Simple Life

Today we had a trip to the city. We gathered with Elaine, Sophie, Amanda, Amber, Winnie and their moms for the travel. That's 5 girls to babysit, quite a handful! Yeah, I'm usually the babysitter when I'm with a bunch of kids. Luckily Sophie was old enough look after the kids. Winnie was older than me, but she's...not great with children, and prefers to stick with her mom. So it came down to 3 adults versus 7 kids. Fun! Being residents in Long Island with the LIRR, going to NYC isn't so difficult. Better yet, it was only a 10 minute walk from my house to the train station, so we walked there at 9 in the morning, no rush no hassle. It's New Year's Eve, so one might expect the purpose of our trip to be to count down to midnight and watch the iconic "ball drop" in Times Square marking the beginning of a new year. We actually did not plan that. We went to the city to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I mean, we could've stayed at the c...

Monday morning I went on the tracks again. Christmas break wasn't over, but neither was my commitment to the team. We ran 12 laps, which is 12x400=4800 meters. 3 miles. The coaches only gave us 45 seconds between each round. I knew it was going to be hard! I have to thank Dad for waking up early to wake me up and give me a ride to school, though he had to go to work anyway. More teammates came that day than on Saturday, including my guiding friend Sean, a veteran runner, and my old middle school mate Daniel. So I wasn't the only freshman that comes to practice during break, which makes me glad that others are working hard alongside me too. Thinking that I'll be running a whole lot more, I held back at first. On the first lap, my time was 1 minute 50. I thought that if I kept that constant speed my whole way through it will be enough, but our coach told us to pick up the pace. After all, the purpose of training was to improve, and we can't do that without pushing ou...

Today marks the official start of the 11-day end-of-the-year break we've all been waiting for. Lots of my friends aimed to relax during the break; some went home to chill as soon as school let out and others left for vacation days before. I, however, chose to go to a track meet after school, in spite of the crummy weather and my swollen ankle and the fact that Christmas is in two days. I did it not because I had to, but because I chose to. I walked home from school after the race, though it was dark and raining. Yesterday was winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, so tonight the 6:30 sky looked like a 9:00 sky. I didn't have to walk home; the bus could've given me a ride if I asked it to. But I chose to go home on my own, because I can. I don't ask others to do something that I have the ability to do myself. It was only a 20 minute walk between school and home. I wanted to see if I could endure a 20 minute walk on a rainy night. I liked to chal...

Today was what I believe to be the worst day ever. I went to bed at 3:30 AM and slept for a grand total of 2.5 hours, waking up felt like hell, I had no breakfast, I caused hassle to my mom, I had a single $.75 pretzel for lunch, I lost all hope of going to the Forensics tournament next Saturday, and I could not go to track practice today. Now I'm home thinking about how bad the day was. Why did I go to bed at 3 in the morning? To be honest I don't even know. Time just goes by so fast like that. Okay, there's a reason - I procrastinated. Big time. An assignment, an AP World History outside reading assignment of "A History of the World in Six Glasses", was assigned 3 weeks ago before Thanksgiving, but of course I didn't get started until the FINAL DAY, which was yesterday. When I came home yesterday I promised myself to begin working as soon as I enter the door. I convinced myself that the assignment wasn't that much, it was only 8 questions paired with a 6...