Fourteen hour flight to Hong Kong actually wasn't that bad. o_o Cathay Pacific is amazing. Can't believe I wasted the first hour or so browsing through their lame games. And only after did I realize their extensive selection of movies and TV shows. ;__; Watched Definitely, Maybe, Rain Man, and Chaos Theory. But..but..still had Memento, The Other Boleyn Girl, etc. on my list! And..and..Pushing Daisies and ANTM, too!

AND HOUSE.

/giggles.

Blah, kind of tired now, though. Napped after we got to GuangZhou and then dinner with the family but still sleepy. :X Which is good, I guess...

Traveling leaves so much time to actually think. Like leisurely thinking. Like not zomg-let's-blow-your-brains-out-with-test-material-lulz thinking.

But I never take advantage of it. Meh. As soon as I have time, I just plug into my iPod and zone out.

Anyway, can't wait to go shopping. :) Boo, totally forgot about the devil mosquitoes here, though. ;__;

(Half a world closer but still far away)

Ah, yes. Non Sequitur day-to-day calendar to the rescue yet again. Ties everything together, sort of.

Mm..leaving for China tonight. Don't know if I'm excited or not. Kind of a meh thing now since it seems to happen yearly. :X

Guess I should be excited. D: Gah, I feel so spoiled: flying halfway across the world and hardly a tinge of emotion.

I'll be back on the thirtieth. Thereby missing orientation. D: a;lskfj;. Mehh..parents still plan trips that get us home five or less days before school starts even though it's been four years of orientations-at-least-a-week-before-school-starts. Bah, more whinewhinebitchbitch.

Mm, okay. I'll try to turn this entry around into a more happy tone. :) Finally read attica and Tierfal's new fanfics the other night. Not quite as...charmed by them as by their previous works, but I can't exactly be a critic now since my fanfiction high has settled. =\ Wait, or maybe that..would make me a critic. D: Whatever! I don't know! I got about six hours of sleep last night! Can't function on that much sleep in the summer! (Woohoo, more exclamation marks.)

Okay, fine. So my transition skills suck.

Guess the upside to China is that I won't be cooped up at home watching House all day? Huh..that sounds almost punny. And...and..shopping! Haven't gone shopping since...ever. O_o China shopping! Cute and inexpensive. :3 And the food! P: The delicious, yummy foood. ::mouth waters::

Fine. So I guess I am excited.

Anyway, I'll end the rambling now. Have a merry August, everyone. :)

(25 days until...until..!)

It also marks the first day I've realized that my "Hm, I Think I'll Post Everyday Until I Leave for China Plan" has gone awry. Wait. Only didn't post for one day. Whatever. Plan has still been...kerploosh'd.

Also! I've started painting something! On my own! And it's making me feel..alive?! And also making me feel an unnecessary urge to end each sentence with an exclamation mark! Yay! No more all-day House marathons! Not that that was a bad thing? Sorta. Still stuck in season one. ::must finish season one by Wednesday:: Only four more episodes!

Wheee. :)

[edit] 1 hour progress (I think this is the fastest I've ever gotten so far in this amount of time with painting. o_o):

Haha, due to my lack of an actual easel, I have to resort to using a kiddie whiteboard. :P

Kay, piano tiems.

Wake up. House. Lunch. House. America's Best Dance Crew (I'm caught up!). Piano. Wastetimewastetimewastetime. Eat.

Eat.

House(=] smile.)sleep(I went to sleep before midnight last night?! gasp. when was the last time that happened?)dream(do I even do this anymore? can't remember any of my dreams anymore. except this weird one I had last night. wait...I can't remember that one either. =\).

I'm waiting for something.

God, Sarah, is this how you want to spend the rest of your summer?

Why, yes. Yes, it is.

(Incoherent entries. I'm getting enough sleep, though! Half-days. The other half is...meh'd away.)

Time: the two of us always said she was a jealous bitch.

Actually, that was just me.

Right.

I feel like I'm just existing right now. Just being. But is that really so bad? Don't really feel like doing anything. Sighing every ten seconds. Or maybe eleven. What does it even matter?

Four days left. And four seasons of House. How quaint. No one to run to during the scary parts. Not that there were any that were truly scary to begin with (except maybe when that sorta schizophrenic mom started vomiting blood. That was kinda freaky). Just needed someone there to babble to.

Don't even know what I'm saying. Babblebabblebabble. Babel. Maybe I just want to have an entry up today. Feel like I've been neglecting poor Choco-latte again for too long. Poor, poor Choco-latte. Maybe a post tomorrow? Who knows? Maybe everyday until I'm gone? That sounds morbid.

Ew, this post sounds so depressing. In a blah mood right now. I just want to go home?

I don't even know what this all means. When in doubt: enigma!

To Be Read on a Much Too Long Airplane Trip to China and Back (can't be complete without a list, right?):

• The Devil Wears Prada
• A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
• The Neverending Story
• The Tipping Point

(Note to self: Sarah has a story. Sadie's, art class, Friday nights. I doubt I'll look back here when I need to remember. Pity.)

End: 9:22 PM. 3 hours and 48 minutes. Then it's another 30 days.

How lonely.

So! What has Sarah been doing in all this valuable time? Being productive, of course. Cough.

Oh, hey. Whaddyaknow. A list:

• Finished watching Firefly and Serenity and am in love. :) Simon x Kaylee, ftw!
• Still catching up on season two of America's Best Dance Crew. Meh. Season one was better. =\
• Started watching House and am likewise in love. :)

Other stuff on my To Watch list (another list! Aren't you excited?!):

• America's Next Top Model seasons 4-9 (?!!)
• Project Runway seasons 2-5 (?!)
• The Office
• Pushing Daisies
• Design Star season 2
• Veronica Mars
• Scrubs

Okay, so maybe I could be doing something a bit more productive than compiling lists and probably not acting upon them. >_>

BUT HEY. I've been out and about taking pictures and stuff! And getting fresh air! And exercising! (gasp) Um, sort of. Anyway, here's a filler photo from my exercising adventures (cough):

Have a great summer. :) Cheeeeers.

• 2006: Warm Embraces on a Bittersweet Day
• 2007: only the beginning (but why does it feel like an end?)

Three year of goodbyes, but it feels like it's been so much longer.

I can't really describe what I'm feeling now, and I don't know what to say that I haven't said already for the past two summers. I feel like a part of me is gone (once again). And, I guess, in a lot of ways, something is (as always).

I'm trying to refrain from writing something hopelessly sappy and make it sound exactly like what I've written before. And I'm trying too hard to write something meaningful when what this is can't be put into words. And the exact same thing happens every summer.

Would it be okay to end this and say that [insert sappy quotes from '06 and '07 entries here]? Because at the end of every summer, it's the same feeling.

The only difference is that this feeling grows stronger every year.

Inspiration is like picking up one of those blinky things in a video game that makes you invincible for awhile. You can do anything, go anywhere, and you don’t have to worry about it.

Those blinky things exist in real life too. It may be a picture, or some words, or a sound, or a idea, or a mistake, or a moment. Whatever it is, pick it up and run with it. Run with it like you stole it.

You can’t bottle up inspiration. You can’t put it in a ziplock, toss it in the freezer, and fish it out later. It’s instantly perishable if you don’t eat it while it’s fresh.

. . .

Inspiration is a magical thing, a productivity multiplier, a motivator. But it won’t wait for you. Inspiration is a now thing. If it grabs you, grab it right back and put it to work.

Via Signal vs. Noise.

I don't even remember what this feels like.

She met him first on a Monday night in March. He had only glanced at her for a moment that night, but she had seen the world reflected in his ocean-deep eyes.

It was love at first sight.

He instantly became everything she lived for. There were afternoons spent with his head cradled in her arms as he slept. She would leave butterfly kisses upon his doll-like eyelids and listen to the metronomic rhythm of his breathing, of his heartbeat. And there were times she would stay awake all night because he had needed her. And on those nights, she knew she needed him even more.

But he wasn’t perfect. She knew that, too.
Because there were times as time went on when she would scream at him in utter exasperation. But at the same time, she would wonder whether she was to blame for the way he acted. Perhaps it was her fault, always her fault.

After all, she wasn’t perfect either.

And there was a time when he grew distant. A time when she knew there were other girls in his life. She knew it wasn’t her place to be jealous. It was his life. He had to move on someday.

She just wished someday hadn’t come so soon.

But he had come back to her. She didn’t remember how long it was until then for it seemed like longer than she could ever put into words. But he had come back, and it was all that mattered.

And she had accepted him. How could she not? She embraced him with arms that had never been quite as widely open for anyone else. She embraced him with even more love than she had years earlier. He reassured her that she had not lost him. She would not lose him. He would be there for her just as she had for him.

He had left five years earlier.

She sits in the same room she had first met him in forty years ago. He was my first, she says, cradling a fading photograph in her hands. My only.

There is another photograph in the room. It is turned face down on the uncomfortably sterile table by her side.

It is him.

He is grinning confidently into the camera as he stands before a well-known flag of red, white, and blue, representing the same confidence he has. It was taken two years before he left.

He could never return to her now. She would be the one who would have to return to him. Tell him we’ll be seeing each other soon, she whispers, a shadow of a smile tugs at the frayed edges of her aged lips.

It is the third of March, and the dying sun is casting its long golden fingers upon the immaculate tiles of the hospital floor. He would have been exactly forty that night. She knows. She has been counting. She doesn’t even remember her own age. She had stopped counting the day he left.

She is a mother.
And he is her son.

So what has Sarah been up to? Hey, a list! Har.

• SAT Bio studying! Hah, more like procrastinating for it, though (i.e. spending an entire afternoon on this. ::shamelessly pimps art::). I'm kinda worried that it's in less than two weeks. ::cough:: And there's a science project due the following Monday (kinda have to sorta start this, too). Oh, and not to mention my Chinese final next week. ;_; And, uh, finals in general.
• Badminton! Letsee...played mostly doubles with Jenny. I think we won all our games. Haha. I lost my first (singles) game, though. Newark's gym is intimidating. ;_; And freaking awesome. Especially compared to Mission's dinky (dinky!) gym room (i.e. eight courts with two closed off for sitting down on during home games).
• ... ::sobs:: My iPod broke. Curse those (literally) rotten locker room lockers evil holey (no pun intended. LULZ?) metal drawers. Thank goodness for free mp3 players? Even if their carrying capacity (Bio!) is only about eighty songs. =\
• Phoenix! Hee, can't wait to see the magazine.
• And other things. ;)

Also: watched Iron Man on Friday with Meghana, Janvi, Jamie, and Madhu and Prince Caspian on Saturday. Iron Man was epic. That is all. Oh, except the lack of kissing was lame. Come on, just one kiss, at least? ;\ Prince Caspian, I thought, in terms of storyline wasn't as good as The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but the war scenes were amazing. Which is saying a lot considering how boring I think typical war scenes are. It was really LotR-y at times, though. The ending was absolutely amazing, though. Can't go wrong with Prince Caspian + Susan (heehee!) and Regina Spektor! :)

I need to write more. Anything, really. Even fanfiction (haven't touched it in months, and I don't know if that's a good or bad thing). Or nonsensical ramblings.

And finally: summer is coming! And that means ATDP! And that means TIC! And that means...everything! :D

(Strawberry guacamole is surprisingly good.)
(I really want a yellow sundress. And a giant whiteboard. And summer.)
(Summer, most of all.)

Happy Memorial Day weekend?

Full size.

Sooo. This must be the reason why I fail my Chinese history tests. >_>;

But it was fun. :)

Hee, so basically, I wanted to pimp out Janvi's awesome birthday gift. :D

Thanks everyone for the birthday-ness. :D (Even though this is almost two weeks late. Har.)

For some reason, this past birthday wasn't as exciting as the ones before. I blame it on school (::coughsciencetestcough::).

Now, back to sort-of-but-not-really studying!, i.e.:

I think I compiled this box after elementary school because I never have the heart to throw away stuff like pretty Disneyland ads (and it was really really really pretty) and tangled ribbon after a somewhat but not really huge change in my life. I must say that I decreased the size of the contents of that box by half today. XD Partly because I no longer had any use for some of it; mostly because I wanted to let go of most of it, and the memories that are attached to them.

A list of some of the junk I found in this box:

Kevin Tran's coloured pencil, Jenny's Confucius worksheet, Gary's and Monica's and Connie's random schoolwork that I found between pages of textbooks, erasers, stickers, paperclip chains (remember when they were all the rage? No? Okay, so maybe I was just a strange little child.), pen nubs, photos, a floppy disk (LOL.), student council pins, ribbons, silly putty, a clay duck head, party supplies, Disneyland and Discover card ads (XD), a "future letter", and newspaper clippings.

I also found a list. It was written by my fifth grade teacher (I'll always refer to her as my fifth grade teacher although she taught me in sixth grade, as well.). I've forgotten exactly under what circumstances the list was written, but I'm pretty sure it was because my performance in sixth grade disappointed her after what she'd seen what I'd done in fifth grade.

Fifth grade was one of the best school years ever. Actually, I'm pretty sure it was the only school year that I have conscious memory of that I liked at all. It wasn't just Mrs. Brooks that made fifth grade what it was, but it was also the class; there seemed to be something I can only describe as magical that went on between all of us. I mean, it's not that I liked everyone in the class. There's certainly a handful of people that were in my fifth grade class that I would want nothing to do with today, but it seemed as though we kind of tolerated each other a bit more. Especially after a certain incident that caused all to band together. Kind of. XD

Sixth grade just wasn't the same. It was a new class, with only one other person from my original fifth grade class. And I can definitely (but reluctantly) say that I've come to dislike some of the people in that class a bit more because we were in the same class. There was something missing during sixth grade. Mrs. Brooks was still the best teacher ever, but I felt like I couldn't achieve the same things among the people in that class.

So back to the list. She wrote it as a suggestion to replace some of my papers. Probably because I seemed to be bored, or I wasn't performing "over, above, and beyond" as she always used to say.

Regrettably, I never did any of the things on that list, except item three (it was a 150+ page report, I think).

Mrs. Brooks retired after I graduated from elementary school. The last I saw her was some time during junior high. I've wanted to write her another letter for so long, but I never seem to have the time to do so. And when I do have the time, I never seem to remember. I don't know where she is now. I don't even know if she's still...with us. And part of me doesn't want to find out.

I'm going to complete that list. There's no "maybe" or "we'll see". Not on this goal. I will do it. I am going to do it. I must.

Actually, I didn't have any homework at all today. O_o; Must be the calm before the storm. The storm being midterms, of course.

Well, anyway, I came across this community: all_unwritten, which was featured in LJ Spotlight, or whatever. Basically, a word or phrase prompt is posted each day, and you can write a weblog post based on it! Hah.

I thought it might be interesting to try out this summer, though the prompts seem to be more suitable for drabbles/vignettes. (Speaking of drabbles, I think I've decided to start the 100 Words project. It probably won't go so well, though. D:) Of course, there's already enough of those prompt sites to go around. Sooo....blah. I hate how I always plan to do all this stuff over the summer, but then I end up not doing it. Meh.

On another note, isn't it funny (I mean, certainly not haha-funny) how you can anticipate having a conversation with a person, but said person doesn't even recognize you? Just a thought. Kind of.

To write: football player's wife (though I'm not sure I want to anymore. Bah.)