Missing My Best Friend

 Sometimes life separates people from each other, like me and someone who used to be my best friend. We were like twins. We went to the same middle school and elementary together. We would shop at Dolphin and buy the same tank tops, jeans, earrings, and bags. We would trade bracelets and fight over the cute boys we saw in the corner of our eyes. Then we would fight some more about petty situations, like missed phone calls or our lack of support for one another when jealous friends would talk behind our backs. Ultimately, despite our clone-aspects, moving from one city to another, from Miami to Kendall shifted our lives entirely.

Looking through my drawer, I still find the eclectic items we used for our friendship bracelets: misc, dented, worn-out, rusted charms that we decorated into our own. We could have thrown them away- sometimes the annoying rattles would just remind me of the past- but for some reason we didn't. Although we didn't lose the tangible, we lost the instangible and valuable friendship we once shared. we stopped calling each other. Our trains of thoughts piled up into nothingness, our snitching remained mute, and our meeting dates for fun girl's night out remained unplanned.

Despite the distance, perhaps time tells what the future holds. Just like I have seen past friends in street corners, shops, even while driving and looking outside the window seeing my first crush, maybe one day I will walk into the same Dolphin stores and see my best friend's familiar Hermione-like face.  Maybe one day we will say "hey" instead of "goodbye".

09/20/12 Response to http://orianaenglishcomposition.blogspot.com/2012/09/time.html

I agree with your criticism of time and how there's not enough hours in the day to get everything done. I can also relate to you because I have been away from my hometown in Cuba, missing my family and the friends I left behind. But, like you mention, becoming independent is the best you can hope for. It makes you a stronger person and ultimately defines who you are. Your family and friends will always be there, and being away from them sometimes makes you appreciate them more.

It's always good to be organized as well and although I am a commuter, I know it sometimes is uncomfortable having a room mate if that person is messy. But, it's good to know everything is getting fixed. And you should feel lucky you don't have to drive back and forth everyday to class.

Buying food and realizing your fridge is empty is definitely exhausting. That really sucks. Not only do you have to study, but you have to take time to do the little things you took for granted when you had your parents there. But, once again, this makes you more independent and anything that makes you grow up fast is good for you.

Unlucky Test Taker

Don't you hate it when your mind goes blank on a test you studied for or when you start second guessing yourself? Or when you study the textbook material and nothing from the book comes out in the test? This is what happened to me for my first Bio test. I barely passed when I should have aced it. Not only did I make silly mistakes, but what's worse is that  when I looked back at the questions I got wrong, I knew the answer! Why did I get them wrong? This not only occurs to me, but to students who get nervous over an exam, which shouldn't even be considered that big of a deal. Knowing the information, or at least thinking one does, and then passing the test with a borderline grade is quite devastating. It makes one feel obtuse, despite knowing the answers.

I am so mad at myself because I need this for my major. I spent hours studying from the textbook, not using my common sense, because if I had used it I would have known to go straight to the review questions instead. On top of poor time management skills, not realizing the practice questions from Mastering Biology would come out was quite stupid of me. They were all there, word for word! This will certainly never happen to me again! The point is, that common sense sometimes eludes us and we just need to get it back. And, there's no such thing as a silly mistake. Mistakes will only seem silly if one doesn't fix them. So from now on, I need to stop wasting time, and go straight to the point. I need to make corrections on the test, scratch every distracting word that eliminates wrong answer choices, pay attention to the wording of every question, and to not read the textbook anymore! Actually, reading it after doing the Mastering Biology questions would be more useful.

So the point of this tedious self-critique is to evince how mistakes can often lead to good results. They strengthen us into learning from them, because that's ultimately life. Life is full of mistakes, and imperfections arebound to happen. When they do, one has to cling to their attitude of perseverance amidst the darkness and not become defeated. There's always a second chance, and like my mother says, " Everything in life can be fixed, except death." Getting a silly C will not be the death of my report card, but the beginning of effort, dedication,and perseverance.

Seeing My Grandma for the First Time

   Yesterday, my grandmother came from Cuba and we were all excited to go to the airport to see her. I left Cuba when I was 9 years old and since then I haven't seen her. So it's been 9 years since I spent time with her. My cousin and I would do pranks to her, like scare her to death at night after watching a scary movie, which would make her shoot up like a rocket. We would go to the grocery store and hide her bags, and even hide behind the aisles so she thought she lost us. We were impish creatures with her, even though she laughed afterwards. Those were great times we had once in a while and going to the airport to see her was really exciting. But, like the pranks, it was also scary because people tend to deteriorate through time. The image I left in Cuba was not at all the image I saw.

   She had dark hair, instead of her usual blonde. She had gotten chubbier, but simultaneously her sunken cheeks gave off the appearance of not eating right - it's Cuba, so that's what one usually expects. Her skin was darker than usual, with dark circles and bags around her eyes. In the her left cheek, she had a bite and it was swollen to the point were it looked serious. This struck me as sad because we remembered her as a lively person with her invigorating laughter rocking the whole house. But, although her image changed, I was more than exstatic to welcome her with a hug, a thousand flowers, and a million balloons.

She left my cousin and my aunt behind, but they are still planning on coming. This is even more exciting because all of my family will soon be here. We could hang out together and share our laughs with grandma, even though we will never stop pranking her. It's just nice to know that despite years of separation, through times, we can all be together again.

I still can't wait to take her shopping so that she becomes amazed at all of the fancy gadgets, clothes and the piles of food that she never had back home. And I am thankful that we can finally talk to her and see her again.

Sunsations Clinic

 

So my friend and I had a crazy idea of joining the Sunsations, so we went to the clinic yesterday and before we got to the Knight Sports Complex, the biggest "trolls" occurred.

 

First of all, we got there early- an hour and thirty minutes early and we couldn’t find a door into the volleyball court. The maze-like building resulted in us running around the track field, soccer field, football field, and tennis courts. We went through the Summer Olympics all over again. It was only after running around the periphery we encountered stairs, which apparently guided us into the boy’s locker room. We got out of there like lightning bolts.

 

After going through all that, we were about to collapse due to our dehydration. Thus, we looked for bending machines everywhere until a very nice security guard opened the Hall of Fame building, just for us so we can get Sprites or Sodas (there was no water there). We opened the door, and next thing you know it’s pouring. So we went to get water, but the water got us. No "sun" in sunsations.

 

Then, a random figure protrudes, with his sleek charcoaled-colored bike and a cryptic stare, into a roofed hallway to dry off. Definitely a creepy experience given that it was pouring outside, windy, dark, and we were alone- shivering and about to pass out. But it turned out the tough guy had a squeaky voice with a Spanish accent, so he wasn't fully intimidating.

 

What was intimidating was the running. That’s what we got, but backwards. Running backwards is not the most pleasant experience; let me tell you, given the slippery shoes and people’s tendency to bump one another. Not to mention some girls bumping one another on purpose, but that's to be expected given that we were all competing against each other. It seemed like a high-school dance rivalry: the newcomers(freshmeat) vs. the pros. The vibe proliferated given the two Russian girls who scrutinized the team's every move as if they were jealous. Not only was that awkward, but what was more awkward was the song they decide to use: Pop that. I absolutely, positively, despise this song content-wise. But, hey, it wasn't that bad.

 
 Anyways, despite the irony and the epic fails, we had fun. Unexpected events give life some “epic fail” moments, making it all the more interesting. The rain dries off, bikes eventually move, running is good exercise, and having a ‘bad day” is only temporary, because there’s always going to be a tomorrow.And although it went from “sunsations” to ‘rainsations”, and from a “clinic” into an “emergency- room-near-dehydration-death-experience”, we managed to make fool of ourselves and we managed to have a few laughs.

 
:p