IT’S OVA

“Wasn’t even all you.” — Jeremy Elbertson

“Not the conviction of a revolutionary but the smoldering hatred of a peasant.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald

It’s over

High School is over and it’s time to move on.

Yearbook, Merebook, Herebook

By the time the yearbooks were handed out, it was already finals. There were no more classmates and no more students to sign them. I think that the yearbook club really messed up their timing this year. I’m not sure if they do this every year, but it was a shame that I wasn’t able to find a time to visit my teachers and classmates again.

However, even though they didn’t sign my merebook, I will always remember them. Perhaps I will forget their faces and their names, but the moments shared will always exist in memory. The attempt of remembering serves me well enough. Faces and voices will fade but the sensations will not.

It’s in the photograph…

That’s actually why I don’t like taking pictures. While we take pictures of moments we want to remember, the moment already exists in the want to remember. Without that, every photo that our fingers flip through in the album is an unwanted memory.

Even though it might end up being a memory that I didn’t know I wanted before I saw it, the desire to capture a memory while having no way to solidify it is a much more beautiful and painful emotion. Although our phone cameras have brought us closer to the past, it’s funny that the most powerful emotion that the past can evoke still originates from distance.

EmpLemon

I’ve been rewatching a lot of YT vids by EmpLemon, although they are more like documentaries. The production is extremely good, so much so that the topic doesn’t even matter. I have never watched NASCAR or any racing before (except for a few episodes of Initial D), but his videos on NASCAR were extremely engaging.

I can’t exactly pinpoint the details that make his videos so great, but it is likely the stories that he tells when he presents the support for his argument. His argument doesn’t even need to be a deep moral. In fact, much of the time, his thesis is simply that this topic is interesting and deserves your attention. If I were to recommend a video to start (it doesn’t really matter what I pick because you will definitely watch them all afterward), I would need to choose the one on the history of Mac Tonight:

I chose this video because I am personally a fan of McD’s but mainly because it demonstrates that everything that exists today has a deep history.

It all works out

Recently, I began exercising more and became generally happier. I think that it’s just a very natural

On the rise

After falling down to P2 after getting D4, I have now made it back to P1 80 LP. Essentially, if I win three times in a row, I will be back to D4, and then I can cruise to the end of the season which will be in a few weeks.

However, I feel that getting close to my final goal is what stops me from reaching it. I will play differently than usual due to the nerves and eventually mess it all up.

Note, I did end up reaching D4 once again a few days after writing this.

Jarate Gaming

I created a new gaming YouTube channel so feel free to check it out.

I put a lot of effort into editing the first video, but it looks like it didn’t get any views. How unfortunate. The topic was a bit too niche, I suppose. I think that I should find something else to make a video on.

Forced choices

Normally, I would just upload a gaming video to my main channel, but I realized that a variety channel is actually a terrible way to get views (I already knew this but never cared). So, I decided that since I’m going to put so much effort into editing this video idea, I might as well make a new channel.

New Friend

I recently talked to a new classmate at Caltech, who is very into researching longevity.

Naturally, I asked her if she would live forever if she had the choice. She said yes instantly for the reason of loving life.

That’s a great reason, but I would just like to live a good life and die. Maybe living 60 more years is good enough for me.

If I were to live 200 years, I would probably see every place on the planet and then just be bored afterward because there wouldn’t be anything new. Or, I would just play video games the whole time and get bored of living.

Also, there is the problem explored in “2 B R 0 2 B” by Kurt Vonnegut; a world without aging must kill the living to make room for new children because of overpopulation. If to be means someone else is not to be, then what is the point?

But anyway, she is very kind and has a good perspective on social media. She doesn’t want her classmates to follow until they meet IRL, which is better for making connections. But, the class is so small that it’s kinda hard not to meet everyone LOL.

If I were to have one complaint though, it’s that Europe is too many hours ahead of New York.

Old Friend

Recently in China, 猪猪侠 (a children’s cartoon with a pig protagonist) has become a popular sticker/meme.

When I was little, I watched basically every spinoff series and every episode because it was so fun. Looking back now, even though the animation wasn’t anime-level, as a 3D-rendered show, the emotions shown on the pig’s face and the situations have great depth and maturity that make the character relatable to adults.

So, I saved some of the stickers and sent it to my old friend (who is not a fan of cute animals). She immediately said that it was gross, even though I thought that it would be sorta funny. When I asked why, she replied that it is haram, and I learned that she is Muslim (she kept trying to explain that she was Muslim for a while because she thought I didn’t know that they don’t eat pork).

Anyway, I actually had no idea she was Muslim because I guess we just never talked about it. I think part of the reason might be that I never saw her wear the headscarf that girls typically wear. I’m not sure the exact reason though.

Anyway, it’s surprising that there are important things like that which I don’t know about my friends.