[396]

I say this everytime, but it's been a long time since my last update.  I just flew back from Hawaii this morning and I'm tired, but nothing's new and I'll live.  I'll post the pictures of facebook when I have time.

This past week in Hawaii I had a lot of time to reflect and think about just about everything, especially what my whole high school experience was.  I really regret not being able to give the speech I prepared to the seniors before the graduation ceremony.  Though it may not be the best piece of English, it depicts one of the many facets of my experience.  I didn't want the speech to go to waste just sitting in my computer.  Honestly, it would just make me happy if one person read it, that's all I really want.

I’m going to tell you what high school was for me.  It started with my letter from the school district announcing that I had been assigned to “George Washington High School.”  To me at the time, this was devastating news and I was almost in tears.  Wash was my fourth choice school, I live all the way out in Sunset and would have to bus it every morning, I came from Hoover and didn’t know anybody here, and I thought Wash was this ghetto school across town on too steep of a hill.

When I arrived for orientation I knew but a handful of people, and my relationships with them weren’t all too great.  On that day in August, I sat back there in the corner by myself, still hoping that my appeal would go through at the last minute and I would get to transfer.  Well that didn’t work and I had to accept that I was stuck here.  I hated wandering around at lunch not knowing anybody, and clinging to the few people I had met.  I remember wishing that classes were all back-to-back just so I could travel from one class to another and not have to face the sea of other students.

When I found out about freshman elections, I signed up thinking that this would be a good way to force myself to be incorporated in the school.  Hardly anybody knew me, but I was Class President at Hoover and that might give me a little leverage.  Well that turned out to be the second I’ve lost so far.  At this point I felt dejected and wasn’t too fond of the whole idea of high school.

Fast forward to last week.  A friend and I were walking down the hallway after school talking about and reflecting on our high school experiences.  We both agreed that high school was not what we had expected.  For her, she had this glorified vision enhanced by television shows, and her experience didn’t quite live up to that.  On the other hand, I had felt quite the opposite.  I had this gloomy vision of spending four years not knowing anyone just because there were so many darned Presidio kids, being picked on, and never finding my place.  Now after a long four years, I’m proud to say that quite the opposite is true.  My memories are sweet and unforgettable.  I have more Presidio friends than I want to admit, I’m proud to say that I have never been thrown in a garbage can, and I have found too many places in this school and I never seem to leave.

I want to thank all of you for making high school what it has been for me, and we have all shaped each other’s experiences together.  This year’s senior prom title was “Serendipity,” which is defined as the faculty of making fortunate discoveries by coincidence.  Well I think it was more than a coincidence that I made the fortunate discovery of coming here, meeting so many people, and befriending all of you.  Thank you.

[395]

There's nothing wrong with me right now, I just really like this quote.

"One of the principal functions of a friend is to suffer (in a milder and symbolic form) the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies." (182)
Brave New World

What's making me suffer right now is not getting anything from colleges.  It's killing me!!!

[394]

Crazy weekend, but it's been incredibly fun!

[friday]

Hung out with Tina after school, got to Borders, and studied Stat like nerds.  Chilled and then went home.  Greg came back for a weekend and stopped by.  We had dinner, played some games, and then slept pretty early because we both had to wake up early the next day.

[saturday]

Woke up pretty early, got my stuff together, and headed to Rec.  Though a little late, I wasn't the last one there (haha, take that!).  Allen, Benji, and Josh rode with my dad and me.  I don't remember what happened during that ride because I was asleep for more than half of it.

This year we weren't the first to get to the gym and had to wait 30 minutes for it to open.  And freakin' sheez the gym was cold.  Later in the day as it warmed up, it was actually warmer outside than inside.  Well the tournament was fun.  Personally it was a better experience than last year.  I played a few games and our second team got to play 3 games of pool play on their own which was great.  Both of our teams were combined for bracket play in the afternoon, and our first team was undefeated in pool play we were put in Gold Bracket.

Seeded #3 in Gold Bracket, we played our way up to the Championships against Moreau Catholic.  Defending our title as Nor Cal Champions, and with the largest bench, we beat our opponents and held on to championship title.

[opponents]

Marin Catholic (2-0)
San Marin (2-0)

Chico (2-0)
Crystal Springs Uplands (2-1)
Moreau Catholic (2-1)

[moments to remember]

Celbrity Sighting: Pete Wilson
Reference for the future: "the tournament when the girl got taken out on the stretcher"
Getting to yell out, "Go Toy!"
Yelling out to Jason on the court, "Don't listen to Raymond, he's not the coach!"
Championship Picture: same team, same coach, same uniforms, same spirit.

At 4pm we drove back to the city and chilled a while at the Rec.  We decided to go to BK for dinner and pigged out.  After dinner was dessert at Polly Ann.  Yum... French Vanilla and Strawbango on a waffle cone all dipped in chocolate!  Oh how I miss my ice cream!  Jason ran into his friends and I ran into Lorraine, Wilson, Mel, Amy, and Corinna.  Well now I have a backup date for prom

[moments to remember]

10 glasses of water on a tray being dropped on the floor by a server
Seeing my horrible stats from the tournament for digging
Seeing my slightly better stats from the tournament for serving
Oliver's infected Dumbo ears
Lori parking and nearly running over half the population of China
Benji reading funny signs and finding it funnier that he actually understood them

After Polly Ann we all drove over to my house except that I didn't have my keys and my parents were at school watching the Senior One Acts.  So we all parked outside and chilled for a while waiting for my parents to get home.  Gabe went to get Mimi after dessert and drove back over to my house.  He didn't know that we were all waiting for my parents, so they walked up to my house, rang the doorbell, and didn't get a reply.  Oh how fun that was watching while we all hid in Lori's car.

Well my parents eventually came home and we all got to relive Christmas two years ago, except this time the lights stayed on and there wasn't a gingerbread house.  There was sleeping, fooseball, Super Smash Brothers, Beach Volleyball, Cranium, and Taboo.  After complaining that she didn't like the game, Sam (with Aaron and Gabe) beat Mimi, Will, and me at Cranium.  Well the last to leave were Will and Mimi at 2 am.  Boy was I tired.

[memorable moments]

7 semi-grown ups spying on Mimi & Gabe from Lori's car
Lori farting in the car and watching from the side as the guys try to blame it on each other
Forming our secret plan in the car
Benji telling his "story"
Getting hit in the head by a fooseball twice in a row
Mimi making will act out a bumble bee

[sunday]

Yesterday was my mom's birthday.  After waking up and going out to lunch I went to work.  I worked for 4 hours and left.  It was raning like no freakin' other!  Stupid me had dress clothes on with a jacket that didn't have a hood.  So I walked unprotected through the rain carrying a big of dim sum and Vitasoy to downtown.  I got to the Cheesecake Factor and found my brother and parents.  We had dinner and a stuffed myself again.  I had the pasta with pesto and pine nuts that was pretty awesome.  Then we all got our cheesecakes (key lime, raspberry lemon, white chocolate caramel latte, and browne sundae) that nearly killed me.  I miss the gym and exercise.

[393]

This weekend has been great.  Everyone I know came back home: Cassandra, Winnie, Geraldine, Clark, Greg, Raymond, Philip, and Ron.

[Friday]

After school we had Play-a-thon.  I had to skip volleyball practice in order to make my 8 pm call time.  We had a good practice and it was some good bonding time for our section.  Let's just say we shall no longer go hungry.  Well Agnes, Maggie, Tina, Alex, and I spent our night abducting Johnny, Kevin, and Jonathan.  We finally knocked out by the stage and I skipped my 3 am and 6 am rehearsals.  Oh well.  Though different from the ones in the past, this Play-a-thon was a lot of fun.  Maybe it's just easier leaving at 8 am.

[Saturday]

Well after Play-a-thon I went home and then BARTed over to OAK to get Greg.  We chilled downtown, watched When a Stranger Calls, and then back to my house.  With the assistance for Clark, Cassandra, Geraldine, Crystal, and Raymond I baked Corinna and Steven's birthday cake.  Whew it was hard, but it turned out okay considering I dit it all from scratch.  We just chilled at my house for a while until everyone went home.

[Sunday]

Woke up and had lunch with Greg, Clark, Andy, Raymond, and Vince at Noriega Teriyaki House.  Dude, Clark eats an incredible amount of wasabi on his rolls.  The wasabi was more massive than each piece of roll. 

Well I had to get over to Corinna and Steven's birthday shindig at the bowling alley.  Got to Sea Bowl, but decided to move so Charles gave me a ride over to Classic.  Aaron's car with Steven and I forget who else had a wonderfully designed napkin-flag.  And guess what the design was, "GPC."  But of course.  Too bad it fell off the car and we ran it over.  =X  Muahahaha.

Well bowling was crazy ass fun, I should go more often.  The first game I bowled a 127, which isn't bad for me.  The second game Roby and I switched off and we did pretty well.  Actually, I think we might have gotten the highest score that day, a 155!

Well then it was dinner at Marie Callendar's in Serramonte.  The food was pretty good, I got full hella fast.  We were trying to take some nice, decent pictures, but Jimmy insisted in being in everyone.  He mad it his life mission and would run across the room just to make sure he was in our shots.  Well then I busted out with the cake that I'd been hiding all day and the present we've been working on for the past couple of weeks.  I hope Corinna likes it.

Well they went off to do their thing and I went home.  Extended CLF came over and we had Cranium and Taboo night.  Greg and I kicked ass!  It was just my lucky day; win at bowling, Cranium, and Taboo.  Will, Grace, and Jack were reunited.  We're unbeatable!

Booked it over to Jon's and slept over along with Jack, Grace, and John.

[Monday]

Woke up at 1 pm.  Grace had to get to SFO to catch his flight back to JFK, so we had to hurry.  We stopped by my house to get some of his luggage he forgot, said goodbyes at Stones, ran into Danny, grabbed some food, and hurried our asses to SFO.  We made it in time and had bittersweet goodbyes.  Then Jon, Greg, and I chilled downtown a little while before we met up with John and Ryan at Elephant Bar (Serramonte).  The second night in a row eating out there.

Oh man service was horrible there.  The server threw menus at us, the server couldn't get us our appetizers, and somehow refilled a strawberry lemonade with regular.  The food was "meh" too.  My albacore was way done and chewy, the tri-tip was more cooked than requested, and the fettuccine lacked taste.  Glad we got dessert though, becuase the huge brownie made up for everything.  I love food, it warms your stomach and brings people together.  Glad I got to talk to ryan again after what seems like a long time.

After dinner Jon and I took Greg to the airport where we had to say goodbye to a second person in the same day.  I just can't wait for people to come back.