Well, here's an update for the past 2-3 months! There's a ton of stuff that happened, but I'll try to remember the important stuff. Apologies for the lack of updates and the length of this post.
As for school/schoolwork, it's been going pretty well. I can handle my course load decently, because of I've gotten better at time management (thanks sleep study!) and I've been pulling pretty good grades. In fact, as of right now, I have As in every class except AP US History, in which I have a B+ (I bombed an essay, and have been trying to recover since). The main thing I think I need to practice on is my writing, especially just essays under pressure (that reminds me; I got a 2050 on the SAT, which is OK but I'd prefer getting something closer to my high score of 2200). Anyway, since Winter break is this coming week- it starts the 18th/19th- I can finally relax because I finished all of the work for my hard classes last week and I only have tests for my easy ones.
Extracurriculars, on the other hand, have been quite a doozy lately. The fact that I'm actually doing stuff (compared to last year around this time), combined with the fact that I am kind of freaking out over what I should do because colleges are a thing (a very, very big thing at my school to add), has been quite a dilemma. Essentially, I have 3 main things I do: piano, tutoring (I got a job!), and Mock Trial. Piano, like usual, is Mondays; I've just been practicing recital pieces for Spring. As for tutoring, I go to my old middle school and for an hour after school help kids in the library do homework. It pays relatively well ($10/hr), but I only work 2 hours a week so overall my paycheck isn't amazing, but it's something. Most of the time kids are in there doing homework on their own because their parents are working or something, and I usually end up tutoring Chinese kids in English, Math, or History (most of the people there are in English Learner's classes). Finally, for Mock Trial, I think it's been going pretty well. As a journalist, I haven't been really doing much (I'm actually procrastinating on an article I should write), but overall, the team is great. We went against another team for the first time today in San Francisco and that was pretty fun (except for something that happened at the end; I'll expand on it below). One of their defense attorneys was pretty cute, too.
Anyway, as for other extracurricular things, I'm currently trying to figure that out. Instead of a lot of the people I know at my school, I want to do activities that pertain to things I'm interested in (science, mainly biotech and statistics, and tea!). But, since this is the Bay Area, and I'm from a wealthy area, getting work like internships is very competitive. I'm currently trying to apply for some lab internships at Stanford/UCSF, but they're due in February and I have to get letters of recommendation, my transcript, things like that. In the same vein, I've been working on my science fair project for this year: using slime mold to measure the efficiency of public transport and roadways and design a better version. So far, I've only done most of the application paperwork and tested it out with BART, and I've had decent results (turns out BART is pretty efficient as it is; the main thing the slime mold changed was the connection of the Dublin/Pleasanton line to Bay Fair. Instead it connected to South Hayward, and also connected SFO to OAK, which would be interesting). Oh, and finally, the sleep study has been working well. Barring the past few days, since I've had a lot of stuff happening, I've been sleeping at around 10:30 PM and waking up at 7 AM, with no naps. It's been working surprisingly well, which I'm happy with.
So, how about friends and relationships? The friend group of last year has partly dissolved, but it's alright; we're all friends for the most part, but just have busy schedules. There's been quite a bit of drama which I'd rather not go into, but mainly it revolves around dating, relationships, and people interpreting things the wrong way and getting offended. One thing I've been pretty happy with though is I've made a few more friends (gasp- seniors!) because of mutual classes and my old friend group is wanting to hang out together over break. Anyway, remember how I dated that one girl, who broke up with me, and then went to Homecoming with someone else (I'd rather not remember homecoming, but oh well)? Well, funny story. The guy she went to Homecoming with, she ended up dating, which turned out horribly, and well, now we're back together. I guess it's not really socially acceptable for her to do that, but it's OK. One thing though is that most of the time (it really depends on the time, place, or how I feel), I don't like doing public displays of affection since I feel kind of uncomfortable with it, but my girlfriend enjoys them and wants to do them often. I don't know why I don't like them, but I think it might be the attention that you draw with them (and also the fact that some of our friends are super nosy or touchy? about it, considering all of the relationship drama that has happened lately). Also, this is a bit unrelated, but I've been practicing my creative writing & writing skills with her on a Google doc, which is fun. But, anyway, that's that.
On that note, here's what I've been doing lately that's unrelated to the above. I'm alright in terms of health, but I'm in the process of changing my diet due to issues with my digestion. I've also been cycling a lot more with my Dad because that's his hobby now, but since it's been quite cold in the mornings (even for California) and I've had projects and stuff, I haven't biked that often as I'd like. Oh, and our mountain bike got stolen at the BART today during the Mock Trial scrimmage- someone cut the cable lock and took it- which kind of sucks, but oh well; it was an old bike, we haven't been using it, and hopefully the person that stole it is going to use it or needs the money for something meaningful (not drugs). I'm going to start saving up the money I'm getting from tutoring so I can surprise my dad with a new mountain bike, hopefully for Christmas. Other than that, I've just been listening to a lot of music: I got some more records (the new Protomen single), went to an amazing concert (Curious Quail, the Y Axes, Dangermaker, Please Do Not Fight/Zen Zenith, Picture Atlantic), and have been downloading/buying new stuff. My girlfriend and I are also planning to try and start a tea-based charity and are currently in the process of figuring out paperwork and organization and everything. From what I envision, it'll mostly just be us setting up booths at town events, brewing tea gongfu style for people for free, possibly selling other tea drinks like milk tea, and asking for tips. All proceeds will go to some charity- maybe one in China, because tea- and since I have a ton of tea already, and am somewhat middle class, I'll be fine with losing money on this; after all, I'll be happy just because I'll be making tea for people and helping people out with the funds. I'll give updates on that, but it might just turn into a small thing where I put up a table at street fairs (after applying for one) as an unofficial group/organization and give whatever money we make to charity.
And finally, I have some tea news. Starting tomorrow, I'll be doing the 12 Days of Chris-tea-mas, in which I'll be starting up reviews again: a different tea every day until Christmas Eve. I have been drinking quite a bit of tea lately, but haven't practiced my reviews, so this'll be fun. Anyway, I'll post the info and lineup and everything in an info post later.
Thanks for reading!
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