Wisdom Teeth

This Monday my wisdom teeth got pulled out. Despite hearing from other people about how much it hurts to get wisdom teeth pulled and seeing one of my friends endure chubby cheeks and eating juk for a week, I really didn’t think that getting wisdom teeth pulled would be so bad. The last time I got teeth pulled was when I was five. My dentist removed my two front bottom teeth and I only needed gas and a shot to numb my gums. It wasn’t until the morning of, when I was talking with the dentist that I realized that getting wisdom teeth pulled is surgery. Eek! I didn’t want to be awake for any of it so I got an IV to put me to sleep. Kind of like getting a blood test. Turns out the guy couldn’t my veins in either of my arms but he stuck me with the needle in my right arm just to see if he could find one. He didn’t. In the end he had to inject the needle into one of the veins into the top of my hand. That was great. Much more painful than the injection in the arm, but not as painful as I thought it’d be. The extraction seemed to pass by within a second. The IV was put into my hand, I closed my eyes, and the next moment I was being woken by one of the nurses. My mouth couldn’t close and it felt uncomfortable despite the numbing medication from the IV. I had three gauze pads in both sides of my mouth to soak up the blood. At the time, I didn’t know that those gauze pads were for the blood because I couldn’t taste the blood, although when they had me spit them out they were soaked in a bright red. The car ride home was tortuous. I fell asleep but kept waking up because of the discomfort from the gauze pads, the taste of blood, and the pain from the swelling and where my teeth were removed. Also, my throat was burning from being so dry. But I didn’t even bother asking my Mom for water because one of the nurses told her that I might ask for something to drink, but that my Mom should wait until we got home because I might vomit it up. My Mom wanted to stop at Longs so she could pick up my pain medication and antibiotics. Waiting in the car, unable to sleep, I knew that my Mom had gone to pick up other unnecessary items because if she had just gone in to get the medication she would have been out much quicker. Frustrated, but still groggy, all I remember is trying to stay calm, but ended up stamping my feet on the car floor to show my anxiety. Finally, my Mom came out and we headed for home. I silently cursed every red light. Once home my Mom and sister helped me to lie down in front of the T.V. and propped me up with pillows. The first thing I asked for was to change the gauze pads because the salty taste of blood and the feeling of the soggy pads in my mouth was disgusting. My Mom helped me to wrap new gauze pads and I stuck them in my mouth collapsing back onto the pillows groaning in pain. After another hour and another set of gauze pads my Mom brought me a cup of some pink liquid. She told me that it was strawberry Ensure that she bought while at Longs. It tasted so good! After having the blood soaked gauze pads in my mouth the Ensure tasted wonderful. My sister tried it and she said it didn’t taste good, but to me it was almost like having a strawberry milkshake. I was so grateful that my Mom had spent the extra time to pick up the Ensure. Yay for Mom! Now I can't wait to eat regular food and actually BITE into something.

Creighton Reception

Last night I went with my Mom to the Hawaii Creighton Reception. I'd been to a reception before, for Washington University in St. Louis, but that was before I'd sent in my college applications and before I even knew whether or not I would get accepted. This reception was less stressful in that everyone who attended knew they were accepted. Creighton University is small, only 3,000-ish undergrads and it's in Omaha, Nebraska. Nebraska. Yeah. Location wise it's the belly button of the United States. The biggest negative aspect for me about Creighton is the location and the weather. Although they have a Kwest (I think that's how it's spelt) Center which holds their basketball and volleyball games and concerts, it's a relatively new city in what used to be an industrial area. (Err...) And they get snowstorms and it's extremely cold in the winter. Two of my friends are sophomores at Creighton and they tell me how cold it gets. I mean, I know that anywhere in the continental U.S. will undoubtedly get cold in the winter, but snow storms? Doesn't sound good. Despite the weather and location I was really impressed with what the parents had to say about Creighton. The consensus was that the professors at Creighton are there to teach the students and actively work to help them succeed. This is very important to me because I am the studious type (although I do procrastinate) and I like to be able to conference with my teachers and ask them for help. Another thing about Creighton that attracts me is that the people are friendly. It sounds silly but moving to a new place (potentially) without my friends and without my family is scary, and I want to have people there to make the transition smooth. My 8th grade science teacher, Mrs. Lam, is a Creighton alumnus spoke because she has two kids who attend Creighton and knows what it's like to go there. Before the reception I talked with her because it's been a while since I've seen her. I think she majored in biology so she was happy to hear that my plan is to do the same. She talked to me about a new Science Center they are building and how the science programs at Creighton are excellent. She was a highly demanding teacher (probably one of the hardest classes EVER was 8th grade science with Mrs. Lam) so I take her word when she says that Creighton is a good place for my field.

I don't think anyone should go into a reception if they are a gullible person because receptions are basically colleges marketing themselves so they present the best of everything they have and make it seem that they are the place to go to. Of course, they leave out the negative aspects and try to embellish those that need shoring up. Like, how there's tons to do in Omaha. Psh. My friends there say there isn't a whole lot of "city" stuff to do besides the occaissonal concert and on-campus activities. Probably the worst are the parents, maybe the Moms because my Mom and my friend's mom were completely sold after the presentation and stayed to talk to the VP of Admissions. On the car ride home my Mom talked non-stop about Creighton this, Creighton that, basically restating the ENTIRE speech. Good grief! Later that night my Dad said to me after hearing my Mom tell him everything over again, "I think your Mom really wants to go to Creighton." And you know what? I think so, too. Although, there's a USC Reception we're going to in a couple weeks, so after that my Mom will probably be saying, "Go Trojans!"

Not Again

I'm pretty tired of listening to the radio. The music on the radio, that is. I know that the stations are prone to playing the "popular" music of the day, but it seems excessive and ridiculous how they circulate with a very limited number of songs. For example, in the summer I was in the car and Buttons by the Pussycat Dolls came on, and by then I was fed up with listening to the song over and over so I asked my sister to change the station, and the next station was also playing Buttons! Ugh. A little variety please!

Instead of making me realize, "Hey that's a good song," radio stations have instead made me realize, that some songs and bands really aren't pleasing to the ear. Or not good enough that they can be listened to over and over. For example, How to Save a Life by The Fray. I don't care that it's high in the Billboard charts and people like it for...well they like it for something. It's terrible. Mainly because the lead singer has an awful voice which pretty much makes The Fray disgusting to listen to. Nickelback, too. I used to like Nickelback, but after hearing Photograph and whatever other songs that keep getting air time, I can't listen to them anymore. It's too much growly scratchy singing that doesn't change. So, in the past month I've been listening to my own music during the drive to school and it's made the 30 to 40 minutes so much more enjoyable.

When is too much, too much?

Yesterday was Sunday, laundry day. This weekend was my turn. I stared at the pile of laundry which overflowed in the basket that I shared with my sister. I decided to tackle the problem in bits. First I pulled out all the jeans, which was a pain because the legs got stuck to the shirts and they're heavy so they wouldn't come out easily. Then I dumped everything else on the floor and sorted by delicates...and the "tougher" clothing. Then I shook out the smaller laundry basket for whites and sorted again by delicates and everything else. Fortunately the "everything else" was just my sister's pair of white jeans so I put that back in the basket for next week.

Washing clothes has become pretty routine this school year so I didn't really mind the process of adding in detergent and softener and the transfer to the dryer. It was after the first load of regular clothes (aka shirts, non jeans shorts, and socks) that I realized that my sister and I faced a deficite of hangers! There were four dry shirts that could be hung back into our closet and four damp delicate shirts that needed to hang out and dry. Unfortunately there were only two hangers! TWO hangers?! What happened? I couldn't believe it. Did we really buy that much clothes? Last week I helped my sister to hang up clothes and we had a little over enough hangers. Maybe our mom stole some. Shocked, I sat in my room and thought about where the hangers could have gone and where I could get more hangers. I realized that earlier in the day my mom had told us to hang up some jackets that we had left on the floor so I unhooked those, folded them and put them in a corner. Then I took our marching band standshirts and folded those and put them in the container with the Northwest Passage/Seattle trip shirts. I had eight shirts that needed to be hung up plus six more in the washer, so I needed 14 in all and had now accumulated a total of ten hangers. I sorted through the shirts hanging in my closet and found a hanger that didn't have a shirt on it, so I was up to eleven. After ten more minutes of pondering and wondering how I was going to fix the situation I decided to take out three blouses that could be folded and added them into the containers that hold my tanktops. Finally, I had the fourteen hangers I needed. I went back to take out the clothes from the washer so they could air dry and realized I left a bunch of hangers on a chair! GAH! How could I forget? I caused myself so much trouble trying to find hangers.

The hangers on the chair weren't enough to cover for the fourteen I needed. I still would have had to move the jackets and do some creative thinking. When I was panicking about finding hangers I realized that my sister and I had a lot of shirts, blouses, dresses, and dress skirts and pants. It really seemed to be too much since I hadn't worn a lot of the clothing in a while. And then there are two containers that hold our camousels and tanktops because we realized earlier in the school year that we didn't have enough space and hangers for those. Each week my sister and mom go shopping while waiting for me to finish May Day practices. Generally, my sister comes home with something. She can't wear a lot of what she buys to school so she's limited to the weekend and we don't go out on Sundays so it's really only one day out of the week that she can wear what she buys. I think we need to stop buying clothes because we are running out of space in our room. I can't fit all of my jeans in my drawer, partly because I'm too lazy to fit everything in and partly because there really isn't space unless I want to strain the sides of my drawers by shoving everything in. The excessiveness of the amount of clothes we have is disgusting, especially since we can't wear a lot of what we buy or we kept clothes we didn't want to keep because they were gifts. It is fun to shop and bring home cute clothes, but for the sake of our room and the idea of being capitalistic pigs, I think I'm going to hold off buying clothes.

Rendezvous with Rama

It's been awhile since I last picked up a book. Not for school, but for pleasure. The last "new" book that I read was Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke. I started last summer, but didn't finish before I had to return it back to the library. Punahou does not have it and I never made a point to go to another library and borrow it again. It's not that I don't want to keep reading. I do. It's a pretty fascinating book dealing with space and other intelligent life in the universe, much like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Clarke's most famous novel. Senior year is actually very busy and stressful despite what seniors in the past have told me about it being cruise for second semester. I don't think so. Even now with college applications done and first semester over, there's still over a quarter of the school year left. It's my fault for taking courses that are challenging me and requiring a lot of study so I guess it's what I should have expected, but I still would have liked some rest. Being busy and continuously having tests to study for, homework to do, and projects to finish means that I shouldn't be spending time reading. Or "Do you have time to spend reading?" is what my Mom would ask. Yeah, I mean if I have time to watch stuff on youtube, k-dramas with Dad, and read books I have at home, then I think picking up a book from the library really won't be that time consuming. Part of me can understand why she would say that because whenever I start reading a book I tend to keep reading until I finish. At least that's what I used to do when I read consistently. I think she doesn't want me to consume all my time in a book because I was almost obsessive about it before. I remember one time I was in the parking structure at a mall I was reading a book while walking. I was going across one lane of parked cars to the next when a car turned coming at me, and I didn't even notice until my Mom yanked me out of the way. That was a definite heads up as to why it's not pragmatic to read and walk at the same time, especially in parking lots.
Anyway, I still want to pick up Rendezvous with Rama, so I'm thinking I'll go to the library during Spring Break. (Dunno why I didn't go during Winter Break. Nevermind, that's when I was finishing college apps and then I had the Rose Parade trip). I reccommend reading Rendezvous with Rama even though I didn't finish because it's very well-written and it's a book that makes one think. The time is in the future and mankind has located an object in space dubbed, Rama. Rama turns out to be a massive machine that contains a mini world inside. A crew is sent to investigate, and during the time they are there, life begins to form, but it is unlike life found on Earth. There are many questions as to what is Rama, why was Rama built, who were the Ramans, are they still in existence? These are ones that characters in the book think about, which the reader also thinks about too, but there are also the more general ones which affect the reader. Maybe it's not a question but the book inquires the reader to ponder what it would be like if we found other living beings or proof of other intelligence. If you're looking for a book to read and enjoy science fiction, you should pick up Rendezvous with Rama. (And loan it to me when you're done!)

Under the Influence

Watch the video at the link below (the quality is a little better) or the one in the post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRVts7TFw-Y



Some Mondays ago I got sick with a fever so I stayed home. Besides taking tylenol cold, downing lots of fluids, and figuring out what I was going to eat for lunch, I went on youtube to watch Naruto. Before I could type in the episode I was searching for, I noticed a picture from a showcased video on the homepage. It appeared to be of a man's chest with a painted picture of a lady on it. Interesting, I thought, so I clicked on it to watch. Five minutes of video covered over twenty hours worth of painting. The artist used his chest and stomach areas as a canvas and painted people or objects that represented people who influenced him. He used white, black, red, yellow, blue, green, grey, and orange, but mostly white and black. Although he could have incorporated many colors in each painting he mainly stuck to one background color and one design color. The plainness really brought focus to what he was painting. I have to say that I was amazed at the quality of the artwork and even more impressed that each was drawn upside down. The creativity was pretty defining of what it means to be creative: using the body instead of paper or canvas, layering each painting one atop the other, and finally pulling all the layers off as one and cutting out a silhouette of himself and laying the two parts of the cut paint layers on black so it looked like he was staring back at himself. That last image struck me because that rectangular window of paint that made the cut-outs represented the 30 people who influenced him. The section that went around his head seemed to represent that the 30 people were external influences from the outside that continue to affect him. The section that was his head seemed to show that he is who he is because of those 30 people and that he would not be the same person if they had not come into his life. I don't know what the artist's intentions were when he painted, but it makes me wonder what I would be like if I did not meet one of the 30 people who influenced me the most. I doubt that I would be the same person, but just how different would I be? I suppose it depends which influential person I removed because if it was one of my parents then, yeah, I would be a completely new person because they've shaped me a lot, but if it was an iconic musician or author, that's very different. First of all, I never met any of the musicians or authors who's work I admire. Since I never met anyone, it's not actually THE musician or THE author who affected me, it's really their songs or their books (and the characters in them), although it is fair to say that what they produce depicts a part of who they are.

I find it funny that youtube lists this as the 39th most viewed video in "Film & Animation-English," when there is no English spoken. I think the lack of spoken language makes this a video that can be appreciated by anyone anywhere.

Two spaces, please

I did not realize this until yesterday. No, wait, it was before yesterday. Mmm, never mind it was yesterday. Anyway.... yesterday while typing Insomnia I noticed that I only put single spaces after periods. And I thought, whoa! That's so bizarre because when I type in Word or other writing programs I always put the traditional two spaces after periods. The even weirder part is I noticed other people do it too! When Mr. Watson was showing us something on wikispace, I noticed that he also left single spaces after his periods. I am not sure why I found this so interesting, but I was extremely curious so I looked at posts my friends made on facebook and it looks like a bunch do the single space thing too. Now I'm aware of my difference in typing from Word to on-line blogs/journals so I made sure that I put double spaces after all my periods.

Why would people, who learned to put double spaces after periods and used that style in all school papers, change to single spaces? I would think that habit would follow through. The quick two taps on the spacebar seem to not require any thinking. It's not really conscious movement that has to be thought about, just dun-dun and begin the next sentence. I should let you know that I took a break from the end of the previous sentence to the beginning of this one, so I saved this as a draft and went to get something to eat. I came back and opened this up and noticed that all of my two spaces were gone! Blogger automatically changed it! I guess that means I can't assume that if I see posts/comments with only single spaces that the person did that him or herself. Still, when Mr. Watson was typing he did only use single spaces, and when I typed my previous post I did use single spaces, so there are at least two people who diverge from the conventional double spaces. Does anyone else use single space breaks between sentences while writing their posts, comments or notes?