Dorm life: The good and the bad

It's my third week living in a dorm on school campus for the first time and I think I can safely share my experience so far.

Since I like ending on a good note... let's start with the bad things about dorm life.

The Bad:

1. Very little to zero privacy. You could have a single but it just isn't the same as being in your own room in your own house. If you have a double and don't get along with your roommate.. you either beat them or join them. Everything you say or do should be done knowing that anyone could be watching and judging your actions.
2. Following the previous statement, very thin walls. I'm not insinuating anything but sometimes you hear things you just don't want to hear. 
3. For those who are used to having someone look after them, you need to realize that you need to clean your own room... No one's going to run around telling you what to do. So you know, you could potentially let your room turn into a wasteland and people wouldn't care.
4. Going to bed early is not a possibility. Unless you are very quick and heavy sleeper, you will lie in bed for a good hour listening to shouting, giggling, stomping in the corridors, very bad dubstep, etc.
5. Bathrooms. I was lucky enough to get shower stalls but other dorms are just communal showers. If you are a private person who generally doesn't strut around naked in public places, it might take some time to get used to dorm bathrooms.

However, this doesn't mean dorm life doesn't come with the fun things!

The Good:

1. It's kind of like a big sleepover, all year round. I'm not even the most social person in the world but it's fun to be able to walk over to your friend's room in 20 seconds and just chat. Besides, when you put like 40 energetic teens in one place, crazy things are bound to happen.
2. Everything is within arm's reach. For lazy people like me, it's pretty darn convenient.
3. Helps you develop your people skills. Living with dozens of people in one building can be overwhelming at first, but over time you learn to live with others and how not to piss them off. It prompts you to be more outgoing, polite, and talkative.
4. Food. You're bound to find food anywhere you go. Which can be a bad thing, because you know.. *cough* freshman fifteen *cough*. Well, it teaches you to not scarf down the food at 11 PM.
5. Your parents aren't there. Don't get me wrong, I love my parents but sometimes you just need to spend some time away to mature individually. Each dorm is bound to have monitors though, so that doesn't mean you can do whatever you want. 

Does high school prepare you for life... or college?

Here is an article that I've been wanting to share with you guys for a long time. It reflects on what high school (or even middle school) truly teaches adolecents these days. Does the college application process, the pressure to be high achievers and go to the best colleges impede each individual's creative growth? It seems more and more that importance is placed more on which classes you take, whether they are advanced or not, how high your college is ranked, etc. Teens spend so much time worrying and planning out their college life that they barely have any breathing room for themselves. Time for them to personally expand and experience, well, for lack of better words, teen life experiences.

Understandably, college is a highly important process to many of us, and some of us even see it as an unavoidable step in our academic career. However, will we soon convert into workaholics who have only one goal, to have a nice looking transcript or resume? Will we soon disregard the more shallow and fun things in life for having things look good on paper?

Personally, I believe academic enforcement and being strong willed is definitely a good trait. However, we should never forget to express our individualism and not discard our precious years of youth just to get into a good school or stress out over extremely advanced classes that, quite frankly, a teen should not be worrying about.

Have a good read, this is a very intriguing article! 

Some Feel-Good Music!

February always gets me down for some reason. Even though it's supposed to be all Valentine's Day-ish and all. So I've put together a few songs that really cheer me up. Hope this will be a good segue into lovely March (which is supposed to transition in to spring.. finally)!

Rehearsals have been quite heavy lately, I hope I'll get some more time to write posts for you guys! School is getting harder and harder... you miss one day and there is so much to catch up on!

Hope everyone enjoyed the music!

Exams are done!!

Well, you guys can probably tell that I'm pretty pleased that exams are finally over.. well for another few months at least! I'm hoping I'll scrape by with a B or so, but it's not like I have high expectations seeing as most of my studying consisted of cram sessions :)

It's amazing the weight that's been lifted off me now that I don't have much to worry about for the time being. To share my happiness, here is a hilarious video I found! Normal posts will be up soon after I take a little break this weekend.

Ugh.

School would be so much better if we didn't have midterms or finals. I mean, honestly. It's ridiculous how you can ace the midterms and your semester average goes up by 3 points. And if you fail it, you go down two letter grades.And truthfully, no one really "studies" for it, more like "memorizes than forgets everything after leaving the test room". It's scary how much of a big emphasis most schools put on these exams which count for a big chunk of your grade but only show a little of what type of student you are.

Besides, I do so badly when they throw me in an auditorium with 300 kids with a freaking timer counting down in the front. Honestly, I wouldn't call myself a bad student but the exams always bring my grades down. Speaking of, I got two exams tomorrow (I apologize in advance for the shortness of this post) which I should be studying for now.

As a token of my apology for my short post, here's a squirrel (chipmunk? never learned the difference haha):

... and a baby chameleon

Okay, bye now!
Wish me luck, guys!

Movie soundtracks!

Exam week is nearing and I was scavenging for a good study playlist to keep me concentrated and motivated. I came across this one which definitely kept me going for a good few hours. And then, guess which song came out? It was the soundtrack from one of my favorite movies of all time! Eeek!

Many of you guys will probably recognize this song (you gotta love Randy Newman).. or at least this movie! This song definitely brought back some good memories. I gotta admit, I enjoy most types of movies but nothing gets me going more than a good Pixar or Disney movie.

Who could forget the first intro to TS1? I believe I was only in elementary when I first watched it. It's amazing how much 3D animations have improved since then.

I know there have been a few rumors about a 4th Toy Story and to be honest, I wish they'd just leave it at the trilogy, because it's perfect enough! Unless Pixar can find a way to make it even better, in which case I have no complaints! Any thoughts on a prospective TS4?

For anyone who also has exams like me, you should definitely check out the playlist I linked above by the way. :) It's definitely worth a listen!

A growing "problem" in South Korea

Last night I came across a horrifying story and I felt like sharing it with you guys. Unfortunately, all the links to the story are in Korean so I'll relay it back to you as accurately as possible.

Introduction (for anyone who is interested)

As many of you guys might know, there is so much competition and pressure to be the "perfect student" in Korea... In fact, this is really common in many Asian countries like China and Japan. Now, I'm all for doing well in school and getting a good education. However (in my honest opinion), Korean parents are taking it too far. Starting from playing English-learning tapes to the baby from the womb, every hour of a Korean kid's day is planned out to get tutored, go to music lessons, go to an academic institution, etc. They have no time to breathe and have a normal kid's life. That's why many of these young kids break off from all that studying (most of the time they get about 3 hours of sleep per day) and turn to petty crimes and skipping school.

Many Koreans do not think this is a problem, but more of a solution to ensuring a "good life" for their kids. What kind of good life consists of being pressured on a daily basis to get a 100 on a test, not a 99? In fact, getting a 99 is almost as bad as getting a 50 in many parents' perspectives. Most of them grow up so dependant on their parents that their parents virtually live with them throughout their college and adult life. They are no longer themselves, but their parents' personal puppet. And when they have kids (with spouses that their parents chose for them), the deadly cycle repeats itself over and over again. Obviously this does not apply to every single South Korean, but a vast majority of them.

The actual story
 A Korean student in his final year of high school was being pushed every single day to be the top of everything. No, his mom was not happy with him being the top student in his school and getting near-perfect scores that would have pleased any parents. He ranked 4000th place out of millions (which ranks him in the 98~99th percentile) of Korean students on a national test similar to the SAT's, which frankly is quite amazing. But as you might already guess, she still wasn't happy. He was beaten every day (sometimes for hours at a time) for not being the best of the best ever since he was a kid. His father left their family when he was little and he was left with his mom who pretty much asked for the near impossible.

He became so desperate to please his mom that he faked his national test results and told his mom he ranked 62nd place, not 4000th place. I'm guessing she still wasn't very happy because she got a baseball bat and a golf club and beat him for ten hours for not doing better. No, I am not exaggerating. She then decided to have a meeting with his teacher the following day about his ranking. Realizing that his mom would find out he lied about his results, he then murdered her and locked her body in a separate room for eight months. Nobody would have found out if his father had not made one of his yearly visits and discovered that one room was sealed with duct tape and a horrible stench was coming from it.

Now, I know murder is never justifiable. And I'm not saying what he did was in any way "right". But I can understand why he did it. I'm guessing that having to grow up without hearing one "good job" from his mom and constantly getting physically and verbally abused would have made him snap at one point. I say rest in peace to the poor woman, but I hope this serves as a message to all parents who treat their children like robots or slaves. There are so many stories like this everyday; Korean kids who run away or kill themselves out of stress, yet this seems to have no effect on other parents and competition becomes even more fierce. Education is extremely important in my opinion, but so is making sure your kid is loved and appreciated even if he or she gets an F in every subject. In the long run, grades and rankings are just stupid numbers, but your kids are real people who deserve love and praise. Many parents don't even see that until it's too late.

And with that, I say have a great day and hopefully more and more Korean parents realize how this intense, almost inhumane academic competition is gradually becoming detrimental to our society.

Tough day at school? Not really.

Today was a pretty normal day. Not very memorable in the least. I woke up at the same time as usual, ate pretty much what I eat every day, etc. I didn't even feel particularly tired or sick. Strange how ten minutes after I came home from school, I pretty much dropped dead on my bed and slept... and slept... for hours. I have no idea why, to be honest. It was a really deep sleep too. The type of sleep that when you wake up, you are completely clueless to everything (for a split second I thought it was Saturday morning) around you for a good ten minutes. How strange. I do take occasional naps but only short, twenty minute ones. Guess who's going to be awake in bed until two in the morning?

It's been two hours since I woke up but I am still feeling dizzy and kind of spacy. I just might have been accumulating all the stress and late nights from the past few days and my brain just decided to release the tiredness that comes with it today. Not that I'm feeling much stress nowadays though. I even get a good six hours of sleep each night. Maybe I just need more water. Yep, it's probably that. Not really looking forward to how tired I'll be once I go to college or even later, when I have a rigorous, work-demanding job. Urgh....

Why phones and friends don't go together

Happy November guys! I thought I'd share something that happened to me the other day. Well, more like two things. Involving my close friends and my cell phone.

First off, I made the huge mistake of lending my phone to two of my guy friends because they desperately needed to look up an assignment on it. Whatever, I was okay with that so I lent it to them before school started. I got it back four hours later with them smirking like idiots. The screen seemed to have been scratched to death. Oh, and that was the least of my worries. My phone was off and when I turned it on, it turned out that they had changed my pin number. I have no idea how; maybe they knew my old one or guessed it? Anyways, I spent the remainder of the day trying to figure it out because of course, they wouldn't tell me. After incessant pleading they finally gave in and told me the unnecessarily complicated pin number. Once I actually turned it on, for some reason all of my three dozen widgets had been dragged out onto my desktop. Contact names had been changed to "lol" and all my memos erased. And let's not forget all my text messages and photos being erased! I was not amused.

Two days later, I had to make an urgent call to my parents during lunch time. This is where the immature circle of friends come in. My mom picked up the phone and a chorus of "Hi Hannah's mom!" followed. Not that bad, right? Soon after my friends were shouting, "stop hogging the bottle to yourself!" and "hang up already and pass me the lighter, Hannah!". Oh, it gets worse. My phone was then wrestled out of my hand and one of my friends then proceeded to have a 3-minute conversation with my mom discussing my non-existant drug habits. Needless to say, my mother was not very happy (even after I called her an hour later and explained what really happened).

Moral of the story: no phones when your immature friends are around.

Why I hate group projects

Hey guys, so the past week I had to do a group project with two other people. Normally I don't like them because of how many times I end up doing all the work. And this time was no different, except it was possibly worse! 

Long story short, I had a lot of stuff to do that week even BEFORE the project was assigned. Now the project itself wasn't hard at all... In fact, it could have easily been done in a day, not a week. I assigned everyone fairly equal parts, even giving myself the hardest bits. Of course, even with the huge amount of work I already had, I worked my butt off and was actually proud of the result. I checked up on my group members every day, and they were full of excuses and complaints but somehow we trudged along. However, they couldn't even be bothered to at least attempt to do something. On presentation day, nobody was ready except for me, and I had to pretty much improvise and do their parts as well. Needless to say, it would have been a borderline F if I had not put some special effects here and there.

And that is why I will hate group projects for the majority of my life. Well, that's not to say I have had some succesful ones in the past, but most of the time it's a nightmare. I'm usually the "smart kid" who ends up doing all the work.... What annoys me is the fact that the people I usually end up working with CAN do their part, but they just choose not to.

What about you guys? Yea or nay to group projects?

Advice: Being the "new" kid

Hey guys! School starts tomorrow for me, and I have to say I'm excited and nervous at the same time! I'm not new this year, but I've met some of the new students and they seemed really anxious. That gave me the idea to write this post about how you can have fun at a new school. I've moved around SO much in my life (from continent to continent), having to start a new school every 2 years or so. Over the years, I've accumulated a small amount of knowledge when it comes to being the new kid at school. So here goes :)

#1: Make a good first impression
  Dress nicely and be polite. Don't be afraid to let your personality show, because people you meet won't know what type of person you are at first. It's okay to be shy, because who isn't on the first day? But try and be friendly as it's a very easy way to make friends. It's a very shallow thing to say, but on the first day, everyone will be checking out the "new kids". It's a good idea to make a good impression so that the rumors don't start flying around the moment you step into school.

#2: Don't worry about making too much friends at first
  That can come later. For now, it's important to try and meet one or two people who you like. They can help you around the school for the first week or so and also introduce you to their group of friends. I've been lost countless times during my first few days at school, so it's always good to have someone who can guide you to your classes.  

#3: Don't lie!
   We all know how tempting it is to tell everyone that your dad is actually the CEO of Sony and that you used to live in a mansion. BUT things always catch up in the end! It is a really bad idea to exaggerate and lie about your past life to your new friends. In the end, they are bound to find out the truth (for example, your classmate's cousin might have known you before) and it'll just make them lose trust in you. Trust me, I've seen this happen so may times.

#4:Learn the "rhythm" of the school
  Try and find out what the teachers are like, what people expect from you, and what type of class rotation you have. It'll be so much either when you figure out the rhythm of the place. You can easily do this by asking a new friend, or just spending a few days at school will give you a good idea of what type of school it is.   

#5: And finally... be yourself
  I know, what a cliche thing to say. But there's no point trying to be someone who you aren't. It'll just end up stressing you out and bothering you. I say it's always good to be yourself; if someone doesn't like you for it, then just don't be their friend! It might seem like a good idea to change yourself to fit in in the short run, but it's always a bad idea in the end.

That's all I have for you guys... most of these tips apply to high school but they can be used in any sort of setting- middle school, college, etc.

Good luck! Hope I helped :)