I bought this book a long long long time ago. I have a strange greediness when it comes to books, so I try to buy as many books possible whether or not I can read them all. One of the books that were selected was One Hundred Years of Solitude. I did not know what the book was about. I just chose the book because the cover was bedazzling (yes, I do judge the book by its cover…sometimes…) and because i knew that it was famous. However, perhaps because it was too famous, or because the title was just too duanting, i never picked it up. For some reason this made me really guilty. I felt like i was committing a crime of making a legendary book just idly stand on the shelf, so when i had to read a book for ap lit i almost immediately thought of this book. Honeslty, even though this book was my first choice i tried to avoid it because it seemed to be too thick, and i knew that i migt not have enough time to read it, but still i came to a decision to read the book. I can really say that i do not regret my decision. Yes, it was a pretty bulky (not too much) book but it was worth it. Peopel say that this book made people view literature differently. Since i am a baby lit student, i do not exaclty know what my views are towards literature, but it indeed is a magnificent book.

This book was completely different from what i expected it to be. I expected this book to be very philosophical (i am not saying that this book is not!) and …just one of those wonderful but boring books, but it really wasn’t like that. In stead, it was a very eventful (maybe too much) book that really captivated my mind. Although it got kind of boring in towards the end, the book thoroughly entertained me. I think i read quite a lot, but i don’t think that i am a good…deep reader, so i must have failed to grasp the whole value of this book. Yet, this book made me speechless. As a i told ms. porter almost the only thing that i could think of that Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a GENIOUS. Really, nobel prize winners are different… FIrst of all, who can think of a imagernary place that is so ordinary and original at the same time? The writing is so imaginative and the writing is so juicy (and i applaud the translator for the beautiful work as well!) Moreover, the story is so complicated, and the author just must be a genious to keep track of al the names, not be confused, and have their individual stories. Whiel i was reading the book i thought that the story got a bit too chaotic. There were too many characters with similar or IDENTICAL names, but then i realized the order in the chaos. The author actually planned out the story, which can be hinted from lines like “as you will see later”

However, more than anything, i loved the ending. I really wondered how the book will end because everything was turning out just so miserably. Usually, i peek and see the ending of the books because i am really bad at supressing my curiousity, but this time i succesfully restraiend myself because i knew that soemthing beautiful would happen. Since i do not want to spoil the ending i will not say it outright but the ending was perfect!!!!!!!! it gave me goosebumps. Also, i felt the evident political satire. I forgot much of my history, but i could sense the twists. 

Gosh, my wriitng is like… stream of conciousness…well

now i am going to start Love in the Time of Cholera and i can’t wait for it!! 

it was depressing at best and i was (perhaps am) about to have a melt down

i get easily stressed and the stress that i am feeling is on the verge of becoming dangerous

as a result i spent the most unproductive weekend ever

it is easy for me to just let go of things but before i let go of things

i go through painful processes

i may be a girl who gets stressed well and obsesses with petty things

but i believe that my obsessions are imporatan at least at this moment

what i am obsessing over can be directly connected to my future……..

i do not want my dream to be ruined

i am scared

i am really scared

i had a similar experience about 3 years ago but i understand that my current circumstances are worse

i do not know how to recover in a snap

i do not know what to do when why dreams are jeopardized

i know how to give up dreams

but that is the last thing i want to do

i need to snap out of this pathetic me

wake up

wake up

and face it

do whatever you can do to fix this

there are ups and downs in life and since i hit the bottom

it’s time to soar

yes, i am incredibly miserable but

no, i will not make my life itself miserable

and yes, i will make my life incredible from now on

photo credit:http://www.the-reel-mccoy.com/movies/2004/TheIncredibles.html

i regret for not being able to be well prepared and i regret that i made a HUGE mistake while taking the world history exam. I do not want to blame everything on external forces but i really think that i am out of luck these days. From the SATs….and now my AP.

Stilllll…regardless of how grumpy i feel time passes  and things happen

now it is nearly the end of the year and i need to pump my energy up to raise my grades that DROPPED and i have to start being prepared to become a good senior

i don’t want to make a mess out of my senior year

i don’t wan to mess with the most important year of my high school career like i did..this year!

Still i want to make the best out of my junior year

and i want to have a wonderful senior year

no more messy days for me

just good good days should be and will be waiting for me

i had great plans

but all of my plans could not be acted out with special thanks to my

wonderfully torturing cold that i had to fight!

Literally, the whole week was a battle against illness,

i am a really healthy person, and it was such a surprise that i was this sick

BUT

to be optimistic… it was fortunate that it was spring break because i didn’t have to worry

about school…

OH MY GOSH

i am really really really really nervous

i cannot FOCUS at all

i am shaking my legs like a madman (although i always kind of do)

i doing nothing, unable to stick with anything

i am regretting like crazy

i am making a speech to myself

i am not able to digest my food (i think..or maybe i just ate too much)

why?

why am i showing these losing-my-mind symptoms???

welllllll it’s because of the chair tryout for MUN

hahahahahahaha

i did a really BAD job… i was supposed to make a speech under pressure, but for some reason i didn’t feel the pressure until 10seconds before the actual speech

and for some reason i was feeling much time constraint during the speech

which resulted in a disastrous 15second (hope it was longer) speech, more of a comment

i cannot believe myself for doing that………for some reason,,,i don’t know why but when i saw the unexpected Mr. Aitken i couldn’t ummm operate well

anyhow….my hopes are high and low because this is pretty much a BIG BIG BIG BIG BIG deal to me, but low at the same time since i messed up…….

i am going to be a senior next yr, so….if i don’t get the officer this yr i will NEVER get it………….and that will drive me crazy. Seriously, to me MUN is like my brother.. i hate and love it, and it is a substantial part of my LIFE. i hate it when it stresses me, and love it because it’s MUN and it’s what i do…Sunny does MUN, that ’s what she does…

I dread the results…..i hope there will not be ANOTHER DEPRESSION that will hit me HARD….i think i mastered the depression part pretty well. OH WOW i am nervous i am indeed

picture credit…http://www.mrmedico.info/

Nobody likes getting bad grades, especially almost no Asians like getting bad grades (or maybe it’s just a stereotype). I think…. i may be quite an extreme case of not wanting bad grades. I do not think i am obsessed with grades because i realize that there is so much more to life than grades, studying, and college, but i care about my grades. I really do. I fear that some might think that i am a super nerd, that i am a typical Korean student that lives and dies for grades, and that i am a shortsighted person who stresses too much on what is in front of me. But since i know that at least I am not the first two kinds of people i have to speak!!! for the sake of my mental health.

i am really really really disappointed by my grade…All of my makeup tests gave me considerable (NO, MAJOR) shock. Half of the problem was that i was unprepared and half of the problem was that i was in a terrible condition…at least i think. Other than these reasons…..there may be so many other factors that contributed to making my week just shocking.

The thing that bums me out more is that last week was the end of the third quarter and my tests dropped average 4 points for 3-4 subjects……..this is really depressing.

Actually, i was writing this post 2 days ago and had to save this temporarily, so i do not exactly feel like how i used to feel so it’s hard to write with the emotion that i used to feel. In nutshell, i guess what i want to say is…i am really sad because of my grades really just fell down…not just went down but fell down

photo credit:http://www.sduhsd.net/ew/pages/abi.html

I competed in a speech & debate competition this saturday

and i have to say that the whole competition was such as surprise for me.

I am proudly and sadly an adamant lover of speech & debate

frankly i was never successful

i got eliminated and eliminated and eliminated

but i just couldn’t quit it because i LOVE debating

and i always HAD to think..maybe next time

well..

this time i didn’t debate because i had a pretty tight schedule after BosMUN

so i decided to do impromptu and oratory

I was not confident

because first of all

For impromptu, i don’t think my brain is quick enough to think about a 5min speech in 3min

and i don’t think my English is fluent enough to talk nonstop for 5min

For oratory, i wasn’t too sure about my speech

the only thing i was sure about was that my parent completely HATED the speech

they teased me the whole time i was reciting it

BUT

really to my surprise i managed to go up to the finals for both of them

i was too surprised to be happy

because seeing my code number on the wall

is NOT what i usually get to do..

i spent about ten minutes in complete disbelief

until i realized that i was the first person to do impromptu and i had 5 minutes until the competition

i ran to the third floor and found out that the room was occupied so all the contestant were waiting

outside of the room

everybody seemed to be flattered, nervous, and confident all at the same time

contrarily…. i bet i looked quite miserable because i couldn’t function until that time

a few minutes later we could go into the room

rate after the judges arrived i had to pick my quote from the envelope

i could pick three quotes without looking and then was able to pick one among them

i chose the quote about lies..

it was something about how lies travel so fast that the truth doesn’t even have time to put on its pants?

I really couln’t think

i really was nervous

i wrote “don’t panic” on my prep paper

but how could i not panic!???

i was panicing…

i decided to talk about gossip

the glamor of it, the bad effects of it, and how we should face gossip

i really have to thank the lovely girl from SFS who made a lovely speech about gossip because she gave

me some of the information i was using in my speech!!

well i somehow finished my speech and ran to the other room where i had to make my speech

i waited for one speaker and it was my turn

i tried to pull it off

but wow..i cut off about 1/4 of my second paragraph haha

honestly i didn’t expect much from both of the events

so i just waited in the auditorium without much thoughts

actually i was debating whether i should take the school bus or the subway back home

the announcement started and

for the second place for imromptu

oh my gosh

i heard KIS Sunny Lee

and for oratory

i heard for second place KIS Sunny Lee

again!!

both of them

were so unexpected

i was so happy and thankful thankful and thankful

later on Ms. Halverson congratulated me and said that she was glad that

i FINALLY got prizes

on the way back home (by the way subway won)

i thought about the competition

and how it was my first time competing for impromptu and oratory

and how i debated my whole high school career

rather unsuccessfully..

maybe debate is not my element

but i love it

without a ‘maybe’

i seriously am thinking about whether i should stick with impromptu and oratory

…….urgh

not that i do not like impromptu and oratory

but……………

why can’t debate just love me back?