New York : USABOUND!

I'm going to blog about New York when it's still fresh. Hehehehhe. So I flew out from Sacramento to San Francisco to catch a connecting flight that landed in Newark. There was a guy sitting next to me who carried on his Chihuahua with him. Which at one point, I was like thinking to myself, "is that even legal?" Well, apparently, it is. #learningnewthingseveryday 

Because of the time difference, when touched down, it was already late, there wasn't much I could do. The next morning however, I explored New Jersey. I went to this place called the Frelinghuysen Arboretum where every tree was either yellow, red or orange. FALL IS HERE! That's one thing about have extreme weathers I guess, you get to see extreme beauties as well. Where else in California, where we don't get rain, we don't get snow(NOT COMPLAINING) and so, we don't get extreme beauty because our temperature for Winter is the equivalent to the temperature for Autumn for the east coast. Anyways, pictures to show you what I mean by extreme beauty. By extreme beauty, it also means that it's everywhere. 

Also, I had Chipotle for lunch. MMMM MMMMM MMMMMM. 

Day 2 was New York 

We took the Subway to World Trade Center. We walked past ground zero and took a few pictures before we continued to walk towards Battery Park through Wall St. Then, we spent a few hours on Liberty Island before we visited Central Park and Times Square before we took the Subway back. New York is the most beautiful city I've seen. I guess I understand why people would rather go through the whole hustle and bustle in New York because when you walk out and see the beauty of the city it totally makes it worth it. Okay, pictures on the way.

Amazing timing when there was almost nobody there, except for the guy in black on the top left corner.

The view from ground zero.

I blend. 

View from the reservoir in Central Park. 

 And that infamous Time Square screen that takes your picture - spot me! 

The next day was filled with flights and now I'm safely home. 

I vlogged! So you can click here for a different feel of my trip.

Zoe

Third Day - Wasn't so bad

Hi world,

So I noticed something very interesting today. For some reason, have you ever had one of those times where you wished you could have an out of body experience and see yourself from someone else's point of view? Well, I think to have that would be genius because we never actually do see ourselves. It's the reflection in the mirror we see when we groggily pad ourselves to the bathroom in the morning to wash the sleep from our eyes and there you see yourself, eye bags, hair in a bun, ultimate Asian eyes, pimpled face and all. But that's all we see - physical features. In some ways, its good we don't see ourselves from someone else's eyes because there's a lot of ugliness that comes with being a person. I know that if I were to see myself from another person's point of view, a notebook of lists cannot make up for the imperfections that I need to change to be a better person.

I spent my lunch time alone, with a book. It isn't unusual, but it happens more rather than occasionally. And the best bit was I knew that I wasn't lonely. I just knew that sitting by myself isn't a magnet for stares and judgement, in fact nobody cared. When you're alone, or waiting for someone even in a crowded place, it does feel like the doors of your insecurity has opened and it feels like the gusts of winds and storms of judgement of the world is judging you for your loneliness and insecurities when to be honest, nobody really takes notice. Today has been pretty great. I got into my dreaded English 12, the classroom packed like a can of sardine: crowded, hard to breathe, claustrophobic, disgusting and uncomfortable. It consisted of backpacks hitting the back of my head, tables from the back ramming itself into my chair, noise from the hallway that absolutely makes me cringe and the fact that I still felt like an anchovy in a sea of sharks and whales. But we did my favorite thing today. We had to write an essay. For a moment I freaked. I didn't know the format, I didn't know anything. I didn't know if its from your point of view, or if you were to write the essay excluding the words "Me, Myself and I".

After reading the sources I told myself that it was just like writing essays for US History - hook, thesis, paragraphs supporting the thesis, quotes from the sources and citing the sources. Soon enough I found myself writing through 6 long paragraphs. Ideas and words seem to have flowed out continuously to the point where I had so much to say but I didn't want to overstep the limit, even though there were none so I just kept it short and not very sweet. I don't really like not expressing my opinions fully, but if you don't put my writing on a leash, I'd go on forever. For some reason, I don't know if I'm thankful I don't talk as much as I write, or vice versa. After 6 paragraphs of expressing my opinions(still not fully, though), I felt better. I left school with a smile(its quite a shocker considering how I hated that sardine can class) and I too, realized how writing impacts me. It doesn't really matter what the topic is, I guess.

Anyways, that was today.

Thanks for reading, if you have.

I hope you've had a great day :)

xoxo

Zoe

Second day - dreadful

Hi world,

So it has only been the second day of school ever since break ended and I feel so dead. English 12, or some people call it Senior English is no joke. To some people its pretty smooth going, I guess. It's a lot of hard work and a lot of terms that I don't get because I missed English 9, 10 and 11. But that isn't an excuse that I should use because I've learned everything in an indirect way. Like we didn't have a whole year to do descriptive writing and we didn't do annotations. Our summaries are written differently and our essays certainly did not contain a thesis. So yes, I feel like my head is underwater now. There are things like, "remember in your sophomore year, we did .....?" Well, no I don't. Because I wasn't here. I don't know you guys, I'm in out of my head.

Don't you guys feel uncomfortable in big classes? I hate my English 12 class. It is filled completely to the brim with people, people my age but yet I feel like a little fish in a big pond amongst sharks and whales. Crowds make me jittery. Big classes make me jittery. In a way I'm thankful I'm placed in front, but nonetheless I'm still  distracted by the huge crowds that scare me immensely. For some reason blogging and writing is very comforting to me. In a way its a way for me to vent my worries and stupid silly fears knowing that someone who reads this can relate to this somehow. What's even more depressing is the fact that its only Wednesday. How fun is that? Even though I finish school about almost more than an hour early now, it doesn't make English 12 that much easier.

On our first day, which was yesterday, we had to read a poem, annotate it and explain what it meant. After that, we were told that we have to read at least an 800 paged book throughout the whole semester while keeping a booklog and a journal on what you've read, plus even analyzing that damn book. On top of that, keep up with your class work. Well, honestly I hate first day classes because teachers break down everything for you and you end up absorbing overwhelmingly the amount of work you have to do in about 4 and a half months. Not forgetting the pressure that English 12 is needed to graduate. So if I don't put my best foot forward, bye bye graduation.

So I do wonder why I haven't dug a grave for myself and just lied there, waiting for the amount of work to bury me alive. Grrr. School. I would've graduated and be done with school by now.

Happy Thursday.

Zoe

Snippets of my room.

Hello, world! 

I'm back with a little room update. So about 3 weeks ago, the family and I moved into a house and I finally I would say am done putting things together. I have one green wall and the rest are all white. So here's a little run through. The Z-O-E scrabble pieces are by Typo, the canvas, "Do all things with love" and the world map was painted by, yours truly, the fairy lights came from a hardware store that sold it for 75% off after Christmas and I got it for less than $4. The scented candles came from IKEA, the glasses I put my makeup in are from previous candles that has already burned up, the jars I use to put my colored pens in are old spaghetti sauce jars, preferably the ones by Prego ( because that's all I had at home! ) 

I love rooms similar to mine, I like them white and bright in the day time, but I also like them quite and cozy at night, thus the fairy lights and candles. My brother has a grey room, it's probably too dark for me, but each to its own. In each of my rooms, I have had green or white in them, my room back home is double toned, I have an army green on the top and a bright green at the bottom, I don't have an exact picture of it, but this was one that I could find : 

That was my room back in Penang, it was messy, filled with fairy lights, candles and very very cozy. So when I moved in, I thought that I'd bring the elements of my definition of "comfort" into my room. Some people classify this as Tumblr-ish, but I think I have a lot more to go if I were to call my room Tumblr. Nevertheless, enjoy and I hope that by the time you're done scrolling, you'd feel comforted too :) 

 

♥



Zoe