Homecoming

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." - Ferris Bueller

HI EVERYONE! This past week/this weekend have both been extremely eventful (and hectic). I sit here with 300+ new pictures in my hands and a terribly sore throat from all of the excitement.

So Monday through Friday was spirit week! It's an incredibly wonderful time of year, and each day had its own theme. Monday was college apparel/hat day, Tuesday was spirit day (where you wear my school's logo), Wednesday was dress-up day, Thursday was pajama day (so many onesies everywhere! haha), and Friday was class color day! (Seniors are black, juniors are white, sophomores are blue, and freshmen are red!) This year, the themes were: seniors-Harry Potter, juniors-Stormtroopers (from Star Wars), sophomores-superheroes, freshmen-CandyLand!

As a senior, I couldn't wait for Friday to come because of everything that goes on. Each grade decorates their own alcoves and all four looked amazing this year!

My grade's alcove!

It was so much fun working on the alcove this year! And I'm glad it turned out so nicely. :)

The juniors' alcove!

The sophomores' alcove!

The freshmen's alcove!

The rest of the day was really nice even though a bunch of my teachers tried to teach.

Me and Emily!

Me, Andrea, and Emily!

Tae and me!

Berenice :)

Calc BC class! Familim <3

Me and John!

ASIA! <3 Eddy, Nick, Emily, John, Me, Andrea, and Michael!

At the end of the day on Friday, we have this huge pep rally which was TONS of fun this year especially! I love being a senior. :') Hahaha. There was cheerleading, male cheerleading, step team, free throw shooting, and lots and lots of screaming! As seniors, we got rally towels and sunglasses, too, which made everything that much better. Every time we (the seniors) lost, we'd turn around and put up a triangle symbol to represent the deathly hallows.

^Credit goes to Casey Lee

And then the results came in............and we finished first!! :)

But later that night, we had the homecoming football game! I was there with Tae, Emily, and Nick. But then after a while, I just hung out with Eddy and Tae because Emily and Nick left.

A few of my friends were on homecoming court so at halftime, they got to ride in these fancy convertibles. :) The game itself was horrible though haha. I left with 5 minutes left in the entire game, and it was 14-42 which was pretty disappointing, but the touchdowns we scored were really exciting!

And FINALLY, last night (Saturday) was coronation! Coronation is our homecoming dance, and it was a lot more fun than I thought it'd be!

Carol, Sam, Christina, me, Andrea, and Emily. ♥

After the dance, Alan, Andrea, Eddy, Emily, Iris, Jason, Michael, Nick, and Shawn came over my house for a little after party, haha. I was exhausted (and still am), but it was fun!

But now that everything's over, I need to work on college applications and get some homework done! I'm so happy with how everything turned out especially because it's my last year in high school.

Have an amazing remainder of October! Halloween's only a few days away!

These Days Are Dwindling Down

"The easiest lies to tell are the ones you want to be true." - Holly Black, White Cat

I have become a terrible, terrible blogger.

Please forgive me for these hiatuses! If any of you live in the States, you surely understand how I feel right now with all of this work. Senior year is driving me crazy. College apps are really stressful. Not to mention, I officially applied to my first college the other day!

HOWEVER! I have tons and tons of fun things coming up in this next week so please be on the lookout for some (hopefully) amazing posts. Spirit week starts tomorrow!

Spirit week has to be one of the best times, and I'm so excited for it this year. It's my last time ever in high school participating in all of this so I'm giving it my all. I honestly can't contain my excitement for the pep rally on Friday and our skit for our alcove decorating.

(Since most of you already had homecoming, I'd love to know how it was!! And if you don't have it at all, do you wish you did?)

One of my favorite new things is rings. I don't actually wear them that often since basically none of them fit my fingers, but I still love looking at/fawning over them in stores. This one was $1.50 and so when I saw the price tag, I pretty much had to get it.

Okay wow this was an extremely disoriented post. But be on the lookout for a post on spirit week/homecoming and of course...Halloween!

Hope you're all having a lovely October. :)

Community Day

"So much of her time spent like this: dreaming up things to say and never quite saying them." - Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin

*All credit goes to Julie B. :)

Yesterday was community day! I was debating on whether or not I should blog about it right now because of how much work/studying I have to do, but I realized if I didn't do it now, I probably wouldn't ever. Regardless, community day was a lot of fun, and I'm glad I went!

I had to volunteer/run booths so I didn't have much time to enjoy everything that our community put out for us, but it was mainly little kids doing the fun things like hayrides, the moon bounce, rockclimbing, decorating pumpkins, etc. Because our high school just got rebuilt, I was indoors helping people tour around the school. And afterwards, I went out to help French club, only to find out they JUST shut down the booth. So I spent the remainder of the time hanging out at Latin club and chem club because that's where some of my friends were. :)

Community day was beautifully planned out though. As I said, there were things like hayrides, etc., but there was also a concert in our brand new auditorium, outdoor music, balloon making (little kids were everywhere with these fancy balloon hats!), acrobats/people on stilts, booths for essentially every club in my high school, community booths, tons of food, and more!

At around 7, I met up with Iris and Nick and we drove over to Chipotle for dinner! It reminded me of all the times I went to Chipotle in Pittsburgh and summer memories started boggling me down. I didn't even come close to finishing my food because of how much they give you, but after that we went back to the high school to get ready for the dedication fireworks!

We met up with Eddy and Michael for the fireworks (unfortunately no pictures of those...my camera wasn't cooperating with me so), but the fireworks themselves were beautiful. SO much better than the ones I saw on the 4th of July. :)

So after that, Eddy, Iris, Nick, and I went to AC Moore/Michael's to buy senior class picture day shirts. Basically, on Thursday, the whole senior class sits in the gym and gets the class picture taken. But lots of people coordinate colors to show friend groups and etc. so we wanted to buy the shirts! Except both stores were closed so we headed to Walmart. And then there weren't any smalls so. But we'll get them eventually!

Overall, it was an extremely fun day, and I wish every weekend were like this! Haha. But now I have to catch up on all of my work so until next time! :)

P.S.- Instagram anyone? @ambzhang

Every Night

"I keep feeling as if I could cry. It's very stupid, but it'll pass off." - Leo Tolstoy

I'm so sorry for being so inactive. I really don't have any time anymore. I have HUNDREDS of pictures to post, but school is really taking up every last second of my time and making me go insane.

I'm a senior in high school now. It's not known to be a tough year, instead it's famous (or infamous...) for how laid-back it is. But I'm taking harder courses this year and receiving homework like I never have before. On top of all of this, there's college applications, and basically my friends and I are just stressed beyond belief. I find myself constantly up in the middle of the night. And in order to be more productive/ensure that I wake up to my many alarms I set from 2AM-6AM, I sleep on my bedroom floor now.

I only have to push through another few months until I can be free from this stress so I just want to give all of this a good last shot. It won't be easy, but I'm trying to keep a really positive attitude during all of this. "No regrets."

I'm definitely planning on mustering up more time to blog because I miss it so much. I have off on Wednesday for Yom Kippur so I'm hoping I can get some serious editing done. But other upcoming events include:

• September 24th- My brother comes home!
• September 25th- Last day of tennis season
• September 29th- Community Day! (Expect some pictures from this!!)
• October 5th- The Perks of Being a Wallflower is in theatres ♥
• October 6th- SAT IIs

I hope all of you are having a fantastic September, and expect to see me more often! :)

One Week

"Please be a traveler, not a tourist. Try new things, meet new people, and look beyond what's right in front of you. Those are the keys to understanding this amazing world we live in." - Andrew Zimmern

Hello, hello, hello! I'm SO sorry for not posting in a month, but I've been pretty busy (and okay, lazy) lately. I actually have tons of pictures to upload, but I'm in the process of editing them so it might be a little while.

A lot has happened since I last blogged, and I plan on making sure I hit a lot of these points in future blog posts!

• Nonstop watched the Olympics. I honestly couldn't stop watching gymnastics to the point that it was becoming a problem.
• Tennis preseason started! Because I'm a rising senior, this is my final preseason. I don't think I'll miss it much next year, but it's okay. I really like playing tennis so that overrides everything else.
• I turned seventeen on August 16th! It was one of the most wonderful birthdays I've ever had. :)
• I did a bunch of college visiting/road trips: Ithaca is gorges! and Boston is beautiful.
• One of my friends that moved to Florida a few years ago came up to visit! It was a wonderful reunion!
• I visited a really cool museum while I was in Ithaca! And it was free admission which made it that much better, haha.
• I finished all of White Collar in a matter of a few weeks. I highly recommend watching this show; I am so in love with everything about it.

I'll probably combine a few of the topics together, but I hope this at least somewhat makes up for my extremely long break from Blogspot! I'm back now! I promise. :)

It'll take me a week or so to get ready for these posts (especially because I really need to finish my summer assignments before school starts next week!), but I'm excited to blog about them! I haven't had decent pictures to use in ages. I plan on blogging right before school starts, too...kind of as an obligatory I'm-not-ready-for-school-post.

Until then! Hope all of you are doing well. :)

*Pictures taken in Ithaca, NY.

The Return

"We would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright." --Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

It's truly been quite a...long time. When I left, I didn't expect to be so boggled down with work. I attempted to blog (there's been a draft sitting here for a few weeks now!), but I just couldn't. I probably should have queued some posts before I left, but I don't know what I was thinking.

Anyhow, if you've been wondering where I went...I went to a four-week-long summer program in the lovely city of Pittsburgh! The whole thing was healthcare-oriented, giving me a taste of what med school will look like and what a career in medicine will be like. The program was extremely helpful, and the people I met while I was there were beyond amazing. When the last day came, most of the camp was crying because none of us expected to grow so close to each other. It's funny how people you've known for only a short amount of time can take a large piece of your heart.

When I first heard that it was going to take place in Pittsburgh, I thought of this middle-of-nowhere place with nothing but grass and cows everywhere. But I was completely wrong. Pittsburgh is quite beautiful, if I can say so myself.

Anyhow, not much has happened besides that! My friends and I tried meeting up for a week straight before I left so I have a bunch of random pictures from that. (My one friend took my camera and took candids of everyone but didn't know how to use the manual setting so everything's a bit off.) I haven't seen any of them since I came home on Saturday, but I'm hoping to soon! I can't wait to see everyone again. It's been way too long.

(I was having tons of fun with my 50mm f/1.8 lens today! Hahaha. I kept taking pictures like these where I'd focus on different things. Man, how I've missed photography!)

In other news, I'm going to try getting a head start on summer work this year! Because I'm a rising senior, I'm going to be trapped in college apps, but I'm trying to be really positive about it! I have no idea what I'm going to write about yet, but even the mere thought of writing makes me so excited. But I'm about to start my AP Bio assignment, and tomorrow I plan on fixing my senior year schedule (along with taking a nice long run and maybe some tennis)!

Oh, and the Olympics start on Friday! I'm so so so excited for them to begin. There's something about large tournaments like the Olympics that make me beyond ecstatic, haha. But I can't wait to see what the opening ceremony is going to be like along with diving/gymnastics! Although I'm going to be away this weekend, I'm sure the hotel room will have the Olympics on. :)

I'll start posting more often though! Thank you all for being so patient with my hiatus!