Update and Acts of Good #84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, and 95!!!

Sorry that I haven't written in a long time: I've been in Austria for Spring Break. I've had limited wifi for a while, but I've been writing my diary while I've been staying here, at my grandparents' house.

So... acts of good!!!

March 20: Did some chores and helped around the house.

March 22: Gave lots of gifts to my cousins

March 25: Made a movie for my cousins

March 27: Played piano for my grandma :)

March 27: Studied for English and Mandarin

March 30: Helped my grandma with groceries

March 30: Bought some gifts for some of my friends

March 30: Carried some of my cousins' stuff inside that they... neglected....

March 30: Helped my grandma and one of my cousins bake cake for dessert!

March 30: After a BUNCH of procrastination, I finished my last Boston diary entry on my other blog (http://corastravels.blogspot.com/)

March 30: Tried to smile and greet as many people as possible on the street

As well as all of that, I picked up my cousins from school a few times, which made them really happy. :)

Act of Good #83 and an Update

Act of Good: Today, I helped out my mom with some chores. :)

An update: My birthday's coming up! It's this coming Friday, March 25!
-Cora

My NaNoWriMo Novel- an update

I told you earlier that I would tell you about this, so I will: I wrote a NaNoWriMo novel in November (look it up if you don't know what it is!), though I used the Young Writer's Program, because I wanted to start out without pressuring myself too much, since I have SO much to do around that time of the year. I started with a word count goal of 10,000 words, though I had no idea how fast I could write that much, and I ended up with 21,212, and I finished the novel! It wasn't very long, but I concluded it and I'm really proud that I actually accomplished that, since it's often hard for me to complete something that I've started.

Then, I heard that CreateSpace was offering each NaNoWriMo winner a free, self-published copy of his or her novel, and I was extremely excited. I had already self-published a book before, though I wrote it in 4th grade. Needless to say, it wasn't very good, but I guess it was okay as a book for kids starting to read. To make matters worse, I made the mistake of sending all of my friends copies (and by friends, I mean relatives, teachers, family members- basically everyone), and I ended up with a limited number of copies left, with my name on the cover of a book that represented writing that wasn't my own after the passage of a few years.

Anyway, I was thinking about majorly editing and revising my NaNoWriMo novel, but I decided that I want to use my writing just from a month in my free copy. I don't want to have a polished novel that I've worked on for 7 months after November. I wanted a one-month showcase and memory for myself. I want to be able to remind myself, "I did this in a month," with only a few changes, and keep it like that.

Yesterday, I made a temporary cover for my book using CreateSpace, and I started formatted my book. I'm on the way to finally having it done!

-Cora

Update and Acts of Good #32 and #33

Acts of good that I did recently:

1) I collected a bunch of leftover food from home and brought it to our school's compost bin: three cheers to Mollie for setting that up!

2) I turned off a lot of lights today, around the house, and at school. Yay!

Anyway, a short update:

• Our school play is going to have its opening night tomorrow, and I'm kind of scared because a lot of people aren't ready since we missed two days of school because of the snow.
• Umm, I kinda touched on that up there ^. We had no school for two days because of our weather- thick black ice, drifting snow, etc.- and power outages.
• The end of this trimester at school is coming to an end, so I have a feeling that I'm going to have to start bracing myself against the tests that will probably come rushing my way- which means that I might not be posting as often as I usually do, so just a heads up on that. Is that phrase even proper grammar?
• I'm reading Night, by Elie Wiesel, in school, and I'm extremely depressed about it. By the way, if you were wondering, the poem that I posted on here earlier, the Other side of the world, was inspired by that book. I'm also going to probably post something else that I wrote today as a response of Night.
• On a happier note, we're having an advisory- which, in case you don't know, is like a small group of students from different grades that basically hangs out twice a week together and has a teacher who is basically the head of it who you go to with any questions or concerns you have- ice cream party tomorrow!

So... I have to go for now, and this weekend is going to be extremely hectic... so, I'll write to you whenever possible!

-Cora

Acts of Good #26-#31 and Another Update

Here's what I did today: (Note: LOTS of acts of good today! Yay!)
I went to school and performed a Chinese song for the lower school and came up with a melody with Mollie and Claire for a song we're writing together for music class.
Next, I got my blood taken- which I believe to be an act of good, since the results will benefit me, and I have long had a fear of needles that is really hard to ignore. After that, I went back to school and pursued my studies. :)

During today's rehearsal for our play -it's tech week, which means 3-hour rehearsals! I'm soooo glad they're not longer, though, since I've been in theater productions with rehearsals that lasted about 7 hours the last few days- I had a lot of food, which was nice.

Today, I performed many acts of good by 1) holding doors open (both at rehearsal, and at the blood test lab), 2) extracting recyclable paper (with Mollie!) and a water bottle from the trash bin and putting it in its rightful place, 3) turning off more lights, 4) writing a poem for my best friends during the car ride to the blood test lab, and 5) smiling at people, whether they be close friends, or strangers xD, and complimenting them. :)

I hope these things make an impact.

Studying: An Update, and Acts of Good #18 and #19

Just letting you know: I've been really busy recently with studying for tests and quizzes and I had a migraine and fever yesterday, so I might not post for a while.

I also sent miss-you wishes to an Oxford friend and helped a teacher at my school by taking down extra chairs. Small, yet worthy acts. :)
-Cora

Act of Good #17

I couldn't sleep knowing I hadn't written this, plus I have a headache. I'll try to make this quick.

I recently was selected as a student ambassador at my school, which basically means that I show people around and tell them everything that's great about the school I attend and tour them around on special occasions- for example, today was Open House. It was a really organized event- a few faculty members and high students at our school made speeches, most of the teachers were there, and we all got official printed name tags.

I led around a group along with Mollie. It was just a boy and his mom wanting to know what our school was about. I really loved the experience of talking to them and taking them around to all of our different classrooms and showcasing everything that I love about my school. It was great, and I really felt like it was an act of good. By this student making this choice of switching to our school, if he follows through with it, it will make a difference in his life, no matter what happens, if he likes it or not. But I absolutely adore my school, and I know that it was an act of good simply by going to the school- making the effort to even go to the school, though my weekend was completely hectic, with tennis, SAT, homework, and rehearsal. On top of that, the Open House event seemed a bit strenuous, but I made it work.

It felt like an act of good to me, one that I hope will benefit others as well as myself- for I certainly learned a lot from talking to other people about the place I spend a lot of my time in. It's not just a school for me. It's so much more. As I talked more and more, I realized exactly how passionate I am about my school and what aspects I enjoyed the most- its small, nurturing community, the closeness of the people around you- friends, peers, teachers... the list goes on. I'm thankful for that, and that I was given this wonderful opportunity.

Thanks for reading this, and good night!
-Cora

My Laptop

This is my laptop. My brother had to take it apart in an attempt to fix the keyboard.
-Cora

Update

I've been sick all week- that's why I haven't been writing. In addition, my laptop's keyboard broke, so it's hard to write. Anyway, I'll try to get an actual post up tomorrow, it's just been hard so far.
Talk to you all later,
Cora

My Day

You know those days where you're doing a sport or practicing something and you do horribly, and you're not into it at all?

Today, fortunately, was not one of those days. At tennis, I played the best I've ever played so far, and I'm really proud of that, even though to say that I improved isn't saying much since I only started to play this summer. I was pretty exhausted during it, but I kept on going, and I actually was having a lot of fun in the process. My grandparents, my mom, and Claire (one of my best friends) were all there, and I think part of why I played better than usual was because I had their support. Love you guys!

Anyway, after tennis, I was really excited to go home because I had a bit of a headache, but we had to stop by our local grocery store. I stayed in the car with my grandpa, and we didn't talk much, so I made the best out of the situation and people-watched. Now, the activity of people-watching is usually fairly entertaining, as it's interesting to see people who you don't know and guess their story, but I found out that it's much more fun at a large international airport, when the people are from all over the place and you can guess where they live, where they came from and where they are travelling to. However, at a local grocery store, the people are most likely... living locally in the area. So therefore, the only thing you can guess is what street they live on, or perhaps what they're buying from the store and what they'll use it for. But it's not quite as fun to guess that someone's going to buy a pumpkin pie for his or her family for Thanksgiving than to guess that, for example, a man from Guatemala is traveling to Hong Kong via Washington D.C. (for example, though I have no idea if there's actually a possible flight booking) for a business trip for his company.
That's my opinion on that matter, anyway.

I'll talk to you all later!

-Cora

PS: I typed this out on my iPhone at first, and it looks like so much more text on there! Wow...

About Me and a Ranting Update on My Life

Hello, everyone! Today is January 2nd, 2011! 2011!!!! It's unnatural typing that in a date. I guess I'll get used to it sooner or later, like I did with all the years before. :)

I just realized that you probably don't know a lot about me, so I've added two lists in the toolbar to the right.

Anyway, an update on my life:
I just video chatted with Mollie (one of my best friends). We practiced our lines for the play we're doing and such. I'll explain later.
Recently, I've been sending ranting emails back and forth with Mollie. We've been talking a lot about the awesome quirks in literature and humanity's strangeness. Here's an excerpt of my side of the lovely conversation:

Ahh.. ranting. Words are beautiful.
But also quite stupid.
So close, but yet just out of my grasp.
I could write a poem about it.
It would be about how I reach and reach,
and I rant and rant.
and words are there,
but they make no sense.

What a lovely life.
Life is beautiful.
But also quite unfair.
And annoying.

I went to the Titanic museum exhibit today. Have you ever been? It tours around all over the place. If so, do you remember those cards that they give you? If not, they give you little cards that have a random name from someone who was a passenger on the ship. It lists their class number, a bit of their history, and their family life. Then you go through the exhibit, touch an iceberg along the way that's pretty cold, and you can only imagine how it must have felt for everyone there, and then you find out if you died of not. I was a mother. 48 years old. I had a son that was thirteen.
Age... why did humans choose to have it represented by a whole year, when in comparison to others they aren’t actually always a year older on that one day? Why do humans use a celebratory days in the first place on specific days in which they feel special and not like in the giver. Nothing big actually happens on that one day, it's just the marking of a year's time. I guess the reason for specific days in which people feel special is just because of that- so that they feel special.
But that's not the point, I'm sorry. My character had a 13 year old son, a 18 year old daughter, a 21 year old daughter, and a husband, who all came with her home on the ship. We were all from pennsylvania, and I left one of my older sons behind in America. I was going to find suitable husbands in France for my daughters, because my first class self was apparently disappointed in American suitors. The irony of it all is that upon our arrival, the son that I had left behind in America died, so I was taking the titanic back home with the rest of my family for his funeral. I was apparently very distraught and I stayed in my cabin almost the whole time. Poor Emily. That was her name. Emily Marie Borie.

We survived.

Which brings back the unfairness of the whole issue. The more money you had, the more likely we were to survive. It's true in real life, as well. In general, the more money you have, the more resources you can buy for your survival. More people died in third class than in first and second combined. 1st class, 2nd class, 3rd class, and crew losses added up to 1423. However, people regard it as such a complete tragedy. Think about the holocaust. Millions of deaths. People aren't even sure about the exact amount, it's so many. It's scary, how little everything matters. How little everyone's particular life matters, though most people value them fairly highly. Why? Does it matter that that family made it through the Titanic? They died afterwards, anyway. Everyone does at some point.

Do people realize that they are just one out of billions of people? And that's only people. What about all of the other living beings out there? On Earth, and possibly beyond...? The earth'll keep spinning without people, and when the earth doesn't support life anymore (Comment: poor Gaea!), then there's still all those other planets and stars out there. Will another life form make its way somehow and discover about all of us? Will they know that we each had a story? They'd probably say something like, "Oh, it's just humans. They were only around for a few million years. Nothing much." Said in their own language, of course.
It makes everything look small and useless. It really snaps things into perspective. Does it even matter that i'm writing this email to you? It's only one email of billions sent every day.
Yeah. I just looked it up. There's 247 billion emails sent every day, 2.8 million every second. http://email.about.com/od/emailtrivia/f/emails_per_day.htm
WOAH. Right now, that's how many. And another few million. And another. This is one in 2.8 million emails that are about to be sent. Well, technically more, because if there 2.8 million now, then in the next second another 2.8 million, that means those people are going to send their emails soon, too, because 2 seconds is fairly soon, if you ask me. Then again, even days, weeks, and months, even years and decades, and centuries, and millennia are technically nothing, worth nothing in the whole scheme of things. In one year, 90,155,000,000,000 emails are sent. 90 trillion 155 billion. I don't even want to think about how many are in a decade, or a century, or a millennium, though I doubt that email will exist.

Do you see now why psychology intrigues me?
To understand all of these human desires to live and be known, our natural instinct of survival, our want for attention, the fact that many people are failing to understand how little they have to do with the rest of the universe. Or this could just be their way of unconsciously coping. By believing that they are important, they feel that they are important to life and to something that is important. I hate it, how many people are often so closeminded and interested in little things that are so trivial. Yet sometimes, those things matter the most.
It's almost 2 am. I just spent an hour rambling on about this. I'm really sorry for you now. I would delete all of that, but it doesn't seem worth it. That's my stand. My little effect on the world. In the meantime, a bunch of emails have been sent. 10,291,666,666.6 repeating in the last hour. Why should i care, anyway? Why does time matter in the first place? What is time, anyway? It time an attempt at keeping things orderly and without change?

Well, congrats to you, if you stuck with me all the way through. (Note to self: That was a rhyme! I didn’t even realize it when I wrote it! Now, add in another line rhyming with it! >>) like you so often do! Now it’s almost 2:30. God, I should be utterly tired, but I’m not, really. I feel a lot better now with my feelings out there, though I’m just one of those little people out there in the huge universe. xD

Love ya!
Cora

*starts ranting again* What is the importance of the meaning of a name....