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What am I thankful for?

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What am I thankful for? There’s a lot; I could say I’m thankful for an education, supportive friends and family, or the internet. While those topics are important, they’re a bit too cliche and boring.  I’m thankful for college apps to be over soon. It’s too much writing and too many drafts. It’s hard to summarize 5 years of your life into a few 250 to 550 word essays. Well, it’s not terrible, but getting started is rough. Going through the whole brainstorming process and writing down notes, trying to remember things that happened a while ago, it’s not fun. With deadlines ages away I sometimes find myself slacking off until 2 to 3 weeks before the deadline as I always think “hey this due date is far away I don’t have to worry about it”. At least once you have a few written out, you can recycle quite a few essays. Besides essays, some application portals are terribly designed. The University of California portal is so finicky. I also wish all colleges were on the Common app. At least it’
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skiing

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A couple of years ago during winter break, I went skiing with some friends. I had never skied before and was hesitant to do so. The resort we went to was called Cascade Mountain, located in Wisconsin. The ski boots were heavy but felt comfortable. It was awkward to walk around with skis, but I quickly got used to it and ended up just pushing myself around with the ski poles. We gathered together and got a quick tutorial by one of the resort staff, teaching us how to stop, gain speed, and turn. There was even a mini range we could use to practice, and it was chill. I slowly got used to navigating around on skis, and before I knew it we were already on our way to our first route. A green trail named the Adele route, we passed through Upper Adele which was a simple gradual curve and headed into Adele’s alley, which was a sharper curve. Nothing too special, but that route gave me the best adrenaline rush I’ve ever had. We quickly moved on to the blue-level trails. Aptly named Badger’s Bowl
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duck

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In the summer of 2018, my family flew back to China. We normally do this once every 2-3 years to catch up with relatives. Great experience, good food, fun places to visit. It’s also nice meeting relatives I did not know about (all extended relatives live in China, none in the US. It’s like the stories you hear about X person saw you as a baby and claim they “raised” you but you have zero recollection of that person).  Regarding good food, probably the most memorable dish was Peking duck. It’s a whole roast duck, stuffed with various spices such as star anise, cloves, and Sichuan pepper. The duck is then pumped with air to cause the skin to separate from the fat, and then is dipped in boiling water, tightening the skin. The duck is then hung to dry, where it is glazed with a runny syrup. It is then left for 24 hours until being roasted in the oven. The end result is a duck with extremely crispy skin. That’s probably the best part, the duck skin is crispy, fatty, and delicious. When comb
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longboarding to happiness

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       The most recent moment of happiness was learning how to skateboard (specifically longboarding). The first time I ever went on one was in 5th grade; we had a unit on skateboarding, but all I remember were kids hitting the walls at high speeds and tumbling over. Anyways. The second time was with Zhaohan and Ryland. It was Zhaohan’s sister’s birthday, and for some reason, he brought a longboard with him. He took it down the road for a bit, but he improved quite a bit in the span of 30 minutes or so. Ryland and I both tried it, but I wasn’t a fan. It felt very unstable and wobbly. All I could really do was get on it and stand still. Fast forward to this year, Zhaohan started bringing his skateboard to school and I think it set off a trend. Everyone else brought in their skateboards, and they would skate during lunch or after school on the sidewalk to Kenney or down Matthews street. I would come and watch, but never try as I felt the inclines were too much for me to handle initiall
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chicago

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We had been planning this trip for a good while. It started out as a spa trip but due to extra costs, we decided to change it up and try to visit as many places as possible while keeping costs relatively low. To be honest, the hardest part of the whole trip was planning everything out, and looking back I’m glad nothing got delayed/canceled. With train tickets leaving at six in the morning, we all (except Yeowoon) arrived twenty minutes early before the departure time. As the clock ticked closer to six Yeowoon stilled hadn’t shown up, and we faced the reality of leaving her behind, but around five minutes prior to departure, she finally showed up, which was a huge relief. Her reason was poor traffic/driving, either one of those.  Onboard the train, we had two hours to kill. Jonathan and Ryland brought card packs, and we were allowed to move freely around the cabins, so we ended up in the lounge cart playing card games for pretty much the entire trip. I ended up learning how to play Po
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