Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Pretty Girls

Hello readers,

Yesterday, I gave a friend of mine, HN, a ride home. This happens a lot and normally, we sing along to my Disney CD's. This time though, we discussed various experiences we'd had with things like prom or dating in high school. And since I was helping him run some errands too by stopping at craft stores and BevMo, the conversation lasted a bit longer than it normally would. What normally happens, when we sing Disney, is we sit and sing one more song before he leaves my car and I drive home. But since yesterday was so different, we sat outside my car, drinking sodas we'd picked up at BevMo and continued talking. I'll leave out the personal bits, but when I have conversations with him, it tends to get deep to a point that some of it, I want to share with others. So without further ado, a summary of the conversation:

We started out by talking about experiences with prom. In high school, he was apparently that guy that everyone loves and anyone who rejected him was shunned by others in his school. He now wishes he had done something about that because it's not something he thinks is okay. He didn't end up going to prom with a few people because he didn't want to lead any of his friends on or give them the wrong impression by doing a big asking, although now he views prom as just another preparation for when people get married, which is a big deal really. There was more than that, but I don't want to over step on how much I say. Then, I told him about some of my prom experiences. Now my school didn't have prom. We called it JSB, or Junior-Senior Banquet. I talked about how I went completely by myself to both Winter Formal and Prom my junior year of high school and why. I told him about some of the people I dated that contributed to these events and even some of the people who I had crushes on. After we had gotten out of the car, he gave me a hug and we sat to talk more. Slight but important tangent, there was this guy named Brad Henning who spoke at my high school once. He talked about a lot of things, but there is one thing in particular that came to mind during my conversation with HN. Brad Henning talks about pretty girls. No, not pretty, beautiful. Beautiful girls tend to be the ones who boys are intimidated by. The ones who people won't ask out because they think she's out of their league, meanwhile, she thinks she's worthless because no one expresses interest. So she lowers her standards and gets labelled as desperate or unworthy. Jokingly, I told HN that my theory was that people didn't express interest because I'm too pretty. So what do I really tell myself? Someday I'll find someone. Right now, I'm not looking. I don't want to look. I'm transferring schools in another year and I refuse to go long distance. What did I used to tell myself? Even after hearing Brad Henning speak? I'm not pretty. I'm not what guys find attractive.

The point of this isn't really about my thoughts about myself though. The point of this comes from encouraging things you hear from friends. Toward the end of my conversation with HN, he mentioned that when he first saw me, he thought I was kind of cute in a nerdy platonic way and that a lot of mutual male friends felt the same. I'll admit, I'd been feeling pretty low earlier this week. And that made my day. I've heard it from other people too and haven't believed it. I still don't know if I do. I tell myself I'm not looking because deep down, I still believe that I'm not pretty. Even if other people tell me I am.  But it's not true. And it's not true for you either. You are beautiful, because you are an imperfect human. You make mistakes just like everyone else, but if you are reading this, then you have survived every mistake you've made. And you've survived the mistakes of others too. Your mistakes and your flaws, the things that you think no one could or will ever love are some of the things that make you who you are. And you, all of you, are beautiful.

With Love,
PolarBearMoose <3

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Summer Vacation

Hello Readers!

I don't know about many of you, but every time I go on Facebook, my Newsfeed is filled with folks talking about their finals and how close they are to done with either high school or the year they're in at college. These lucky ducks who must be on the semester system or something keep talking about how they're done or close to done and meanwhile, I keep thinking, Man, I wish I were done. I'll celebrate when I get to the end of June. I keep having to remind myself that while yes, I am only half-way done, the plans I have for summer will have been worth the wait. There are a couple of things that I know for sure are happening and a few that I won't know until dates are settled. One that is definitely happening: A family friend is getting married! We're flying to Seattle for their wedding in August. Another one is Disneyland. I will be Disneybounding, also in August, though I'm not entirely sure which characters yet. Rapunzel is on my list though for sure.

Man, it feels like summer already. It doesn't feel like it's only week six. Ugh. Time has flown by though. I have my first midterm test of the quarter next week, although there's a midterm project that's due Thursday. It's strange thinking about summer too, because I now have two different groups and while I want to spend as much time as possible with both, it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out.

Speaking of plays, we had one of those group projects i mentioned before due in class today. We were performing a content-less scene. It was definitely a new experience for me since I was the director of the group, but I liked how my group worked. And the only real criticism the professor had was about one actor's pacing, so I'd say the whole thing went really well.

I'm writing this while waiting for one of my classes to start and I have to say, it's getting a little easier every day. I don't mean classes and I don't mean how busy I've been. I mean it's getting easier to wake up in the morning and not have the same face-to-face support that I had from my Lunch Bunch. It's getting easier to make friends. It's getting easier to be myself. I'm getting better at this stuff everyday. It's getting easier to open up with people. And when I do stumble, it's getting easier to get back up. I feel less afraid to make mistakes. I know that this whole paragraph is a tad bit random, but oh well.

If you're still in school, how's it going? Happy to be ending the year soon?

With Love,
PolarBearMoose <3

Monday, May 12, 2014

Mother's Day

Hello Readers!

I realize I'm a day late, but yesterday was Mother's Day so let's talk about that today. First though, happy Mother's Day to all the moms! Now that that's been said, let's continue. My mom loves when we go out to brunch for Mother's Day. Of course, my grandma enjoys it too, but Mother's Day is one of the few days of the year, besides birthdays that we go out to a restaurant to eat. In this case, we went to this mansion turned hotel for brunch. We used to go to the Ramada Inn because they served a Mother's Day brunch, but when they stopped doing that, we had to find a new place. I think we've finally settled on this place though. It seems like in past years this place hasn't really had a whole lot of food options, which is strange because they have a fairly large selection of food. This year though, the food was pretty amazing.

Slight tangent, but I swear it's related. So there was this commercial playing for Mother's Day that I think was supposed to be for Hallmark, but I didn't really pay attention to that part. This family though, a father and daughter, were baking cupcakes and making them look like dirt to put in flower pots with flowers. I thought it was super cute, so I wanted to make some for the moms that are in my life. Especially since they all like flowers. So last week, I rushed out with a friend of mine, E, who was just bored and agreed to go with me. He actually ended up driving too. I needed to get everything early, because Mrs. I's birthday was last and since I had class on the same day, I wanted to bring her the cupcake flower thing a day early. So after rushing like crazy, I made it to the school where she works. I was scared that she'd left early, so I ran around all over the place looking for her when finally, I found her in the copy room. I managed to surprise her with both being there and the cupcake. Apparently though, she had been having a bad day and visiting her had made her day. I'm really glad that I had the chance to get there while she was there. It made my day to see her brighten up. But then I had to hang on to the cupcakes for a few days until I could prep them on Sunday.

So Sunday morning, I woke up to go to church with my mom and grandma. I went into the teen group mainly because I hadn't see them in a while. I found out that two friends of mine, M and his wife T, are moving back to Brazil. M is a year away from getting a Master's degree, but he's moving to help his dad expand the family business. I found out that a goodbye party will probably be held for them in a week or so.

Anyways though, after church, we all went out to brunch. After that we came home and gave gifts to my mom and grandma.

How was your Mother's Day weekend? What did you do to celebrate?

With Love,
PolarBearMoose <3

PS, I caved and finally made an Instagram. Find me as OriginalPolarBearMoose. I'll add a link to the side bar soon.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Group Projects

Hello readers,

I swear this is the quarter of group projects. It's seriously a good thing that I only have three classes this quarter rather than five because every single class I have has had group projects for the past three weeks in a row. For those of you who enjoy group projects, great for you! I am not one of those people though. Firstly, group projects are difficult because you have to find time outside of class to meet and discuss and work together.

One group I'm working with (thank goodness it's due today and it'll be the last day I work with them) is formed of nice people, but it's one of the more difficult groups I've ever worked with. One is always working and is a little flaky for showing up and doing work. The other speaks minimal English. He's sweet and hard-working, but the constant checking in about whether something is good or not is a tad bit annoying. I'm not a supervisor, I'm a partner in this project. Figure it out. Please. It's an English writing class and you clearly had the skills to be placed in the class, so use them.

In Theathre Appreciation, we have two group projects. One due Tuesday, the other due May 27th. With entirely different groups. Actually, both these projects sound fun. I just wish we had more time to work on them. Especially the one due Tuesday.

And in Psych, there's yet another group project. At least I actually know the people in this group a bit better and like them. We'll see what happens, but I actually really like this group and I'm hoping that it all works out alright. What happened with this class is that we chose our lab groups at the beginning of the quarter. I had taken a class with one of them previously, but the other three I didn't know at all. We chose names for our groups once we formed them. Most of us are pretty nerdy and are parts of the same fandoms. Because of that we're the Browncoats. There's another group in the class that's the Avengers too. Good times.

But seriously, I think this is the only time that I've actually been really happy that I am not working or taking five classes, because I have no idea how I'd get any of this group stuff done if I were working or taking more classes.

How do you feel about group projects? Hope you all are having a great Thursday!

With Love,
PolarBearMoose <3

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Mexico and More!

 Hey guys and gals!

So I know it's been a while, and I'm super sorry about that. I had a whole timeline planned about when I was going to blog again. But, on the plus side, except for test days, I am hoping to be able to blog a lot more.

Since I haven't blogged since before I left for Mexico, let me start with that.

Back in the middle of April, I went on this phenomenal trip to Tecate, Mexico. Technically, the name of the town we actually worked in is called Los Girasoles which means "The Sunflowers". All the streets in the village are named after different flowers. I actually didn't know that part until last year. But cool, right? But now you're wondering, what on earth were you doing there? At least if you don't know me personally that is. But let me answer that question anyways! We build houses for various families who don't have a home. The high school I graduated from organizes the whole trip and this year was the 26th annual trip and they were celebrating the 300th house built. We built 18 homes in various sites, so really we were celebrating a few more than 300, but still. That's an impressive amount of homes built! Oh yeah, did I mention we do it in three and a half days? Our site was lucky enough to have quite a few children running around. Some might view this as a bad thing, but I love when there are kids there. The kids that actually belonged to the family we were building for were named Pedro and Heidi (or Katie, I actually had a debate about this with someone). But there were plenty of other kids around. The names I remember are Chris, Gordito, and Alejandro. Here's the funny thing about Chris though, I remember him from my freshman year. He was the only kid around my site that year. He's grown up quite a bit though and spent the entirety of our work days pointing to various people and suggesting that they ought to date. Not knowing how to explain that I had graduated, I ended up telling him that I was very viejo or old and that the people he was pointing to were very joven or young whenever he suggested a relationship between myself and any of the students on the trip. We finished the house and celebrated with ice cream after three and a half long hard days. But every moment was worth it.

Since then, I honestly haven't done much. Which probably contributed to my lack of blogging recently. Although I did see Spiderman 2 on Saturday. That was pretty cool. I won't give spoilers, but I thought the movie was great.

FYI, I'll be going to Fanime in just a couple weeks, so be prepared for some serious cosplay photos in the various different things I update. Meaning, if you want to see this stuff, you ought to check out my photo tumblr. I will for sure be posting at least one picture from Fanime almost everyday of memorial day weekend. Also, there's deviant where I'll be posting cosplay photos and there's 500px.

With Love,
PolarBearMoose <3

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

It's Been a While

Hey there readers!

As the title of this post so eloquently states, it's been a while since I've blogged. I swear I haven't just abandoned it. I'm still alive and all that.

Let's see, when I last blogged, it was still Winter Quarter (UGH). I am happy to say that quarter is officially over, thank goodness. And, I did surprisingly well in my classes. Totally thought I was failing a class and ended up with a B. But I'm not complaining! I'll take it. Spring Quarter just started, so that's pretty exciting. I decided not to totally overwhelm myself, especially since I'm going on a volunteer trip pretty soon (I'll talk about that in just a moment). So I'm only taking three classes instead of five like I did for both Fall and Winter. Those classes are: Theater Appreciation, Theories of Personality (Psych), and English Writing 2. I met my psych teacher yesterday because the class is Monday through Thursday, but Theater and Writing are both Tuesday and Thursday only classes, so I just met my Theater professor this morning. I have to admit though, I was pretty proud of the knowledge I gained from taking theater in high school. We talked about different kinds of theaters, and I was able to use vocab from other classes to answer questions. And my psych class seems pretty fun just from the personality of the professor. he seems pretty cool. For writing, I actually met my professor a few weeks ago because I needed to talk to her about the volunteer trip I mentioned previously. However, she wasn't at school today for whatever reason, so apparently the director of Language Arts was there. He basically just gave us the syllabus, talked for like 10 minutes about the class and said, "Have a Nice day! Feel free to go home." Sweet!

Last quarter hit pretty hard, because I was out sick on top of everything happening with Silky. I'm honestly surprised I did so well. This quarter feels good to me. I feel really prepared for this one, even though there's still so much I need to get done this week for school. Fall quarter, I felt kind of prepared, but honestly, I still needed to pull things together and it just wasn't great. It turned out well, but I wasn't totally ready. Winter quarter, as I mentioned was really bad. Again, it turned out alright in the end, but I was definitely not ready for it. But this one, I'm feeling fairly ready for. I'm sure I'll end up stressed in the middle again, but still it's not too bad. So we'll see.

I don't know if I mentioned this in an earlier post or not, but I'm going on a volunteer trip next week! I leave Saturday for Mexico. I have to admit, I'm super excited to go. It's my fifth year going on this trip and my first year as a leader. In the past couple weeks, I've kinda been doubting whether I want to go or not, though it's too late to change my mind at this point. But I think once I get there, I'll be really happy I went. I will not have internet access in all likelihood though, so I'll have to tell you how the trip went once I get back.

There's not much else left to update you all on, so I guess I'll stop here for now. For my already in college readers, how is your quarter/semester going so far? What kinds of classes are you taking? For any readers who are graduating high school this year, have you received any acceptance letters yet? And just for everyone, how is your week going?

With Love,
PolarBearMoose <3

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Star Wars


Hello readers!

So I meant to post this on February 21st, but that didn't really end up happening cause of Silky and classes and what-have-you. Whoops.

Anyways!

That Friday, I went to the Star Wars exhibit at the Tech. And I have to say, it honestly wasn't as cool as I thought it'd be. A few years ago, they had a Star Trek exhibit at the same place which I also went to. That one was way awesome. They had full sets and all sorts of other fun things like costumes and models of the ship. Tons of stuff. For the Star Wars one, not so much. I mean, yeah they had loads of costumes and models of the ships, but it wasn't a "WOW" thing. Now, I didn't even realize it was the same place until I walked inside, so I didn't have that comparison in my head leading up to going to this thing. It just wasn't quite as cool in my opinion. Which is not to say that it was boring. Because it was very exciting to see it all. And of course, dear readers, what kind of photographer would I be if I didn't take pictures?

Yes! Pictures were encouraged (so long as there was no flash), however, I had been told not to bring a camera, so I didn't. Meaning the quality is from my iPoD and therefore, not so great. So I apologize for that. But here we go! Pictures, pictures, pictures:






 
I have more but these were the best quality ones, so this is all I'm going to post. I was going to go try to make it again with a better camera, but finals are coming up so that's kind of out. For those of you in finals now: good luck. For those who've already taken them, I hope you did well.
 
With Love,
PolarBearMoose <3