... and it surely has been. I didn't realize how much cooler little me was. I really did play a lot of soccer, though I suppose I've taken up tennis now, so much for that.
Ooh, look at this Picture!
I took the adjacent photo at Star Wars - Galaxy's Edge at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. Specifically, it is a picture of myself, about a year before I write this, though my hair has grown a little bit more in quarantine. In my hand is the elusive, glorious beverage only known as blue milk. The original Star Wars was lucky to feature blue milk, otherwise it might not garnered a similar level of success.
Funny enough, I was searching through my old blog posts, and saw that I was Sensei Wu for halloween all the way back in 2012. Although I was only in third grade, I did not realize how mature my advanced taste for entertainment was at the time to be enjoying the one and only Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu. It is only appropriate that, in the year I write this (2020), I dressed as the green ninja, my personal favorite character, for Halloween, as limited as Halloween was this year. (Did I mention that there is a pandemic going on? There is a pandemic going on.) I invite you to feast your eyes:
Behold - the Green Ninja! Okay - I understand that this rendition in somewhat crude, but unlike previous years, I made this one myself! I searched thrift stores for green clothing, (not as common as I wanted it to be) and I barely found some green pants and a long sleeve green shirt. I got a bright green t shirt from hobby lobby and also found lots of colored bandanas there. At home, I cut the sleeves of the t-shirt and made an opening down the center so that I could give the illusion of layers. In reality, I am only wearing 2 layers, but it looks like 3! I made cardboard shoulder pads and covered them with duct tape. Although there is also a place to store a sword in the back, I measured incorrectly, so it is too high and prone to falling off. The black belt is actually the same one which I used for my Sensei Wu costume all those years ago! In my hands, I hold the main showpiece - a 5 foot golden double-scythe. This was made out of PVC and gold spray paint, and I carved the blades from craft foam using hot wires, and I painted them jade green, as you see in the picture.
Although this is not the best replication of the green ninja's classic outfit, I believe that I did justice to the character, and I proudly made everything myself! In contrast, I would like to show you what happens when my father steps in to help:
Now this is my much more accurate portrayal of Han Solo last year. Sadly, this angle does not show off the incredible holster which my dad and I made together. The belt was made of EVA foam and held together with overall clips. The hexagonal belt buckles were made of clay, and the rest of the costume is made of slightly altered articles of clothing. It was only appropriate that I followed my Kylo Ren costume with his father - Han.
Considering that I have not visited this blog in years, I think that I have some catching up to do - where to begin? I suppose I can start with some follow-ups the statements made in the top description of this blog. As I claim, I am a fan of math and science - which has not changed a bit!
In this photo, I am standing in my AP Chemistry classroom at my high school in Los Alamitos, appropriately named Los Alamitos High School. Whilst wearing a lab coat, I am holding a small vial of crystal violet, a.k.a., C25N3H30Cl, for which we would perform a lab experiment. The goal was to figure out the concentration of crystal violet in a solution through titration and spectrophotometry. This was a particularly fun lab, though I did a few of the calculations incorrectly. I only chose this picture since it looks so stereotypically scientific, although I am quite sure that I stained my skin with violet after this. (woops!)
AP Chemistry was quite a fun class, probably my favorite so far, although it was unfortunate that my experience was cut short due to pandemic school closures. As a result, I had to take my AP exam online, so this was somewhat unconventional. As an example, here is what happens when you let people take AP exams online:
As some explanation, this is a google trends chart which I investigated immediately after the test, and charts like this show how popular a certain search term is at any given time. The flat lines which you see are the popularity of certain chemistry terms before the AP exam. Consequently, the spikes you see correspond directly to the AP exams! The CollegeBoard knew that they could not prevent this, and there was still a significant score distribution, so hopefully everything goes fine in terms of applying these scores. I was lucky to still procure a 5, as well as a 5 on my AP World History exam, though that was less significant for me. Also, I would like to introduce you to our new puppy!
This is Biscuit! She is only 9 months old and she is a mini goldendoodle. Like many during the pandemic, our family decided to take advantage of our newfound home time and get the dog which we were never able to have before. Biscuit was barely more than a month old when we got her, and she was about as large as two tennis balls. She is officially the fifth member of our nuclear family and she is lots of fun to play with.
Since I stopped posting on this blog, I have picked up a new activity - show choir! I joined all the way back in 2015 and enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I stayed with it throughout middle school and decided I would continue though high school. As it happens, Los Alamitos High School has an incredible show choir program in which I am very lucky to participate. If you have time, I encourage you to watch some of Los Alamitos SoundFX's performances. I was in the 2020 competition set, one of my favorites. Here is one of the most fun performances I ever did:
You will have to trust me on this, but this is the Hollywood Bowl stage where the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Barry Manilow, and 64 high school students are performing! Yes, I was lucky enough to perform at the Hollywood Bowl with renowned artist Barry Manilow! I am not sure how this happened, but I am incredibly grateful to have an experience which so few people can say they say have done. One more, unique feather in my cap!
