The Book of Five Rings and more

I Went to the museum of New York City and observed most of the exhibits such as women's clothing in the 20th century, forming of the five boroughs, and mainly Japanese Samurai who visited New York in 1860, creating the Japanese Delegation. In the gift shop, I purchased The Book of Five Rings. It's one of the most famous written works in the 17th century by a master swordsman named Miyamoto Musashi who talks about his tactics and strategies of martial arts in a philosophical way.

I continued on to capture Rockefeller Center. The ice rink is all set ready to go, but nobody was skatin' yet.

After, I got too hungry that I needed to eat somewhere. Applebee's was nearest so I went there. Ordered a burger and it was ok. Not the bEST but acceptable. The waitresses were hot, but the food was eh, alright.

Candy land time!

今日はちょっと出かけて。。。ミュージアムに行って１８６０年の日本さむらいがニューヨークにきて日本代表ができたときのはなしを見たり、どういうふうになったのか見たり。それでおみやげショップに行って宮本武蔵の五輪書を買ってきました。

そのあとちょっと散歩に行って、アップルビーズでデイナー食って、キャンデイーも食って、寝る。

I'm so glad that it's the weekend. Furthermore, mod 1 ends. Today was all presentations and Halloween stuff. bleh.

パットメセニー

Pat Metheny, 17 time Grammy award winner, came to our school and performed for us LIVE. It simply blew my mind. Sensational.

パットメセニーが昨日俺の学校でパフォーマンスしました。すごかったです。

Transcendentalism 超越論的

You know how almost every student hates English class? For some strange reason, I've gained interest, especially because we're currently focusing on a specific topic in which I find intriguing. Transcendentalism-- that is, becoming one with nature by crossing limiting boundaries, diving into different parameters and dimensions. What did he just say?

It's a topic in which I've related to in my past creative writing pieces. I never knew I did, but transcendentalism seems to be the main idea of my pieces. For instance, one writing I wrote about before we even studied transcendentalism was an old man who became "one with nature" by only focusing on the outside world, rather than his family. Clearly, I've known this topic before. I just didn't know what it was called. Until now. And it surprises me. I feel like I've found the right key to the door; the matching "piece" to the puzzle of just studying the topic that I've written before in mostly all of my pieces. So I can finally say that so far, my creative writings mostly focus on transcendentalism.

There's even some examples today. For instance, Kid Cudi's Man on the Moon album. It talks about how he is able to reach a different world by going through personal reveries, eventually going up, up, and away.

なんでも

An ordinary day. Nothing but the usual.
今日はなんにもなかった日でした。ちょっとだけ散歩に行って。。。まあね。

El Gimnasio: El projecto de Espanol.

In Spanish, the assignment was to make a movie that contains the appropriate usage of the past tense-- along with several verbs and vocabulary. As a group (5 of us), have completed it and plan to showcase it tomorrow. It's about a girl who becomes attracted to a trainer in an advertisement and meets the trainer. There is no specific plot after that. It's just a film that can be watched and laughed about. It's pretty funny, as usual. The film is so well edited that it deserves to win an Oscar. Nah, just joking. But really, it's a classic. Here's a snippet pic from a scene.

この１週間スペイン語の宿題はビデオを作る目的です。５人が全員グループにいて今日終わった。明日にビデオをせんせいに見せます。ちょーおもしろい。シーン１の写真です。

Seagulls

Seagulls were flying low towards me today prior to the start of the cross country race. My coach said that it brings good luck. Indeed it did. The top 28 runners gets a medal and I came in 28th place. How lucky. Thanks, Seagulls.

Hacky Sack

Clubs in school are meant to engage us all into a closer community. It's an opportunity to break those high school cliques, meet new friends and just have a fun time while sharing our interests. Clubs, furthermore, are open to anyone in the community and meant to be enjoyable for all. Now, hacky sack club, a fun way to get the students rollin', can indeed be a club... right? The director of the upper school, however, stated that it's an outside sport. Hacky sack might be an active mini sport, but it's still meant to played indoors. Hacky sack is just a mini soccer ball. How can it be an outside sport? With the director stealing away our hacky sack every time she sees us, she utterly destroys the whole purpose of the club, which is having an active, joyful time with our friends.

Admittedly, hacky sacks, although it's just a sack filled with sand, can be irritating, hearing kicking sounds repeatedly to the students who are trying to work since we were playing on the 4th floor. But at the same time, we are strictly considering where we would play. It's not like we're playing in the classroom or anything! It's not unintentional! We played on the 4th floor hallway so it wouldn't disrupt the students who are working or having class. We originally were set to play in the 7th floor, but nobody came since it's a tiring walk up the stairs. So we thought about the plaza, but it would just be too hard because nobody ever comes over there either, especially during the morning. So the only place where the students are mainly hanging out is the 4th floor foyer. The director, however, instead, takes it away and leaves us into great state of melancholy.

This isn't the purpose of clubs. Nor is it respectful. Not only did the director steal MY hacky sack, she also stole SEVERAL of them last year just because I was HOLDING my hacky sack. She needs to understand that it's not all about whether it's an outside sport or something else. It's about being social and meeting new people who, in turn, might teach new tricks. And the only way implement this is to play on the 4th floor foyer, the homeland of creating lasting and joyful friendships.

PSAT's on SATurday

Today I had the PSAT's.

Then went to get some ice cream to refresh my mind.

今日は試験がありました。
そのあと、アイスクリームを食べに行きました。

batman

I woke up this morning prepared for school, like usual. I decided to wear my batman shirt today. I headed out and saw one of my friends. He was wearing a batman shirt too (although different brand, the design has a batman logo on it). What coincidence? Or again... a foreshadowing of something? BAH! whatever.

coincidence?

Is it just a complete coincidence? Or a supernatural foreshadowing? Because whatever I thought about today, all happened. This morning at school, I was predicting that the teacher wouldn't be here. And she wasn't... for 10 minutes. But regardless, she didn't come on time, you know? And also I was guessing that a friend would wear a specific shirt today... and he wore that exact shirt. I was predicting a fire drill would happen in the middle of class, and it happened. Has life, for me, become such a daily routine that I've gotten used to what would happen? Or is it just a naturalistic coincidence? Does this mean something? Is there a moral here? A foreshadowing?

sunset

this was taken yesterday.

XC

Today was a cross country meet. My first time, which was a few weeks ago, was 26:50 minutes. My best so far is 23 minutes. Today, it was about the same: 23 minutes. I came in 20th place out of like 50. Not bad, but I know I could've done better.

Ahhh darn it school starts tomorrow. The four day weekend seemed really short. I thought I had more time in my hands. Great, now I gotta wake up early again tomorrow.

As some of you guys may or may not know, several months ago my Tae Kwon Do instructor who taught me for more than 12 years suddenly left the school, saying that he needed a change. Life goes on and he's planning to start off fresh. Never have I heard from him since, but today he mailed me and kept in touch with me. I'm glad that he's doing fine over there and hope to see more of him in the future.

雷や！

Ah! Nothing but a beautiful Columbus day to go out for a little jog.... Until it rained tonight! Not only is it rain, but it's like mini hail/ice beads with thunder on top. It's gonna take a while for this storm to abate. I better keep working now.

今日の朝はちょっとジョギングに行きました。天気がよかったな。今日と明日は休みだからな。でも夜は大雨です。ちいさい氷雨もちょっとふってさ。雷もゴロゴロしてるし。この雨、やむのはけっこ時間がかかるだろう。

１０・１０・１０

Today I went to the Knick's Open Practice. The players played some scrimmages and went through some fundamentals. It's like a regular ol' practice, with some additional wheelchair basketball (New York Rollin' Knicks), performances by both the Knick's City Dancers and the Knick's City Kids, and other stuff. Amare Stoudemire and his crew did some superb dunks and three pointers. Can't wait for the regular season to begin.
Next up, was GOGOCURRY! I ate a Katsu Curry. It was goood. After that I went to the JAPAN AND KOREA BLOCK FESTIVAL to get me some pork. The fair had a wide variety of Japanese and Korean food like Bibimbap, Tako, etc.
BTW, today is 10/10/10. A great day to make a wish. But wait, try to make the wish on either 10:10 AM or PM to make it exact.

　　今日はバスケの練習を見に行きました。よかったです。それでランチはゴーゴーカレーでした。かつカレーでした。うまっ！そのあと、日本アンド韓国フェアに行きました。いっぱい日本と韓国の食べものがありました。ポーク、ビビンバ、たこ、そんなかんじ。あ、そういえば今日は１０・１０・１０ですね。なんか希望をする日だな。でもそうだったら１０：１０AMか２２：１０ＰＭにしたらいいと思う。

Imagine

In honor of John Lennon's 70th birthday, hundreds gathered around Strawberry Fields to sing along to numerous Beatles songs like there's no tomorrow. It was a memorable moment for the people; for John especially. We dedicate this to you and continue to imagine a world of Peace.

ジョンレノンの70歳の誕生日を記念して、何百人も明日がないかのような多数のビートルズの曲に合わせて歌ってストロベリーフィールズの周りに集まりました。それは、人々の記憶に残る瞬間だった、ジョンのために特別に。我々はあなたにこれを捧げると平和の世界を想像し続けています。

four day weekend

The four day weekend is finally here! YES!
But the PSAT's are in a couple of days! NOOOO!
So like, I have to study. NOOOOOOO!
But I can catch up on my sleep! YES!
haha.

the night before the morning after.

Here I am at school, enjoying lunch break.
My friends and I have discussing what time we all slept the night before yesterday. Because you see, we had this intense history project that took us roughly all night. Currently, Nic holds the record, stood up until 5AM. I was up until 3:30AM. The morning after, first period Bio, most of the classmates were dead asleep. And I had a presentation to present and most of them weren't paying attention. That's how intense it was.

Now since it's all over, everyone is kind of relaxed. But not too relaxed because work is continuously being assigned. But we're all glad that the history thing is done. I miss the summer.

Cold Day

Why is today so cold? Yes, it's fall, but the temperature just immediately dropped down. It's like 54F today. During XC practice, I was freakin' shivering (also because it was lightly raining). Tomorrow is a meet, even though there's a slight chance of rain. Boy am I going to enjoy that. Tomorrow's another day. See y'all later.

なんでかわからんが、今日はめっちゃ寒い。秋だけどなんか急に天気がさがったみたい。今日のクラブ活動のクロスカントリーの練習にはすこく寒かった　（ま、雨も降ってたしな）。明日マラソンあります。雨が降るパーセントがあるのに。