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.

My Trip to Texas

Back during my summer vacation before I started my 10th grade year, my mom told me and my brother that we were going to visit her brother in Texas. It was just the us three while my dad and brother went to the Philippines at the same time due to there being a family reunion with his side of the family, and I was conflicted to go to both. I just did a quick coin flip to decide who to go with, heads for the Philippines, or tails for Texas. I got tails three times, maybe it was destiny? I also did visit the Philippines a few years prior to this story, so I’ll post it next time. The time comes and we leave for the airport, while my dad and brother stay because they were leaving a week after we left. It was a pretty warm night in San Francisco, I remember staying up at the airport and it was already past midnight, almost to 1 A.M., I felt like a super bad teen that didn’t give no hecks because it was past my curfew, but my parents weren’t too strict on me being up late anyway. We boarded the plane, with my brother and mom in the same aisle, so we were pretty close, rather than mixed seats. I remember these two kids had a DS with a game of Super Mario Bros., and I, too, had my DS with a game of Super Mario Bros., so I secretly joined them in a minigame where you connect via Nintendo Connect, similar to bluetooth I think. I never saw them again. We land, and then still had to drive to my uncle’s house, who picked us up with his daughter, Fay. The first thing I did when we got to his house was look at his backyard, not that it was super fancy, but because I was looking into a backyard of a different state, and I thought that was pretty interesting, plus all the small frogs just casually roaming around. We stayed there for about a week, and it was pretty fun. First, a family event party was being thrown, but it was my mom’s side of family, so I didn’t know any of the people there, because I’m used to being with my cousin’s on my dad’s side. The most crazy thing I remember, there was a magician that placed one of my cousin’s head onto this small guillotine, but the blade didn’t even appear in the hole when it dropped and I had a pretty confused reaction. I also went to visit this hangar, where there was a certain section of an airplane that was split, and we got to see all the components that make up the plane. One day, I woke up to the sound of thunder, and it was pretty loud. I was excited because in Patterson, it would occasionally be cloudy, and sometimes rain, but in Texas, they were more frequent. Since it was also pretty hot, there was a local pool park, and we went there three times out of the week we were there, so that was a pretty good way to cool down in the heat as well. Coming back, I thought about how fun it was spending time in Texas, and some places I got to see that are pretty interesting. Although I wish I got to see more, I’m not a fan of the heat, so maybe if we get to visit, I hope it’s sometime during the winter.

8th Grade Trip: Washington D.C./New York City

8th Grade Trip: Washington D.C./New York City

Back in 8th grade, our middle school was hosting a trip to visit Washington D.C. and New York City for about a week or so, and I was one of the thirty students that attended the trip. The trip was scheduled to be in mid-May, so it was still school time, and I was pretty happy since I also got to skip a few classes that I didn’t like. It was my first time traveling to another state without my family, so I was a bit nervous about what to expect, but a lot of my friends were also going to the trip too so I thought that it wouldn’t be too bad. I had my suitcase packed up, with clothes, my toothbrush and stuff, and also a little booklet we had to fill out. The booklet had questions we could answer while we were on our trip, but even our chaperone, Mr. Carter, was the realest and said that we didn’t have to complete it or even turn it in, so that made the trip less boring. We start boarding and it was pretty boring our first flight, and our first stop was Washington D.C. It’s been a few years since the trip, so I remember partial of it, but I do remember how fun it was, such as seeing all the landmarks, tourist places, and the fancy hotels we stayed at overnight. While in Washington D.C., I got to see the Lincoln Memorial, which was much bigger than I’ve expected, as well as saw the famous typo. It was also rainy during that time, so all of us were huddling in the Memorial until we had to get onto our next bus. We also took a group panorama in front of the Capitol, and also saw a the White House, but didn’t actually end up going in. Eventually we stayed a hotel, and in the morning, they were serving the best breakfast, and I was pretty hungry so I got like two pancakes, 3 slices of bacon, some scrambled eggs, and some orange juice. We boarded onto our next plane, and we stopped by New York City, where we toured around and saw the World Trade Center Memorial, which were two large fountains incorporated where the towers were, as well as the Survivor Tree that was saved from the attacks and replanted. We saw the New Year’s Eve ball, which was inactive during our view, and stopped by the Empire State building, and viewed the city all the way at the top. It was pretty high, and windy too, so I was legit scared of falling off or tripping. We ended up on our last plane back to Patterson, which I sat next to this one girl who would bash my head on the window for some reason, and it was kinda funny at first then I was legit about to make her catch these hands. We arrived at 2 A.M., and everybody was clearly tired, and I was too, but I knew I had fun, spending time with my friends, and learned a few things about my trip.

At the Capitol (Me in the middle)

Journey to Getting a Dog

When I was younger, I am often dreamed about having a dog and what it would be like. I’ve always wanted a pet before and was interested in owning one one day. I was mostly interested in getting a dog around the same time I lived in an older house here in Patterson, around elementary school times, where I would play with my neighbor who else had a dog named Kiki. It was a medium sized dog, roughly half my height, and it was pretty rambunctious. I knew having an energetic dog would be fun, as I was also energetic (at that particular time). I've had some funny moments with that dog, like one time he saw a cat while I was holding his leash and he was stronger than my little ole tiny body, so I ended up being dragged while also knocking into my neighbor. What was worse was there were these two girls in the car and their dad was getting their mail, which the mailbox happened to be in front of my house, so they saw the whole thing, which was super embarrassing. A few years later, we tried looking for a good dog that would be good for us, and eventually my dad was able to find a dog for us, which he was able to get via my uncle, since he had a litter of pups, and he gave one to my dad for free. His name was Rockee, which we named based after our other neighbors dog, Lucky, who was a fully-black Cardigan Welsh Corgi. He is a Pitbull/Labrador mix, so he was expected to get pretty big after a few months. He was also very playful, trying to climb up on basically anyone that would come play with him, but my mom usually couldn't let him climb on her otherwise she'd get shoved to the floor, and she had to be cautious because she has a bit of a bad back. Whenever we’d take him out for walks, he would always have this alert position while walking, and scout and sniff the sidewalks all around, always marking his territory on literally everything inanimate, like a mobile sprinkler. We occasionally take him out for walks, but usually avoid walking him out in the summer due to the hot weather. I enjoy having him as company, and he is one of the best things to happen in our life.

The Road to Obtaining My Driver's License

I have always been worried about driving, because of the all the laws and consequences you can get if you don't obey the laws. I basically saw it like an advanced version of Go-Karting, except you can actually kill people, and also go to jail, but I wasn't about that life. For my experience of pre-driving, it was a bit complex. First, I had took first watch through this grueling 8-hour online session about rules and and laws on driving, and it was super boring. I also had to read the handbook a bunch of times so that I knew more on the  rules, laws, speed limits, etc. The day I had to take the online written test, I was pretty confident because I had plenty of time to study.  I ended up failing because some questions were awkwardly worded. So then about a few weeks later, I retook it and finally passed, I felt like it was finally over but nope now that I had my permit, it's time for the real thing. I was enrolled in this driving program called Precision Driving, which was pretty helpful, and I had some very insightful and friendly instructors. I also had to drive a total of 50 hours, with 40 during the day and 10 during the night so I can get used to what it was like driving. My parents were always pressuring me to make sure I would learn how to drive before the school year started. After all that, it was time to take my actual driving test. Honestly, the only thing I was worried about was having a strict instructor, but she was pretty chill so I was pretty chill too. I'm the end, I passed on my first try, with only 5 errors, one being I mistook the windshield wipers stick with the turn signal stick, and my cousin laughed so hard when I told him. But, hey, at least I have my driver's license, and some of my friends don't even have their driver's license yet and they're already 18, so I'm getting there. I'm still in need of my own car, though. 🤔

My First Experience of College

My family would always ask my what are you going to do after High School, and every single time, I would say ‘College, I guess”. I had always been a bit nervous about graduating from middle school to high school because it was a completely new experience for me, and being a pretty small kid, I was always a bit shy of the other kids in the higher grades. As I progressed through high school, though, it was pretty easy to make new friends and get familiar with my classes, and I seemed to make more friends easily. My attitude has changed though, as I graduated from high school, I was really excited to attending my first college. My first time stepping onto the campus the first time was during the Student Orientation back in June, so being the complete scrub I was, I had a confident face people would have thought, ‘Dang, that kid looks like he knows what he’s doing’, but also could have thought why there was some elementary school kid wandering around a college campus. The only difference between high school and college, I would have to say is the classes, because there is more free time in between some classes, and it’s pretty cool taking a two hour break between two classes, but it gets awkward when you do not have anyone else you know that’s out the same time as you. Overall, I’ve felt more comfortable attending school now then I was back then, and plan to expand my range of friends not just from Patterson, but from others across the area. Now the only thing I have to worry about is getting my own car to drive all the way from Patterson.

Me Surviving the First Day