CURRENTLY READING: The Creative Act: A way of Being FICTION Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl, Jesse Andrews This is how you lose the time war, Max Gladstone Crying in H-Mart, Michelle Zauner HISTORICAL FIC Catch-22, Joseph Heller Girl, Interrupted, Susanna Kaysen The Color Purple, Alice Walker There there, Tommy Orange POETRY On Earth we are briefly gorgeous, Ocean Vuong PHILOSOPHY The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus COG. SCIENCE Supercommunicators, Charles Duhigg ...

everything I've written for V from freshman year - sophomore year. I was very (stupidly) in love with him and I don't like the way I wrote some of these, but I was very blinded back then. I'm just putting this here as a record. this aged well... wait for the next post!!!!!!! April 2024, sophomore year: [my name], you’ll write in bold, MARCH 2023-MAY 2023; APRIL 2024 I’m but an experience to build up your relationship resume; bulleted below, in Times New Roman: two weeks after april 23 you ask ...

aphrodisiac basket case immortalized Dead wrong tread water an itch that needs scratching ...

Wisconsin Honey glazed cashews Ultra-specific Spotify playlist names Discovering more music Debriefing with friends Vintage things Baking on rainy days The smell of candles Chrysanthemum tea Record stores Collecting more notebooks that I will never write in black + chipped nail polish taro crepe cake neat & organized digital notes garlic cream & vinegar & butter chips dark green claw clip water bottle stickers from travels warm & cozy socks Hufflepuff mug Smiles my mom laced cur...

Y called me about her new crush, C. He's a senior and apparently he's very good at physics. She gets to take advantage of all the resources that C has to offer. I wish I had people like that at my school. We talked about how weird it was that everyone is a gatekeeper here. At my school, you're constantly trying to differentiate yourself and grind until you get out of this town, whereas at her school since there's an application process to attend I feel like your baseline is like already going t...

I don't read as often as I would like--in fact, I barely read at all these days--but if I had more time on my hands I would read every day. Here is a collection of books I highly recommend: Classics I used to be obsessed with Classics, because they're classics for a reason. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (this was my favorite book for a long time) Fiction Stargirl by Jerry ...

I am now an avid blogger. My thoughts are usually very scrambled, and having multiple posts helps streamline them. I like dumping them out onto a page for me to look back upon. I don't know who to talk to about some of these things, so having a blog is like talking to a friend. It helps keep track of some fun things, like schedules, lists, excerpts from essays, old stories, poems... that would otherwise get lost in my Google Docs. It keeps my mental health in check. Having a blog helps me see ...

The Art of Creation 8/18/24 Those who don’t regularly participate in creation hesitate to call themselves “artists” But what is one, really? The Universe unfolds on a cosmic timeline Perhaps the artists are those who have more sensitive antennas to transmit their awareness We each harbor a database, constantly overloaded with information Filtered, so not all goes through. These tidbits form relationships with what we already hold Creating new senses of self, conceptions, and misconceptions “Th...

Note: the chain of reasoning in these paragraphs is nonexistent. I might edit this later. [Locking in again and romanticizing school] Bad study habits like procrastinating will bite you in the butt! I had three tests in a row: APES, AP Physics 2, and Linear Algebra. I procrastinated on studying for APES and went to sleep at 3 am that night. Then I was like, "OK something's gotta change". To address the blog post "afraid of locking in", after realizing and analyzing the psychology behind it, I s...

Delete I press the button again and again; the devilish red color of it matches my mood and I wish that I could punch the wall. But that would only prove that I’m aggressive, and that’s exactly what everyone thinks I am. I’m not. Delete Delete Delete Press after press, and her messages depart one by one. Gabriel and the others will only laugh if I told them I’m deleting her messages and not her contact as a whole. No, that’s too late of a time. They’ll laugh when I break the news that she’s left...

More evidence why I was a certified hopeless romantic (eye roll). Writing lowkey sucks but I'm posting this for the mems. 3BOYS I fell slow for you. I don’t even recall when was the first time we met If I’d fallen right then I wouldn’t forget Though I do remember…Last-last November. The blanket of water vapor hanging above the pool The bite in the cold air I especially like about winter. Our group huddled under the overhang, shivering in our swimwear Waiting to get in the water. And endless dri...

When I was thirteen, I used to be a hopeless romantic, a vague concept with an abundance of moodboards on Pinterest to back it up. If you want to get a general sense of what a hopeless romantic is, I would suggest you watch "(500) Days of Summer", although I've never watched it, I've watched some video essays dissecting Tom's character. As a kid I used to want to become an author and I wrote many short stories. The writing is obviously subpar since I wrote the majority of it in 7th grade (skull)...

Competitive swimming was my sport before COVID hit and I quit. I still consider the pool to be my home, not the tennis courts. I wish I could have continued this sport, and it is one of my biggest regrets, but in actuality this is one of the harder sports to pursue in high school because you are required to practice every day and wake up at 5 am. It's funny, because I still talk to my old teammates and ask about how everyone is doing and stalk people's times on SwimCloud (skull jk I do not do th...

ALBUMS: The Mamma Mia! movie soundtrack Slipping Through My Fingers Honey, Honey Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) Dancing Queen Short n' Sweet by Sabrina Carpenter Practically all of them are good, although I feel like there could be more diversity in the content of the songs. Here are my favorites: Slim Pickins Juno Bed Chem Taste Lie To Girls (lowkey I can personally relate) Kansas Anymore by ROLE MODEL - SUCH A GOOD AND UNDERRATED ALBUM!!!! Writing's on the Wall Look At T...

I found this picture that my roommate at PROMYS took of our friends biking to the AMC theaters during the first week, from the perspective of her bike, so you can see the handles of her bike and my other friends looking back at her. I thought the composition was unconventional but the background was bland--it was gray and cloudy, everyone wore mundane outfits. I was initially planning on making the background a cityscape but I thought that was cliche and I didn't think that would stand out. My m...

At PROMYS we had a People at Promys seminar about taking breaks. In order to not burn out, it's important to take breaks, but not too many or else you'll get no work done. Here are some ideas: The best ones: Some sort of light physical activity for 20~ min, like throwing a frisbee/football, stretching/yoga. It takes your mind off your obligations and gives you endorphins. Blog!!! I'm now an avid blogger because I can record down all my thoughts and keep them all in one place, then reflect bac...

After long periods of "hard locking in", like grinding for summer program applications or APs, I just crash and burn out. After school ended I spent an entire week sleeping 8-9 hours and having zero work ethic. Normal, right? But I feel like more and more, I've started to fear putting my 100% into things. That's not to say that I'm not capable of it. I can put in 150% if I wanted to. So why don't I? I don't know when it started, but I started being afraid of doing difficult things. Why does it f...

When I really want something, man, you don't know how much effort I'd put in to try to get that. Ironically there are examples proving and disproving this statement. One obvious example that serves as proof is applying to summer camps. I never in my life thought I had a chance at getting into any selective math camps, especially in 10th grade. When I was a freshman, I viewed PROMYS and SuMac as nearly impossible things that were way above my level, like qualifying for AMO. Then I discovered that...

Last school year, I was really going through it. Maybe the pressure was getting into my head. One day I was driving home with my father and I remarked "I've never seen a race so full of comparisons". No really, think about it. Do white people sit at the Christmas party dinner table and discuss their kids' Common App? [Gatekeeping] Somehow my friends and I started to gatekeep things from each other. My friends can attest that I am very bad at lying. If I do, I swear my left eye starts tweaking...

IV. Epistolary An entry in the shower and the last entry I’ll ever write about Simon Hockenberger-Harris At least for now. “Dear Simon, I’ll say I loved you to an extent where— You know I’m the type of person who doesn’t listen to playlists. At least not the whole thing, ever, or in order. I’m the type of person who makes them, and never look back. And obviously I rarely listen to other people’s playlists, maybe only a song or two. But I’ll listen to every song if you wrote a hundred o...

Productivity I’ve used way too many productivity apps in the past, and none of them really stuck with me. Here are some: Trello: organizing by cards. Good: easy to switch around tasks Bad: didn’t keep a good track of completed tasks, UI sometimes glitchy Conclusion: no longer use - other apps are better Flora: focus timer - if you go on other apps, you’ll kill a tree Good: for focusing Bad: only mobile, sometimes I need to go on other apps that aren’t entertainment but it locks me out Conclus...

I feel like sometimes I'm not grateful enough for my mother or I don't show it, so I have started a rudimentary list of all that she has done for me, things I appreciate, etc. It will be constantly updated. folding my laundry when I forget to do it chauffering me around giving good advice and comfort, instead of putting up walls when I'm going through something cooking good food, buying the food supporting me throughout life (but high school especially) reinforcing life lessons, like being hon...

I snapped S like three times or something trying to explain my situation with M. He was crying over his English presentation score and he got an 88 which was like perfectly fine but apparently V said "no offense y'all did bad" and M got really pissed at him. I think both of them are in the wrong: V for saying things without considering the social context or being more tactful and trying to understand things from M's perspective, M because I think he's just really dramatic and overreacting a litt...

Sooo I asked some PROMYS people in the confessions bot what they think about sleeping. Maggie Shen whoever submitted this i hope your in pst because otherwise its pretty ironic of you to be posting this when u should be sleeping 😭 but fr don’t sacrifice sleep to work you’ll be super cranky and depressed and less productive in general. (like when u do math on little sleep u generally can’t think straight) if anything id say those successful ppl u mentioned are successful in spite of their terri...

Work hard, play hard. Make memories. Go to school events with friends, hang out with them. Don't burn out. Take frequent breaks. I'm trying to have a "Mandatory fun" each weekend. "ig just reeeeeeeally try to lock in, and frequently take a step back and evaluate whether if your schedules/routines are optimal" --David Build good relationships with teachers--they're your friends! Ask teachers lots of questions after class. Start looking at essay prompts and maybe writing them--Okay maybe not thi...

Some pithy lines derived from my notes app. it's not your desires that make you a bad person, it's your actions Nothing lasts forever/nothing ever really ends Perhaps I needed someone to see me in a perfect light so I could see it too You can't take care of others until you take care of yourself first When we're small we worry about expressing ourselves and our needs, but as we grow we care more about what others think/perceive us Snow-capped mountains, pine trees, country music, wooden cabins...

Hyperbolic Trig Lie Groups Galois Theory Arithmetic geometry ...

Artists Sarah Jeong Lee, A series with a repeated motif (in her case stilletos) https://sarahjeonglee.com/fine-arts- Liu Xiao Dong, everyday Life, Tyler Mitchell, Black & Vogue photography https://www.artpartner.com/artists/film-print/tyler-mitchell/ Lars Elling Yu Hong - perspectives Black carving Tapestry Comic Art Gale Galligan https://galesaur.com/illustration/ Jen Wang https://www.jenwang.net/ Gabriela Epstein https://www.gre-art.com/ Chan Chau https://chanchauart.com/ Ellen T. ...

August 4, 2024 i think for the first time in a while I feel free. truly free. from the burden of college admissions. from all my insecurities because i am aware that there are loads of people better than me and all that i can do is to do my best. in every stage of life there will be a competition, and it's a never-ending rat race. so all you can do is to do what makes you happy. i think i am finally happy at least in this moment :) make a difference because you truly mean it break away from t...

Sometimes I find it difficult to communicate well with other people, but here are some tips I've gathered from personal experience, watching YouTube videos, and reading Charles Duhigg's "Supercommunicators" I downloaded an app called “Birthdays” that sends me notifications on the days of my friends’ birthdays. If we are particularly close I try to give them a gift communication and being upfront is important and avoiding confrontation will not get you anywhere boundaries should be respected an...

I am currently going through a long period of art block. I haven't created much pieces these days and whenever I open the Procreate app I just don't know what to draw. I have discussed with my art teacher why. I think I am naturally a storyteller and not a painter. I used to be obsessed with drawing comics with convoluted storylines and characters with backstories, but it's hard to fit that all in a painting. My art teacher said that I read signs and philosophy into everything. She said that s...

I wrote this in freshman year...but that was the peak of my struggles with OCD. I really am dumping everything I've been through on this blog LOL, but once I get these things off my chest I think I'll be ready to write about happier things or get to other important topics aside from personal stories. BTW, I never thought I would recover from OCD. But at some point in my sophomore year, I realized that it had gotten better to the point where I'd almost fully recovered. So to anyone who is struggl...

I can't believe I am writing a blog post about this. I didn't think that I would ever be ready to. Disclaimer, I don't have an eating disorder. At least from what I know, eating disorders stem from having issues with body image and involve many more symptoms that I did not have. Even if I don't have an eating disorder, I will include a trigger warning... This is more of a personal story. What happened was, I'm not even sure what time this started last year, but I started to have anxiety around...

This will be more a diary, but I just want to emphasize how much I feel like this summer has changed me. For one, I think I have become more extroverted. As a little kid, I was very talkative without any inhibitions, resulting in me always saying some awkward or socially inappropriate things, but as I became a teenager I cringed at those memories and set walls around how I communicate with people. Like most middle schoolers, I used to be insecure about my social interactions and friends. For an ...

This summer I have begun to appreciate Santa Rosa much more than I used to, because I realized that in 2 years I'm going to move out and only come back to this house during winter break and summer break. It makes me tear up a little, just thinking about it. PLACES WITH A LOT OF MEMORIES FOR ME Snoopy's Home Ice I've gone here probably 20 times. This was my first "date" with V for our school's Skate Night in freshmen year. We also went to the warm puppy cafe afterward and he ordered the same t...

Over the last week, I consistently slept at 3 am or later, and once I even slept at 5 am. The next morning I would be bleary-eyed and have a headache, and I felt the urgent need to take 2-3 naps throughout the day. I was less productive and focused on my work if I was sleep-deprived. What's worse, once you get into the routine of sleeping late, you do less work in the day so you sleep late again that night. However, I finally fixed my schedule by sleeping at 2 am. Yesterday I slept at 2 and woke...

This list was created so that I can improve on these bad habits. Disorganization. I let things pile up on my workspace and am always putting off cleaning it. Wack sleep schedule. I feel sleepy in the daytime and need to nap. Solution: sleep earlier! Lack of discipline with drama. I need to focus on academics and not getting involved with flirting, getting hotheaded/jealous, reading too much into things, doing things for other people, etc. Scattered study habits. Similar to #1, but I get overw...

I wrote this piece back in April 2024. It went on from November 2023 to March 2024, although I didn't realize it until February. I'm not going to go into the details of what caused it (and please don't try to speculate). This documents my experience with depression. Mental illness is not exactly a comfortable topic, and for some reason, it is often romanticized on the Internet, but I'm not writing about this to ask for pity or seem "quirky" (if you're wondering why anyone would ever think it's q...

Questions for the Culture - an edgy poem i wrote over a year ago. Please tell me, why have you curated aesthetics like “cottagecore”, “dark academia”, “baddie”, “old money”--defined, sought-after ways for girls to dress? Why is a movie-screen romantic relationship the expectation? Why is offending content considered humorous if it does not advance our humanity and only proves one’s uneducated ignorance and inappropriate lightness? Why is music taste a judgment factor for a person? Why are ther...

[Originally published 7/20/24] I usually like to listen to 4-5 albums, mix them together, and put them on repeat. That way, it's both cohesive and diverse. Gracie Abrams Albums: The Secret of Us Songs: Blowing Smoke, us Chappell Roan Albums: Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess Charli XCX Albums: Brat Fiona Apple Songs: Criminal, On The Bound Car Seat Headrest Songs: Sober to Death Taylor Swift I'm getting quite tired of Taylor Swift, but So High School and Guilty as Sin? are still good V...

[Originally published 7/20/24] This post consists of snippets pieced together from my Ethnic Studies final paper last semester. It was the first time I've written a formal essay on a part of my experience that is so vulnerable, but I finally felt ready to talk about it. Last year, my English teacher assigned the poem Self-Portrait Has So Much Potential from the Chinese-American poet Chen Chen. “I am not the heterosexual neat freak my mother raised me to be / I am a gay sipper, & my mother...

[Originally published 7/20/24] Per usual, I'm writing this at 1:04 am, a stomach full of Snapple blended with grass jelly tea and Caramel Crunch Frappaccino. This is the summer I became obsessed with energy drinks that will keep me awake until diabolical bedtimes (although I have not tried Celsius). As a first entry, I'll be brief. I'll list some bullet points of sporadic thoughts I've had regarding blogging. Will people think of me differently when they read my blog? Will they see a side of...

It is Thursday, July 25, and Week 4 of PROMYS 2024 is almost over. I've wanted to write this for a while, but I finally have time to do it today because my counselor is behind in grading, so that makes me feel a little better about taking breaks. My Counselor: My counselor, P, is a rising sophomore at Yale. Lots of the counselors are very close in age to the students, which makes them easy to talk to. P is very introverted and quiet, and most of our conversations are quite short. I've only had ...