Journal 58

     Why people are crazy about someone or something? The reason might because the person or thing is attractive that is also similar to stories. Some people like romantic story, but some prefer tragedy story. The supporters or fans of a story depend on its type. My story is simple and straight ford, so children who below the age of 10 might be my major audience. The whole characters in my story are children and some activities which are only for them. Teenagers might think that my story is not mature and childish because teenagers tend to read more romantic or deeper level stories than those of children. My audience can be both boys and girls. I do focus on children’s lives. Moreover, I think that teachers probably are parts of my major audience. It is easier for children to learn lessons through stories than to teach lessons from text books. For example, the lesson from “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Seven Little Sheep” is talking about that we can’t let strangers into our horses without parents’ permission. Children can understand the situation quickly and clearly by learning a lesson from a story. Therefore, I think that both children and teachers are the main audience of my story.

 

Journal 57

     What did I do today? I sent out my first college application’s envelop. This school is Rutgers, the States University of New Jersey. Its deadline is earlier than most schools’ which I apply. I sent UC’s online application on last Saturday and Rutgers’s yesterday. SAT scores were also sent yesterday. I worried about my TOEFL’s score because people, who got the same SAT reasoning test’s score, got over 90 or even 100 on their TOEFL tests. I still didn’t get over 90. TOEFL is very important for international students, so I must get a high score. My goal for TOEFL’s score was at least 95. I really hope that I could get 25 on reading, listening, and writing sections. I knew that my SAT’s reading score was not high enough which meant that TOEFL’s reading was extremely important to me. I would still send the November’s score to UC and Rutgers, but I booked the December one too. I will send the December test result right after I receive the score. Only two weeks left for college application. We needed to finish all essays by the end of this week. I had around 2 to 4 essays to write. I thought that I could finish them on Thursday.

 

Journal 56

     I talked about the same story which I mentioned few weeks ago. I like to write a story and create settings, characters, plot elements, and dialogs for my own story. I always enjoy about the story which I made because I put all my creativities and imaginations to the story. However, I am not good at narrowing down a general idea to small details. I think that I haven’t prepared enough to write my story. My setting, characters, and plot elements are good, but I am not sure how to write vivid conversations for my characters. Sometimes when I put conversations into the story, I probably talk too many small details and make the audience feel bored. For example, I would focus on some tiny conversations which are not very important, but I worry that readers might not understand well if I don’t provide enough information. Therefore, I haven’t ready to share my story to other people yet. I create five parts of a plot-exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. I also make some details for each part of the plot. I think that I have idea for every plot, but I don’t know how to connect all of them into a story. The connection should be very clear or readers might get confused.

 

Journal 55

     This Friday was PD day, so students didn’t need to go to school. Seniors still needed to go to school at eight o’clock in the morning. I woke up at 7:30 a.m. and arrived at school around 8:30 a.m. I worried about my UC’s essay because I hadn’t finalized by Ms. Pamela yet. Before I sent the first draft of this essay to any teacher, I sent it to Esther. She gave me some comments and corrected some grammar mistakes. I was not good at completely expressing my feeling. I told about what was my idea to Esther, and she provided her opinion to me. She was the biggest helper for this essay because she totally knew what I wanted to say. I added her comments and sent it to the assigned teacher. By the way, Melissa also provided me some her comments. After I double check the UC essay, I asked Ms. Pamela to look at it. I was so nervous when she read my essay because I didn’t know whether the structure was right or not. When I heard, “The structure is okay. You can send this draft to me now”, I sent my essay immediately to her and she finalized right after her first revise.

 

Journal 54

     Yesterday and today were seniors’ busy days. We needed to print out school profile, transcript, recommendation letter, teacher evaluation form, counselor form, and certificate. Every single school needed each file, so I had to print out ten copies for all of them. I felt guilty when I printed these files because I cut lots of trees! I thought that I have already printed over one hundred pieces of paper. I applied twelve schools, but UC’s schools could be count in one. They shared the same online application, and I didn’t need to prepare an envelope for it because I would send it if I get into the school. I stayed at school until 7:40 p.m. yesterday. I got almost copies I needed and put them into envelopes. This was the process that I didn’t participate last year. It meant a lot to me. Although it was very tired to do these college application stuffs, I believed that I would miss this experience a lot in the future. I saw many students’ parents helped them to print files or write mailing address. My mother wouldn’t do this for me because she thought that this was my future. I had responsibility to handle all the stuffs.

 

Journal 53

     Everyone has different perspectives and point of views even to the same event. People tend to support the side which they believe and oppose the side which they disagree with. I don’t like to make any comment or judgment on anyone because that is just my own thought. I only share my point of view if it is necessary. Sometimes I don’t want to hurt any side’s view, so I usually stay neutral. It is clear to see my personality that I don’t like conflict. However, I also face some problems with this kind of attitude. For example, I don’t really know what I should do when two of my friends have a conflict. The most memorable one was happened two years ago. (A represent one of my friends and B represents the other one.) They had a conflict because A thought that B should share all her personal things to her because they were close friend. No one should keep any secret from each other. On the other hand, B felt that some personal stuff was able to share with friends but some were not. Both of them complained about each other to me, but I didn’t know I should believe in which side of point. That is why I only provide my point of view if needed.

 

Journal 52

     Today is November 22. Eight days after is the deadline of UC’s schools. I finally finalized my essay by teacher, but no by Ms. Pamela. The final version from her was the really “final” one. I paid more attention on college application after I took SAT reasoning test in Oct, so I didn’t do many SAT practices. The next reasoning SAT test is on next Saturday. I hope that I can get over 1900 on next test. When I heard Kyle said that the SAT score which we took in November was available today, I was so surprised because I totally forgot it. Few minutes ago just after I finished my homework, I slowly login my collegeboard’s account and click the score link. 730!!! I couldn’t believe my score when I saw it. I left six blanks on math II test, so I worried that I probably couldn’t get over 700. However, the result was 730. I told my brother immediately. The only test score that I worried about was TOEFL. I took it a week ago, but the result was not available yet. I had to get at least 95 this time or I had to take it again.

 

Journal 51

     Some people say directly what they want to say. On the other hand, some people choose to talk around the subject. The way how I talk to others depends on the subject and people. I can directly talk to the people who I am familiar with. Sometimes I can only talk around the subject to the people who I am not really familiar with because I feel uncomfortable to talk to them. There is a short conversation between one of my close friends and me just few days ago. (“A” would represent my friend and “B” would represent I in the following conversation. ) B: “I just skype with a senior, my best friend, from last senior.” A: “Are you still good friend now?” B: “Of course. We have sent messages to each other since she went to the States.” A: “Oh……okay……I just think that an eternal friendship is impossible.” B: “Why? Don’t you have any best friend?” A: “No. I don’t really share my personal stuffs to my friends ever.” I was so surprised when I heard this from him, but I could feel that he said this to me because we have known each other for over three years. If we were not “friend”, he might not share his perspective to me.

Journal 50

     I changed my UC essay topic again because I thought the original one didn’t really fit into the topic. I discussed with other people first, and then started to write a new one. In this essay, we needed to describe the worlds we come from and how our worlds have shaped our dreams and aspirations. The range of this topic was very broad. Some people wrote about their academic interests. On the other hand, some decided to write about how the things, other than academic. I chose the second one because I had a story to fit that one. We could focus on only one part from our family, community, or school. School, educational system, was the one I chose. I briefly talked about I have grown up in Taiwan with a highly competitive educational system, so academic standing seemed to be the most important part in students’ lives. However, I didn’t really stand out on my academic area since I was young. Compared to my unremarkable result of academics, field of dancing has created another outcome and another world for me. Later, I faced a big frustration in my dancing field. The failed experience hurt me a lot, but it has shaped my aspiration to dance passionately and confidently again no matter the dance style was difficult for me or not.

Journal 49

     I finally finished my UC’s prompt 1 essay. I spent a lot of time to work on this essay because the topic was hard to development. The topic was: Describe the world you come from — for example, your family, community or school — and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations. I had no idea what should I write when I first time saw this topic, so I researched some information about how to write this essay online. Majority of analysis said that the key words of this topic were “or” and “dreams and aspirations”. We couldn’t provide more than one background information instead we could only pick one from family, community, or school. If the writers focused more than one of them, they might definitely out off topic. I thought very carefully before I started write this essay. I used a personal story in for this essay. My cousin, Jhe-Yu, was the main point in the story. Jhe-Yu was diagnosed as an autistic kid in his early childhood. Compare with other cousins, I didn’t have a close relationship with him before deeply knowing what Autism was. He only followed his own thought and did whatever he wanted through his disability to control his emotions and behaviors. Sometimes I felt tired of his restricted and repetitive behaviors, so the time I spent with him was less than other children.

Journal 48

     Two days pass, I still couldn’t find a good topic to write my UC’s essay. I planned to finalize this essay today, but I didn’t make it. I felt badly that I missed the deadline which I set for myself. Writing an essay was not that hard, but writing an attractive essay was extremely hard. I had to think about how to grab readers’ attention at the first time and let them want to continue to read my essay. For UC’s essay, I wanted to use a personal story to lead readers to know more about my personality, but I didn’t know how to start and how to write. I kept telling myself that I should focus on my personal perspective instead of description. I found some pictures in the past and searched online in order to find some inspirations. Around ten says later, I have to send my UC’s application out, so I forced myself to finish the first draft of UC’s essay today. I took TOEFL test last weekend. The result might be show in this week. I didn’t know whether I had to register for the next test date or not because I wasn’t sure what score I would get this time.

Journal 47

     I felt both mentally and physically tired today because I used a lot of energy to think about the college’s essays. I was so uncomfortable about the essays I wrote. I couldn’t predict how the readers in college admission offices thought about my essays. It was very subjective, so someone might like my essay but someone might not. I asked my parents to help me brainstorm. My mother provided me lots of examples and showed me the connection between each of them. On the other side, my father reorganized the cases my mother provided and made a conclusion. They seemed to help me a lot, but I still have problem to put those examples into my essay. Although I finished my first draft of Rutgers University’s essay, I was not sure that whether I was on the right track or not. I knew that my SAT score was not high enough to compete, so my essays were extremely important. They could help me to stand up from others. For Rutgers’s essay, I describe the world I came from, such as my family and community backgrounds. I mentioned two situations in this essay and I worried that it might lose the focus. I probably would change the structure a little bit.

 

Journal 46

     I divide the story into five parts. For the exposition: The beginning of a story where the characters are introduced and the setting is revealed. I briefly describe of the setting that where, what, who, and when happen at the beginning of the story. I also mention the main character’s personality in this part. Rising Action: This is where a problem arises and tension builds in the story. According to my story, all children who live in Heaven are carefree and play together after school. On the other hand, Lily is excluded by other children, but she doesn’t care about those bad words. She continues to create her artworks. Climax: The most interesting point and turning point of the story. The reader wants to know what happens next. Additionally, one day, a five-year-old girl falls into a pound. No one notices except Lily. She runs swiftly toward the pound and finds a long stick in order to pull the little girl out off the pound. Falling Action: The action that follows directly after the climax. This is where the problem begins unwinding. Until everyone knows that Lily saves a little girl in Heaven, Lily is treated differently. People change their views on how they think about Lily. Resolution: This is the end of the story where the problem us worked out. Finally, the little girl’s parents give Lily a big gift that they decide to let Lily live at their house and treat her as their daughter. Since then none of the people in Heaven excludes Lily any more.

Journal 45

     I recall an important person in my life. She is like a girl, but she doesn’t behave like a girl. Her male friends are more than her female friends. Each time I talk to her, our conversations are about sports instead of girl’s stuff. She has a pair of big eyes, long hair, and big nose. I like to make jokes about her nose, but in fact she is pretty. To boys, she is definitely a tom boy. Actually, she is very popular in the school because she not only plays sports with boys, but also shops with girls. The person who always knows what I’m thinking and makes my life livelier is my junior high school best friend-Belle. Before I met her, I was a pessimistic person. Each time when she knew that I was unhappy, she would always said “The situation won’t become better because of your depress.” This sentence really influenced me a lot. Of course, complaint and hopelessness don’t help me at all, and then I would think more in positive ways. Belle is a significant person in my life. She does change my attitude when I face problems. Now as a senior, my pressure of college application is getting more and more, but I still remember “The situation won’t become better because of your depress.” I don’t complain even I’m submerged by essays, tests, and pressures.

 

Journal 44

     All teachers sent the quarter report by the end of today. I thought that I got four As and two Bs. I tried my best to get straight As, but I didn’t make it. As a senior, GPA is extremely important to me. Majority of schools only need us to send the mid-year report, so I still have time to improve my grades. UC’s deadline is getting closer and closer. The supplement requires two essays, but I haven’t finished one of them. It might take me whole day to work on it. I plan to get this essay done by the end of this week. I have to take TOEFL on Saturday. I hope that I can get at least 95 on the test. I am so tired and busy this week that I really want to go to bed early, but I can’t. I have a chapter test for AP Human Geography tomorrow. It is about the study of languages that is very complex. I spend an hour to read through one section. I guess that I need to study it for three hours. There are ten schools on my college list. I want to add one or two safety schools because I am afraid that I can’t get into my rich and target schools.

 

Journal 43

    I continue to talk about the story I created last week. Although all the people in Heaven think that Lily’s drawings and paintings are ugly, Lily doesn’t care about those negative comments. Traveling is Lily’s biggest interest. That is how her inspirations of creating artworks come from. She can stay at the same place for more than a week because she will leave until her painting is finished. Looking from her appearance, Lily seems like a quiet and confidence girl. However, she is very lonely and depress due to her breaking family. Beside these unfortunates, Lily enjoys the time creating her artworks. Most children play after school, but Lily doesn’t because she is afraid to talk to others. Some kids play jumping rope, some play soccer, some lie on the ground, and some chat with each other. Each time people see Lily, they don’t treat her nicely instead they speak some dirty words to her and tell their children not to play with her. Lily has no choice. She can only do her paintings or drawings alone. As an artist, Lily doesn’t look clean because she spends almost her free time creating artworks. That is why her shirt and face are usually stained with pigments. Her works look special and colorful, but people in Heaven don’t appreciate them.

Journal 42

     I add some personal perspective into the common app short essay , and I hope that it looks better now. Although I still need to work on this essay because it hasn't finalized yet, I will continue to think about the structure. Here is the essay which I edited yesterday. Performing every movement slowly while inhaling, exhaling, and stretching in order to adjust my Autonomic Nervous System, I can give the muscles and tendons in my body a deep breath. In order to maintain a healthy condition, I began doing yoga in seventh grade. At the beginning, I thought that yoga was an exercise for elder women because all the movements were too slow to follow. Stretching from my arms to my fingers and from my legs to my toes with regular respiration, I allowed the fresh oxygen to run through my whole body and arouse me both mentally and physically. To me, Tendons like a big cable with many wires from the upper part of the body to the lower part. Each yoga pose switches on a small wire, and causes the others to work for the cable. Now doing yoga seems to be part of my daily activity because it is able to release my pressures. I realize that yoga is not just an exercise; it is a means by which I can refresh my body and mind.

Journal 41

     Last week I wrote about a setting for a story. I created the main character for this story, and briefly talked about how her personality is. The big garden is located in a village which called “Heaven.” People in this place are all energetic and lively except for Lily, who is tall, fat, and quiet. No one has ever known how she is here and where does she come from. Lily lives in a wooden made house which is a little bit far away from the garden. When every child plays in the garden, Lily seats on the ground and starts drawing or painting. Children throw little stones toward Lily just because she doesn’t have a good appearance. However, she never complained about how other people treat her badly. “Hey girl! How is your artwork? Oh my god! It looks like you draw all the garbage together.” Many children say some bad words and make fun to Lily’s artworks. Lily has no parents, siblings, and friends. She lives alone. Everyday she walks an hour to a town outside the Heaven and sells her artworks. That is the only way how she earns her money. She puts all the money in a box and calculates it almost everyday. Actually, she is a good kid, who behaves well, knows how to live by herself, and is more independent than other children.

 

Journal 40

     Wow! The midterm week is over! There were two tests on Friday and I thought that I didn’t do a great job on Mr. Portor’s test, so I asked him whether I could do some extra works to earn more points or not. He said that I could do additional power point and present on next Tuesday during class time. I needed to choose a type of music and introduce it. My choice is ballet music because I learned ballet almost seven years. I have strongly feeling when I hear this type of music. I find some ballet music and will bring my ballet shoes to the class on the presentation day. I spent around three hours to do this project, so I hope that I can get at least A- or A for this class. After midterm week, I am still busy now. Majority of my stress comes from the college application. I face a serious problem now. I planned to major in education, but I found that most schools don’t provide this program for undergraduate students. Communication also is my interest, so I change my major from education to communication. I did research information in communication area, so it is not a big issue for me to make this decision.

 

Journal 39

    Today is Thursday. There is one more day for final week. I have two tomorrow-History of American Music and AP Human Geography. For the first one, Mr. Portor said that he will play the music which we have already learned since the beginning of the class, and then we have to match the music with the player. It is not easy because we have to remember around 12 types of songs and also some people’s names. Although the teacher posted the song list on the veracross, we still need to spend a lot of time to review those songs. I search for each type of music and memorize all the people’s names which will be on the test. Majority of students’ grades for this class are not very high so far, so everyone wants to get a higher grade on the midterm. I want to get at least 90. We had our midterm presentation last week, and Melissa and I got the second place of this project. I hope that it would increase my grade. The other test, AP Human Geography, Mr. Jones said that our test questions are all from the past tests, so there is no reason for us not to get 100 on the midterm.

 

Journal 38

     Here is a setting of a story. Wind softly blows in the air. It is clear to hear the twitter from a group of birds right in front of the garden. Not many trees are planted here, but a tallest one is a wonderful place for children. After school, majority of children put their bags under the tree, and start any kind of games which they want. Laughing, screaming, and shouting are around the garden. By the way, it is a big garden that it too big to see the edge of it. That is why there are many people inside the garden. Flowers on the ground are small but colorful-red, pink, yellow, and white. Those flowers are little girls’ favorite because they are beautiful and attractive. The garden is not a piece of grassland; however it is a wooden floor. During the summer, all flowers look vividly with great smell that also brings people good moods. It is very reasonable why children like to play in this garden. Without the school pressures, children play happily and carelessly. During the winter, we can see nothing in the garden but snow. No children, no flowers, no lively laughing, and no bags under the tree because the only time that children can’t play here.

 

Journal 37

    I finally came out an idea that I am really passionate about it-yoga. I decide to use it for the common app short essay. The following paragraph is the second draft of the common app short essay. This topic is finally approved by Ms. Pamela. I hop that it will be finalized by the end of this week. Performing every movement slowly while inhaling, exhaling, and stretching in order to adjust my Autonomic Nervous System, I can give the muscles and tendons in my body a deep breath. In order to maintain a healthy condition, I began doing yoga since seventh grade. Stretching from my arms to fingers and from my legs to toes with regular respiration, I allow the fresh oxygen to quickly run through my whole body, and arouse me both mentally and physically. I follow these simple steps several times a week because they are able to release my daily pressures. Tendons form a big cable with many wires, from the upper part of the body to the lower part. Each yoga pose switches on a small wire, and causes the others to work for the cable. I realize that yoga is not just an exercise; it is means to heal my body and mind.