Conclusion to This Year

It's a weird feeling with school's end approaching. Soon everything will be over, all of the wonders of seeing friends at school or even meeting new people and all of the unfortunate personal crises that I seemed to find myself in. This year I got some of the best teachers that have both taught and inspired me, which was a lot more than what I was expecting in the first place. I somehow managed to face challenges that I didn't think I would every have to and somehow, I was actually able to deal with them. At the time I of course thought that I had no idea what I was doing, most of the time I'm still not sure. But it was just odd. That's really all I can say about this year. I can say that it was challenging because it was or that I made more friends which is true or even that I decided to take on a project that I honestly am very afraid to begin because I don't want to fail. But in all honesty, it just breaks down to it was odd.

To start (and I will attempt to fit my entire year in one post), this year I didn't want to make any senior friends because they would leave me, and I thought it was just too sad for me. Unfortunately, I seemed to have made exclusively senior friends this year, and I am so sad to see them go. I may not have known them for very long, but I would have honestly enjoyed more time with them. And then I wanted to try to become a little more social because the whole locked up in my room all weekend was getting rather tiresome, so I just tried to be more social and hang out with people. Though that may have worked, it seemed to only happen at the end of the year which I would have liked it to be a little more consistent. And then on top of that, there are some people who I would have loved to hang out with, but never seemed to be free. And then on top of that I felt almost left out of the loop in my friend group (not that I wasn't before). This year I felt more isolated which was not an entirely new experience, but one I would not enjoy to feel again. So many things had happened this year that I can't fit it in a single blog post nor do I really want to. Overall the whole point was: my life had taken a drastic turn this year and I'm still deciding whether or not it's for the worse.

To try to elaborate, I pretty much planned out this year and the next and what career I wanted. I knew all my AP classes for next year: Government, Physics B, and Statistics. And I knew that I wanted to go into Biomedical Engineering. And I knew that I wanted a Ph.D. And I knew that I was going to get good grades and go to a good college. However, you can't plan out your life exactly, no matter how hard you try.

So I honestly don't know what's going to happen to me anymore. I'm not sure about a career. I only recently decided on APs (they are similar, but I'm taking Chemistry instead of  Physics). I somehow fit in a College and Career Center Ambassador (I'm still not sure how I got it), and I got an internship (pretty exciting if I may say so). And everything seems to be on track, but it's not the track that I set. Now I'm wondering if anything I wanted previously is even going to come true. Who knows maybe in the future I'll just abandon engineering and work on animation. Or maybe I'll do something completely different. I came into Junior year thinking I knew everything that I wanted. I was so sure of myself too. Now coming out, I honestly just want to live for tomorrow and never want to look ahead. With college around the corner though, I feel like I have to decide now and be stuck in the system for the rest of my life. (Maybe I'll just become a teacher. I don't know.)

My Art Universe

Recently I submitted an art piece to the Museums of Los Gatos contest, and I'm anxious to hear if I got in or not. I should know by tonight whether I got in or not, but I feel like so far the day is going so slowly. I don't think that I have enough skills (especially in the piece that I submitted) to get in. Because I haven't really taken an art class (which I hopefully will take one this summer) I haven't had any time to improve. I don't normally have time to draw or paint because of homework and laziness.

In order to help with the laziness, I think I'm going to write a children's book. First I have to come up with a story. It is going to center around a purple and (a little bit) yellow lion. I don't exactly know why I decided to make him those colors, but I think it might have been because I wanted to make a character like the night sky or a shooting star. But I didn't want him to be blue because I felt that it would be more magical if he was purple.

For the story, I'm not really sure what to do, but I want to make the scenery and backgrounds as pretty as I can make them because they can help tie a story together. I'm also unsure about whether or not there should be a blatant or subtle moral or even if there is a moral. Most children's books seem to have a moral of some sort. Often times they are a cause and effect type of story (or at least the ones that I remember) where the character does something that he or she shouldn't have and then has to fix it. And the moral is shown at the very end. But I think I want to make the story more fantastical and magical more than anything, so I don't know how well a moral will go with it (or at least for the story I currently have in mind.

For now I think that I will brainstorm and create story boards and concept art. I think that I might end up turning it into my senior project because I think it would give me a lot more motivation to think that I get a grade based off of my work. Then I also might not become lazy in the middle of a page and decide to scrap it because the lighting was off or some trivial reason that is an easier fix than I make it. I hope everything goes well, but I may be shooting for something that I honestly can't even reach. I have a hard enough time with anatomy. Maybe the children won't notice...

Here's my submission for the contest (I finally finished!):

Here's a picture of the lion that I was describing (I don't have any other pictures of him as a lion because I changed him from a cat to a lion):

Drawing Process

(This post is really just going to be me rambling on about art with no sort of direction whatsoever.)

So I draw (shocker there), but often times when I am showing someone a finished product there reaction is basically positive (though their level of being impressed depends on the person). I often times spend 3 or more hours on each drawing depending on what it is. It took me 3 hours alone just to get the correct skin color of a character (which still is a little bit off and I'm going to need to revise it). Sometimes people are amazed at how long it takes (which is one reason I don't do art as often as I use to). But the amount of amazement on the person's face pretty much corresponds with the amount of work and effort that goes into making the piece.


My skills unfortunately have not improved in a while because of how little I draw and paint. And then on top of that I have only taken one art class and that was in middle school and only a semester (and I didn't really get anything out of it other than getting better). And then I also did a short art program thing at the YMCA, but I don't really remember anything from it and know that I only got to learn how to use watercolors. But basically I am self-taught which seems to be a growing trend thanks to the internet (or it may not be growing, but I happen to find more people who are over the internet). Plus there are so many wonderful tutorials and walkthroughs online that virtually anyone can learn how to draw if they decided to.


A lot of people who I also show my art to end up saying "You draw so much better than me!" or "I can't even draw" which honestly in my opinion people draw better than they claim to, and I think that if people applied themselves to it, they will learn to draw even if they claim they can't do it. However, this way of thinking does not carry over to my own art. In my mind, I can't draw a little bit better than most people, but quite frankly I think that I'm really bad. Now there are people who tell me otherwise, and I have gotten into quite a few debates with my best friend over my drawing abilities. So to be polite I just end up saying thank you most of the time.


Now, I said that I spend a very long time on virtually everything that I do, and afterward I feel really happy about finishing it and though it may not be perfect I am proud of it. Here's the thing about any kind of art (I have heard this from many many people who do almost every kind of art) you end up hating it around a week later. After the pride of finishing it wears off, you begin to realize all of it's mistakes and flaws and places that need to be retouched. But in my case, I get so tired of it that I end up just leaving it because the ones that I have gone back and retouched I ended up pretty much redoing the entire thing when I could have been starting a new project. That is the unfortunate part of art.


The reason I finally decided to do a blog on art is because I would like to start commissions. However I don't think that I am talented enough nor will get anyone want to buy one. I have so far only done one, and I am not sure how that ended up happening. Plus I would need to think about prices, and I am terrible at figuring those things out. So maybe I'll actually start doing them, but first I'll need to know if anyone will commission me.

Unfortunate Decision That I Have to Make

Half my junior year has already gone by, and it’s that time to choose my classes for next year. I thought I had it all figured out such a long time ago, but last week, during all of the Ap meetings, I started to rethink my decisions. Before I thought that I wouldn’t take over three because this year I’m taking three, so I know the relative work load. But now I’m struggling to decide between classes that I want to take and those that I should.

I can’t seem to narrow down my Ap list to four, which is the most I will take now. I have five currently on my list: Chemistry, Physics, Statistics, Literature, and Government. Taking five isn’t an option because I still have to apply to colleges, worry about my SAT scores, and try to get as much financial aid as I can. All of which I know will take up whatever free time I can manage to squeeze out of my schedule.

For biomedical engineering it is recommended to have Chemistry, Biology, English, Computer Science, Physics, Calculus, and Statistics (all of which are Ap of course) done before college. By the end of this year I will have finished half of these requirements. But the plans I originally made would unfortunately not meet all of the last four, instead I would only have Statistics and Physics.

So then I was thinking about taking Stats, Physics, Chem, and Gov, but then I went to the Ap Lit meeting and almost fell in love with the class. I thought it sounded like so much fun and right then and there Lit managed to make it on to my list.

Now my decision is between Gov. and Lit, and the choice is causing me so much stress. Both seem like fun classes that I would enjoy, but my main reason for wanting to take Gov is to get college credits (plus of course there is the part of me that would love to learn about all the inner workings of the government), which is a main issue for me. My unfortunate and seemingly unreachable goals for college are currently to try to get out of it in three years versus four. Gov. would help make that more possible. And colleges only take off so many credits for an Ap English class. For the credits, Gov. would seem to be the right choice.

However, I’m not sure I want to risk taking a class that I may not enjoy just for some college credit. For now I don’t know what is going to happen, and I’m hoping that the problem hopefully just ends up solving itself.