September 7, 2021 10:56 PM
Scrabble Life
This is the Common App essay I wrote when I was applying to colleges. I don't know how this could possibly have made me look desirable to colleges, but it's a glimpse into my life in 2010.
It's four in the morning. I'm wide awake, and I'm picking out tiles from a bag: OENSHYT. I look at my letters and my eyes light up. I can make a bingo on my first turn. Oh, darn. I wish I had the first move so I could utilize the TRIPLE WORD spot. Nevertheless, I still might be able to play this. I sit in anticipation, watching everyone else make their moves. My older cousin plays the word BIN. I see an opening. I place the tile S at the end of BIN to make BINS. Then I place the rest of my letters around it, making the word HONESTY. I get 71 points on my first bingo ever. My cousins can never catch up to me, and soon I win the game by 61 points.
Even though I don't quite enjoy writing that much, I absolutely love word games and crossword puzzles. I especially excel at Boggle. I love playing it because it's fast and easy, and it requires no strategy, just speed and concentration. But if there's more time, I usually play a game of Scrabble with my cousins. I have no idea why we're all so drawn to this game. It requires much more thinking than any of us would want to exert on a lazy summer night, but it's what we do together.
No, I'm not a competitive Scrabble player. The only times I've ever played Scrabble were with my cousins. I'm not a very strategic player either. I always make the move that gives me the most points, even if it leaves me with horrible tiles. I don't think about whether I might open up the TRIPLE WORD spot or not. I always try to win, though. Sometimes I'll take five minutes in my turn scanning the whole board, constantly rearranging my letters, and adding up possible points. It's an activity that I love to play for fun, but I would surely crack under pressure if I were in a serious competition.
At times, my cousins and I have gone all day and night playing Scrabble. We wake up at around noon, and immediately we take out the limited edition Scrabble board. Later we decide to watch a movie, so we use my cousin's iPod and play Scrabble with each other in the car. Even in the movie theater, we're still passing around the iPod.
We're a bunch of teenagers to young adults, and yet sometimes we're such dorks. One of my younger, twelve year-old, cousins always sits by herself texting and checking her Facebook. "What a bunch of losers," she must be thinking, "They'd rather play scrabble than go out." One time last summer I had a birthday party to go to. I left to go to my friend's house when I was in the middle of a cousin bonding Scrabble game. Of course I had fun at the party, but I honestly had even more fun playing Scrabble.
I don't see my cousins very often: only once or twice a year. So when we're not around each other, we have normal lives and sleep cycles. We always make the most out of each bonding experience, even if that means playing board games all day.
August 25, 2021 11:41 PM
Fall
____________ | |__________| |o|----------| It's been a while since I've blogged | |----------| or journaled, and I'd like to get back |o|----------| to it. | |----------| |o|----------| ...this is also the best ascii art I |_|__________| can make right now
Summer is fast approaching. Summer has my favorite kind of weather, yet it's my least favorite season. Summer means that my family plans all these vacations, and I get really overwhelmed and stressed out. Summer is when so much of my mental energy is taken up by other things, that my side projects take a back seat.
4 months later
Fall is approaching. It's still hot and muggy outside, but for me, the change in weather isn't what defines the change in season.
Fall means summer is ending. It's that feeling of relief when I get back from my last trip in August. It's when all the kids are back at school. It's calming--to get back into a routine, to be able to depend on my weekends again.
Fall has Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday. At times it feels like the complete opposite of calm and relaxing, and yet I love it. I love the pre-Thanksgiving feast on Wednesday night and the hustle in the kitchen Thursday morning. I love the post-Thanksgiving lunch nap and the Black Friday shopping which wraps up before it's even Friday.
Fall is when the leaves change colors. Fall is when I took an early morning hike at McConnells Mills State Park and sat on my favorite rock, watching the leaves fall down from the trees and the water flow down along the boulders in the creek, having my mind go absolutely blank and just taking in the moment.
Fall is my favorite season.
--obligatory pumpkin picture-- _ _}#{_ ,'/ / \ \`. / { ; : } \ ( { : ; } ) `.\_\_/_/.'
July 5, 2021 12:06 PM
I need a break
"You always say that"
Yeah, I know.
June 8, 2021 11:24 PM
Top 7 moments of my trip to the Pacific Northwest
in no particular order:- eating soft serve pineapple dole whip while getting ginger beer refills
- walking through a neighborhood, stumbling upon a cool bridge leading to a 5 mile hike
- finding a beverage truck near the end of a trail, having a nice conversation, and drinking watermelon lemonade
- enjoying a quiet moment at a beautiful viewpoint in Bridal Veil (that I can't find a link for, which I guess is why it was so quiet)
- getting a tour of my co-worker's wacky and amazing house
- breaking up a tense moment, joking with my sister behind a towel, saying things that only we could possibly find funny
- catching up with my older cousin in Seattle
May 30, 2021 7:59 AM
Fixing more of my ascii art
Back when I was coloring ascii art by hand, I hit this weird bug that happened when I turned my phone sideways. Well, it's been a while since I turned my phone sideways and I did it again, and noticed more weirdness. I had a few ascii art images that were slightly off on the first row, which didn't seem too bad, but then I saw this monstrosity.
Then I asked my sister to look at the pages on her phone (flipped) and...they looked perfectly fine. Hmm. I guess if my site is only-broken-on-my-device that's better than only-guaranteed-to-work-on-my-device.
Anyway, I analyzed the code, and I realized that this was an issue:
<span class="gray"> </span><span class="lightgold">,*
No, it's not the fact that that second <span> isn't closed. I did that on the next line. It's the first <span> that has nothing but whitespace in it. I don't know, my phone had issues with that. This is just a side effect of how my color-rizer tool works, and maybe I'll fix it one day. Maybe. For now I just modified the html directly. As of now, I've fixed it on the ascii art pages, but not in the individual blog posts. But maybe later.
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