6-15-12 Miscellaneous

(Because I felt like I needed to post on this blog, and I'm too lazy to come up with some cohesive idea right now. Text below has been taken from all over the place, certain bits having been jotted down in my Simplenote notes from quite a while ago.)

• I like this quote: "The people talking about the weather had no intention whatever of of really exchanging meaningful information on the subject; they were merely using language to fill the emptiness between them, to conceal the fact that they had no desire to tell each other anything at all." ~ Martin Esslin
• I enjoy drawing in a realistic style because then it feels like I'm simply copying the strokes of a greater artist. He sure knew what he was doing.
• I kind of dislike "that moment" things, but seriously, that moment when you go to type "face" and it comes out "foam"? What. Maybe that just happens to me. Fortunately, I love foam. 
• I watched Snow White and The Huntsman a week ago with Colleen and Emily. My conclusions: it was a gorgeous movie that was sadly lacking in the plot department, and the acting execution ranged from excellent (Charlize Theron) to eh, okay (Kristen Stewart, for whom heavy breathing apparently = every single emotion. I think she smiled like, twice.). I would go into more details, but that would probably end up in spoilers. I will say, though, that with the measly amount of time that was spent on the huntsman's character, the movie might as well have been titled Snow White and the Evil Queen.
• By the way, Evil Queen was awesome. And even though Ravenna is such an obvious symbolic name for a queen with raven-minions, I  like the name a lot. Ravenna Ravenna Ravenna.  
• OH OH and they got Florence and the Machine to sing for the end-credits song! That may have been my favorite part of the movie, accompanied as it was by slow-mo close-ups of a figure dressed in intricate obsidian armor. It was cool yo, totally cool. 
• Should I put up a full review on this blog or not? I might. I can't seem to stop analyzing this movie whenever my brain has a free moment >.o
• Word-magnet poem thingy from a few weeks ago:

Over a thousand lakes of wind and time

moon light whispered through diamond mist

as a boy played his dreams to sleep

beneath a still blue sky.

• I love making sentences with those magnets. It's such a creative challenge.
• Oh, I should probably comment on the fact that school is over. Yay. But sad too, because I miss the teachers and the friendses. 
• Well, school's kind of over for me. I still have two units of Mandarin to work through. Urgh.
• Hm, it thunders, but the sky is still blue? Or am I imagining the deep growls coming from behind those fluffy, sunlit clouds? o.O 
• I promised myself I would write lots of poems once the summer began...but inspiration is strangely lacking. Ideas, people? What new forms shall I tackle? What new topics? Suggestions would be much appreciated.

Okay. That's it.
I'll write some better-focused blog posts in the near future. 

Thoughts on Harvey

[My goodness, the performances of Harvey were about two weeks ago already. I am terrible at posting in a timely manner. Anyway.]

Harvey is my favorite drama club production as of yet. Perhaps that's a self-focused comment, as this has been the largest role I've had so far, but I think it has to do with more than that.
There were a lot of things that made this year's play so memorable:
There was the influx of ultra-talented newcomers--among them Emmie, Liz, and Peri, who all did wonderfully in the play. There was the excitement of performing on our very own stage, and the unexpected ability to begin practicing onstage as early as the beginning of February. There was the stress-relieving presence of an actual stage crew. And much, much more, of course.
Speaking personally, I think that working on Harvey with this year's drama club really challenged me and pushed me forward. I definitely grew as an actress in order to step into this major role, and I probably grew a little bit as an artist when I took on the project of creating the Elwood-Harvey portrait. (I guess I can say that I know how to use oil pastels now.) This year, Mrs. Z twice called me out as an example for the rest of the club, which was definitely a pleasant surprise. Agonizing--albeit mentally and silently--over practical things like keeping my face and body turned out to the audience had a very rewarding result: they eventually became mostly unconscious, and I was able to focus more on delivering my lines with the proper emotion, facial expressions, and gestures.
Acting, in its essence, is sort of remarkable. It is taking on the character of someone else in order to tell a story. And to become this other person, you must change your appearance, change your mannerisms, and sometimes even change your voice. You must study the things they say to find out how they say it, and you must study their words so well that you know how they'll react to anything another person says--not with the words you've been given in the script, but with actions you have to come up with on your own.
It's not all about the laughs you get, though a laughing audience is probably one of my favorite things in the world. It's also not about the comments you get later about what a great job you did, though those are high up there in my list of favorites too. It is about the story you're telling through your character. I only came to this realization this year because of our two performances instead of one. Here's how it came about:
On the first night, there were more people in the audience that I didn't know than ones I did. On the second night, my family was there, along with like twenty people from church. My performance was more real on the first night (not that the second night was necessarily worse, just less real). I didn't expect it to be. If anything, I expected to be more into the play because all these people I knew were watching, but it didn't turn out that way.
I then realized that on the second night, I was more focused on what my family and friends were thinking than on what Veta was thinking. Thus, I became less Veta and more Davina-playing-Veta. It's a very subtle difference. I don't even know if it was visible, but I definitely felt it. I think it had to do with knowing that the people laughing on the first night were laughing because Veta was funny and I was playing her well, as opposed to the uncertainty of whether people on the second night were laughing because of that, or because it was funny to see Davina with lots of make-up-wrinkles, flailing with a purse.
Or maybe it doesn't matter so much. I don't really know.
I'm not very experienced an actress (I haven't even cried fake tears yet), and I assuredly haven't mastered the art, but Harvey showed me something new about myself. I now love performing. Love love love. It has this addictive quality that I sort of felt before, but never as strongly as the moment I stepped onto the stage on Friday night, March 2nd with my long blue dress and like thirty bobby pins in my hair, and said,

"Yes, dear?"

"Telephone."

"Oh no, dear, not with all of them in there..."

Loose Threads

Loose Threads is a novel I was writing last summer. I got to about Chapter Four and then realized all the things that were wrong with the story, which is what tends to happen with most of my potential novels. My problem with writing full-length book stories is that I always have a completed backbone of the main events, but don't plan enough for the flesh that provides transitions...so I just sort of stop when I don't know how to get the characters from here to there. Loose Threads was an interesting case. It was actually intended to be a tying-together of all my previous abandoned stories: The Dragon Rider and The Healer (awful title), Carry the Night, Dream-Weaver (which I've now turned into Weaver of Dreams), and another untitled one involving fairies--which meant tons of characters and numerous plotlines that I had no idea how to handle. I am actually considering picking it up again and narrating beginning from a different point. After more planning, of course.
Anyway, though, in digging through some files to reexamine the story this morning, I came across this ridiculous little thing I wrote to help myself get to know the huge cast of characters. Heh.

~~~

Song and I are sitting together in my room on my bed, talking. We are talking about lots of different things. Right now the topic of conversation is giraffes.

"I still don't get it," says Song, chewing doubtfully on the latest piece of candy I've given her. "How can an animal have such a long neck? Wouldn't it just, you know, fall over and break? I mean, break and fall over, and hey! You know what? I just realized this sweet thing is really good too! Do you have more?"

"I think they just have strong neck bones," I tell her, purposely ignoring her last question. I do have more candy, but I'm afraid to give her any more than she's eaten already. At present, I am dreading the imminent sugar-high. Song has probably never had this much sugar at one time in her life before.

She looks at me suspiciously, swallowing. "How do I know you aren't making these giraffe things up?"

"You shouldn't be one to question that," I say, "Considering, you're a made-up person."

She is about to answer, but is interrupted.

"Hi Author!" Kah comes bounding into the room and bounces onto the bed next to Song and me. The move knocks one of my pillows to the floor.

"How'd you get in here?" I ask, retrieving the pillow. Kah grins and winks cheekily.

"It wasn't too hard. I heard you were with Song, and everyone knows you can hear her talking from miles away," she says.

"Hey!" Song exclaims, hitting Kah, who winces under the blow.

"By the mountains, Song, do you have to be so violent all the time?" She edges away from the taller girl. Song raises an eyebrow.

"So violent? Are you serious, Kah? I'm a soldier! What did you think?" Song grabs the pillow from me and starts whacking Kah with it, despite the string of protests. I try to stop her and quickly discover that there are disadvantages to having created a character who is five times as strong as I am. Song probably didn't mean to actually injure me, but I am nevertheless forced to hold my hurting arm and watch the violence helplessly. Though it looks like Kah's own fighting instincts have kicked in, because their struggles have landed them half onto the floor by now. I am just trying to stay away and not get hurt further, though I worry for their safety. I had no idea they didn't get along—

Oh wait, never mind. They've stopped and are giggling like little kids now. Gosh, is this what they consider play-wrestling? That probably would have killed me or something.

"'I'm a soldier'? That is possibly the stupidest thing you could ever say to another soldier," laughs Kah, slightly breathless from the fighting episode. Song is laughing too hard to answer, and it's getting more high-pitched by the second. I suspect that's the sugar kicking in.

"What a commotion!" says Eir, dramatically slamming my door open. I am not pleased with the cracking sound it makes against the drywall. He eyes the two girls curiously. "What have you been doing in here?"

"Fighting!" says Song, suddenly coherent. "You know how much I absolutely hate Kah, heheehee..." Her speech trails off into giggles again. And Kah is giggling too. I think it must be some sort of long-standing joke between them. Eir rolls his eyes and pulls them both up, instructing them to fix their clothes and hair, which is enough to sober them both down.

"We know how to do that," Song tells him, irritated. Eir is unfazed.

"Then do it," he says easily.

Song makes an inscrutable grumbling noise, and I can sympathize with her. I completely understand how his calm, composed tone gets on Song's nerves, though I wonder if his getting equally irritated would be any better. On the other hand, Kah seems to find it amusing. Then again, she seems to find a lot of things amusing. Sometimes I wonder if she ever gets angry. (And you'd think, of all people, I should know.)

At this point, Li comes in with a tall girl with long blond hair, whom only I recognize. They are chatting away like old friends, which puzzles me.

"Who're you?" demands Song, pointing at the unknown girl. Dearie me, is she ever the tactless one.

"N.," says the girl.

"No way!" say Kah, Eir, and Song together. "N. is a guy!"

"Yes, I'm a guy," says N., walking through the doorway. "Why is this being questioned?"

Girl-N. looks at me, then at N. in horror, then back at me again. "That's what you turned me into??" she asks incredulously.

"I needed more male characters," I explain lamely, giving her a sheepish smile. "But how do you know Li?"

"We met in the hallway," Li tells me. "I like her a lot better than the newer N."

"I would get offended at that," says N., smiling amiably, "But I'm too flat to have regular human emotions."

Li scoffs, then pauses. "I guess I shouldn't be talking, because I'm flat too," she admits. Then adds, "But not that flat, and I won't be for long."

Girl-N., meanwhile, is still aghast. "I can't believe you kicked me out of the story for that," she gapes at me. "He's not even as handsome as I'm pretty! And way less awesome."

That was rather strange for her to say. I look at her. "When did you become conceited? I definitely did not give you that much depth." (Perhaps this is not a good time to mention that I've already kicked N. out of the story too.)

She shrugs in response to my question.

"On-the-fly character development," suggests Li. "I think it happens often."

"But she's not even in the story anymore," I protest.

"This is a story right now," comes the swift reply. Okay, I have no idea how Li figured that out. I guess I made her scarily perceptive. Or maybe it's that on-the-fly character development she was talking about. Which is absolutely bizarre, because she's the character and I'm the author, and how can she be talking about something that is happening to herself that I am making happen and also making her talk about because I wrote it—ouch. My brain hurts.

"What the—!! Mar!" Kah suddenly yells from the corner. Everyone jumps. (Except for Song, who is fast asleep on my bed, presumably from the sugar crash. I really should have held off on that candy.)

"Go 'way," mumbles a grumpy voice. We all go over to see Mar huddled in the small space between my dresser and the wall, along with all the old spiderwebs and dead spiders that I never got to cleaning out.

"Uh, Mar," says Li, putting her hands on her hips, "What are you doing?"

"Nobody cares," Mar mutters darkly. "I've been here the whole time, and you never noticed. Of course you wouldn't notice."

Li glances at me. "I think she's trying to get attention."  

I think I made you too smart, little dragon rider.

"No, don't say such cruel things," says a light, sweet voice from the doorway, one that I recognize as Rhia's. "She's just hurt, badly hurt. You have to try to understand her."

Mar scowls and hides her face. Rhia looks heartbroken. I am wondering how to make Mar less emo. In a way, both Rhia and Li are right. Mar wants attention that will heal her hurt. Unfortunately, I've emotionally stunted her so much that her only methods involve silent brooding among cobwebs, which is not particularly effective.

"It's all my fault," says Rhia, almost crying.

"Oh! Small child!" says Girl-N., not concerned about Mar whatsoever.

I assume that means Tei is here. Which, I also assume, means Ká is not far behind. Sure enough, the two fae have made their appearance, one tall and lanky, one small and short, both slightly glowing in that weird fairy way. (Is it just me, or is it getting sort of crowded in here?)

Kah seems surprised. "Ká, is that you?" she asks in shock. "You look so different!"

"I was...eum...up—er, updated," says Ká with her funny stumbling accent. It's a pity that now when she speaks human, it sounds so awkward. Her voice is beautiful when she's talking to Tei, though I'm usually the only other one who can hear it. "Long fingers." Ká holds up her newly-long fingers to show Kah. "And my, er, legs—longer too. But hair is same," she adds.

"Kah..." says Eir carefully, "What are you talking to?"

"The little one is cute," Girl-N. comments helpfully.

"They're fairies," I explain. "Ká has somewhat learned human speech, but Tei hasn't, so the cute little one won't be talking."

Tei smiles adorably and melts most of the girls present with her huge blue eyes. (Except for Mar and Rhia, who are both still absorbed in their own melodramatic world.) Maybe I should make her less cute. But no, that would be such a pity. I'll just have to make everyone else less susceptible to Tei's cuteness instead. Excluding myself, that is, because that would be impossible—

Oh, well, apparently Jun has picked this opportune moment to come barreling in and knock Ká to the floor. Uh-oh. She does not look happy. Jun gasps in terror at her or at something else, and leaps nimbly all the way over to the bed, where he lands atop his sister for a rude awakening. Not a smart move, kid. Now you have two women seriously ticked off at you. Thankfully, before either of them kills him, another male enters the room to distract them. It's Aílcruinn, looking mighty amused.

"Boy," he calls out, "I wasn't going to do you any harm, but now you've really got yourself in trouble." I can only imagine that he's referring to the death-glares coming from Ká and Song. Jun cowers and tries to hide. It's not a very hard task, considering the crowded state of the room. "Ká, calm down," says Aílcruinn, chuckling. "No hurting anyone."

"But Father—" I can hear her protesting as she slips into fae-speech.

"No, Ká." He is shaking his head. Ká pouts like a whiny child and obeys. My goodness, sometimes she can be so immature. Song, on the other hand, is pummeling Jun anyway, though it's obviously a gentle punishment. Or what those soldiers classify as "gentle", meaning it would still probably kill me.

"AAHHH!!" the young boy screams, "I wasn't trying to hurt you I promise I was just running away from that guy AHHH because you know how I am jittery around unknown places AAAHH and he was coming after me!! Stop it please Song I'm sorry!! Ahh!"

"Huh, I guess the talkative genes run in the family," I mutter, half to myself. Song drops Jun and transfers her glare to me.

"What did you say?" she demands threateningly, raising an eyebrow. Um, this—this is not good. This is, in fact, terrifying. I duck around five people and run out the door in hopes of escaping her wrath. Then I slam right into Youn and Ifan, who have been standing in the hallway for who-knows-how-long. Ow, that really hurt. Since when were they so solid? Both of them cross their arms and block my path stolidly, forbidding me to pass.

Wait, why are they—?

Song drags me back into the room, which looks considerably different from when I left it. Tei is standing on the bed with arms crossed. Everyone else is kneeling on the floor around her, as if she were some sort of queen. Tei imperiously points to the ground in front of her.

I cannot believe what I am seeing.

Song throws me roughly down in front of Tei, bowing deeply.

"Here she is, Master." (Those words did not just come out of Song's mouth.)

Tei grins impishly. "I am in control now," she declares to me triumphantly. 

I look at her in disbelief. "Uhhh...no, Tei, you're not."

She frowns. "Yes I am! See?" The child gestures to the kneeling people around her. "I told you what to make them do." That explains a lot.

"But just because I can hear you doesn't mean I have to listen, especially now that I know you're doing it," I say. "You realize that?"

Her face falls. Aw, poor little thing. I stand up from the floor and give her a hug. "It's okay, Tei," I tell her. "Don't order me around, but you can help me write the real story."

It's amazing how quickly her face brightens again.

Nothing much else interesting happened after that. Basically, Tei and I kicked everyone else out of the room and are now getting down to the business of planning and drafting the actual stuff. From time to time, we have to check the corner to make sure Mar hasn't come back in and started crying among the spider remains again (it's only happened twice so far), but other than that, things are going well.

There is now a sign that appears on the door when we're doing extra-hard stuff:

DO NOT DISTURB. WE WILL KILL YOU.

It might be a good idea to notice that when it comes up.

Mud Flats

Look at how the mud just goes on and on.

ME: You know, I want to go to a mud flat someday and just like, wrestle with somebody.

MOM: I have never had that desire. You're so weird.

BUT IT LOOKS LIKE FUN.

especially if you're doing something as cool as catching octopi.

or maybe football or crab races. Imagine that.

I mean, playing in a mud flat would be like playing in mud puddles x100awesomeness.

So.

 Does anyone want to come with me, or am I alone in this endeavor?

Sunday Morning Prayer

You know, the groups of people who stand in front of the stage, praying, before each service on Sunday mornings?
Early morning prayer is one of the things I want to start doing regularly. I need to learn to pray out loud in the presence of others, and it's amazing to listen to the prayers of the other people who are up there.
It so happens that I forget about Sunday morning prayer a lot. Thankfully, Stevie seems to have taken up the habit of reminding me every week, which is great--but I was thinking, why not invite all my other friends to come too? Occasionally, I'll go up in the morning and find a group of young people praying together and join them, and that is awesome...so why not make the group even bigger?
One thing I've noticed is that it tends to be mostly the young men from around my grade, and the girls are, well, not there. Thus, I'm inviting all of you guys (who come to CovFel) to join me and Stevie and everyone else in together drawing near to our Father's throne with our requests. It will be good for you. It will be good for me. We can remind each other. And it will be so encouraging to the adults who regularly pray on Sunday mornings.

Of course, praying in front of other people can be awfully scary. I'm still terrified of sounding stupid, being the baby in my prayer life that I am. But praying is really just about talking to God, and His is the only opinion that matters--not the people around me who are listening to me pray. I hope I can remember that more often.

Also! Speaking of prayer, the A Praying Life seminar on Febuary 25th!! SO EXCITING.






P.S. (completely unrelated) Today I came upon a stinkbug in the bathroom. As I watched, it proceeded to take one step along the wall, fall off, bounce on the mirror and shelf, and land on its back in the sink. Those things are unbelievably clumsy.

Davina Is A Geek Pt. 2

This time I'll begin with a picture, instead of ending with one.

I understand that now, in light of the picture, calling myself a geek has suddenly become pretentious. However, someone else showed me this thing and told me I was a geek, so I think it might be okay to say that. That was when I was telling her about my adventures on my robotics team.

Ah, yes. Robotics. 

A few months into the school year, I joined (at her invitation) a team that my friend Alix has been on for the past two or three years. I really didn't know exactly what I was getting into. At that point, I still held a pretty cliche mental image of robots as these clunky humanoid constructions of metal or as advanced artificial intelligence. So it was interesting to find out that the robot we were building was pretty much a box with things attached to it, and we were mostly designing its functions to be remote-controlled by, well, us. Also, we have very specific tasks that we need the robot to accomplish: collect raquet-balls from the ground in some way, sort between magnet-balls and regular ones, put them into crates, grasp and lift crates, rotate them, stack them--and, of course, good basic mobility is always important.
I spent much of my time just listening at first, which was already confusing to my thoroughly mechanically-illiterate brain.

Axle collars, nylon locking nuts, channels, bushings, long bolts and short bolts, threaded rods, servo motors...

Sorting all that out was just like BLUGHAGHH it'll take me the whole year just to figure out what everything means and how they work together so I'll never contribute to ideas for building the robot so why on earth did I sign up for this in the first place??

However, I'm getting there. I'm competent enough as a pair of working hands, at least, with enough experience now to know how to deal with the basic mechanics. I like to say that the scar on my knuckle is a battle scar, but it really is from when I accidentally scraped my hand across a gear while reaching for a hex key too hastily. Alix and I occasionally race to see who can get four bolts unattached from the steel channels first. I've beat her a few times.
We have lots of opportunities for these races, because we are constantly taking parts of the robot apart, tweaking them, and putting them together again.
It's like, we attach the mechanism to the robot, test, well that didn't work, what went wrong? let's try switching the gears around, detach the mechanism, do whatever, reattach. Test again.

It is so cool. You get to take the theoretical and make it real within a few hours--from an idea in the mind to a working prototype almost immediately. I'm learning a lot: problem-solving, teamwork, and new motor skills (heh), among other things. And when we actually get to drive the robot, it's like a video game in real life, which is just awesome.

So yeah, that's another way that I'm a geek. I create and fix really cool stuff, though that's not through much aptitude on my part. I just got the opportunity to be this kind of geek, and I took it.
If you ever get that opportunity, and you've got the time to spare, I advise you to take it.
It's definitely rewarding.

Davina Is A Geek

There is a picture at the bottom. If you don't feel like reading all this, you can just skip to the picture.

By geek, I mean language geek, to be more precise. Though I will admit that I have a distinct bias towards East Asian languages, since I'm most familiar with them after English.
I got so excited the other day when I was reading my Korean language book that I received for Christmas (see? I asked for that for Christmas = I am a language geek), and I could understand an entire written conversation without the use of translators. I suppose that would be rewarding for any student of any language, but this accomplishment was the product of countless hours poring over dubious sources on the internet, pasting words into multiple translators to see what they might really mean, attempting to translate song lyrics, documenting the uses of every single particle I discovered, and writing random Korean words over and over whenever I had pencil and paper to familiarize myself with the writing system.
So reading that conversation felt good. Really good.

One of the most discouraging things in the world is when you paste "dama" into Google Translate, and it comes out "dama."
I think I love and hate Google Translate at the same time. On one hand, the dictionary-ish thing that pops up for single words can be extremely helpful in figuring out various uses for them, and it's great for translating simple vocabulary terms that I just don't know--and for Chinese, the "read phonetically" function aids me tremendously, because it gives me the pinyin needed to type the characters. On the other hand, I will be frank: it's well known that the grammar is atrocious.  
"I like that cat better because it's prettier than other cats" in Chinese becomes "I prefer the cat, the cat because it is beautiful than the other."
Also, I don't know how much to trust the thing, period. I put "한치 (hanchi)" in once, trying to find out what it means after hearing it in a song, and I got "FLAMMABLE LIMIT". I don't think that was quite right.

I also have a love-hate relationship with my Mandarin Chinese course. Firstly, I love it simply because it's teaching me Chinese, and that is a language that I am totally ashamed to not already know. My parents are both fluent in Mandarin as well as a few other dialects. I feel like I should be, too. Most of my relatives speak Chinese. Some of them don't speak good English. I want to be able to talk to them.
One of the good things about the course is that it makes me write and read a lot, which is absolutely essential for any foreign language, but especially so for learning Chinese characters. Another good thing is that when we are given passages to read, my teacher never provides the pinyin (phonetic spelling of the characters, in case you didn't know) along with it. I know that other Chinese students can have problems with learning the actual characters when the pinyin is always included, because they end up just reading the alphabet they're familiar with in order to recognize words. I'm forced to memorize the characters themselves. No alphabet. Just words. MEMORIZE.
But then, my teacher also forgets to include pinyin when she's first teaching us new vocabulary. It took me a while to figure out that I had to just go to the course dictionary to find how to spell something. Before that, I just stared at the complicated characters, baffled as to how she expected us to just understand her sentences, grammar, sounds, new vocabulary, and all. Oh yeah, that's another thing. A lot of times she gives us long PowerPoint presentations to teach us new stuff, and there will be absolutely no translations inside. You have to figure everything out from prior knowledge and the pictures. Perhaps it's an attempt to simulate the way you'd learn through immersion. Just figure it out yourself.
I think that's a little similar to Rosetta Stone. Supposedly, you're going to "learn like a child." I wonder if that really works without actual immersion in a separate culture, where you'd be forced to use the new language all the time. Can you learn like a child while sitting at your computer and listening to one person's voice speak?
Maybe. I've survived through my course so far. All the same, I'd really like it if my teacher gave us translations.

If anyone asked me whether Korean or Chinese was harder--a question I think I've received at least once--I don't have a definitive answer. Both are really quite difficult for the native English speaker, but definitely not impossible for the dedicated student. Korean's writing system and phonetics are simple, a whole ton easier than the Chinese characters and tonal phonetics...but its complicated grammar structure and nearly inseparable connection to hierarchial Korean culture balance out any difficulty advantage that the alphabet provides. (Seriously, you use a different set of vocabulary and conjugate all your verbs differently depending on the societal status of the person you're speaking to.) Chinese grammar is a little more similar to English. IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING PICKING ONE OF THESE LANGUAGES TO LEARN, I RECOMMEND CHINESE, NOT BECAUSE IT IS MY HERITAGE AND I AM BIASED, BUT BECAUSE IT WILL PROBABLY SERVE MORE USEFUL IN YOUR FUTURE, AS CHINA IS A RISING WORLD POWER RIGHT NOW.  AND IF YOU WANT AN EASY LANGUAGE, JUST GO FOR A EUROPEAN ONE THAT IS RELATED TO ENGLISH. 

I haven't dabbled much in other languages. I took a little bit of Spanish when I was maybe ten, so I forget virtually all of that. I took an eight-week course in German once, but I forget most of that too. I tried learning Irish once. It's not as bad as Welsh, but the phonetics and spelling hardly made any sense to me, so I never really got past that. Japanese is one of those languages that I think I'll get to studying sometime in my future, but I'm not too interested at the moment. And Latin...eh. I learned that for a little while too. I will probably find my old books and go through them at some point soon, since I'm aiming to study biomedical stuffs, and it'll help.
Then, I'll learn Icelandic and Nahuatl and Aboriginal Australian. 'Cause I totally have the time. Pfft.

Oh wow. This is a pretty long post. I guess that suits the title.

 To make it even longer, here's a cool infographic I found:

New Year's Resolutions

I've never really made New Year's resolutions. I can't recall a single year when I made one, remembered it through the whole twelve months, and actually accomplished something about it by the end of December. Perhaps I didn't make resolutions because I was a little disillusioned, thinking that they didn't really work, and why do they have to be resolutions every new year? Why not just make resolutions throughout the year? Something like that. 
I still don't believe too much in New Year's resolutions--at least not as anything magical as I might be tempted to make them seem. Yes, I do believe that they can be useful, as in, the beginning of a new year is a convenient mark to begin implementing changes in one's life. But the changes can't happen all at once (though wouldn't that be nice?). It's slow. They'll take a while.

I am not articulating this as well as I hoped I would.

Anyway, I'm making New Year's resolutions and documenting them for the first time this year, because while they won't happen very quickly, at least it's a starting point. And starting points to slow change are better than not changing at all.

I want to draw closer to God.
This is my ultimate resolution for the year, the one that umbrellas over all the rest.
I had something of an emotional breakdown the other day, in which I basically realized that the way I'm living is all messed up--priorities, time management, and everything. It coincides with the fact that my spiritual life has been dry recently from neglecting to read the Word and neglecting to pray, among other things. I'm aiming to put my life back together in a structured way that optimizes my productivity for God's glory. And first things first, I need to put my Heavenly Father right in the middle of that structure. I need to know Him and learn to hear His voice, because without that, my soul will starve and search for fulfillment in all the wrong places.

In that vein, I want to read my Bible and pray every day.
The Bible is God's Word. The Bible is primarily how God speaks to me. Here, the living God is speaking, yet I so often forget to open these pages and listen to what He wants to say. If I want to know God, I've just gotta read my Bible! • THIS MEANS THAT ALL YOU READERS ARE GIVEN PERMISSION TO NAG ME AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE TO DO MY DEVOTIONS DAILY. IN FACT, I ASK YOU TO. PLEASE.
And as for prayer... I read a Desiring God blog post a while ago that dealt with being spiritually lukewarm, which is to be self-satisfied with your spiritual condition: essentially, complacent. Complacency is one of the most dangerous places to be. The opposite? Needy. How do I know if I'm needy? Well, how much do I pray? Praying consistently, praying like a beggar who desperately needs grace in everything, praying as a child learning to talk to her Father, praying for joy, holiness, boldness--without it, I don't know how I expect myself to grow in godliness at all.

I also want to manage my time well.
I don't. 
Procrastination--and its cousin, time-wasting--have not served me in my attempts to read my Bible regularly or bless my mom by doing housework or reach for excellence in playing piano. I feel like I've allowed school to swallow my life, and it really doesn't have to. 
Randy Pausch has an extremely insightful and helpful lecture on time management. I am hoping to implement his ideas in my scheduling and planning as 2012 begins. I recommend bookmarking that video and watching it when you have an hour or so to spare. It is really, really good. (Alternatively, it's also available as an mp3 download on iTunesU.)

I want to get organized.
Right now, my desk is in okay-shape, but I don't have any concrete filing system for my papers, nor a good place nearby to put all my textbooks. Woe is me. Did you know that when your necessary materials for an assignment are not within an accessible distance, it becomes incredibly easy to procrastinate and just not do the assignment? Maybe that only happens for me, but oh does it happen. This is probably one of the things I'll need to spend a lot of effort on early in the year, so I can be prepared for the rest of 2012.
The other thing that needs to get organized is my room, which currently looks like a junk-pile with an unmade bed in the corner. I'm probably going to need to throw a lot of things away and designate specific places for everything else. Keeping my room clean, or at least making a system that makes it very simple to clean, is one of my main goals this year. 

I want to take good care of my body.
Mostly meaning exercise more and sleep more. I've become a weak vegetable of a human lately from sitting around all day. I did two pushups a few days ago, and it made my arms sore. It's absolutely pathetic. That needs to change. Exercising my core muscles will also probably help with my back pain that comes when I stand up too long. I strengthened that before when I was actually doing physical therapy for my back, and it worked. So I'm gonna try to do it again. And more pushups. I hate how weak my arms are.
Sleeping is equally, if not more important. I know it's essential for any teenager, but I also know that fatigue triggers my epilepsy, so I think I have to be more conscientious and careful about my sleeping patterns than I have been for the past few years. Time management plays a lot into this!

I want to learn to be a joyful servant.
To family, friends, and community at large. 'Nuff said.

Aaaand that's all I can think of for now. 
Welcome, new year! 
I am gonna DO stuff.