Loaves of bread

 The world is filled with unanswered questions. Like, what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370? What did dinosaurs actually look like? Who tasted candy corn, and decided that it was worthy of being sold in stores across America? And why am I posting this blog instead of the PTA Reflections story that's due next Wednesday? But the ruler of all unanswered questions is the infamous one of "What happens to your consciousness when you die"?    Do you end up in some kind of heaven or hell after you die, depending on what you've done in your life? Do you reincarnate, and become a new person? Do you just wander the Earth after you die as a ghost, witnessing events play out before you but being unable to do anything to change them? Or does it all just fade to black?  The short story "The Egg" is an interesting interpretation of what happens after you die. It starts out with an ordinary man in the modern day dying in a car crash, and waking up in an empty void. I...

 Now for all of last school year I was enrolled in virtual school, due to concerns with omicron and me not being old enough to get vaccinated. This year, I've been fully vaccinated, so I decided to move back to the public school system after two and a half years of online school, and let me just say, it's been a rough adjustment. Public schools and virtual schools each have their own upsides and downsides, so I'm going to list them out for you so that you know what you expect if you enroll in these schools.   Now, the main focus of public schools is on efficiency and learning, while also giving you opportunities to socialize, and make friends. They're good enough at what they do: which is teaching you, but they have quite a bit of problems. For example, bathroom breaks. If you want to go to the bathroom, you have to sit there, and raise your hand, and then wait for the teacher to answer you, and pray that they actually let you go to the bathroom. But chances are, if the...

 Humans don't tend to agree on a lot of things. One look on any social media platform and that becomes abundantly clear. One thing most of us can agree on though, is that no-one looks forward to the dentist. It's basically children's surgery. A bunch of people strap you to a chair, then poke around a crevice in your body with a bunch of metal tools, while you can do nothing but listen.  Despite that comparison, I think we're irrationally scared of them. These people are licensed professionals, and if they mess up it could ruin their livelihoods, so I doubt they'd mess up so badly as to permanently injure your mouth or something. And it doesn't even hurt that bad because of the anesthetics. I mean, they even have licenses for a radiation machine, which is definitely only for the x-ray machines and not anything else.  So, I've been to the dentist's twice in the past month or so, once for a simple checkup and cleaning, and the other to get a filling. Now, t...

  You might have expected this, given that I celebrate Chinese New Year, but my ethnic group is Chinese. Thus, my mom has tried to teach me Chinese many times, usually during the summer, when class is out and I have more free time. This usually ends up in vain though, for a multitude of reasons.   Firstly, I don't really have a reason to use the Chinese I learn in these lessons. Given that I live in America, which is an English-speaking country, I don't tend to meet many Chinese people, (or many people in general, given the pandemic) and most of the time I either don't need to talk to them, or said Chinese people have learnt English anyways because of where we live. And though my parents tend to speak Chinese at home, they can still speak English so even if they say Chinese to me, I can say English right back to them with no problem. This means is usually forget most of the Chinese I've learned by next summer.   Also, our method of learning isn't particularly gr...

    The Rainbow Fish is a popular children's picture book published in 1992. In it, the titular fish finds himself alone after he refuses to give out his special rainbow scales to the other fishes. He learns from a wise octopus that he must give away his rainbow scales to have friends. He gives out all of them but one. The moral of the story: you will be happier after giving something to others.   Now, this story's moral is BOTCHED as hell. The other fish only like rainbow fish because they gave him some of his scales. But if your friends only like you because you give them things, then chances are they aren't very good friends.   Also, the analogy of the rainbow fish's scales being like people's possessions falls apart when you realize that the rainbow fish's scales are a part of their body, and cannot grow back. The other fish asking him for his scales, is like if you had beautiful flowing hair, and some stranger walked up to you and asked if they co...

 A few days ago, we celebrated my mother's birthday, and it was pretty fun. We ate some good food, we had some nice celebrations, and we overall had a good time. We tried a new Walmart tiramisu cake, and it tasted pretty good.  The same thing could not be said about my mother's last birthday, which was practically non-existent. While we were preparing, my mother got mad about my siblings not changing into their clothes, and things just escalated from there until my mother decided to abandon the party altogether, which made me really sad.   Me and my sister had also baked a homemade cake for the occasion, and when we tried it later it tasted terrible. I was super sad about it, but we eventually compromised with a mini-celebration where we had some store bought carrot cake.  In the future, I hope our birthdays go like this year's rather than last year's. Birthdays are supposed to be time of celebration, special days in between otherwise monotonous years.  I'l...

 Christmas. It's a time of snowflakes, presents, angels and holly. Feasts, pine trees, Santa, and of course, being jolly. Christmas is jam-packed with all sorts of wonderful things, and today, I'll be talking about them. First off, is snow. Now, as you'd probably know if you've ever been here, snow isn't exactly a thing in Florida. We do get some cold winds every once in a while, but this winter, not even those are arriving this winter. That's a shame for me, because I love the cold.   I love the feeling of being snuggled up in bed, cozy with blankets and pillows surrounding me. And though I have no memory of my encounters with snow back in England, it seems fun to have snowball fights, build snow forts and snowman, and catch falling snowflakes, then go back inside and snuggle up with a warm cup of hot cocoa and a blanket. I'm sure there's a less pleasant side to snowy weather, like having to stay outside to shovel snow off of cars and rooves, and ice fr...