Author / Sarena

by Sarena

Because I’m Totally Validated In Making Major Life Decisions At 18

Hi, so college. That’s a thing. Someone explain to me why society thought I was prepared to determine my life before I’m even allowed to legally consume alcohol (no I’m not promoting teen alcoholism, it’s just the first thing that came to mind with turning 21). I wish I could say this post was about how I’ve applied to colleges and I know where I’m going. The first part of that is true, I have applied to some places. It’s just weird because I’ve never been that person to have a dream school. Like in all honesty, my main requirement was just getting the heck away from home. I’ve had enough bad memories here for a lifetime thanks lol. Yeah, sure there are places I’ve applied that I would be ok with going to, but I don’t feel compelled that I belong at one certain place? Also, while the application process is stressful don’t get me wrong, the anxiety that accompanies waiting for a decision is worse somehow? I love that my self worth has been belittled to a college admissions letter. Yay for good mental health…not.

This is a separate little rant, still on the basis of higher education. I’m going to assume that we all know and love a little thing called standardized testing? Specifically the ACT and SAT? We love having another platform for colleges to compare us to one another. Speaking of comparisons, has anyone been ACT shamed? Don’t you just love when your entire being is trivialized to a quantitative value? Like that 2 digit symbol suddenly defines you. I know it’s probably not like this everywhere, but I go to a school with 2000 something other people, and we have some intelligent brainiacs here. I also happen to be within that friend circle, so when I’m informed of all these perfect or near perfect scores, it does a number on my well being. And I know that it shouldn’t affect me. But, you can’t expect me to not feel lesser when all my peers basically have a simplistic evaluation of my intelligence relative to theirs. By no means am I saying that ACT measures intelligence and should be considered as such (but you know people do anyways which is a whole other issue by the way). So yeah, it sucks. I feel ashamed of a score that genuinely others would find spectacular. I guess it really goes to show how comparison is our basis for social order. We compare this and that to get a sense of where we fall on the hierarchy. Ridiculous. Sad to say that I fall prey to it, but I’m trying to not associate myself to just quantitative values. Sorry for this impromptu, long rant lol definitely didn’t mean for that to happen. I’ll see you next time!

by Sarena

The Brother Chronicles…Part 3

Hey we’re back with more work stories from my brother’s lovely place of employment lol who knew Starbucks was just a full pot of tea. He has been promoted to a shift manager, and oh boy believe me the amount of complaining just skyrocketed after that. I’ve heard so much about this one dude, we’re just going to call him Chris. So Chris, he was hired at about the same time as my brother. And he claimed to have previous barista experience. Ok so someone explain to me how someone can be so bad at their job when they’ve done something similar previously? Apparently he just always makes a mess when he makes drinks, he can’t make drinks properly (this boy is slow, supposedly my brother can make 3 drinks in the same amount of time that he can make 1…that’s just sad dude), and he can’t even work all the positions. Guys, please don’t be Chris at work. That’s just annoying and frustrating to deal with. Pull your weight and do what you’re supposed to do, to quote my Orchestra teacher “It’s not brain surgery or rocket science.”

So this is still about Starbucks, but this time a little bit more focused on me lol. I share a car with him, and there were a lot of times where I would go pick him up when his shift ended. On occassion, I would go inside. In total, I maybe went inside like 4 times? There was one day when my brother came home from work, and he went on about his typical complaining (here’s looking at you Chris). But afterwards, he told me about a few of his coworkers. Brief preface, these Starbucks guys are wild lol (at least in my opinion). He tells me that a few of his coworkers thought I was cute. I mean ok cool story bro, like they’ve maybe seen me once or twice? It got a little weirder when my brother told me that one of them wanted to ask me to homecoming (yes this an older story lol). Um, hi I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t ask a random stranger to homecoming? This guy didn’t know me at all, pretty sure I had never even spoken to him. That made me kinda uncomfortable not gonna lie, I’m relatively introverted so even the thought of asking someone I know well to homecoming is a whole issue in itself. Apparently, this guy will bug my brother and ask when I’ll come visit him, him not my brother, him. Major weirdo vibes people. Needless to say, I’m avoiding Starbucks just a little bit. Alright that’s enough of that, until next time!

by Sarena

If The Sun Isn’t Up Yet, Then Why Am I??

Hey, I hope everyone has had a good weekend! Mine has definitely been a little stressful…mainly because I started Friday off extremely sleep-deprived, and it just didn’t get better from there. Thursday night I went to a little celebration for our published short stories. When I got home, I did homework, then realized that I promised that I would bake for my club meeting the next day, and then scrambled to make fudge. All of that took me until about 1:45 in the morning? Got into bed around 2:00, and me being me, couldn’t fall asleep until maybe 2:30? At least that’s my guess. I seriously suck at sleeping lol is that even something one can be terrible at? Anyway, I also had zero hour the next day, so my tired self got up at 6:00 and went to learn about intermolecular forces, solids, and liquids…fun times people. Luckily, I made it through the day without passing out or falling asleep (I have no clue how I don’t fall asleep in class, like one time I only took a 20-minute nap before school, and I still didn’t). Then, I did homework when I got home because who needs sleep? Clearly not me. My void of sleep didn’t end there, oh no, because Saturday I worked an early shift. By early I mean 5:45 in the morning. So, I woke up at 4:45 to get ready, worked an 8-hour shift, and came home to do homework. Do we see a pattern? I swear one of these days I’ll actually get some sleep. But until then, I’ll be a walking zombie with some dark, dark circles. This zombie has more homework to do (to no one’s surprise), so I’ll be back next time (fingers crossed that I’ll have more than a collective 8 hours over a span of two days), bye! ❤

by Sarena

Do You Ever?

Hey, do you ever just like take personality quizzes for fun just to see if they get anything about you correct? lol because I totally do. And I’m not talking about random Buzzfeed quizzes, which to be fair are extremely entertaining (turns out if I was a character in Beauty and the Beast and I was cursed into an object, I’d be a freaking pillow), but I mean like the Myers Briggs Personality Test? If you’ve never taken it, you can probably find a quiz online. But basically, you’re given a 4 letter “code” thing I guess, and that represents 4 different aspects of your personality. There are 16 different combinations, and I happen to be an INFJ. Anyone with me on that? Apparently, INFJ’s are the rarest and makeup 1-2% of the population. My letters stand for Introversion, Intuition, Feeling, and Judging. So basically, I’m an emotional and well organized lone wolf who likes ideas more than facts. Kind of ironic that I’m introverted though because we supposedly appear to be extroverted. I actually find this to be quite true, as much as I enjoy alone time, I also feel compelled to talk to people. However, I do find social interaction exhausting, like a day of small talk is tiring lol. But yeah, I’ve acutally been called the most “extroverted asian” someone has ever met which I honestly don’t mind. I think the most accurate of all the traits listed is probably that I’m extremely private and perfectionistic. This is probably a whole conversation in itself, but I struggle heavily with both of these. I’m terrible about opening up, even to close friends and family. Probably doesn’t help that I hate talking about myself (on a side note, if I have to write one more college essay about myself, I’m jumping off a cliff lol). As for the perfectionist thing, I’ve been like that for as long as I can remember. It becomes a real issue when I become fixated on trivial matters, but my most entertaining example of this is probably that I’ve spend like 2 hours trying to fix the littlest lines on a nose I was drawing one time…oops. I think I’ll stop there for the moment. I encourage you to take the time and learn about your personality type if you don’t know, it’s really cool and who knows, you might learn something about yourself. See you 🙂

by Sarena

A Little Self Promo Never Hurts

Hey! So, I’m in a creative writing class, and that’s actually why this blog exists. Anyway, we recently published our short stories on Amazon, and I just wanted to plug my story, can you blame me? So, originally I had no intention of writing the story I did. Being the typical emo teen I am lol, I wanted to write something less superficial and more real? Nope, not what happened. My story is titled “Emerald Eyes.” From the title, I get either mystery, detective stuff or cheesy romance vibes. My story is somewhat the latter. It follows this girl named Aurora, no not the princess although I might make a joke or two about the name, and she finally scores a date with her childhood crush. Yay! I’m sure we’ve all been there or have wanted that at some point. This date kinda fell into her hands, but make no mistake, she goes through a lot of effort (I mean A LOT of effort) to get all dolled up…and then she can’t even show up to the date on time. Luckily for her, being late is the first of many unexpected surprises that night. I hope you’ll read the story and find out what happens on her crazy dream date? If not, that’s cool too lol. It’s $0.99 on Amazon if this little summary sparked any interest in your curiosity. Continuing what I said earlier, yeah no intention of writing this at all. I usually start writing and then it becomes sad? Not trying, but it just seems natural at this point. But, this is a fun, lighthearted story and I think it’s pretty good just for a relatable chuckle. Ok then I’m done now. Happy reading! Or not…either way, I’ll see you next time.

by Sarena

‘Tis The Season

Hey! Sorry it’s been a while, I hope everyone had a lovely holiday! lol I worked on Thanksgiving and then just worked on college application stuff, so that kind of sucked. Anyone else find it funny that immediately after Thanksgiving, it’s Christmas season? Half the time people skip straight from Halloween to Christmas like Thanksgiving who? It’s fun to see all the lights up though, Christmas decorations put most of the other holidays to shame in my opinion (except maybe Halloween because who doesn’t love a giant, blown up, mobile dragon). I know it’s technically not Thanksgiving anymore, and I’m super late oops, but I just wanted to list some stuff I’m thankful for (might also be procrastinating a Chem lab report, shh..). So here we go:

I’d have to say I’m extremely thankful for my friends. As crazy as they are, I love them. They brighten my day on days where I don’t even feel like getting up, and the best part is they do it unknowingly. I can never thank them enough for the smiles and laughter. They’re seriously an awesome group of people.

I’m also pretty thankful for all the cool places I’ve been lucky enought to travel to in my life. Over the summer, I visited a lot of states up north, Canada too, for the first time! Plus all the trips overseas like to Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan. All of which were great experiences; there’s nothing like experiencing another place/culture firsthand. Learning about native food, entertainment, and traditions is super fun. I might have to blog about some of my travels sometime in the future.

To end my quick little list of thankfulness, I wanted to just remind everyone that we should always be thankful. It’s hard to know when you’ll see someone again, so it’s always good to let them know how much they mean to you. I know it sounds cheesy, but we never know someone else’s internal struggles. Maybe just aim for a small act of kindness each day, until next time 🙂

by Sarena

What I’m Listening To Part 3

Guess who’s back with more music, meee. I’ve been listening to a somewhat random assortment of music recently, and I might make those honorable mentions. But I really want to focus on one particular artist today, mainly because I’ve been listening to their music nonstop. So now that I have a cup of hot chocolate, here’s number one!

i swear i’ll never leave again- keshi

” Mirror on the wall,
Can you tell me who I am?
I think that I forgot,
So remind me once again. “

Original

I only recently discovered keshi and his music, and I immediately fell in love with it. It reminds me a lot of lo-fi, which I tend to listen to when I’m studying, and I really enjoy his whole music aesthetic. It’s laidback and really great to listen to when you’re just chilling at night. This is the first song of his that I just had on replay from the first time I heard it. I’m not sure why, but it really resonates with my emotions? I can’t really think of anyone in particular this would be applicable to, but I really love the sense of nostalgia I feel when I listen to this song. It reminds me of the impending feeling that by this time next year, I won’t be able to just text someone and have them be by my side at the drop of a hat. I’m definitely going to miss some people when I head off to college, and I think this song describes the pain beautifully. Go check it out! Oh and check out 2 soon from this album too, that one is so catchy and will just get stuck in your head, trust me 🙂 Next up we have…

right here- keshi

” Then go on and come home to me. Because I’m here,
If you need me I’ll be here,
Right here. “

Original

I like that this one has a different vibe from the previous song, it definitely didn’t strike me as special at first, but the song really grew on me. It’s definitely one of my favorites now. keshi’s music is really great to jam out to on a midnight drive or a morning drive to school when you’re exhausted. This one has a strong ukulele mood (if that makes any sense lol) and the strumming stands out. This one is relaxed and more lighthearted. It feels more summery by nature. I also find the message is really cute, like you will always be here by my side? That’s so sweet. I really like how much he emphasizes that he will be a loyal friend/shoulder to cry on even though the relationship didn’t work out. Go give this song some love to! Lastly we have…

skeletons- keshi

” Feel bad, go to bed,
Wake up even worse yea.
I need medicine, medicine, medicine. All my skeletons out for the taking.
I’m afraid of myself and I hate it. “

Original

I had a really hard time deciding which song to choose from this album, so I’d recommend also checking out atlas and summer (this one reminds me of 2 soon). However I ended up going with skeletons because I really enjoy the lyrics of this song. I like all of keshi’s lyrics of course, but this one in particular is great. He really explains what it’s like to fight a losing battle against yourself. Those days when it’s difficult to get up, and you just want a simple solution like “medicine.” That last line, being afraid of yourself and hating it? Yeah I felt that. We each hold our own demons/skeletons, and I’m stunned by how keshi created a great song out of the emotional chaos.

Time for honorable mentions! Throwback to “Amnesia” by 5SOS and “Here’s To Never Growing Up” by Avril Lavigne. Those are some great songs, so if you’re looking to reminisce, I’d start there. Anyway, I just wanted to introduce keshi, he’s not very well known, but he produces some great stuff. Go check him out, and I’ll see you next time!

by Sarena

Happy Snow Day!

Hey, it’s been awhile! Life has been pretty crazy, but that’s old news. Anyway it snowed yesterday, and everyone was getting upset because we didn’t have the day off, a half day, or even an hour early release (cough we’re looking at you Parkway cough). Everyone was about ready to go off yesterday lol but now that we’ve had today off, I think everyone has cooled off at least a little. Yesterday after school really sucked though. I waited out the parking lot traffic, yet it was still a mess by the time I got outside. I didn’t have a scraper with me, but I was lucky enough that the person parked next to me let me use theirs. It was so cold. When I finally finished scraping and managed to make it into the car, I noticed my fingers were bleeding oops. I didn’t even notice it at first. Honestly not sure how it happened, I’m taking a wild guess here, and I’m assuming that it was some ice that scraped me. lol I’m dumb. You would think getting more sleep would make me less tired, but nope. I want a break. Just a day to not worry about anything in life, not even subconsciously. No homework, college, responsibility, or anything.

Besides that, today has been less productive than I would have liked. Oh my god, calculus homework was driving me insane. It was so excessively long and tedious; I wanted to pull my hair out. I just finished and now I don’t have the energy to do any other homework or even college stuff. Somebody get me a coffee I’m dying. Sigh, sorry for the boring blog everyone. Promise to have something better next time!

by Sarena

Binge With Me

Hey! I’m great at procrastinating, thus I’ve watched more TV than I probably should oops. I’m here to recommend some stuff for you to watch if you’re bored. I think I’m going to stick to TV series, but I might throw in a movie next time if I do this again.

Alright starting with Number 1, drumroll please…Brooklyn Nine-Nine!

Image result for brooklyn nine nine

First, Andy Samberg is the funniest person ever. He’s such a great actor, and the role of Jake Peralta is perfect for him. He’s a sassy, sarcastic, investigative detective well known for his “cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool… cool” and his obsession with the movie Die Hard. He has some of the best quotes of the show: “I guess that’s your new best friend now, Santiago. Emphasis on ‘Iago,’ backstabber…What the hell’s Othello? I’m calling you the parrot from Aladdin.” He delivers some fantastic lines, but it’s not only him, Gina, Charles, Rosa, Amy, Terry, and Holt are all amazing characters on their own as well. They’re a bunch of NYPD officers, yet with the number of shenanigans they get up to, you could’ve fooled me. You get so much insight into each character, even the side ones, that you just fall in love with the show. I highly recommend if you haven’t seen it before, there are 6 seasons of entertainment in store for you.

Next up we have The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina!

Related image

So I have watched the ’90s sitcom of Sabrina the Teenage Witch countless times, I’m pretty sure I watched the animated series growing up too. I cannot stress how much I love this adaptation of the story though. I’m normally not one for anything even remotely scary (I was scarred for life after seeing this one horror movie my brother was watching, when I was very young), but this? This is amazing. It’s not like super scary by any means, but it is mystical. I love how much the story plays into the magical/witchy parts that the sitcom didn’t. Kiernan Shipka plays Sabrina, who has some nice outfits by the way, and she has to decide between the mortal world of her friends and the dark realm of the Spellman family. The show actually has the same writers as Riverdale, but that show is so cringeworthy that it’s laughable. I can’t believe the writers are the same because the shows are worlds apart, like Sabrina is so good, and Riverdale is so yikes. Anyway, if you’re up for some witchy antics you need to watch this show. It’s dramatic, intense, and often witty with the help of everyone’s favorite “let’s blow up the Vatican” warlock cousin, Ambrose. The plot is a lot to wrap your head around, but it’s fascinating. Also, they know how to throw in a musical number *cough Riverdale cough.* There are only 2 seasons out at the moment, but I’m pretty sure more are in the works.

I think that’s it for today so happy binging everyone!

by Sarena

Real Talk

Hey guys, I normally like to keep the blog lighthearted and fun. But today I wanted to hop on and just write some thoughts from this week. I know it’s a bit different, so you’re welcome to skip this blog and move along lol. Anyway, nothing really significant caused this; I’ve just been feeling kind of down lately, and while I could definitely name superficial reasons for this, that’s besides the point. Life is full of ups and downs, and I’m aware of that. However, sometimes the lows don’t seem to compensate for the highs. Also, before I continue, I’m ok everyone don’t worry. Continuing, I’ve been at a pretty decent neutral lately, and I hadn’t noticed it at first. I don’t normally think about being ok, because I’m pretty sure most people don’t consciously dwell on their emotions (wow I’m throwing in some psych thoughts, yay introspection)? So yeah it was like being at the end of a roller coaster, a flat calm after you know all the excitement is over. Except, I forgot that it’s a cycle, so the end is just the beginning. Life has decided to start up and be a series of ups and downs again. The worst part of it all is that the ups are significantly shorter than the downs. There were a few days in the past week where I felt like I was on top of the world. Being around my friends made me so happy. Now we’ve gotten to the point where I just want to sleep all the time, and I’m just too tired to do anything. I’m not particularly excited for this ride, but here we go. At least I know I have people to lean on when I’m struggling. Ok we’re going to stop there, I don’t want to make this too sad. I promise that next time I’ll be back with something fun, bye!