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Welcome! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Welcome to my little Den! Here you'll find all sorts of things- mostly blog challenges, but mixed in, you'll notice:  I'm a bit of a fangirl  My life is very busy I enjoy using emoticons  I don't tend to swear, but stuff happens. |
| Write about a fear you experienced as a child that you have since overcome. My first reaction here is to say, "I wasn't actually scared of much as a child," because I really can't think of anything I was scared of.  BUT, upon further reflection, I suppose I got over my abandonment issues? They weren't necessarily abandonment issues, but I'd cry every time I got dropped off at preschool. That stopped in kindergarten, though, and I think it also stopped when Sis started going to school with me?Other than that, yeah, I was a pretty outgoing and bold child. Sis was the timid one who liked to take things slow. Me? I went headfirst into everything and I'd get scrapes, bruises, and cuts everywhere. I'll call them my battle scars of physical development.  That also means that there isn't much to write about for this entry, unfortunately.  |
| Share three pieces of advice you’ve received through your life that you wish you had heard earlier. Y'all probably thought I gave up.... I almost did, considering my head hurt so much at one point when I was staring at a screen all day. But I've been better these past couple days so I thought I'd try catching up. So advice 1: To be actually good at anything, there are 3 factors- talent, passion, and some luck. For some people, talent is born. My cousin was born naturally talented at the piano. He has the passion for it. And luck comes in to play with biology- he has large hands to cover over an octave on the piano. As for me, I didn't quite have the talent, I had some passion (which fizzled out with Mom's helicoptoring) and not much luck biologically. Sis, on the other hand, had the talent, did NOT have the passion, and definitely has larger hands than I do.  She also had the talent and passion for tennis. Luck, not so much. Being Asian, we're not as long-limbed, so our reach isn't that far, which is definitely a detriment to her. I had some talent for tennis- apparently, I was good at "social tennis," according to this coach from after-school tennis in 6th grade. And even then, Mom didn't get the hint that, "tennis isn't the sport for Dragon" We struggled another 4 years before I eventually quit and moved into dance.  In her freshman year of high school, Sis had to take PE Dance for half a year when her tennis was out of season. The teacher wrote in her yearbook, "you're a great athlete". Subliminal message: Stick to sports, not dance. According to sis, she (Sis) would make a grimace-frown-like face whenever she was turning. Painful for all parties. I would say I had a semi-talent for dance, which was definitely something I had to work very hard to achieve. I got lucky in the sense that the beginner's class I was in only had 2 students (including me) and since the other kid was in, like, 3rd grade, she sometimes wouldn't show, which gave me private lessons for the price of a group class. Therefore, I progressed quite quickly through the levels and the instructor sent me to level 4 in about 2-3 months.  Advice 2: It's okay to use a knife and fork to eat everything. It's so much easier, and cleaner! Sure, you'll get weird stares, but at least you won't have greasy hands the rest of the day.Advice 3: Dreams may be far-fetched, but they're never dumb. This one is actually a lesson I learned from Jumpstart last year. Since day 1 of Hi-5's inception, I'd sworn up and down to myself that one day, that would be me up on that stage, performing with the cast- singing and dancing with little kids. In 6th grade computer class, I actually started looking into what it took to become an entertainment figure in Australia. I was dead-set on it! And since nothing else truly interested or excited me the way Hi-5 did, I always thought it'd be a natural choice for me to enter showbiz. Except, as we grew up, you could pretty much tell Mom wasn't all for showbiz. I had a classmate whose father owned the Staples Center, which is where American Idol was filmed at the time. I remember mentioning it to Mom, and also asking her something along the lines of why we didn't go out to concerts, and she probably said something along the lines of "because it's full of negative energy," but using more Buddhist and Chinese terminology. Like, my classmates were going to see the Jonas Brothers (wasn't too interested) or Hannah Montana (definitely would've wanted to see), and in middle school, Taylor Swift was definitely all the rage. So yeah, that kinda put a nix into my dreams of becoming the next Hi-5 cast member, but after doing Jumpstart, and figuring out what I was doing with my schooling and life and such, I realized I could take all this knowledge and experience and apply it in a different way- as an educational consultant. So after Jumpstart was over, I had said if I got the chance to become some sort of educational consultant for the show, OMG would I take it. For now, I'm teaching preschool and Mommy & Me music classes around the area, which, honestly, isn't too far of a grasp from what I was saying I would've liked to do for Hi-5. Dreams evolve as you evolve- so never let them go, because one day, it may turn into the next great thing you do. |
| Write about some of the words that were introduced in the year you were born according to Merriam-Webster dictionary by referring to the website below: https://www.merriam-webster.com/time-traveler Alrighty... I'll choose 1-2 words from each letter available here 10 words because that original plan is way too long. Asian Long-horned beetle- a large long-horned beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis) that is a serious pest of hardwood trees and is native to China and Korea and has been introduced into North America and Europe This one makes me wonder- were they not a thing before 1996, or whenever people started referencing to them as the "Asian Long-horned beetle"? You'd imagine these insects/beetles would've been around for quite some time, so it's interesting that Merriam-Webster only just accepted the word then.  Bioterror- The definition of "bioterror" is "Bioterrorism" Bioterrorism- terrorism using biological weapons This one I can see not being a thing until more recently, because science and technology and such would make chemicals and biological advancements and such more accessible? dragonfish- aka, Arowana Arowana- any of several large, tropical, chiefly carnivorous freshwater fish (family Osteoglossidae and especially genera Osteoglossum and Scleropages) of South America, southeastern Asia, Australia, and Africa that have large bony scales, a toothed tongue, and a large mouth with an oblique gape NOTE: Arowanas have a laterally compressed body and are typically silvery white, gold, red, or green. In the wild, some arowanas may reach a length of four feet (1.2 meters) or longer but are usually smaller when kept as aquarium fish. — called also bonytongue, dragonfish I'm going to guess here, that at some point before 1996, people saw this Arowana fish and went "hey, that fish looks like an Asian dragon!" and therefore, the name dragonfish was born. embiggen- I've never heard of this word before. My best guess would be that it means "to make bigger," but we'll see what the dictionary says. ... and it turns out I'm right.  It's an "informal", transitive verb. endostatin- "Endo" means "in," I'm pretty sure. What "statin" means, though, is anyone's guess. But, given the "stat" in it, I'm going to guess this word means the "inside state of things" "a polypeptide that is a fragment of a collagen found especially in the epithelial basement membrane and that inhibits angiogenesis, tumor growth, and endothelial cell proliferation"  This is science. And for those who know me, I don't science well. I have no clue what an epithelial basement membrane or angiogenesis is. Nor have I ever heard of endothelial cell proliferation. Though, that one sounds like the exponential growth of cells somewhere in the body. face-palm-  Maybe people were starting to have less tolerance for others in the 1990s. fistbump- Funny, because this is pretty much the opposite reaction of a facepalm. kopiyka- Is this food? It sounds East Asian/Polynesian. It is, apparently, not food. BUT it's money, which can buy food. a monetary subunit of the hryvnia The Hryvnia is Ukranian money, so I guess kopiykas would be the Ukranian equivalent of a US cent.  new variant Creutzfelt-Jakob disease- I'm not sure I even want to know what this is. a fatal prion disease that is held to be a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease caused by the prion associated with bovine spongiform encephalopathy and contracted by consuming infected beef or beef products Great. A version of mad cow disease, I suppose. XML- I know ML is Markup Language, but what does the X stand for? Apparently, it's "extensible" a markup language with use and design similar to HTML but employing tags defined by the user that can be used to indicate both the logical structure and the display specifications of the coded data yoctosecond- I've never heard of the "yocto" prefix either. maybe, because it's similar to "octo" it's 1/8 of a second? Annd it is one septillionth of a second. And apparently, in the US, that's 24 0s, but in the UK, it's 42. I wonder how many it is in other countries. |
| Complete the following statement: To achieve greatness, one must... These prompts are getting harder and harder to cohesively answer, Emily  . I suppose this sentence could go many ways.... persevere, for starters. Practice.Keep Trying, but that's kinda a combination of both. Take risks (somewhat stolen borrowed from Charlie ~  ) Persevere- Well, nobody ever got anywhere by doing nothing, right? Therefore, it's a good idea to persevere. Find something you like, then get good at it and keep getting better until you're great. Keep Trying- Remember those Magic Treehouse books? I read almost all of them as a kid, and I remember when Jack and Annie went back to the Civil War (I think!) and they were in those olllld one-room schoolhouses, and on the board, the teacher had written, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." So, yeah, keep trying. Also, I think that's kinda how Mom came up with her 3-bite rule- even if you don't really like a food or don't know what a food is, you need to take at least 3 bites of it. The first one is just to get it in your mouth, the second, to actually taste it, and the third, to pass a judgement on it.Practice- Look at "persevere"- "nobody ever got anywhere by doing nothing". Need I say more? Take risks- because where would we be without them? Sure, some might have terrible consequences, but that's probably when you learn to never do it again. As for the ones with good consequences, won't you be glad you took those risks?  |
| Describe the earliest memory you have. All my "early" memories are memories where I know it was early, but I don't know how "early" they are because I obviously didn't quite have a sense of time or age when I was young. One memory I have in particular was learning how to get out of my playpen. I legit, hoisted myself onto the ledge and swung a leg over, and then voila, freedom! Granted, I also remember this was when Mom wasn't around, so she wouldn't know I had this secret skill. Being a first-time mother and all, she probably would've done something to prevent me from doing it again. Another early memory I have is of being at Grandfather's really big temple with Sis. This leads me to conclude that we were probably a fair bit older by then, since Grandfather was taking us out on trips and such. Sis was messing around on a disciple's computer- even back then, she was fairly naughty She took the ball out of someone's computer mouse- the kind where there's the giant magnetic-ish ball you use to move the cursor around? Yeah,she took it out and started rolling it around the carpet like an actual ball. She also liked to play with the little mouse-pad-stick thingy that some computers have- the one in the middle of the keyboard. And I think at one point, it came out. So you can imagine how well that went down. We/she was just crawling around and playing with various bits and pieces of people's electronics. I don't remember if it was by invitation or cajoling, but regardless, apparently, she was quite into technology back then. Those are my two earliest memories I can think of off the top of my head. I've watched baby videos of me and sis, and there's stuff in there I legit don't recall ever doing, and there's also stuff in there, when I think back, it's like, "hmm, maybe I did do that" I also actually remember being at preschool, and there was this indigenous girl (so I've been told, she was indigenous) who was kinda mean to everyone, but for some reason, she and I were sitting on the swings together one day and she showed me the letter A in the pinebark. *shrug* I actually have alot of school-related memories- you start when you're about 3 1/2, but I apparently cried whenever everyone left, so I didn't really start until I was 4 1/2 because that was when Sis could go to school as well and I wouldn't be as cry-y. I remember doing a space unit, where we used a huge box covered in tin foil as a helmet, and I also remember playing with toy money and a fake cash register. I remember having various gurus come in during nap time to fetch me at preschool, because I was a half-day kid, and I also remember the path down to preschool was very steep, and like a pastel, yellow brick road. |
Congratulations on making it halfway in this competition! It’s all smooth sailing from here  Today, let’s talk movies. What was the most recent movie you watched? Have you been to the theater recently? What movie are you looking forward to? What is your favorite movie of all time Okay, that winking face makes me very weary of what's coming up in the future. Movies..... The most recent movie I've watched was First Wives Club on Amazon Prime- I watched it while having breakfast yesterday. My morning routine now usually consists of food and some kind of digital content to watch. I've kinda ran out of interesting stuff to watch on Netflix- and I've also noticed that Netflix is really laggy on my computer, which stinks because I found a new series I want to watch- Blown Away- about glass blowers, except it stops to buffer every couple minutes or so. So I've switched to watching stuff on Amazon Prime. I also asked for movie recommendations on our WDC Discord server- my requirement was that it be something mindless, and Charlie ~ suggested Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist... unfortunately that movie wasn't very much to my taste and I still haven't gotten around to finishing it. Sorry, Char. I have not been to the theater recently. I think my most recent in-theater movie was Long Shot because Mom wanted to watch it and we got discounted tickets through T-Mobile, so we were like, "why not?" It was definitely a fun movie- I can see why this would be more worth it if you got discounted tickets, vs full-price because this isn't one I'd go to watch in IMAX, 3D, etc- nor would it really be worth it to watch at a regular ticket price because those are so high now. I really, really wanted to watch Ugly Dolls but I couldn't find anyone to watch it with me and therefore I haven't seen it yet. :'-( I'm waiting for an online stream to pop up, but I guess it wasn't big enough to make it to those channels/sites so soon? I've been resorting to Google for those streams, because the site I used to use turned into a database for XGC stuff, which has also limited my ability to find legit streams of stuff I want to watch, unless it's a movie I've previously streamed before and wanted to stream again because I liked it that much (so far, only Descendants has made that list )A movie I'm looking forward to is definitely Descendants 3. I actually originally wasn't that big a fan of the Descendants stuff- I saw the images and CD covers and went "why would they make something so dark?" I got really bored one night and decided to check out what the Descendants hype was all about, and watched the first movie, and man it was good. So now, I'm a big fan of that franchise/series, actually, and was pretty shocked when the news about Cameron Boyce came out. This probably sounds insensitive, but I guess they're not making a #4. As for my favorite movie "of all time," I really can't say I have one. I mean, yes, I love the Descendants movies, but there are also movies out there that I enjoyed too. For example, the Winnie the Pooh movie- that one came out in 2011, is super cute and I do love the scene where Rabbit gets absolutely furious at Piglet's innocence and somewhat airheaded-ness (link below). It's punny- and even my uncle, who's the "eh, it's a kids' movie and probably really cheesy" was cracking up at it when I brought the DVD to Texas for the child to watch. I actually won it from a girls' site I used to frequent and play on, called Miss O and Friends. I got the account back in elementary school, and you can get tokens for playing certain games on their site- there was one game in particular where the number of points you earned equaled the number of tokens you got, so when I was in high school, I had a free period, and I spent most of the period on that game every other day, accumulating tokens and redeeming them for tickets. We had a block schedule, too, which meant you only had 3 classes every day, but they were each 2 hours long. So I'd spend some time doing homework, and then when I was done with that, or if I felt bored/didn't want to do homework, I'd go to Miss O and start playing that game. You can imagine I got pretty good at the game, and therefore my points and tickets accumulated and I won the DVD by sending all my tickets to that raffle. I've also won a Hannah Montana CD and a Tinkerbell DS game from that site. I should really start going back there to play and get more free stuff, but alot of their prizes aren't that great anymore/aren't age-appropriate for me anymore either, so eh, maybe I'll just keep an eye out on the site for them. I've also just peeked at the site again- turns out they changed their sweepstakes system where you don't need tickets (which I find somewhat unfair- you should earn your tickets and entries ) and you just enter as many times as you wish. That's definitely a drawback to the site for now.... However, they do have an intern section so maybe I'll apply for that- it would be a fun thing to do with all this spare time I have on my hands right now. [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] |
| Describe a time when a personal failure became a positive experience. Easy-peasy. The thesis. I won't drag everyone through the drama again, but I consider it a partial failure because this means I don't get to officially graduate from the Honors Program.  Granted, I have the choice of delaying my graduation (yet again) to work with the professor and developing the thesis more to her standards, but I've already been accepted into a credential program for their fall intake, and well, chances are, the relationship between the professor and me would steadily grow downhill. Soooo I'm not "finishing" the thesis, which means I didn't "graduate," but now I know what a thesis looks like and how to write one. So in a way, that's a positive experience, right?Also, this sounds like a job interview question. Going back to the prompt- yeah, I went back to campus on Friday to help with orientation for first year Honors Humanities students, so while I was at it, I brought the Honors adviser some cookies as a thank you and followed up about her email that she never replied me (not necessarily in that order) . She cleared up my questions, and also noted that I had been out in the sun (guess that means I got darker- yay!  ), then informed me there would be an alumni bonfire coming up in the nearish future that would be at the beach at night. I definitely want to go, but also, that would mean night driving on the freeway, so we'll see. Maybe I can find someone who lives somewhat nearby to carpool with me?  Or I'll see if I can get dropped off/picked up. Because I don't mind night driving, but night driving on the freeway is definitely iffy for me since I don't think I've done it before, and there are more crazy drivers at night, I'd argue. Plus the possibility of drunk drivers would probably also go up. So we'll see. They are most definitely a community I want to stay in touch with, though.The orientation itself also went really well- I was surprised at how well I could answer their questions and guide them/advise them on potential classes they could take. There's a Cantonese phrase that roughly translates to "Ask 10 questions, can't answer 9," and that was what I was expecting. Buuut it ended up being more general questions of tech support, helping out with various scheduling/class questions, and making sure the students enrolled for the correct classes! One class in particular is mandatory for all incoming humanities students, so there's probably 3-4 different lectures at different times and days.... and for this class, you're also required to sign up for a discussion- some students were trying to sign up for, say, lecture 1, but then a discussion from lecture 2, which isn't allowed. That seemed to be the most common problem I saw on Friday, I believe. I then got a lunch, free milk tea drink, and free ice cream dessert afterwards- Mom sent me link about a new ice cream place opening in the town center, so I went with an honors friend to investigate, since neither of us had heard (or seen) such a thing happening. Turns out it was in the next plaza over (about 2 blocks ) so we walked over there and decided to try an asian fusion place we'd heard was good since we wanted real food before having ice cream. Both places used Fivestars (food loyalty app) and usually if it's your first visit, places will give you some kind of promotion. The Asian fusion was a free drink with purchase (we ate there, so we did make a purchase ) and the ice cream place was a free small ice cream (2 huge scoops ). Yeah, so this thesis stuff did turn out to be a good thing. I got lots of free food, I got to advise incoming first-year students, and I reconnected with some Honors friends.  And on a more academic note, I now know how to write a thesis. |
| In the age of the internet, most everything we say and do online will be preserved forever. Even though our opinions, beliefs, and actions change over time, should we still be held accountable for our words, even words spoken or written years ago? Yes, yes, yes and 100 times yes over again. It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine when people aren't held accountable for their words. Like, sure, viewpoints change, opinions, beliefs, etc change, but that doesn't mean you can wipe out history. Alsooo it's natural for people to change their opinions and such, but at some point, even if they did say something that conflicts with their belief now, it's a sign of growth, in a way. I mean, let's say you're in your late 20s.... I'll bet you don't have the same thoughts as ten years ago. Or 20 years ago. However, I will challenge this "words spoken years ago" part, because who remembers what someone said 10 years ago? I mean, unless you have it on a recording or video recording of sorts, I'm not going to remember what I said on July 13, 2009. Heck, I was in middle school in 2009 and for me, back then, Hi-5 was my world, and I thought it was cool to sneak online and watch YouTube videos of Hi-5. Now, I have my own computer, and I'm using Hi-5 songs to teach kids about the ocean. I want to say that, as people age and experience more in life, there eventually becomes this world of difference between who they are and who they were. There were real-life best friends I eventually outgrew, because I realized their priorities and mine were too different. They wanted to be in the popular crowd, who, at our elementary school, happened to be the theater kids. I was not a theater kid, nor was I ever a Girl Scout, or really involved in any of the extracurriculars she participated in, and eventually, I think that difference kinda drove a wedge between us. When I got to middle school, I started actively trying to make new friends- one of whom ended up being shadowfanglerz and one of my closest friends today.  Going back to the topic, though, I think it's perfectly okay to change your opinion. Everyone does it. It's a natural process of human thought, I'd argue. BUT I also think it's important to acknowledge the opinion you held before, because chances are, you gleaned some particle of new information that made you think, and made you wonder if your original opinion was still valid in your own worldview. This could actually get quite philosophical because it's reminding me of my second year in the honors program and taking classes on The Philosophy on Science (which I found boring but is now sorta interesting, in the light of this prompt , but I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole because it could be a long one, and I'd rather not. |
Have fun answering these “Would you Rather?” questions in your blog today! You can choose to answer as few or as many as you like  Would you rather live a boring, long life or an exciting, short life? Probably a boring, long one, because life's what you make of it. You could easily turn a boring day into a fun one. Would you rather be able to fly or teleport? I would rather teleport, just because it's faster than flying and essentially does the same thing. Would you rather be able to only time travel to the past or only time travel to the future? I would probably time travel to the future, because there is the issue of "what happens if I accidentally change something in the past?" That affects everything that happened between what you accidentally changed and your current time, and might really mess up the time-space continuum. Would you rather lose your hearing or your sight? Neither, but if I had to lose one, I suppose my hearing? Like, there's sign language to kinda compensate for that, but for sight, I mean, yes, there's Braille, but there's also so much else you can't do. I feel like being blind limits you more than if you were deaf. Would you rather live the rest of your life as a cat or a dog? Cat. I can now say I'm neither a cat nor dog person- I love like both. Buuut, I would rather be a cat for the reason of being able to scratch people and get away with it.  Also, you hear more about people being afraid of dogs, not cats, which means you're more likely to get away with doing stuff to someone you may feel iffy about, than if you were a dog. If a dog bit you, you would probably sue the owner... but if a cat clawed you, you'd probably get ticked, but it also wouldn't be court-worthy. |
| Make an A-Z list on a topic of your choosing. Stretch your creativity! After you finish your list, write a short narrative describing why you chose the list you did and how it relates to you. I'm gonna go with Music Terminology, just because I'm teaching music right now and this should be interesting how things play out. A- Accordion B- Beat C- Choir D- Diminuendo E- Espressivo F- Flute G- Guitar H- Half Note I- Intro J- Jive K- Keyboard L- Lute M- Music N- Noise O- Organ P- Piano Q- Quarter Note R- Rest S- Strings T- Trumpet U- Ukulele V- Violin X- Xylophone Y- Yodel Z- Zumba Well this relates to me because I can play Piano, I've tried learning guitar, and I'm learning ukulele right now. I've tried Zumba before, and we use a xylophone to help kids with learning the notes of the solfege. As for those non-English words, I learned them during my piano days- Dimuendo means to soften- when you see the loooong ">" in music, that's the dimuendo. And the Espressivo means expressively, so pretty much, full of emotion. Usually it's supposed to be sad, but Why does everything need to be sad? Why can't it be happy? Is it too hard to be happy in music? |
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