Plans to Visit Different Places

One day when I’m finished with college, I’d love to travel somewhere foreign such as Japan. Of course, I’d have to be careful of what countries that are safe to be visiting otherwise I’d be in a lot of trouble risking getting robbed, or something worse. It would be awesome visiting somewhere beautiful, with my friends or family and having a good time on vacation. I’ve only been out of state a few times, and only one time out of the country, so I have a lot of options to visit in the future. I think it’d also be very cool to meeting new people during my travels, and what stories they’d share, similar to how people in This I Believe II told their own personal experiences that they’ve lived through, good or bad, just learning about their version of life within a simple conversation. If I could travel to any place in the world right now, I’d probably love to visit a place where there’s lots of food, to be honest, because I love trying new foods (meat related obviously, the good stuff), or maybe even seafood, but I have to avoid certain fish like tilapia since I’m allergic. Overall, I hope to visit as many places as I can once I officially settle down and become my own independent person in the world. I don’t want to live too much of a boring life, but just enough to where some places that are listed as popular tourist places, or even certain quieter places with the surrounding nature is pretty good, indeed.

A Month Left of School

It’s almost the end of my first semester of college, and all I can say is “whew”. Honestly, it’s a mix of both a relief, and stress. Just thinking about our finals versus having a month off of relaxing, it’s mostly a stressful time right now. Most of my classes have a some simple finals, such as a presentation, or test, which I usually don’t mind. However, I’m more concerned with my Chemistry-Lecture final, as we’re tested on eight chapters of content, and chapters 4 and 5 were the most tough ones yet. I’m going to be studying my Chemistry notes, as well as doing some practice problems so I can prepare myself for our final coming up. I’ve got to do two presentations, one for geography, and one for English, and my geography one isn’t so bad actually. For geography, we sampled some water around the local area, such as in Turlock, or each others homes, and we got back some interesting results (Patterson got that stank water watch out y’all), and we just have to do a brief presentation on our findings. Once winter break starts, I won’t have to use my alarm for awhile, which I’m mostly excited about, because sleeping in on a cold night with a warm blanket is one of the best experiences in winter. I’m also looking forward to our annual family gathering, which I mentioned in a previous blog, about how I meet all my relatives and cousins, and we celebrate a holiday, for Christmas, and I honestly can’t wait.

Hallo-weenie

The group and I decided to get together and have a mini party, since there was a holiday coming up. That holiday was Halloween, and it just so happened to be on a Monday. Usually, I hate going out on weekdays to attend some party because I’m just used to hanging out on weekends, but I made an exception because why not. We arrived around 8, when there were only some trick-or-treaters walking around the neighborhood, and some came up to the garage for candy because that’s where we were hanging out at. Everyone brought something for the party, and we got chips, meats, some brownies, etc., basically the good stuff. We set up for a game of water pong, supposedly they were going to drink, but I’m a good boy so I never drink. Because there wasn’t any, we decided to use money instead, but no one brought money, so we thought of a disgusting punishment: drink a blend of ice, potato chips, some sausages, and some Canada Dry. Of course I lost, so I was one of the teams that had to drink that garbage. It was all bad, as we were gagging/puking just by smelling it, but we just had to drink about ¼ an inch into the cup. It was pretty bad, but I managed to finish it, and I’ll never forget the texture/smell/feel of it. The smell of the sausage was pretty strong too, so I plan on staying away from sausage for awhile.

Visiting my Relatives

I went to visit my family members in the Bay Area, San Leandro more specifically. I love going to the Bay Area because it’s much cooler over there than here in Patterson, where it’s still pretty warm despite already being fall. Because I got my license a few months ago, my parents make me drive whenever we always go out now, and being on the freeway can be pretty nerve wracking, especially when your parents get scared over the littlest things, and that stresses me out even more. I stopped by my cousin’s house, as it was a housewarming party, but also a celebratory for all the October birthdays. My family tends to celebrate our relatives birthdays within the same month, so that we each get our temporary special time while all of us are here. I enjoy hanging out with my cousins and aunts and uncles because they all live in the Bay Area, while I’m all the way out here, so I miss out on the fun stuff they’re doing. It’s alright though, because I actually get to see them pretty often, especially during holidays such as Christmas, New Years, Penafrancia, sometimes Halloween, and just lots of celebratory parties in general, basically like a get-together. Whenever I visit my family, I feel like I’m at home, and it’s great seeing all my aunts, uncles, and all the different generations of relatives coming together, and spending time with those who we’ll all get to grow up with, as well as new editions to the family.

Kids Helping Kids Club

During high school, I was in a club that helps underprivileged kids receive new clothes is a pretty cool experience. I’ve worked in a club called Kids Helping Kids, I get to help prepare for the big event that takes place at the end of the year, mainly December. Over the course of the semester, me and a bunch of other friends usually took recycling bottles, cans, and other junk from either across campus, to football games. The good part of going to football games was that we could get in for free since we we were on the list, #ClubPrivileges. Basically, I participated in jobs that helped raise money, or asking for donations around the neighborhoods, and just getting word out to help spread awareness for the club to get them involved. After months of preparation, and money going to our club, we were able to take about 60 kids, each with a budget of $120 per kid. It was a big day for both the kids, and our club, so we were pretty busy. I helped out two little brothers who I helped pick out what kinds of clothes they wanted, and helped them decide what looked pretty good. From there on out, we took all the kids to our high school’s cafeteria and got all the kids settled down, eat food, get presents from Santa, and basically have fun. It was pretty cool seeing all our work of raising money made these kids happy, and it was the season of giving, so making those kids happy was a nice way of giving back to the community.

Friend's Birthday Party

I’m not a big fan of movie theaters, in my opinion, because it’s super loud, plus you need to pay to get in, which I’m a person who likes to spend money wisely. It was my friend’s birthday party, celebrating it in September, and it was pretty lit to be honest. We had the squad going on, except one guy named Daniel, so we substituted him for another dude named Adrian so that we had 8 people. We stopped by a laser tag place in Modesto as they had reserved a spot in their. I made the mistake of wearing a white sweater that same day, meanwhile everyone was wearing dark clothes, so it made me stick out easily, and getting destroyed by literally everybody. After a few hours of no-scoping, we stopped by to eat pizza and then wait for our movie to start. At first I was expecting to watch some comedy, but NOPE we were gonna watch a scary movie. The movie was Resident Evil: Retribution, and I was honestly spooked because I didn’t know what to expect. For me it was scary, but for others, including birthday boy Jamiel, he said ‘it’s not that bad’. It was bad (the first time). Experiencing loud jump scares in a theater is not fun, especially when your friends mock you for it. There were like three jump scares, and I remember someone tried scaring me via grabbing me, but instead ended up poking me instead. After the movie ended, they gave me so much crap because I was scared, and I was kinda angry at them for mocking me, but at the same time I can see why, it was a pretty decent movie though. We then stopped by a nearby mini-mart, and just chilled back at his house, while waiting for our rides home, since it was almost midnight by then, and I was basically made fun of a majority of the time, but I guess it’s just what close friends do. We’re still friends today the, but the roasting still continues.

My Trip to the Philippines

Over summer vacation during middle school, my mom’s dad suddenly passed, so we were going to attend his funeral. I remember packing weeks before our actual trip, as well as packing supplies in these boxes that we could transport over to the Philippines, being filled with food and clothes. These were for my relatives, however, on my mom’s side, and she wanted to give them a taste of American the lifestyle. We were headed to San Francisco airport, making sure we dropped off our dog at my grandma’s house. We waited a few hours in the terminal before finally boarding, and the plane was pretty huge, seating 9 rows from side to side. I remember getting this interesting meal, like it was a mini dinner, and I thought all planes were like this. I was wrong. After landing, I was instantly struck with the difference in humidity, and I didn’t like it that much as it made me feel all sweaty when I wasn’t sweating yet. We then took a small plane that took us away from the airport, going past some rural places, and eventually landing at the landing site, which buses were there waiting. We finally land, and we stop by my dad’s old house first. It was a simple two-story house, but there was no carpet, so if you wore socks, you’d slip and nearly die. As we unpacked, we then headed out to my mom’s old house. All her relatives were there, siblings, aunts, uncles, and my grandma was sitting next to my grandpa’s casket. He looked very pale, like he was made of plastic, and it made me sad, but was also creeped out by being so close to a dead body. While we were there, we got to visit many places such as the Great Mall of Asia, which was super huge but I didn’t buy anything. I actually visited a lot of relatives’ houses, since my parents wanted me to meet them as well, but I was pretty awkward saying “Hi” since I didn’t know most of them. The day of my grandpa’s funeral, we first had to go to the church, and I remember carrying a rose, which we delivered down the aisle. Then they took the casket and put it in a wall, because they don’t actually bury them into the ground, and sealed the hole with cement. Afterwards, we went back to my mom’s home, and we had a party. This was culture because the body must still be intact for 40 days, and then finally we celebrated. I thought it was weird, but I didn’t question it because it was culture. Half my trip also sucked because I got sick the second week I was there, and this went on for a few days, so I didn’t get to go out much. While my visit to the Philippines was pretty fun, I can’t see myself adapting and being able to live there since I was born in the Bay Area, so I can’t relate to living over there. But overall, it was an interesting experience of both excitement, and sadness.