Family Circle

Now with nothing to do during the summer after my failed Chinese Class Experience, I decided to go to DVC to take Photoshop classes instead.

The teacher, Mrs. Holman, was very fun and nice, and the classmates were of all ages. I, of course, was the youngest, the next being a to-be 9th grader called Nikita. He seemed very interested in zombies and heavy metal guitarists, and loved to read about both. Though he was a good friend, his interests were very unlike that of mine.

The first couple days, they taught stuff like selections and layers that I already knew from playing around with it during some free time. But after a while, I was learning quite a lot. Homework was quite easy, and after only 5 weeks, the Final was due, a project with all we learned for 40% of our grade.

I decided to turn my sister into a mermaid, fairy, and goddess.

Emily the Fairy

Emily the Goddess

Emily the Mermaid

The page Master of the Elements is being completely rewritten. It has been dormant for a very long while, and I will continue to add more to the story.

X-Man’s write-rate system:

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Everyone’s parents is almost begging their children to do something over the summer. For me, they wanted me to teach Chinese at the nearby school’s after-school care center. Of course, it was busier than ever because it was after the whole school scenario for a couple months.

So, I sat in front of the computer to write out the class plan, the permission slips, the handouts, and all that other stuff. It was pretty boring and went through some major revisions. But I kept on writing it with some help from my parents, and eventually finished all the paperwork.

I brought the idea over to the Presidents of the after school camp and they completely loved it. They were all, “This is GREAT!” and “Everyone will LOVE this!”, as if they thought that the whole camp would volunteer. So they happily complied to the plan and passed out all the permission slips.

As I came back to the camp a couple days later, I was pretty sure that there would be a bunch of kids coming. But then there was always the nagging voice at the back of my head, saying, “Who would even think about learning anything when they don’t need to? They already fall behind in class, why commit to something they know they won’t commit to?” I usually ignored the little voice, but now it was slowly taking over the other thoughts. As I approached the office, I had no idea what to expect.

The office was cluttered everywhere with paper from probably a century ago, and I was always amazed how they could ever find their way through all of it. (Sometimes I think my parents are wondering that about me, too.) The supervisors greeted me and gave me some high fives, and I asked them if there were any permmies back.

There were, of course (well, maybe not, according to your view) none.

So they told me to come back on Monday(it was Friday) and see if any more came back. I was pretty sure nobody would, especially after the deadline.

I figured that permmies went around like this:

1)Child receives permission slip. If s/he doesn’t like it, his disposes it in some way. If s/he does, it goes on to the next step.
2)Parents receive permission slip. Same as above, except if they like it, the slip goes back.

I also figured that all parents would want their kids to learn something new, so that would mean all of them were lost over the first step. Which meant that they all didn’t like learning, at least thought it was unpopular in the summer.

Moral:
Don’t ignore the tiny voice in your head. Sometimes, it’s right.

Bored of using multiple posts to comment? Can’t find your posts, but don’t want to go all the way back the the Chatting Post way back? Use the New-fangled Chatting Post #2 -also called Yakkity Yak!

There has been a wave of new posts coming up in the past three or four hours and it has been cluttering up the front page with news talking about the strange and completely unnecessary argument between Poogue Jim–Vivachihuahua. I also find that there has been a wave of new comments of the argument. I am not saying that you should not have conversations on the comment places, but please restrain from using posts on the same subject, especially if there has already been a great deal of comments on it.

Our friends Gracie and Nicholas had just arrived at our doorstep. “Time for cherry picking,” I shouted. My sister and I slapped on our shoes and hopped on their car.

We played a couple games on the long trip to the cherry farms. But when we finally got there, we were exhausted. Gracie, Nicholas, their parents, Emily, my Grandparents, my Parents, and I trudged toward the giant grove of trees.

Our group grabbed buckets and started picking cherries. They were big, red, and overall delicious, and we ate tons upon tons upon tons of the berry-licious fruit. When we were chock-full of cherries, we picked a little more to take home, or if you call a little 6 pounds.

We went to a nectarine farm, but I’m sorry to say that it was terrible. Most weren’t ripe, and ones that were had bugs. So we got ice cream instead. I chomped down a Neapolitan Ice Cream Sandwich, and the others had popsicles. It was a very fun way to end our trip.

Ughhh, I thought. When are we going to find parking in a completely crowded lot?! There is no parking! We are going to be the very last when the line comes!
There I was, exasperated already, sitting in a car with my dad and sister, following my mom’s car, looping in a filled lot, on the day of my mom’s commencement. Honestly, I almost thought we would be going on and on and on forever…
…until finally mom found a space, and parked. She hurriedly got out, and my Grandparents wandered around while we also found an empty space. Of course, she had to get out fast, for nobody would want to be late for their own commencement! So, with her hexagonal professor cap and her marvelous flowing robe, she walked away.
We parked, met up with the Grandparents, grabbed our jackets, and hurried to the Greek Theatre.
We came upon a crowded flower stand with a ring of people around it. We popped in and gazed upon the plethora of roses, petunias, sunflowers, vetch, and other wonderful plants. There were also many assortments of Hawaiian leis, in multiple colors. So we fished out our wallets and produced money enough for a bouquet of roses and a pink and yellow lei.
It was then when we finally realized how long the line entering the Greek had gotten. It stretched down multiple flights of stairs, and then curled around the side of the building. We ran to the end, sighing a breath of relief as we found the line to be going quite quickly.
The Greek looked just like a miniature version of the Colosseum, and, of course, a Greek Theatre. But I had never seen a Greek Theater full. A giant horde of people were crowded in, and we finally found a spot much in the back.

The Stage of the Greek Theatre

Slowly, the Bachelor Degrees marched in, with large neon yellow signs stating their department, such as “CIVIL & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING” or “BIOENGINEERING”.
After the BS’s were the Masters as they approached in the same manner. Their caps were square, not like my mom’s hexagonal cap. When they were done (they took much longer than the Bachelors) the PhDs began walking on to the stage.
We cheered loudly as I frantically searched for my mom with no avail. Dad looked too, but we found nothing until I found her with the video camera zoomed in. Suddenly, a speaker came up to the podium and announced the singing of the national anthem.
More speakers came, and when they finished the Hooding of the new PhDs began.
Basically, Hooding is when the chair member of your department calls your name, and you get presented with a ‘hood’ from your adviser, an embellishment to the robe. I noticed furthermore that advisers had octagonal caps, and understood that the higher your level, the more sides to your cap. Hmmm… I wondered if anyone had a decagonal cap. Maybe, maybe not.
When mom came up, we jumped on to our feet, and cheered loudly, the people next to us, the parents of another PhD grad, cheered with us as well. In return, we cheered for them.
Then, it got boring. The professor kept calling our names, the grads kept coming up, and then the masters proceeded in the same way. But really, when all you’re listening to is a monotonous voice calling out names of people you don’t know, it gets tedious.
Suddenly, mom appeared behind us and I happily left the Greek towards the reception at another lab, where everybody from then on called her Dr. Mai.

Dr. Mai

“A marvelous speaker is coming today,” Mrs. Schultz, my 6th grade teacher said. “She is Melanie Bryant, a wonderful new author of one book, ‘The Prophecy Keepers’. She is in the library right now, waiting for us. So let’s go!”

As the class marched over to the library, I was thinking. How was this Melanie Bryant? What was her book like? Questions formed in my mind, ready to be asked. Just then we reached the entrance to the library.

Our class and other classes filed quietly into the library, and I saw the author. My first impression was a quiet, nice lady in her late 20’s, and though some say first impressions are incorrect, this was perfectly right.

Welcomed us, and immediately started talking about the book. “This book is the Prophecy Keepers,” she said, “It is the first of a series of five. Only this one is published, though.” She went on to say that she had written almost all of the other four books, and when they will be published.

What I was really interested in was the process of publishing. She said that is was terribly depressing, and very time-consuming. She would send out a letter, talking about the book, to about ten publishers at a time. Almost every time, a ten letters would come back, politely refusing the book, and listing why it wasn’t accepted. When she received this, she would revise, edit, write a new note, and send it to another set of ten publishers.

Occasionally, she would receive a reply saying that yes, they wanted to read the manuscript after reading the letter. But after sending the manuscript, most of those replied no. But finally, after a couple months, she sent her forty-fifth letter, and got her book accepted.

“It was a very small publishing company,” she explained, “but it spent a lot of time and money getting the word out that ‘The Prophecy Keepers’ was getting published.” And after another many months of revising, it was in Barnes & Nobles everywhere.

I was amazed and impressed at the ability to talk. Once she started, she never hesitated or stopped, just kept going. She answered questions clearly, and was very persuasive at wanting us to read her book. When she was finally done talking, a wave of students came to her, holding money in their hands, wanting to buy the book. Another wave came, holding out their hands or post-its or whatnot, asking for her to sign them. Obviously, she had gained a lot of respect and popularity among the group.

The class went back excited, and very talkative. Everyone was talking about how great Melanie was and how they must read her book. It was a great thing for me, my class, my teacher, my school, and Melanie for her to inspire us at our school.

The Prophecy Keepers, Front Cover

From the start to the end, I knew that this would be a great day to remember. Everybody got great results, and everyone went home with a new spring in their step. It was the CMEA Band Festival 2009.4.25, a record day for my fellow band-mates and the school.

The bands of the East Bay Section were to be critiqued in many categories by three judges. The judge would give every band some comments, score them, and give them an overall grade. The best was Superior, then Excellent, Good, Fair, Needs Improvement, respectively. The best bands, who got Superiors from all the judges, received a “Unanimous Superior”. Often, school bands came back without the honor of the US. But this year, it was different for our whole school.

Go Band! Go Craziness! Go… after winning the “Unanimous Superior” rating

When I first got to the Festival, someone who had performed yesterday from the 8th grade band at our school came up to the 6th grade band and started screaming that they had gotten a Unanimous Superior. It was great news for us, that one of our bands had gotten this high score.

We listened to our 7th grade band play, and they did great. We knew they would all do good. Then during the break time, the scoreboard announced that they too had gotten a Unanimous Superior, which was awesome. Now, it was up to us to finish the streak as the last band of our school playing.

During warm-up, our conductor, Mrs. Zigas-Brown, gave us some pep talk and explained the procedures of the performance. She told us not to get our senses muddled by the scores, and just to do our best. Then we practiced a few bars of the music and were ready to go.

Being on the stage was a lot different than looking at the people on stage was my first thought as I went to get to my normal seat. Once on the stage, the darkened audience looked completely black, the lights almost boiled us alive, and the seats were all so big. Mrs. ZB got us started with the music, but after a couple of squeaks and wrong notes, she started seeing red. But she got better as the music progressed quite uneventfully after that.

When we finished off the pieces, everybody was nervous as some others took our picture. Once everyone finished, we ran off to see our scores.

It was a record-breaker. Never in Mrs. ZB’s career had she gotten three US’s in one CMEA festival. Everyone bought Superior medals and US pins. And every single person from our school that day walked off with a jingling on their chest from the medals.

My shiny Sax after the concert.

Me, My Dad, and My “Unanimous Superior” Badge!

After a long dark night, a glimpse of twilight finally breaks through along the horizon. You can feel the hope and good-will in the fresh air, leaving the fears and depression aside (hopefully leaving them behind).

It is a day of witnessing history, a day to be remembered, a day of starting a new generation. Going forward with bravery and humility.