Snow Day

“I’m tired of failing that boating test. I’ve already taken it 37 times.” — Spongebob Squarepants, Season 1 Episode 4

Snow Day

Last night, my town had a snowstorm for the first time this year. This is related to the La Niña weather phenomenon which has moved precipitation to the west of the U.S. I learned about that in my 7th grade geography class, which I think should replace social studies classes.

I think it’s just more fun to learn geography, and also, human geography is a better way of framing many social studies topics like economics and culture. History would naturally be included in geography so I don’t really get why geography is not taught more.

Anyway, I did not need to go to school, which is always enjoyable. Actually, I am starting to miss school. I know that I will change my mind overmorrow (that means the day after tomorrow[I don’t get why “overmorrow” isn’t even used commonly]).

Assuming that I will stop going to school on May 14th because of internships (the optional Senior Internship Program at my school allows seniors to intern somewhere at the end of the year and not come back), I should be enjoying the last 74 days of my high school career.

As I look back, I think that I’ve done a lot in high school: I met a lot of interesting peers and teachers, balled out in Roblox paintball and Valorant, helped out in a lot of classes, made a YT channel, a blog, and a Spotify artist page. Most importantly, I learned about myself.

Fail

I failed my driver’s test in such a stupid way. I did not put my seatbelt on. I even checked if the DMV officer’s seatbelt was on, but did not check my own. I think that I was going to put on my seatbelt after moving my seat backward. However, I was unable to find the bar under the front of the seat which is usually pulled up to move the seat (it is not in that car). So, I just gave up on moving the seat and started backing out.

I will never buy a Nissan car (however, I would accept it as a gift).

Sadness

Laziness followed and I was very sad, but I am ok now. I think it’s called the 5 stages of grief. There was some anger, some regret, some acceptance. I wasn’t sure who to be mad at. Myself, or the officer, or the driving school for preparing a different car than usual.

People have told me that putting on the seatbelt is the first thing to be done in a car, but that’s only true if it’s your own car. If it’s a shared car then the seat, mirrors, and wheel have to be checked. I guess I was overloaded.

More annoying stuff

Now I have to do another test for my learner permit because there is 2 week cooldown on testing, so my permit will expire before another slot opens up.

The DMV’s systems were down on the day of my learner test appointment, which is really unlucky. So, I rescheduled for a month later.

The most annoying part was actually getting the two pieces of mail to prove I live at my house. Colleges usually mail a lot of garbage to me (if you ever take a College Board test, never sign up for the advertisements and “promotions” [I considered getting a new email to avoid the garbage]), but none of them had a stamp from the Post Office. This really annoyed me because I’m assuming that postmarked means they are stamped with a location like WESTCHESTER, NY.

Terraria

is a very good game! I once thought of it as 2D Minecraft but it has a lot more content. The progression in Terraria is very set on defeating bosses though. In Minecraft, there is a bigger focus on building structures because the player can beat the game very quickly and get full gear in a few hours. But, in Terraria, the player explores to get better items to beat the next boss.

I think it’s very addicting to get that next item powerspike or experience something that I haven’t heard of before. For example, while spelunking, I found an area where the background turned into stars and there was a glowing lake. Naturally, I jumped in it but started to… sink through the ground??? I was super scared at this point because I thought my soul left my body and I was gonna die. But, it turns out that all it did was sink me down until an opening in another cave.

Credit to Mrtincan7

Is flawed

The game is way too confusing and basically demands a wiki to complete. The only other way to play the game is to watch a bunch of playthroughs and guides so that you already know what to do. I was pulling out a wiki every 10 minutes to look up basic things like the requirements for NPCs to spawn in and all of the different mobs that I saw.

Teaches many good lessons

My favorite experience while playing the game yesterday was using a Spelunking Potion, which lets the player have X-ray vision of the treasure in the cave. However, the potion does not reveal what is between the player and the treasure. For example, you may see a chest in the distance, but fail to see a trap under your foot and die. Greed can blind us and we must be careful not to only look at the treasure. Greed makes us unaware of the surroundings: I was lost after the potion effect ended because I didn’t know where the potion took me. Greed only leads to more greed: I was always looking for the next chest or heart crystal because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to find them as easily after the effect ended.

Spicy food

I ate spicy edamame today and it reminded me of summer even though it snowed outside. It was interesting that tastes and smells can bring us to places in our memory.

Whenever I smell pine trees I am reminded of the night I first arrived in my town. I also remember eating cold leftover chicken nuggets from McD’s, damn they were good.

But today, I was transported to a humid and hot summer day in my mom’s hometown in Jiangxi, sitting on a hard, polished wooden bench in her father’s apartment on the hill above a small market selling bottled milk and PvZ trading cards. Across the great bridge, which you would need to walk up a lot of stairs to get onto, there is a mall that teaches kids how to bake cookies. Perhaps I would watch 奔跑吧兄弟 under the ceiling fan.

One Summer’s Day

On the theme of reminiscing about the past, if there’s a lesson I have for my past self, it would be to slow down and do what you want, because most things don’t matter. But, you should always look for what matters. There are many things in the world, but only so few that a person can care about.