Response to Gary Kamiya's Shame

I really don't know enough about what's going on in Iraq to feel justifiably angry, sad, etc. I just know that we started up a war over there, and I don't give a damn about why. I just know that wars are a stupid and illogical way to end problems, and anybody who causes them should go to hell.

So should I feel shameful? Sometimes I hesitate to tell people I come from America. It doesn't matter that I'm a first generation American. I am one nonetheless. And despite the fact that I am almost powerless, I feel despair. Despair, because I am a child with nothing but an unheard voice.

If I could go to Iraq and tell every one of them I'm sorry, I would. If I could make them understand each individual person in America, I would. If somehow they could forgive the rashness and heedlessness of those who arrest teenage girls for speaking out on their MySpaces and ignore the decaying foundations of our country, then I hope they would.

But forgiveness is for the shameful. Maybe only the decisions of one group of people caused this war, but all of us are equally responsible for hiding our voices. If we are the obstacles to war, to hell, then we'd better not run and hide when the mad bull comes crashing through.

Because our enemies aren't those on the other side of the battlefield. Our enemies are those who put the damn battlefield together.

[Happy Halloween, everyone! Go and trick-or-treat while you're still young enough to get away with it! <3]

Posted by Alina at 9:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...third place at the Piedmont volleyball tournament.

Well, 8:00 am at school, then we drove to Piedmont and basically played until noon. I'm so sore I could be 85 years old. We got there and watched WCI beat Stanley into the ground (note: I acknowledge that the individual Stanley players don't suck. They have some good player, but good gracious they need teamwork.) Then we played Dorris-Eaton and lost like crazy. After that we were warmed up a bit, and we beat Stanley and WCI. Then we played in the Semi-Finals, lost to Piedmont by TWO POINTS (-cry-), then played Foothill in the compensation game for third and fourth place. We pounded them into the DIRT (eherm...xD~) in time to see Piedmont getting slaughtered by Dorris-Eaton. There were some teams from the other pool that we didn't play (Moraga, Benicia, and King), but I'm not complaining. No kidding, I hurt.

After that I went home for a few hours, then I had piano. My drawing got rescheduled to 6, so I picked up Connie for a sleepover and she went with me, and basically hung around for an hour while I worked on my art contest entry. I'll take a picture and post it when I'm done.

Now Connie's passed out in a sleeping bag after watching too much Friends when we should have been working on the yearbook cover, and as much as I should be sleepy, I'm really kind of hyper. Yeesh. x.x

Posted by Alina at 12:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

FIREFOX 2.0!

Posted by Siu-Yuan at 4:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Yearbook cover lineart: 70% finished
Yearbook inside page background, inked: unstarted
Practice for flute recital
Practice for piano exams
Practice for piano recital
Practice keyboard for Winter Concert
Find someplace to do service project: unstarted
Asian Art Contest Entry: ~60% finished (aka 40% unfinished .__.)
French Project: 10% finished
Kumon: so unfinished it's not funny

I'm...so screwed. xD

Posted by Alina at 9:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Alina, there's some validation errors in your YAR HAR...post. I haxxed into your post to fix it...but I guess it didn't completely fix. ^_^; Eww, I'm sick. I think I'll get a note tomorrow to get out of running.

Posted by Siu-Yuan at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

03History 8 Skrivan Citz: S Fails to suit up for PE

Um, sorry. I didn't know I was supposed to change for history class.

(And that is all. Surprisingly we didn't get mauled by Amra today. A bunch of people wanted some of the orly cake though. It was funny. Connie tried to cut the cake into slices, but all the layers were like, falling off of each other. Each plate just ended up having a bunch of wonderful bits of cake. Mmm. Gotta love that sugar and trans fat.)

I'll update later. I was hella tired today...totally bombed the volleyball game...I tried to spike from the back row, hahaha. [must go to sleep before midnight! :<]

Posted by Alina at 11:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...something something pirate >.>"

I just got back from Columbus Weekend vacation. I lived on a house boat in a remote outlet of a lake for three days and two nights. It was great. Nothing but the trees and the water. Of course, nothing would no include the boat, the people (the houseboat belonged to our old real estate agent and her husband), my little hidey-hole that was the storage attic of the houseboat, and the occasional vulture/chipmunk/fish. Take your pick. Oh, and they had this really awesome dog named Mochi.

I got back home today, watched some Friends, ate lunch, watched more friends, took a shower, and then went to Connie's house. When I got there, Connie, Emily, Katie, and Rachel were all in Connie's room, all harrassing Connie's poor computer. You know computers have feelings too. That's why they'll all take over the world one day. Anyways, we played around for a while, then we went into the living room to bake a cake. Two cakes, actually, but we cut them into layers and stacked them into one really awesome cake. We spent, like, 10 minutes beating each bowl of cake mix with the beater on max speed, then Connie couldn't find the ovenmit, so I wrapped a bunch of towels around my hand and shoved the pans into the oven. I only burned my thumb once.

Anyways, I set the timer, then we went outside to play with Connie's ping pong table, except as soon as we'd uncovered the tables and gotten out the paddles and everything, Rachel, Katie, and Emily all notice that Connie has her pet rabbit in a wooden cage in the backyard. So I'm playing Rachel pingpong while Connie shows Katie and Emily her rabbit. They let it run around the backyard for a while. Zomgs so fuzzy. I swear Katie's going to make it into a hat though. We decimated, like, 5 roses so we could feed the rabbit the petals. x.x" Then Connie tried to give it plate of water, but the laws of liquids owned her face and all the water went onto a pile of rose petals we'd been feeding the rabbit. You know you can't water a pile of petals, right? You can't even water the rose directly while it's on the plant. (Haha, jk. Don't brick my window while I'm sleeping.)

So, back to the cake. We stacked it and cut all the sides so it was nice and even, then covered the whole thing in frosting and put M & Ms all over the edges. Connie made some M & M flowers too, and I wrote 'orly?' on top with icing. Gotta love the orly cake. Then we pigged our faces out on the leftover pieces. We put frosting on them too, so now I've got like, 50 kajillion calories to run on during volleyball practice tomorrow. Probably a good thing, since we're probably doing like, 50 full court lines. -sigh- And I'm going to get even more soon, because they decided to bring the cake to school. And guess who's locker it's going in?

Leadership meeting tomorrow. I'm going to have to move all my books before that to make room for something very sugary and full of trans fat. If Katie's late I'm going to kick her locker door in because I don't know the combo.

Posted by Alina at 9:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Friday

Minimum day. All of the periods were about thirtyish minutes long. Then, we were allowed to go home for an hour before marching practice. I didn't go home because I didn't have a ride, so I stayed and did my math homework, which was oddly satisfying. O_O Then our band director forced me bring a friggin piccolo home. I...don't...like piccolos...They're so high and little and weird. They're SO HARD TO PLAY! =OOO

Marching practice was uneventful, except for the fact that people actually started to TRY since we had a competition the next day. Then we had to polish our stuff for the next day. -____-; Things got EVEN BETTER at pep band. *coffcoff*

Whee, got to go home. Tried to play the piccolo and failed. Ate dinner, left for pep band, which, btw, is the very bane of my existance.

Ah, pep band. I brought some hot tea in this thermos that I never used to before. Bad mistake. ALWAYS KNOW WHERE THE LIQUID COMES OUT OF YOUR THERMOS. It's very important. I have a stupid burn on my chin now. Hmph. I was too tired for pep band. Band review the next day.

Posted by Siu-Yuan at 8:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Weblog entry on Petaluma Band Review coming soon...kinda tired right now. Also, I think I'll take over our band's website. Lemme send the webmaster an e-mail. @_@

Posted by Siu-Yuan at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Heh. I'm not really sure what I can do, Lloyd. Maybe I don't really understand what's going on, but that's fine. There're a lot of things I don't understand. I'm not even sure I can grasp a vague notion, but all I need to do is type, right?

Here's the thing. Humans are idiots in so many ways. But in the way humans deal with other humans,. The people around me are wonderful - the sensible middle-class of America. And how is it that people with such amazing minds are dominated by the freaking war-machines that make up our government? Everywhere I go, I hear the voices of people, and I look at the govenment and see something else happening. It's as if we speak and they can hear only what they wish to.

I said there are things I don't understand, didn't I? Here's one of them.

When you want an answer from someone, you ask them the question, don't you? Maybe they don't answer, but you still want to know. You persist, jumping at them insitently, even when they turn a shoulder and try to ignore you. It's an instinct - you don't stop until you have what you want. But the person answers, and the answer angers you. Anger boils into hatred, hatred into blindness - and when you can see again, the world is upside down.

You'd think someone would have realized it by now. And yet...

Torture brings nothing and destroys everything. There's no justification to it, morally or practically. To break into someone's mind with pain...it destroys a life, another mind in a world that is run by minds. It breaks down a person until there's nothing left but rubble, everything valuable crushed and destroyed in the fires of agony. You learn one thing and lose everything. It's like walking into a field of flowers. Instead of admiring the beauty of each flower and the complementing blooms, you pick one flower and leave the rest to burn. The flower you pick wilts, and no one will ever again see the field of flowers.

And to those that know no other way to learn valuable information - torture is a weak walking stick. Consider that the one who says nothing may know nothing. Forcing the innocent to talk will bring nothing but lies. It's the lies that make the walking stick slip when you need its support most.

Torture is the persistent child, hungry for a tidbit of information. Torture is the fire that rages through a field of flowers. The fire roars - the persistent child learns only what angers him. And when the fire is gone, the child sees the world upside down, and the field of flowers is burned.

Heh...what do I know, right? I'm a child, hardly a teenager, and here I am talking about how the leaders of our country should operate.

Baka. While you scorn the voice of a child, millions of other voices speak the same words. And the fields of flowers burn.

Posted by Alina at 5:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I took the link down due to validation...stuff. =P

Posted by Siu-Yuan at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)