dont get it. the only other thing that i could come up with was that the heart symbol started appearing on stained glass windows of jesus to portray his love for us...interestinggg. but i still dont know where t came from. okok i will make my own guess... i think that in the begining people were really drawing the actual heart in our bodies...but that must have gotten a little complicated and ugly looking. i mean the way our heart looks is nothing that makes me want to be inlove. so over time people just modified it to what it is today. simplicity is the answer! ...actually i still think there is more to it! but i cant seem to find anything..let me know what you think!

[Hmm, maybe I shouldn't be contributing and putting up these parent issue blogs at the same time, considering some of them know about these? Oh well...]

I get in a lot of fights with my mom; it's pretty crazy.

For the longest time, I thought my Chinese zodiac was a sheep/ram. My mother was an ox and we would often read at those Chinatown restaurants eating Americanized Chinese food, that the two animals don't get along. Jokes would go around and that became my "justification" as to why my mom and I were the way we were. Later on I discovered - after moving to Indonesia, no less - that I was actually a horse (my birthday's right on the cusp of the Chinese New Year - hey, what did I know about China?)

My mother is the headstrong one in the family. My dad's certainly no wimp in life, but at home he is compelled to follow my mother's orders. I know my parents, especially my mother, care for me like no other but it they certainly don't know how to cultivate a favorable relationship with me.

My dad comes from a family where kids were disciplined by being insulted. My mother claims that she was not one to berate others the way my dad and his family do, but only started to after she married my dad. I believe that claim more than ever now that I'm here and really looking beneath the surface of my [extended] family. When I moved to Richmond all I had were vague memories of unfamiliar faces at Christmas parties or birthdays. As far as I was concerned, I had no other relatives. Looking at them now with the eyes of a less naive, more cynical me, I can see how my parents complete their puzzles.

There was a time when it got to be unbearable almost. My mom and I. W e went from our fight-a-day status to three-fights-a-day. This was during the couple of years before we moved to Indonesia. I guess it was a combination of me entering my "wildest" teenage years and my parents stress over our move but it certainly felt like all she could do was pick a fight with me everyday. She was never truly satisfied with what I had become (something that I held closely with pride), everything I did was wrong (I was expected to fix my own ineptitude when I obviously didn't believe that those were the problems that had to be fixed), and I was forbidden to believe anything contrary to her beliefs (certainly, if she believes a good Christian should be like that, so should I). She actually took up a lot of her threats and I often found myself stranded alone - in more ways than one. I had gotten used to the yelling and screaming every time I had fallen sick or John got into trouble at school, but now added to the list were things out of my control. I was the oldest, therefore I was responsible for everything.

The days grew more drawn-out at home: hazy and weary. I lived my life off of the adrenaline I had forced upon myself. Actually, excluding my home life, those last couple of years had been the best years of my life thus far.

A lot of our fights are actually pretty trivial. They are things my mother feels she has to magnify to the extent that we both get annoyed with each other enough to keep the wheel turning. My mom has a way of making a point without actually having a point to make. I know that she knows she sometimes is wrong, but she would never even consider that she should go back on her word. The more we fought, the more tired I got, the more I rebelled. We were both exhausted from all of the arguments but it pierced us more to let them go. We both arrived in Indonesia with too many scars that would always remain deeply etched into us.

The problem didn't exactly fix itself with the change of environment. The explosions were less frequent but each became more intense than the previous. I've heard that analogy that children are their parents' glass. We start out pure, without any blemishes but over the years we collect dust from the neglect, or scratches from the carelessness. Some of us break into a million pieces and no matter what you do to reverse the fait accompli, the damage is done. I don't know where we'll be in a few years, but I'm determined to preserve what little self-esteem I have left against her repressions.

I'm probably making more of this than what it seems from the outside. I know she cares.

If for nothing else, I want to fix this so I can live knowing that if my mom dies unexpectedly I won't have the panging guilt inside my head of knowing I did nothing to reach out. I guess I'm counting on my moving out to be the catalyst in this process.

Supposedly, distance makes the heart grow fonder...

Labels: arguments, family, fights, issues, mother, problems

Ok, so have you ever wondered why we have to get those ugly goosepimples (goosebumps)? Today in class I decided it was time to finally find out. (I hate being in the dark about such important things!) So i looked it up on Quiz Cool.com and found the reason why! It said that when we are cold our arrector muscle pulls up the hair, the duct in our sweat glands gets small, and our blood vessels also get smaller. So actually being cold is a very positive situation! Yeah, our skin looks a little peculiar, but being cold makes our arrector muscles work harder than when we are hot and makes us look thinner too! I guess freezing my butt off and getting goosepimples isn't so bad!!

Here's another interesting thing u need to know. Boogers. Yeah, we all hate them, they can be quite disturbing but actually we need them! So I looked it up and found out that mucus (myoo-kuss), the wet stuff in our nose, traps dirt and other floating particles so that we don't breath them into our lungs. That's very important! So when the mucus traps the dirt particles etc. it then dries up and we are left with what we call boogers! So next time you pick your nose, you may want to thank those little boogers for saving your lungs!

I hope you have enjoyed these little tid bits about our bodies! There will be more to come!

Written by Kendal M.

I know that by going to a Christian school, not a lot of people will agree with me on this but i dont care. i think that halloween is one of the funnest events of the year. people always say, "what?! if u celebrate halloween, its like your worshiping the devil!! halloween originated from witchcraft and satanic rituals. you shouldn't celebrate it." but i personally think that thats stupid. yes, halloween might have a creepy and an ungodly history, but the reason i celebrate it isnt to worship the devil or anything satanic. i simply find it a fun time to get together with my family to carve pumpkins and argue about whose pumpkin looks the best. i find it fun to get together with my friends to organize a halloween party and to go to that party in a costume that my mom helped make. not everyone who celebrates halloween is evil.

my mom has two preschools in jakarta, and every year she holds halloween parties where the children have the chance to dress up as anything they want to be. for one day, the children get to become their favorite super hero or their all time favorite role model. what other yearly event would they have the chance to do that? halloween is one of those days where the children have the permission to go insane and are able to eat as much candy as they possibly can. its a day to have fun.

one of my best memories of when i was younger was during halloween. have you ever had the chance to go 'trick-or-treat'ing? i went when i was about 7 years old and i remember it to this day. my brothers and i dressed up as ghosts and we went to the pondok indah complex with my mother to join the trick-or-treat event. the most distinct memory i have of that night was the memory of my pumpkin bag filling up with more and more candy as i knocked on more and more doors shouting, "TRICK OR TREAT!!" after my brothers and i had knocked on every door of the complex, we had successfully filled up two whole pumpkin bags each of candy. on the way home, my mom didnt let me eat my sweets, so once i reached my room, i became a mad person, stuffing my face with as many chocolates i could and after a few minutes, i felt like i was going to throw up. i had never felt so sick of chocolate before in my life but i was officially in love with it. Too bad i didnt get to go 'trick-or-treat'ing the year after that.

one of the bigger problems adults have with halloween is the fact that small children often dress up as ghouls, pumpkins, witches, wizards or goblins. ive never understood why this upsets people. to a child its just fun to dress up. they dont care if they are dressed as a rabit, a cowboy or a ghost. they attach no satanic meaning to what theyre wearing. children just enjoy a good time and halloween is just one big party.

Apologies for the late entry. On top of losing my voice again, I just don't have anything to write about at the moment. This is something I wrote a long, long, long time ago. Before I moved here. I think it started out as a fanfic for something? I don't even remember...

I was on top of the world and I liked it there. With already 15 movies to my credit I had been made the new queen of Hollywood in a just a few short years. You get used to it, you know. The “fame” thing. People screaming your name wherever you go, seeing your pictures on billboards and magazines, being the new “it” girl. Yeah. At 24 I’ve gotten more than I could’ve ever dreamed of. Except for the golden man. You would think that after four consecutive Oscar noms you would eventually win. The fame and money is a plus but the recognition and respect is what every real actor strives for. I promised myself when I was younger that I would get that statuette before I turned 26 (30 seemed like too big of a number). I’m not giving up just yet…

So what was on the agenda for today? Radio interviews, and then a press conference, and then a photo shoot. The rest of the day was free.

“Step on it, Henry. We’re running a bit late,” I cried. Henry, although a bit daft sometimes, was as reliable as a driver could get, and could maneuver us through the busy streets of New York better than anyone else around.

“You got it, boss,” he replied cheerfully. I don’t know how he does it. Put on that same smile everyday and mean it.

We took off through the busyness of the city and I found myself standing outside of the radio station. “You just finished a box-office hit. What’s next?” And then answering relentless question after relentless question at the press conference. “No, I will not be doing a romantic comedy with Will Farrell.” And then with a camera. “And pose. Smile. Good! Beautiful, beautiful!” It doesn’t take much to impress these photographers.

The day was just a big blur. As everything are these days. Not that it’s boring it’s just that after a while you tire of the game. Not that I’m complaining that I lead the life that I do. I was waiting for my break as an Oscar-winning actress but maybe I had to go looking for it myself. We were on the ride back home when my thoughts were interrupted by my phone.

“Hello?”

“Mel?” It was my manager and second father figure, David. He was the only person other than my parents who called me that.

“Who did you think it was?”

“Ok, good. Look, I’ve just received an important phone call from the people of MGM. I hope you’re free tonight because we want to discuss a possible movie role for you. This could be your award-winning break, baby!”

My tone remained unchanged. I had heard that phrase too many times before. “They want to talk about it over dinner? Can’t this wait?” I really had nothing to do that night but I was in no mood to sit through three hours of incessant blabber during the dinner. No way was I going to go through four more movies that were “Oscar-worthy” but ended up with nothing after the ceremony. It’s time to do things my way.

“Mr. Smith has a very busy schedule, Mel. I don’t think he can do it any other time. And he wants to get this mattered settled as soon as possible so they can start pre-production.”

“I don’t know…”

“I know you have nothing planned for tonight. You can’t escape out of this one.”

“Well, I guess if I have to -”

“Great! I’ll send you the directions in a few minutes. Be there by 7:00.” Beep. And he left me with that. Well, I guess my free night is off the agenda now.

I sighed, but who knows? He might be right this time. I forced myself to believe what I was saying. One dinner wouldn’t hurt. And I’m sure the world doesn’t want me to waste a perfectly good night eating ice cream and crying my eyes out on old black-and-white films.

Labels: story

Ecclesiastes 12:1
Remember your Creator in the days of your youth before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say "i find no pleasure im them".

I was recently going through a rough time, and a good friend of mine told me to take a look at this verse in the Bible. After reading it, i realised that i really have to be smart about my decisions and choices in life, especially in my teenage years, because if i dont, by the time i no longer want to be involved in those 'things that the youth are involved in' it could be too late. Soon, my time to be judged will come. Honestly, due to my past, im not looking foward to it, mainly it's fear.. and also guilt. Luckily for me, we have a forgiving God. He is LOVE, no one can change that, and therefore he can make anything happen. Although i am not looking foward to being judged, i still have time to change that. If i really want to, i can ask for forgiveness, i can be forgiven, and God will choose to 'forget' my sin.. he'll just put them away somewhere and pretend they dont exist. I can start with a clean slate, a fresh beginning, where my past sins dont really exist anymore. I have the chance to start using my years of youth for the best.

In saying this, i mean that instead of doing things to please myself, I have the chance to do things that please God. In pleasing God come many benefits. Not only will i feel good about myself and i will no longer have regrets, but it may also help me to earn Gods trust back; earn that relationship back that i havent been too involved in lately. Although some people may not believe in God, they have to know that there is something out there of a higher power. Everyone needs to have hope, and therefore they pray to God for things they want and need in their lives, even if they dont admit it. I've been through a phase in which i didnt believe in God, nor did i think about him or what he was thinking when i did certain things. Unfortunately, those things are the things that i regret most in my life, even if that was exactly what i wanted at that certain point in time. Those times were by far some of the worst emotionally painful times of my life. Thankfully, God is forgiving.. as I said before. If we truly want forgiveness, if we've messed up during our years of youth and want to redeem ourselves, we can. No matter what!