Update

I’ve never been so busy in my life. My days to myself now are super unproductive because all I do is sleep when I get a chance to. I’m still pretty busy trying to spend time with family and friends and working as well, but I’ll make time to do things for myself on my free days besides sleeping. Now that you got that quick update, I’ll start off by saying IM FINALLY A HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE!!! 

My upcoming blog posts will be dedicated to each year I was in high school and what my journey was like. I’m such an open book. I’ll also be posting about my summer and college!!! This blog is coming back to life and I can’t wait to write again soon. 🌞

Zumiez

I’ve been working since October of 2015 and I felt that I should share my experience on what working has been like for me. For starters, it feels great to make money that you’re working for.

I really love working at Zumiez. Zumiez was the first place I got interviewed at and the first place to hire me. It sounds easy to just ring people up and fold clothes, but oh my goodness. When I’m working, I’m working my butt off. During the holiday season, folding and fixing the racks and tables don’t sound as easy as you picture it to be because these people are digging through everything and making a mess EVERYWHERE. Now that it’s not holiday season, I’m still working my butt off, but it’s less intense I guess you can say. On a normal basis, I do have projects to complete that my managers assign me to do and of course I have to maintain the store and associate with the customers. It’s more fun associating with customers on a normal day basis rather than during the holidays because these people just want to purchase what they want and leave during that time of the year, but on a normal day basis, I can actually have a full on conversation with someone and not feel so bothersome towards them.

Zumiez is a fun job I have to admit because of how we work with customers, but we’re still a professional job. I remember someone telling me that they wanted to work at Zumiez because they’ll just get to chill during their entire time at work, but boy are they wrong. People just need to work there themselves in order to see the work that the employees put into that store.

I love my co-workers. They’re all inviting to one another and there’s never a day at work where I don’t feel welcomed. Whenever I tell them about my good news, they’re all congratulating me and cheering me on for making my accomplishments happen and it’s just a such a heart warming feeling to see how many people want to see you succeed.  Not only that, I’m able to work professionally and still by myself around them. I love my Zumiez family and I don’t think I could have ask for a better group of co-workers. This is my Zumiez experience so far. I hope you love the store just as much as I do! #Zumiez327

Highlight of My Day

I’ve been EXTREMELY inconsistent with updating my blog and I miss blogging so much. There’s so much explaining I have to do, but let me just get right on with this post and explain myself some other time.

I just want to be grateful. I haven’t had too many perfect days lately, but I still need to remember the good things that do happen everyday regardless if it’s big or small. Today I received this post from my friend Zavien who literally made my entire day. He’s a sophomore who plays football and is in the first period leadership class. He’s a total sweetheart and we don’t encounter each other too often at school, but when we do, we talk to each other as if we see each other all the time. In leadership, our teacher assigns us to read these weekly posts he puts out for us to respond to and interact with both of the leadership classes. The post that my teacher put up this week was about overcoming fears and facing difficult times. I shared a brief story about me being bullied back in middle school days and yeah it still happens here and there, but it doesn’t affect me as drastically as it once did when I was still a naive preteen. Here’s what Zavien replied with to my post.

That last part of that message hit me hard. I was crying like crazy during second period reading this because it was so unexpected and Zavien and I have never had that deep of a conversation before, but to see this coming from him truly touched my heart. It was such an impacting message for me because I don’t know who else can relate to my situation, but the name calling that I would hear from left to right and the people who talked badly about me that I didn’t even know of really made me insecure and it just caused me to hate who I was and it made me want to be an entirely different person to please other people. Honestly, how can you be satisfied with living if you aren’t even happy with the person you are?

People have a negative perspective towards me before ACTUALLY getting to meet me because of the reputation I received from rumors and name calling. I believe that my name doesn’t get around like that anymore like how it once did in middle school, but for those who did know me in middle school just might still have that same perspective towards me. I was name called as a “slut” or “whore” or whatever falls along those lines because in middle school, I had the capability of socializing with kids that were the opposite sex from me. THAT WAS IT. I didn’t date every guy I talked to, I didn’t make out with anyone in middle school( I didn’t even know how to make out to start off with), and I most certainly did not do anything that was considered under the influence and if you really know me, you would know that I’m still not doing anything under the influence. I try to bury that dark past of mine from when I was younger, but it haunts me because every guy and girl now can socialize without having to go through what I went through JUST FOR TALKING TO A BOY.

I just want to finish this off by saying thank you to those who took the time to know me. It warms my heart to know that I have people like Zavien who respects and loves me for who I am and not for what people say or think of me. Big shout out to Zavien for showing me my self-worth. I love you Zavien Bailey.

UPDATE: I am not abandoning my blog.

It’s been officially 4 months and 13 days since the last time I blogged!!! I promise you I had no intentions of abandoning my blog and I don’t intend on abandoning it anytime soon either. I miss blogging so much and I’m so happy that I’m finally making time to get back at it. If you don’t know me personally, then one thing you MUST know about me is that I am literally the busiest 16 year old in the whole United States of America. I don’t even know how I make time to sleep. Now here are a few things that happened during those four months I was gone.

• Went to Disneyland for the first time ever!!!
• Went to and lived at UCLA for 6 weeks
• Senior year began and I’m officially ASB President
• Performed in Drama’s first play of the year: Acting Can Be Murder
• DRAMA IS GOING TO DISNEYLAND!
• Homecoming week was “Remember the Titans”: Sep 28 – Oct 2
• Homecoming Dance was on Oct 3
• Got my first job at Zumiez!!!
• I TURN 17 NEXT WEEK!!!!!

I’m basically going to blog about each and every one of those bullet points because those are some very memorable eventful moments in my life that has happened in the past 4 months and 13 days and I’m so happy each and every one one of them has happened. Another thing you need to know about me is that I am an extremely wordy teenager. Anyways, I’m most definitely not going to blog about each one of those bullet points in order so get ready to expect the unexpected tomorrow! Hopefully I can make it unexpected. Goodnight ❤

My Journey to UCLA’S Acting and Performing Arts Summer Institute

I’M GOING TO UCLA FOR 6 WEEKS THIS SUMMER!!!! This has by far been the greatest thing that has ever happened in my life. I know I’m not accepted there as a 4 year college student, but I’m still very grateful to be accepted as a summer institute student. 😀 I was honestly very doubtful about this whole thing pulling through which was why I didn’t let the whole world know about my acceptance in March because overall the program is about $4,800 and knowing me, my family doesn’t have the money to support me for something so pricey, but I was fortunate to be granted with a scholarship that paid for 100% of my tuition 🙂

Big thanks to DANIEL CASTANON because without his help with getting donations for the money to pay for my enrollment($150), this whole experience would’ve never happened. He helped me get my scholarship together and sent it out ON THE LAST DAY with me and I was still granted the scholarship. 😀 Without taking his drama 1-2 and 3-4 class, I wouldn’t be where I am now, having big dreams of being a voice actress or TV actress someday. Now I may sound overly hopeful about everything, but that’s because I was just overly doubtful about this trip even happening. I don’t mean to come off that way, but I do feel like I’m taking small steps to where I want to be one day and I’ve never been so proud of myself. Thanks Castanon, you da bomb. -bomb emoji-

Tuition and housing were two different payments. The scholarship they offered was only going to cover tuition.. I was feeling mixed emotions at the time because how lucky was I to have something as great as this happen to me, but how am I going to break it to my parents that they still have to pay out of their pocket for my housing.. Things would’ve been a lot simpler if I had close family members out in the south, but since I don’t, the housing offer I wanted was $1,800. That was the cheapest one. Once it got to my parents’ head that I really want to experience this opportunity, they came to an agreement that they will do their best to get the money to pay for it. I’m not aware of how my dad did it, because he’s the one with a full-time job and he told my mom he’ll be the one to pay. Sometimes money for him gets out of hand(literally) because he gambles and I’m not trying to say that this is a bad thing about him. He’s an adult, he can choose to do whatever makes him happy because it’s not like he does it to hurt us in any way. Money is money, and having more than you expect is a great feeling for him. I just wanted to let you guys know that my dad started working overtime from 5am to 5pm, trying to get the money to support our family everyday and to pay for $1,800 for my housing.  He deserves the recognition for being a hardworking and dedicated father to his family because when he was making the money from working overtime, he didn’t just pay for my housing, he was able to buy a new washer for us (since the last one was super broken), buy my little brother a new bike for his birthday, and take us out of town paying for everything we ate and wanted which is why I have the right to say my dad is the best dad anyone could ask for even if he has major or minor flaws. I owe everything to him.

This has been by far been one of the most difficult things to get through my parents’ head (mostly my mom’s) because they’re thinking about how far it is, how expensive it is for us, and how long that trip is going to be. I thought my mom was going to find every reason for me not to go. Well she tried about three times. She once told me that I don’t love her and that’s why I’m leaving, and then she was telling me about how dangerous L.A. is which is true, but I’m not going to be in the bad part of it, and then she was telling me a story about how some girl in college got poisoned by her roommate. Can my mom get anymore over dramatic. I think she’s crazy majority of the time, but I do appreciate her for being that way because it shows how much she loves me and worries for me 24/7 and I’m happy to say that about my mom. It’s a blessing having a parent stay with you through all the good and bad times because they try their best of their abilities to be a parent and their best is what you must appreciate most. Typing this all out makes me miss my parents already and they’re literally only a few steps away from me lol. Big shout out to my mom as well for being strong about me leaving for so long to support my decision and for loving me unconditionally no matter how much of a brat I am.

I’ll be receiving a packet about the whole institute on the last week of this month or the first week of June. I’ll be attending this program starting on June 22 to July 31.

Here are the three classes I’ll be taking from 9am-4pm every weekday. I heard that the class are transferable to high school transcript which is bonus for me because I get credit for all of this!

I’ll be bringing books to read. blogging, touring L.A. on weekends, and just doing a bunch of stuff while I can since I’m on my own! Hope your mind is out of the gutter because I’m underage and I’m not going to LITERALLY be doing everything over there lol. If you knew me, I constantly say I don’t want a bad liver so I don’t drink alcohol and I HATE DRUGS. I don’t know if I emphasize this enough because why do something that messes you up in the long run. Honestly, I can find better things to do that I consider fun.

Anyways, I guess I’ll talk about life at UCLA in some other post because this is all I’m aware of as of right now. I missed blogging so much! I’m sorry for not being consistent with blogging every Sunday. But, there’s many more blog posts to come soon too!

February. P.S this is sad so don’t read it unless you want to be sad.

I’VE MISSED BLOGGING SOOO MUCH!!! I’ve just been really bad at balancing out my life and February happened to be the busiest time of my life I had a lot on my plate for a while, but now I can finally breathe and do the things I haven’t been doing during February 🙂 I’ll just update you the misery I went through last month. I don’t know why February was such a living hell for me.

During the first week of February, I could have sworn I had an appendicitis that was ready to burst. I don’t even know how to describe the location of where my pain was exactly because I could barely remember it now. People just kept telling me they’re PMS cramps, but I’ve never experienced cramps where they would last over night for a week. The pain was gone after a week, but for that whole week I kept screaming, “MY OVARIES,” whenever people would make me run or laugh. One of the worst pains I’ve ever experience and then my period came.

After my period was done, I experienced AN EVEN MORE DREADFUL PAIN. I got sick. SUPER SICK. Man I was having the worst luck during that whole month of February. It was like problem after problem for me. I took care of my sick brother one night and then two days later, I was coughing like crazy. My coughs weren’t the type of coughs where you just needed a cough drop, they were the type of coughs where my throat and chest would start burning and aching. I went on like that for two weeks because my mom wasn’t able to fit in any time for me to go to the doctors. It was awful.

I had hell week for Hairspray around the time I was getting horribly sick. I’d stayed at rehearsals until 10 working my butt off while I was in so much pain. I didn’t want to take any days off or miss rehearsals. I’d cry going home from rehearsals because my voice would crack when I sang and I was just really scared of performing on stage while being in that condition. Those two weeks were a pain, but I’m actually proud of myself when I look back at that. I stayed committed to going to school and staying late for rehearsals even when I felt like I could barely make it through the day with my sickness.

I eventually went to the doctors and was prescribed to all of these. 

I didn’t think it was that serious, but they drugged me up and I got better by the time we were performing the last two show nights for Hairspray. For those first three nights we performed and the day I had to speak on Fox40, I was still extremely sick and some nights I’d accidentally cough my life away even when I was on stage. I still did it. I also lost 6lbs so bonuuus. LOL Just kidding.

I don’t really want to get into too much details of how bad February was for me. I’m not a big fan of making sad blog posts, but I just wanted to let you know, this is the reason why I never blogged during February. I just wasn’t happy. I was abandoning my homework, social life, Giant Step, and health. I only have myself to blame for that because I didn’t know how to balance out my life with rehearsals. My next blog post will be up soon and hopefully this is the only sad blog post I ever make. I didn’t blog in March either because I was still busy, but happy. Here’s your update and stay tune for happy stuff!

Sacramento Bound!

Today when I woke up, I got a text from my grandma saying, “If you want to go to Sacramento today, I’ll pick you up at 9:30.” I woke up at like 8:30 this morning and I was just like, ehh why the heck not. We were going out to see my cousin Sharlene and her new apartment and I didn’t have any plans today so I thought I might as well just go.

I don’t regret agreeing to go though because I had lots of fun with my grandmas and cousins! We bought plenty of delicious food and I got a chance to have a better view of the Sac State campus 😀 I really liked her apartment because the inside was very spacious for one person and the rent was a reasonable price too. Its $900 for a single bedroom and bathroom and that’s pretty cheap in my opinion if you were to share that type of a apartment with your significant other. It was really pretty, but I didn’t bring my camera with me this time 😦 I’ll take pics the next time I go. They have a really nice swimming pool area, a lounge that gives free coffee, a free gym, a free media room where you can bring your own game consoles in to play or watch Netflix for FREE ON THEIR BIG SCREEN TV. Yeah that’s super cool. We went in there to watch Hook 🙂 It was great.

Then we went to CSUS just to find Sharlene’s classes and it’s a really big school and a lot of people there were studying, biking, and we saw a few sororities and fraternities set up their booths for tomorrow. I should have taken pics of those booths with my phone because they were so cute and girly! But my phone quality can’t compare with my camera quality.

We were walking around passing by a bunch of flyers and I definitely noticed this one because KEL MITCHEL IS GOING TO HER SCHOOL IN TWO WEEKS AND PEOPLE ARE GOING TO GET TO SEE HIM FOR FREE!!! Kel Mitchell played in my favorite 90s Nickelodeon series Kenan and Kel and I MUST go see him if I’m able to! Fingers crossed 😀

After visiting Sharlene, we headed back to Stockton and headed to TL Noodles for dinner 🙂

That was basically my day today! I guess I’ll post about Winterfest Week tomorrow because this post is already too long LOL. Tomorrow is Workout Monday and I can’t wait to post pics of tomorrow’s spirit day 😀 Hope you’re excited to see tomorrow’s post. ❤

January 2015

I haven’t blogged in so long and I feel super bad 😦 I guess I just didn’t make the time to either because I was too busy or lazy. I might as well just write about what happened this whole entire month LOL. I can honestly say I’ve had a productive month. By the way, my vlog should be uploaded on January 31st hopefully if I find a better video editor than windows movie maker because windows movie maker is seriously not the business.

In the beginning of the month, Elijah and I adopted some kids! 😀 Basically in first period drama, the old kids who were in drama 3-4 before adopt the new kids who enter the class this term so they could follow us like a little shadow and learn what to do in the class from us 🙂 Our son looks just like him! Our children’s name are Karissa and Bryan ❤

Here’s our family picture 😀 Yeah, we’re a pretty big family. Our daughter is next to Elijah and you could probably spot who our son is.

Another thing that happened in the beginning of the month was that both of the leadership classes got a chance to go to winter camp!!! I finally touched snow for the first time too! I actually was going to do a separate vlog for camp, but like windows movie maker sucks and everyone who’s waiting on it needs to be patient please You’ll see what went on during camp when I have the video ready 🙂

This was a group picture Max took, but it came out blurry 😦 IT’S STILL CUTE THOUGH!

This was our funny one 😀

I’ve also been busy with rehearsals for our upcoming musical Hairspray!!!

I can’t really talk about rehearsals until after the show is done because we were told to not post anything about the rehearsals on social media so I guess I can talk about it when the show is over 🙂 But yeah come through!

I love getting back to dancing and hopefully I get involved with Sariwa again because it be nice to work and improve on the way I dance.

My delta class finally started too and it feels great to be back in Hanna’s class. I love English and it’s most definitely my favorite subject,

I never really got a chance to talk about my schedule so might as well talk about it now.

The classes are somewhat in order, but I’ll just explain it.
1st: Drama
2nd: Stugo
3rd: English 1A(Mon, Wed, Fri) / TA for Grandpa Areida (Tues/Thurs)
4th: U.S. History
I also have both lunches!!! 😀

I was going to challenge myself this year by taking APUSH, but the class wasn’t offered during 4th period. I didn’t mind though. I like my classes and schedule 🙂 I’ve managed to keep getting straight A’s ever since the day I’ve received straight A’s for the first time 😀 I’m pretty proud of myself for that.

I took my SATs for the first time today and it wasn’t as bad as I imagined it to be. I’m not expecting such a great score either considering I didn’t study. I just took the test for the experience so I have an understanding of what it’s going to be like next time when I take it seriously. For the nest one, I really need to get out of my seat once to stretch or something because my body was aching after just sitting there for like almost 6 hours. I wasn’t even tired afterwards surprisingly. When the test was over, I treated myself to some miso soup to reward myself and my aunt and older brother took me out for some chinese food 🙂  Today was an overall great day.

Okay here’s your update and I’ll post another blog post about winterfest week tomorrow for sure for sure. Yeah this blog was kind of lame, it’s not as happy and extremely joyful as the others, but you have to remember I woke up real early today just to go test for 6 hours and I STILL HAVEN’T HAD A NAP YET FOR SOME REASON. Probably because I’m just attempting to fix my sleeping schedule. Just to let you know, the reason why I blog is to remind myself of the happier things in life. Like I could have had a bad day or week, but if I were to blog weekly about the great things that had happened in the week then my life wouldn’t be so sucky or horrible. That’s how I like to think when I blog about my life.

I apologize in advance if there were any typos. Anyways, Happy Saturday! ❤

New Year, New Mindset and Goals.

I hope you guys like my new background!!!! 😀 “New year, new me.” LOL no. I don’t really like changing or becoming a whole brand new person, but I do like setting new goals for myself. I feel like when you have goals set for yourself, you have a purpose in life. At least that’s how I feel. I guess that’s how I make my life interesting even though that sounds kinda lame.¯\_(ツ)_/¯ This blog post will just be a quick update of what’s happening with my life.

• Going to Winter Camp with Leadership Jan 9th to 11th
• Auditioning as an ensemble for Hairspray this Thursday
• VLOGGGGGINNNGGGGG!!!!
• Posting a blog post every Sunday ❤

Now I could start with the goals for 2015

• Receive straight A’s for the rest of high school
• Better time management / Learn to do homework RIGHT AFTER SCHOOL
• Vlog monthly
• Socialize
• Commit to blogging weekly
• Commit to reading a new book once a month
• Eat breakfast daily
• Get my life together lol

What I mean by getting my life together is like having a healthier lifestyle (such as cleaning the house more often, going on walks daily if possible, eating fast foods/chips rarely, drinking water as often as possible, or doing small cardio whenever I have time), ACTUALLY STUDYING, being motivated, less naps, and determining what I have my mind set on for the future. I think I have some of my future figured out, but in reality I always question myself on it. I don’t know I’ll get back on that. But yeah! I’LL POST A BLOG THIS SUNDAY ON CAMP AND I’LL BE POSTING A VLOG ON JAN.31ST OR FEB. 1ST!!! YAAAY SUPER EXCITED ❤ 😀

P.S. my blog looks better on the computer than on mobile 😦

What I got for Christmas.

The holidays are coming to an end and I’m so sad that Christmas is over. 😦 I’m not taking down my Christmas theme background until December is officially over. I had a wonderful time at my grandma’s house for the holiday and it was really nice being in house full of happy people. I’m going to get started on what I got on Christmas day because people keep asking me and I really don’t like repeating myself even though I’m super repetitive most of the time.

We had to take like ten million photos until we opened the gifts because that’s how my parents are. Everything needs to be photographed lol. But yeah, this is my family and those are the gifts we’ve been waiting to open!

These were the gifts I opened after we took the photos!! My mom got me the cute makeup set and the rest were from my uncle 🙂

I loved the camera he got me because now I can finally start vlogging!! I’m super excited about that. 2015 will definitely be memorable. I used the portable charger yesterday when we went to Arden Fair Mall and it really come in handy! I’m also currently using the mouse he got for me and I haven’t open the earphones yet, but I will soon.

This is my uncle by the way. We don’t really have any pictures together, but here’s one I took with the new camera! 😀

And here’s another one of me and my mom that I took with the new camera. I like this picture of us. 🙂

On my mom’s side, we usually have more girls than guys at family parties. Our family is pretty small and I didn’t have a picture of all us together, but here’s a majority of them ❤

I received more gifts when I got to my grandma’s house too! 😀 

The cute little box that has A.M. to P.M on it was from my cousin Sharlene. It’s like a little gift set full of hair products I can use. My other uncle got also got me a portable charger LOL. That must say a lot about me being on my phone too much.. The cute necklace was from my aunt Lena and the target gift card from my aunt Ratha. 🙂

I can’t wait to splurge because I now have Christmas money to buy things I need, but it’s hard keeping money for my necessities when I want to buy so many other things! I really need a job.

Christmas was fun and I’m so sad it’s over, but there are many other holidays to look forward to. I’m probably going to blog about my New Year’s resolution next sooo yeaaah. This is what I got for Christmas!!