This week’s theme is brown. So I’ll be telling you about my outdoors adventures as a kid. I grew up in a seaside town, but we moved to the city shortly after which means that my outdoor adventures were pretty much either swimming in the sea or, well they pretty much stopped when we moved to the city. But when we would go over to my grandma’s place for vacation and stuff, me and my brother would always have our little outdoor adventures there because she lived in a place just completely surrounded by hills. You have to — you had to travel a good forty minutes to see any kind of people besides us. So we would just climb in every olive tree we could find. We would roll down whatever hills it wasn’t too dangerous to roll down of. We would try to scale down just the steeper cliffs. We would go play with the chickens and go look for foxes in the forest. And it was just a really fun time. And I still remember it very clearly. This summer, since the pandemic restrictions lifted, we went back to my Grandma’s place and met our little cousins there, which are about five years old right now. And I really enjoyed it, cause I guess I could pass on our traditions to them as well.

When I was little, I was such a Dora kid – I loved Dora, I had a Dora hat, a Dora backpack, Dora shoes. I even had Dora – like a Dora plate, and I would eat my food on the Dora plate. And I remember watching this one episode of Dora where they went to this place called “Coney Island,” and it was this big old ice cream land where there was ice cream everywhere, and I thought that was a real place. So I kept asking my dad, “Can we go to Coney Island. Can we go to Coney Island?” And he finally said yes. And when he took me there, it was this big amusement park. And I was so confused. I’m like, “Where’s the ice cream? This is not Coney Island.” He’s like, “No, this is Coney Island.” And he showed me the sign and it said “Coney Island.” So, I’m like, “Mm, whatever.” And like, I went on this, I went on these rides. There’s this one ride where you sit on it and the seat would go up and down and, like, spin you around, it made me so dizzy. And when I got off it, I was so dizzy, I was about to fall. And after we did it, there was like this game we could play, whack-a-mole. So I played whack-a-mole for the first time. It was so hard because the moles would come out and you would have to hit them but like, they’ll go back down so quickly. I tried to win as – I tried to like get as many, like, hit as many moles as I could, because I really wanted to win this prize, which it was like this big soda plushie. I really wanted to get it. I kept asking my dad, “Can I try again? Can I try again?” Until he told me to “Stop, that’s enough.” It was so funny because I told my siblings and my mom and dad about how I thought, when I was little, I thought Coney Island was like, a whole ice cream land, but it was actually this big amusement park back in New York. And they started laughing. They were like, “Wow, you were such a Dora fan back then you really thought Coney Island was a real place?” And, like, I’m embarrassed about it, but it…

“Do you remember your first time riding a bike? Where were you? Who were you with?” Yeah, so the first time I rode a bike was with my dad in my neighborhood cul-de-sac. He was holding the back of my bike as I rode around. And my mom and my sister were watching me from the driveway. And I remember this so clearly because I felt so free. My hair wasn’t tied and so it was like flying behind me and the wind was at my face, and I just felt so connected with nature. And till today riding my bike is one of my favorite hobbies. In fact, in the pandemic I’ve ridden my bike way more than I ever have because we couldn’t go anywhere and it was just nice to go outside for a while because, you know, in online schooling, we were like sitting at a computer for eight hours a day. And so it was nice to go outside and I don’t know. Whenever I ride my bike, I feel very connected to the Earth, to nature, and I don’t listen to music while I’m riding my bike. So I like listening to the sounds of nature and the sounds of the world.

Also like recently now with social media and technology there are a lot of magicians in a sense who post videos. So there’s this really popular influencer called Zach King, and he has these mind-blowing magic tricks that he posts about. Like I saw him on TikTok the other day. He used to be very popular on Vine a few years back and he has YouTube and everything and he puts — it’s incredible what he does and I’m still amazed by it, like it does not seem possible. Like he can be standing in front of a train and then suddenly he pulls a train out of thin air and it’s like a toy train. And it’s like, how did you even do that? Like, how does the editing come into play? But yeah, so it was cool to see physical magic shows, but it’s also interesting that now with technology and social media there are new ways to encounter magic and, you know, be fascinated by it. And it is for all ages. Even though the shows, I haven’t been to any since I was very young. But magic is, of course, for all ages. And I know some people are not that interested in it. They don’t, you know, enjoy the concept of like deceiving in a sense, but I think magic is super cool. I wish I could do it. I might pursue it but I think that with the technology and social media, it’s gotten way cooler. Like I love watching those videos. They’re just so fascinating.

Uh, do I consider myself graceful or clumsy? I’m going to tie this in with another question. I consider myself really clumsy, and ever since I was little, I’ve just always had random bruises on my legs, just all black and blue from bumping into things and forgetting. Sometimes I would just accidentally cut myself. I’d not notice, ‘cause I felt a momentary, like, momentary pain, and then – ‘cause it happened so much of me bumping into things. I would just ignore it until someone else pointed it out. I also did climbing for quite a long time. So, you know, you got hurt a lot during climbing ‘cause you just bump against the wall, you fall, you scrape your arms and legs on the wall, and I don’t think that helped my general grace level, ‘cause you just get used to it. I’m also pretty tall for my age. So, you know. I’m very clumsy.

This week, I visited some seniors and we talked for a while back and I really realized how hard seniors have been hit with this pandemic. Maybe they’ve even been hit the hardest, haven’t been able to visit family and their families haven’t been able to visit with them. They’ve also lost some friends and family at the senior home, which was definitely hard for them. And we talked and asked them for advice that I was going into high school. And first and foremost, they made me feel very grateful for my family, my friends, my health, my education, and they also made me feel very happy and grateful that I was happy and I didn’t have many regrets in my life. One of the things they said when I asked for advice, was to live in the moment and to appreciate what you have, right that second. One of the seniors said that he chased his life, trying to find perfection. And when you think he- when he thought he found it. He realized that he wasn’t anywhere close because every time he thought something was perfect, he or someone else would tell him something he could improve upon. And so he wasn’t as happy in his life, as maybe he could have been. Another senior told me to not have many regrets. not stress out a lot and just live pretty carefree and fun living, fun-loving. Because in reality life is too short and that we don’t have time to worry about little things and small details. We should start looking at the big picture. Some seniors, told me, you know, about always looking on the bright side. So they taught me a lot of things and made me feel very very grateful for what I had.

Have you ever felt jealous of someone? What about? Jealousy is an incredibly strong emotion that I feel is wise to avoid, if possible. I think jealousy can lead to people making poor decisions and it can like kind of blind you in a sense. It can just like mess with your vision, kind of give you tunnel vision, you could say. But to be honest, yeah, of course, I felt jealous in the past. Whether that be comparing myself to siblings — not me doing it but like if family members are comparing me with my sibling. I am so jealous if I didn’t like reach to the standards they wanted, or if they’re like, oh, they can do this better than you. I’d be be like, “Wow, why can’t someone say that about me? Like, why can’t I get those same compliments?” It seems shallow, but I feel like and everyone has vulnerable moments like that where they’re just kind of fueled by jealousy because they don’t receive the appreciation that they desire, you could say. Other instances where I’ve been jealous. I don’t know, school. Schools have become kind of slightly toxic environments. Not that it’s the school itself, or the students itself. It’s just how the culture of education has kind of become, especially in high school. I attend, like a very, a highly competitive — I attend school in a highly competitive school district. So, a lot of times students in their minds pit themselves against each other, and there’s a lot of jealousy surrounding GPAs, grades, standardized testing scores, you feel as though you’re putting in a certain amount of effort and not seeing the same results, but you see someone that you know very well get those results and you’re like, wow, I wish I could be there. I wish I had that, like, I’m super jealous. So it’s, it’s an emotion that pops up often. I try to avoid it as much as possible because it doesn’t always have the best results or can lead to the best results. But I think it’s a very common emotion. I don’t think it’s something people should be scared to admit to, we all feel it. There’s nothing to hide. But maybe if we like talk these things through, have conversations about stuff like this. They might not be such a big deal. They might…

Have you ever heard the saying that the grass is always greener on the other side? Oh, yes. I have heard that. I feel like that’s true kind of every day for probably everyone. You see something that someone else has that you’re just like, wow, I want — I kind of want that, that’s so cool. There’s also –I know –I forgot the specific thing. But generally it’s like you see something that someone else has and you have that exact same thing. I know for me it was clothing. There’s also –I know –I forgot the specific thing. But generally it’s like you see something that someone else has and you have that exact same thing. I know for me it was clothing. There’s this girl who’s wearing this exact same piece of clothing as I did. I think it was a pant –it was probably like — I don’t — I’m not really sure, but it was something that was exactly the same as mine, but I just felt like, I feel like I didn’t look good and it just didn’t look good in me, but for her, it was beautiful on her, it was like absolutely amazing. It was just a lot greener over there, but I think that the grass is always greener on the other side, really relates to a lot of people kind of everyday type of thing. You always see other people and you’re like, wow, these people’s, you know, maybe fashion sense or academics or just life in general is better than mine, it’s always greener on the other side. And I also feel like that’s because you don’t look at your side enough. You always, your eyes always go to your neighbor’s side. Your eyes always go to someone else’s side. You just don’t look at your side enough is why you feel like the grass is always greener on the other side.

What are some other words for “cool”? Sometimes I’m being sarcastic. I’m like, “oh, neat.” N-E-A-T, like, “wow, that’s so neat.” in a very sarcastic tone. True to myself. Sometimes I say “sick”. That’s sick. My dad says “that’s gnarly”. I don’t know. I don’t know if I can think of any more off the top of my head. Oh, sometimes my — like if I’m joking around my friends and I’m like, “oh, that’s swag.” really rarely, but it’s I would never say that if I was being serious ever.

Over in Afghanistan, they have the whole government like is gone and the Taliban is now in control and then they have COVID and the Delta variant and everything else that everyone is dealing with. And people, some like the scientists are calling like COVID like a war, you know, ’cause it’s like the death toll is similar to a war. So then, in Afghanistan, they just had this huge- this huge um insurrection? I don’t know what you would call it, but the, the huge- this huge takeover and then they have COVID, so it’s like a double war.