Sunday, October 30, 2011

Holy crap I'm a SENIOR!

As I get older and get further into my education, I have to admit that there is more of a challenge in each of my classes. Each one of my classes are getting much harder and the amount of work are much greater. However, this kind of challenge and work is somewhat an expected thing. It's just that, I didn't really expect this much work would be ahead of me.

Of all the upperclassmen I've met during my high school years, most of them said that my junior year would prove to be the most difficult one and the one that would count the most since most colleges will tend to look at my junior year the most because of all the hype with HSPA while my senior year will be more of a relaxing year where I don;t have to do as much work as I did the previous year. I believed them.

Now that I'm on my senior year, what I believed were all wrong. Senior year proved to be the toughest one out of all high school years. It required more work and stress. There are just piles of work on top of one another and the due dates does not help either. Most likely, the due dates of my assignments are right next to each other and it's just really hard to keep up. Every assignments are very time consuming, resulting less sleep for me and bringing massive amount of stress. Not only that, college essays and college applications have to be done perfectly in order to give me a sigh of relief and hope that I would be accepted into the school I want to go after high school. It's just really hard to balance things out especially when there are interruptions such as clubs, sports, events at school, and my social life...hey I'm a 17-year-old high school student, give me some slack on the social life part.

I can say that I spend a good amount of time on homework, depending on how hard it is or time I must spend on it. Most likely, I would pay greater attention to an assignment that requires more thinking like a project than simple problems from a workbook or worksheet. I would say that I spend at least 7-8 hours per night on homework, if I don't fall asleep all of a sudden. Most of the time, I try to pull an all-nighter or squeeze in at least 2-3 hours of sleep everyday if I'm lucky. It's been a long time since I last slept a good 7-9 hours.

I've definitely noticed a huge change in the amount of homework being assigned. Like I mentioned before, as I get further in my education, the more I see myself facing greater challenges. It just gets harder and harder every year. But perhaps the reason why there is a big change in the amount of homework is because we have advanced greatly as a society in terms of technology and knowledge. There are more things for us students to educationally cover.

I would be lying if I said that I don't learn anything when I'm doing my homework because I actually do. The things that sometimes don't understand in class, I tend to understand later on while doing my homework. When it comes to describing myself as a student, I think I'm in between those students who do homework right away as soon as they're assigned and procrastinating..I have to admit that I procrastinate a lot and I get distracted easily.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Leave Me Alone!

I've always valued my alone time just as much as when I am surrounded with people. I love being with people, I love surrounding myself with the people I love and care about. However, I also keep a certain limit as to how much time I give to people and to myself. I am the type of person who keeps that balance between being with people and giving time to myself. To me, hanging out with my family and friends is the time for me to just spend some qulaity time with them and have a fun time. Being with them helps me forget the problems that hovers around me and lets me release stress.

At the same time, I like the idea of being by being alone. There are times where I would prefer to isolate myself from everything and everyone. I never minded being alone. I know there are those who cannot stand a single second being alone and are afraid to be alone - maybe because they don’t want  to be perceived as being a lonely individual by other people or perhaps they have other reasons for not wanting to be alone. But as for me, I enjoy my time being alone and don't mind being by myself. An ideal alone time for me would be in my room or just sitting or lying down at a serene place. For me, it’s sort of relaxing. I like the quiet atmosphere when im alone. It gives me that special time to think about different things, like a self-reflection time for me. I could just close my eyes and dream. It's a way for me to get out of reality, especially when my reality is at its worst.

At this point in my life, I am dying to have some alone time for myself. There is just so much chaos going on and I feel like i cannot breathe. All I really need is to take a breather and just sit down for awhile and think about certain things - about what I really want in my life, doing things that will make me happy, who am I really as a person...personal things. That’s all I really need and want in my life as of right now.

Like I have mentioned before, i don't really do much when I'm alone. My ideal atmosphere when im alone is just sitting or lying down at a serene place, whether it may be in my room or somewhere else, while listening to mellow, slow songs. I have always loved the peacefulness being alone brings. Also, I can be just myself, my very own persona. It’s a time for me to release all the emotions I refuse for others to see. When something troubles me and I feel like crying, I usually control it since I hate it when people see me cry. That is when I love being alone the most, I can just let all my emotions and frustrations out.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Music is Universal.

If you were to ask me how important is music to my life my answer would probably be this: Words cannot describe how important music is to my life. It’s everything to me and perhaps most of my life revolve around it. It’s quite ignorant of those who consider music as a background noise. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who could possibly hate music. To me, music brings different feeling and mood to my life. It may sound kind of cliche, but music gives color to my life. in a way, music let’s me connect to my inner soul...something deep within me.

Music brings this whole emotion into my life. There are times where it may seem that my world has fallen and I have hit rock bottom, in which I feel like there is no one who I can confide to. I tend to put on my own music and somehow, just hearing the melodies and the lyrics always makes me feel a lot better than before. I don’t know how I would survive without music. Everywhere I go, my ipod has to go with me. I can’t go anywhere without my ipod in my purse. If I were given a choice to choose between my phone and my ipod, I think I would end up choosing my ipod in the end. And whenever I would go on road-trips, I wouldn’t be able to last an hour without my songs...of course, there’s always the radio, but the songs can get repetitive and I always end up hating the songs that are constantly being played on the radio. I prefer my own music.

Music is important to me because...well, would it be easy enough to understand how important music is to me if I say I’m just a natural music lover? I think that says it all right?

Music tends to stir something inside me almost all the time I hear a tune; whether it may be a fun-loving track that would make me want to stand up and dance, a catchy tune that makes me want to sing along, or just simply a mellow song that will make want to lie on the ground and think about deep things. Somehow, it never fails to thrill me inside.

The types of music that gives me inspirations are the types that has can connect to my own personal experiences, the kinds that leaves me thinking and wondering. Meanwhile, there are those kind of songs that leaves me cold such as sad music, Though, I prefer mellow songs over hyped up, upbeat tunes; mellow songs makes me cold...but I guess that’s the reason why sad songs are called “sad”.

Music is universal. That is my motto when it comes to music. I don’t really pay discriminate music by their genres or languages. If I happen to like a song that is in a different genre than what I normally listen to, or it’s in a different language; I will listen to it. If I like a song, I like. PERIOD. If you were to take a glance of my playlists on my ipod, you would notice that it is a mixture of different genres of music: from hip-hop/rap, techno, pop, rock, electronic, house, and of course indie. You would also notice that there are some songs that are in different languages such as English, Spanish, Filipino, Korean, Japanese, French, Italian, etc. I just love music and I don’t stick to one particular type of music. Sure, I prefer a certain genre of music over another (I’m mostly an Indie lover) but I like to go out of my Indie circle and find other good music. Just as long the songs contains some meaning...

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Hello?...Are You There?

Over time, the world has advanced greatly - both socially and technology. I can't even put into words how huge technology is in  many people's lives and how it helps connect people all together. It would
be rather hard for us to do our everyday chores and live in a certain comfort. One of the biggest technological advancement humans have made was the invention of the cellphone. The cellphone is one of the reasons, along with computers and the internet, as to why the world is so closely connected with one another. It would be quite difficult if we were to live without it...even just thinking how the world would work if the cellphone was never invented at all. Of course, I am not implying that we should revolve our whole world into such a small device that would be replaced every now and then for a much newer and slicker device. And once again, it is only a phone after all. Some of us may keep a phone in their pockets all the time: every hour, every minute, every second of the day. They are constantly on it whether it may be talking, texting, or video chatting through it - even to the extend where they are talking to their friends through it when they're right next to each other. Meanwhile, some can function normally without having it by them at, well...not with them all the time. They don't go crazy if it's not in their hands.

As for me, I would say I'm right in the middle of these two spectrums. I can function fine and normally as a normal human being without it. I get to do things without it. Sometimes, I prefer not having it near me because I get to take a breather from everything and from the fast way of society. If I have a problem, I choose to turn off my phone and focus on something different. There's always a time in my day where don't have my phone with me at all and I'm fine without it.

If phones were never invented or if the entire phone network collapsed for sic months, I don't think I would be able to do things the way I normally would do them such as do my homework - yes it's possible -, go online, and be updated to what's new. It would be very hard to connect through other people and meet new people. Cellphone has always provided us humans with such things. And to wonder how life would be like without it, is quite unimaginable. 

Although, there is also a positive thing about it never being invented or having the phone network collapse for six months. Gossips and bullying would cease to exist. We would have more time for things and would be able to see things differently in ways that we would have never thought we would be able to see when we had our eyes locked into our phone screens the whole time.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Hotwheels.

There are many things that I notice about other drivers whether I’m sitting in the car as a passenger or it's me sitting on the driver’s seat - or even just watching people drive in front of my house while I sit on my front porch. The things I notice about people driving cars depends on many variables such as their facial expressions while driving. That’s probably the most obvious thing as well as the first thing i notice about other drivers. Facial expressions can give you so much things about a driver - it can tell you if they’re pissed off or happy, if they’re tired or wide awake; but sometimes you just can’t tell at all. I also notice the outfit that they’re wearing, somehow I can tell whether or not they are going somewhere very important; perhaps going to work or even just driving to the nearest store to do some errands. I know it’s pretty weird how I tend to notice these things...

Believe it or not, there are some real differences between drivers. It may seem as if there are not any differences at all, but there are...even in the smallest possible way. We all drive differently and have different habits when we drive. There are those who drive like maniacs, as if they’re a bunch of animals that have been just released from a cage running around after being locked up for a very long time. I tend to call those drivers a-holes...perhaps I shouldn’t use such profanity in an English assignment, so let’s just call them jerks. And yet, there are those who are safe, cautious drivers. Oh and let us not forget those drivers that driver very slowly, which is kind of irritating most of the time especially when you are in a hurry.

As a driver my self, I have seen other drivers do crazy and dangerous things. And no lie, I have done some crazy things while driving; however, I haven’t had the guts to do some extremely dangerous things like racing on the road at midnight. There are those who are driving while intoxicated or are under illegal substances (this is what I would call stupidity in my opinion).  I’ve seen people do that before and I refuse to do the same. Like what I was saying, I have done some crazy things. But I like to call them bad habits. One of the things I do plenty of times, and I know I’m not the only one, is texting or talking on the phone while driving. Temptation kills...and not answering the phone when someone is calling or when you’ve just received a message, it’s pretty tempting. But I think I’ve gotten better with such temptations as time passes by.

You could see into a person’s personality by just the way they drive; of course, it may not tell you many things, but there are things that you can pick out from just the way a person drives. An example would be a driver who speed drives on a sub-divisional road (going 45 mph on a 25mph) while his engine roars by. I can tell that that person loves to show off in front of people and thinks that he’s a big shot.

Just as you may though that you already know a person well by just watching them drive; the next thing you know, your judgement has deceived you. There are definitely those drivers that act totally different when they’re behind the wheel and when they’re not. The jerk that cut you while driving might turn out to be the nicest person you have ever met. You can’t fully judge a person and their personalities by just the way they drive.

So far, I have been fortunate enough to not be involved in a car accident...and let’s just hope that it stays that way for the rest of my driving career.

Obviously, I’d want to be the type of driver that never gets into car accidents and is a defensive driver. Someone who can react quickly when something goes wrong on the road. I’ve had my few shares of close calls and thank god for my fast reactions. The models that I’d want to follow would be my dad because he’s a very cautious driver especially when he knows that his family is in the car.