Category: Uncategorized

I feel pretty good about my topic for my personal narrative. I feel very strongly about what I’m writing right now and there are a lot of emotions that I can expand on throughout the event that I am focusing on. Being that my topic is about my brother, it was refreshing to kind of step back and reflect on how our lives were like when we were growing up as well as how they are now including how they have changed. I don’t have any reservations about my topic, but I did find that while writing my narrative, I began to open up a lot about my topic and felt vulnerable while explaining. I’m not sure if it’s good to feel vulnerable in this kind of essay but I found that I definitely did which I hope is just because I feel pretty strongly attached to what I’m writing about.

My favorite fair memory would be working as a Malasada chair as a shadow. I became a chair/shadow with one of my friends and definitely did not regret signing up to do it although we weren’t able to finish our jobs this year at fair. At last year’s fair, I enjoyed working with the juniors at the time and learning about what I was responsible for as a chair. I’ve found that I like working with food so packing Malasadas and scooping ice cream was very fun especially because I got to do it with my friends. Also, when I was working at the front, it was kind of cool to be helping some of the people I knew or people that I haven’t seen for a while that were standing in line for Malasadas. Additionally, I didn’t always get the opportunity to stay late to clean up after fair so last year was especially fun because I was able to help take down the Malasada booth and overall contribute to breaking down the fair.

As I have been narrowing down my topics in my timeline, I have found that it was pretty difficult to think about the times in my life that were actually worth talking about. This sounds pretty weird because normally it’s supposed to be easy to think of something important but I found that I had to really reflect on recent events to accurately pick something that has meaning and was also personally important to me and that I could write about it. I had to think of moments that were kind of a long time ago and think about what has actually affected me in the past. Also, I’m having a little bit of difficulty getting an idea of which topic is overall the best one to write about. Contrastingly, something that I found to be easy for me was expanding on events that I feel passionate about. Once I identified a time or event in my life that I wanted to share, it was easy to then just go on about my thoughts and opinions on that certain moment. It was easier to write about a time where I was happy or felt passionate about a certain thing in my life.

Out of all the events that I included on my timeline, I think the one that is the most vivid would be of the time when I realized that I might be interested in applying for a Navy ROTC scholarship for college. My dad is a retired Navy pilot which is how I have been exposed to the idea of pursuing a career in the Navy. Participating in ROTC during college means that my college life would be a little different than how I have always imagined it to be. Although it would require a much different lifestyle and mindset, completing college as well as training to be a Navy officer at the same time comes with its benefits as well. This event stood out the most from the others that I have listed because this decision still hasn’t been confirmed yet. There are so many things that still need to be thought through and I have realized how this decision will affect the rest of my life and set up my future. Just writing about this makes me nervous just knowing that the way my life will play out after college along with during college all depends on this moment. It is a very stressful but also exciting experience and I think its the most vivid on my timeline just because of how it will decide so many things. During this ongoing process, I have found that I am also learning a lot about myself. Ultimately, debating on whether or not I will want to apply for a Navy ROTC scholarship is the most vivid event on my timeline because of how much thought and organization is required to plan my future and discover the person I will be the most happiest to become.

I’m not sure if I’m allowed to answer the question this way but if I could meet anyone in the world right now, I would want to meet the person who I end up marrying. As of now, I would consider myself a pretty judgmental person and if I’m not in the same environment and time period as the person I will plan to marry, I would be able to completely judge them in a way that can help me to see the real person that they are. I feel like by the time I’m at that age, a lot will be going on in my life and maybe, somehow, there’s a chance that I could pick the wrong person to spend my life with. I would never want to be in that situation or make that decision in my life, so I think that if I had the chance to meet this certain person, I would be able to provide an unbiased mindset because I’m not actually living in the time where this person would exist in my life. Now that I’m trying to actually write it, I’ve found that this is kind of hard to explain, but ultimately, right now, there really isn’t anything totally stressful in my life that would blind me from seeing certain things in people so if I had the chance to meet the person that I will end up marrying, maybe I could help myself to make sure that I marry that person or just make myself aware of things that maybe won’t be as important to me by the time I’m 25.

Today was the second day for book review presentations and I think they went just as well as the first day we did them. I enjoyed hearing about more of the books people read for the third quarter and listening to their opinions on them. Specifically, I enjoyed hearing about Seobeen’s book for it reminded me of a book I had read and enjoyed in the 9th grade. It was cool to hear how she related to the characters in the book and was familiar with the world that the book was set in. Also, I thought it was cool to hear about Colby’s book, Seabiscuit, because I had always heard the title and a little bit about it but never really knew the smaller details that makes the book interesting. Just like his book, mine also included boring details at times but I think at some point everyone will view a part of any book to be not as interesting as the rest.

Today was the first day for the book review presentations and I thought it went pretty well. I liked to see how everyone did something a little different to share how they enjoyed their books. More specifically, I appreciated how Christina mentioned the unique aspect of her book that included pictures to go along with the names and places that were described. Also, I thought it was interesting when Dylan mentioned the funny parts in his book despite how he provided a different perspective as a male. Overall, I enjoyed hearing about all of the books that everyone read for the third quarter and look forward to reading my next book for the fourth quarter.

As for my own presentation, I found that it was definitely different than practicing in front of a family member, for example, despite that we’re all on Zoom instead of in class. Even though we all aren’t in the same room, I thought it was still kind of awkward and weird to be the only one talking. Furthermore, at first I kind of worded my hook a little differently just because I was a little nervous and had to get used to speaking online in a presentation. But once I began to talk more about my book it wasn’t all that bad. Ultimately, I think that my own presentation did a thorough job in presenting my opinions toward my book as well as an overview of what the book was about.

I would rather only eat what I could carry out of the grocery store. While only surviving off of food that you have grown yourself does seem pretty cool in some aspects, I don’t think I could successfully grow the kinds of foods that could completely make a meal. Now that I think about it, there are so many foods that I eat that I could not imagine having to grow myself. Also, if I had to grow all the food I ate, that would take up a lot of my time. I would basically become a farmer for the rest of my life to feed myself and I definitely wouldn’t want the responsibilities of managing a farm and to be a top priority.

Besides classes and doing homework, there isn’t much to do with my free time at home. Most of the time, I stay in my bed and watch Netflix. I just finished a series called The Greenhouse Academy which is about this cool private school that is like no other realistic school that exists. In the show, there are two houses of the school: the Ravens, and the Eagles. The Ravens are known to be more focused on academics and basically come off as “nerds”, while the Eagles are more focused on athletics and their social lives. In the Greenhouse, there is drama between the two houses as well as criminal activity that is organized by family members and close friends of students at the Greenhouse. At first, the students that are related the criminals (they purposely create earthquakes to kill people) have no idea about what they are planning. Towards the middle of the series, the students start to get involved with the mysterious plan that multiple people are working on and attempt to save the lives of innocent people. I would definitely recommend watching it although I kind of spoiled some of it… Moving on, I just started Gossip Girl, which I don’t think was a very smart idea because now that classes have started again I have things to do, but it’s really interesting so far; I didn’t think that a series could be interesting as soon as it started. It’s basically all about drama between high schoolers that are super rich and stuck-up and only care about themselves. While I’m not watching Netflix, I might either go on a run in my neighborhood or paint. I found this app that tracks how far you’ve ran, times you, and tells you your average pace for your run which makes it a lot easier, too. Sometimes, I have to feel pretty motivated to run because it’s definitely a good work out and after I finish, I’ll want to do other workouts in my backyard. My backyard is one of my favorite places to go whenever I’m bored or want to look outside (I live next to Kaneohe Bay) so working out there is actually pretty fun. I have found that whenever I go for a run or do workouts in my backyard, I feel much more relaxed and happy than I usually do. I’m pretty glad that I naturally have this attitude about working out because otherwise, I would probably not try to do it everyday and most likely become out of shape, which I definitely do not want.

Before the book review and talk are due, I will need to finish up my draft of the book review and finalize my hook. Being that my book was not a biography or any form of documentary, I want to successfully convey the message that it was a fun book to read to the class. Also, I plan to practice running my book talk out loud a few times all the way through to ensure that it runs smoothly.