Life Behind the Camera

I am going to try out Livejournal for sometime, my username is "Nalour".

To the annonymus commentor: I am curious as to who you really are. Please tell me before graduation on June 9th.

So goodbye for now blog.

Love,

Ruolan

What the fuck am I doing with my life? Now that Mock Trial's over, I really really really need to start caring more about school. but its extremely hard to go back.

Last night was fun. Muchos love to Pod, Jod and Lod who came to pick me up after I called them about Mock Trial. We went to Tai Villa and just talked about random stuff. It was nice to laugh with friends and eat good food at the same time. The rest of our night was kind of crazy, we went to coldstones and got some ice cream, which i'm pretty damn sure is spiked because Jod fell off her chair, causing all of us to roll around on the floor laughing, i stumbled out of the place into the parking lot and just collapsed when i heard some random person say behind us "geez i'm glad i'm not drunk".

On the way home, "Mr. Brightside" was on the radio so we turned the stereo up full blast. Drove uber slow cuz all of us are dancing to the tune. Flipped cars off as they passed us honking and did other crazy things that I will cease to recap here --> will regret/mull over them when i'm "sober". Ha. Seriously though, 5 hours of sleep in the last 36 hours + losing regionals + crazy friends + cute green bug+ music.. what the fuck do you expect me to be doing? studying for calc?!

I'm sick of living my life in a pattern, but this is kinda taking a toll on my grades. Must find a way to balance work and play i suppose. But crap tis kinda hard. What the fuck am I doing with my life? I'm LIVING it maybe?

We Lost.

Like last year, I wasn't rooting for state or anything, just sad that, well, i lose that special connection. It seems that I'm losing connection everyday of my life, but what the hell, I am establishing new ones, even if its uber slow in the process. What semi-gets me is that the white team scored higher than we did, and sean silbert had the nerve to rub that in our faces. Fucker. The navy team is going to kill him the next time he opens his fucking mouth.

To commenmorate the ending of Mock Trial, I will post some pictures tomorrow, but for today, I'm putting down the entry I wrote nearly a year ago, a day after MT ended:

"I spent most of today in a daze of sadness that Mock Trial is over. I am so proud of my team, we did such a good job, I am proud of Pyle, Ryan, Dusty, our witnesses. I am heartbroken that all of the work we put in to our case, meeting twice a week at Adam’s house is gone. All of our fun jokes, our times spent in Adam’s kitchen with Pizza, lounging on the red chairs and scooping ice out of the icebox are no more. Its like yesterday severed off a special connection, a bond between all of us. We are back to our separate lives that didn’t interfere with anybody else’s. It’s like we met at a fantastic crossroad, now the light is green and we have to go on our separate directions again. We were a team, we supported each other, helped each other and joked with each other all the way to regionals and now, nothing is left.

I guess I feel this way, because I am only child. I never have close connections to other kids around my age; therefore I treasure every bond, every team that I am on. (I probably should do sports but the thought of being terrible at something daunts me). I feel loved and special when I was still part of MT. I felt that all of the sudden, I have 14 other brothers and sisters. Yet now, I am back to sitting in front of my computer, in my quiet quiet house, with no one to talk to. I am back to blending into the background of 1200 students, back to no-one-noticing me. Despite the stress to do good during the last 2 months, I had a lot more laughs and smiles. I felt like I belonged somewhere, that I belonged in Mock Trial, part of the team. Now, I am back to being stuck between China and USA, part of nowhere, part of in-between island in the middle of pacific ocean. It just makes me sadder that the rest of my team is not doing Mock Trial next year,

Just when I think I might have liked someone on our team, if I was around him more. But I guess not… back to Xiaopao, the hopelessness and nothingness… such is my life, my circular and pointless life. As the bus drove us back from Salem, I stare out at my window, hearing the Navy team chatter excitedly and feeling happy for them. Glancing around to see the disappointed faces on the White team makes me feel terrible.

I feel hollow, I want to cry but couldn’t and that feeling is eating me out." ~ Feb. 29, 2004

So how did it go this year? We fucking did our best and that's all that matter. Dusty's closing was no less than fucking amazing. Pyle is.. as intense as always. Greg surprised all of us by pulling his direct together during the last trial. And of course, the witnesses were fantastic! Me? I think I definately did better on my opening today than any other scrimmages/practices. The only sad part is seeing the faces of Jack and Rod after we lost. Damn, its like seeing the faces of two anxious parents and their disappointment when their children didn't make it.

I'm gonna miss it all. The courtroom. the yellow notepad. the thrill of standing before the jury. the "WTF" expressions watching the other team. mondays and wednsday nights. 7-eleven and its sour slurpees. Jack's bellows. Rod's cool calmness. Dusty (and Casey's) stupid face and Pyle's random assortment of objects that he always carries around. Devin's hair. And of course, my two Mock Trial Chicas, Megan and Libby! <<<333

So ends a chapter in my life. Goodbye Goodbye, parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.

Haha. Um.. quite an exciting day. In Yearbook I assigned Joe to Tennis but he decideds to be difficult and tells me he can't do it cuz he's playing baseball. So here's how the conversation went:

Me: Joe, The reason "tennis" and "baseball" are spelled and pronounced differently suggests that maybe they are different sports and since you don't PLAY tennis, you're going to take pictures!
Joe: Okay, let me try to put this into perspective for you, so ur at this tennis match afterschool, u watch the ball go back and forth and every once in a while you hear this little "kink" and guess what that is... oh! Its the baseball team practicing AT THE SAME TIME!
Me: Its called why don't you skip baseball practice once in a while! You only have to go to two games!
Joe: Okay, lets try this again, what are the chances of you walking into a male strip club?? Zero! My chances of skipping baseball practice is as high as you going into a male strip club!
Me: So, if I go to a male strip club, you'll go take tennis pictures?
Joe: Yep! If you take a picture of you in a male strip club, I'll skip baseball and go take tennis pictures!

Well, Guess what Joe. I'm going to do that JUST TO SPITE YOU. That's right, you think there's something I am too "afraid to do"? Well think again, I'm going to go just to see the look on his face when I show him the pictures!

So for Mock Trial. It went alright, my dear teammate (s) decides it'd be funny to steal my yellow notepad while I was taking a drink of water and write obscene things on there. I had to grab it out of Alex's hands cuz I'm paranoid that somebody will magically attain the ability to read chinese and find out the crazy things I had written on it for the past month whenever i was super bored on trial. I hope we do well though, at regionals.

Anyway, after practices are over I had to stay behind cuz Casey said he wanted me to take the binder and take roll for the bus ride down to salem. I asked for a ride to 7eleven so that I can meet up with Megan for a ride home. Oh, and guess what, the city league guys are there as well. *dies* Yeah. What are the odds of that. Damn. Please don't let the hubbub start again. Dusty and Megan are also there, thankfully. Anyway, the guys soon left and as Megan and I was about to leave. Guess who else shows up..? BEN CHILDS. That probably was the highlight of my night, he had a giant slurpee cup that he's going to fill up. *grins* Oh Ben...

I miss last year's MT team so bad. I saw 3/4 guys who made the MT video tonight, haha. I don't really care if we make it to state or not. I seriously want to dye my hair blue, spike it and wear fishnets on saturday just so I can see Jack getting a stroke and heart attack. Blue hair. Spiked. Ohmygodhowmuchwouldthatrock.

Why do I even bother GOING to school tomorrow? Hon. Chem's BS, Duden isn't even going to BE there tomorrow (hang out in the bandroom wahoo!). And Bio/physio can just go to hell. As for me, I need to go to a male strip club before tennis season's over. Oh yeah...

I thought that the F on my math test will make me care more about school, but i'm feeling more apathetic than ever. What is the point of going to school? What is the point of earning the As and Bs when really, you fail at life? I wouldn't be at school if it wasn't because of all my friends that are there to laugh with me, and in all honesty, I am afraid to leave HS to college because i'll be losing my dearest friends. And what is the point of college? of more learning? the endless amounts of worthless work from here... till i retire.

Its hard to go back to caring about everything when the curtain's come off. I don't take pride in getting As anymore, just like I don't feel shame when I get Fs. Because really, grades, GPA, class rank say nothing about me as a person. i can write essays, understand cellular respiration and take derivatives...wow. i feel so much better. so much more worthwhile. i am such an accomplished person. -__-

I went to the Bandroom today during PAS to talk to Pod. while the band is playing some celtic song both of us just talked about how we hate always staring at the back of heads of people while they stared somewhere else. Rather, its more like staring life and the world in the back of the head. Wondering when someone will turn around without me having to tap them on the shoulder.

Graded labs all morning in Hon. Chem. Did nothing in PAS. Was falling asleep in Bio.. and in physiology even though we had a test. LOL. Wanna go randomnly driving around Portland tonight, even though I have a billion HW stuff I need to do.

Mock Trial was fun. I loved seeing everyone dressed and looking very suave. Though, was definately kinda embarrased when my dad dropped me off and decides to wave to a certain person on the team who also happens to be standing outside. Ahem. *dies*

So, after I got home Lod and I had this great convo about how much our clueless-chinese dads embarrasses us at the most awk. situations. I mean, i shouldn't be complaining too much, when my parents are my age they thought Mao was a god and memorized every one of his articles for literature classes. And here I am, going to 24 parties and school dances. Quite a jump, its amazing that my parents understand me at all.

I was walking from Ryan's house toward Nadia's car when I noticed how beautiful the moon and the stars are tonight. I dunno if Westlake is just so much brighter but everything around Ryan's house was bathed in a soft yellowish light as we're walking back. Definately peaceful and content and maybe a little zen sprinkled in there somewhere. Maybe, one day i'll not have to stop for anything, I'll continue walking forever in the moonlight, tip my head back, count the stars and let my feet lead me wherever the road goes.

House of Flying Daggers was.. weird? There basically was no plot, just a series of action shots with random makeout scenes in between. Kind of awkward ahem. But I loved the photography, Zhang Yimou's films always as the most beautiful scenes. The Jin guy was H-O-T minus the fact that he's part taiwaness and part japanese.

Kinda not looking forward to next week, I mean, i'll have to get up at 5 on sat for regionals which I'm kinda scared of cuz i'm not sure if my opening's good enough. I dunno, it seems like we had a lot longer to practice last year. And I'm worried that Pyle will come after me with a knife if we don't make it state. Although, I am going to take my camera this year and take a lot of pictures. Oh yeah, spring sports starts next week. I've decided that i'll assume no responsibility for any sport and will just randomnly show up at the sports i'm interested in, like *ahem* track on a very hot day. ^___^ Hehehe

I randomly ran across the song "I will remember you" by Sarach Macahlan (however u spell it) today. It makes me so sad to think that we'll be graduating in less than 4 months. I mean, i understand when people say that they're ready to leave LO but for me, 4 years is the longest i've stayed in ANY school. Hard to believe? I spent 3 years in China, 1 year in parkrose, 2 years in david douglas, 2 years in portland school d.

It always amazes me when people say, oh i remember him in 2nd grade. I wished that I could've known some of my friends here at LO for much much longer. I wish I could've grown up in one place with a group of friends that I've known since kindergarten so that I could be a part of the exciting memories and be able to laugh at them years and years later. But alas, I can only say "remember frosh year...?" and "oh, i wasn't here in junior high".

And what of the people I knew since birth or since the first day of first grade? We've grown so far apart that half of the time we spend together is updating each other on what's going on across the pacific ocean. Its either they explaining youth communist society to me or me explaining SATs or winter formal to them. They have such a hard time understanding that schools allow dances over here that I can never convey to them the feeling of actually BEING at a dance or standing on the sidelines of a football game.

I wonder if I'll ever find a person that could understand me without me having to explain everything. I wonder if there really is a person out there who knows the song of my heart without asking any questions or someone who understands the real me even if I do not say a word.

So far, its looking like there isn't. C'est la fucking vie