New Years Countdown

This Youtube video was taken by 陳志通.  Just a little fun fact, Taipei 101 is the world’s tallest GREEN building and the world’s 6th tallest building overall.  After this display of about 7,626kg worth of fireworks, Taipei 101 will turn off all its external lights from January 5th to 12th.

In my last blog post, I discuss whether or not technology and all its’ advances are a help or hindrance, or even both to society and urged everyone to evaluate aspects of their lives.  Well, I’m going to look back on my 2014 and make three lists of varying topics of top 10’s that I want to share.

Favorite Quotes:
I’m going to reuse some of the pictures from my Feburary daily inspiration (on my main blog UniqueInfinities) that remain my top 10 favorite quotes of 2014.  These weren’t said in 2014, rather I heard them in 2014.  And apparently… this list has quite a lot of Doctor Who.  Sorry, definitely not sorry.

1.

The original picture was by Flickr user Robert S. Donovan.  I edited the picture, cropped it, and put in the text.  I love this quote because it’s important to pick the people and things from your life that are just bad and go with the good ones.  This quote is effective for practically everything– including my goals of 2014.  Put this things that just take up time aside, and keep the good.

2.

This quote is from Doctor Who during Matt Smith’s era.  This quote is amazingly inspirational and powerful.  I don’t know who put together this picture.  Another good quote similar to this said by the eleventh was, “In 900 years of time and space, I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important.”

3.

Matt’s era was full of powerful and quotes and here’s another one of them.  This quote speaks volumes because what child would put aside all the good and fun things in their life and trade it for pressure, responsibility, and superficiality of adult society?  Never forget what it was like to be a child.  Always hang on to that childish side of you.  Again, I don’t know who made this GIF.

4.

This quote comes from the tenth doctor’s companion and the picture is from a submission on ThatSpeaksToMe.tumblr.com.  No matter what obstacle stands in your way, no matter what it takes.  If the situation is right, always make a stand.  I try to go by this motto and hope that no matter what in the future, I would always stand for what’s right.

5.

 

Hank Green’s statement is important to me because it serves as a reminder that as pessimistic as I feel.  There will always be things in life to be thankful for.   Someone in Nerdfighteria created this picture, however I do not know who.

6.

No matter what self-doubt stands in one’s way, by all means try silencing it.  Even if you have a bunch of things to do, start.  Eventually, they won’t seem as daunting and stressful.  The photo is by my friends Katie Young and Julienne Chiang. 

7. 

The original picture was by Flickr user GwendolineQuinlan.  I edited the picture and put in the text.  My friend who said this in the beginning of the year really made me reflect on what my life would have been like and what I would have been like if I hadn’t become friends with the people closest to me today.

8.

I tend to be attached to what I have and I am always afraid of changes.  But often times, you just have to let go and let hope lead the way.  My friend Trang Truong made this picture and posted it on a friend-run Facebook group “Inspirational Quotes.”

9. 

This is another quote that comes from the Facebook group mentioned in #8.  I am not sure who said it or who created the picture. But I think the speaker is Rikki Rogers.  You’ll never know unless you try right?  So what’s the point of giving up before you try?  I have a tendency of stressing out over a pile of things even before I attempt them.  So reading this quote made me realize, I gain nothing by giving up and giving up is losing all potential.  Instead, you should take a leap of faith and gain something.

10.

This quote is on the official DFTBA.com page, it’s sold as a poster.  Never be too afraid to be enthusiastic about the things you love.  Definitely a motto I live by. ❤

 

Piano Pieces to Play:

1. Flight of the Bumblebee by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Amazingly fun to play, not very fun to sightread if you’re not very good at piano.  But it’s a great achievement to try learning it and exciting to play.

2. Rhapsody in G Minor by Brahms

I was originally assigned this piece for CM (certificate of merit), but had to drop it because I could not learn it in time for CM.  But it’s a really interesting piece to play and it sounds beautiful.

3. Daddy Discord by SandJosieph’s version

It sounds like a spooky piece and it is.  That’s what makes it awesome.   And yes… it’s from My Little Pony.  I tried learning this piece with a friend, but we only got about two pages in and then school took up a majority of our time.

4.  Four Seasons by Vivaldi

Once I heard a version involving four pianos, I immediately wanted to try playing.  But first I need to find duet partners and the time… Life goals!

5. Beethoven Virus by Banya (original by Beethoven)

I originally heard the remix version in a game, but I can’t recall the title of the game.  I have tried and have gotten to the second page, but given the speed required to perform and the constant 8th intervals, it’s pretty difficult.

6. Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven

Moonlight is pretty slow, but it’s really beautiful and relaxing to play.

7. Sonata number 12 in F Major K. 322 (allegro assai) by Mozart

I played against someone during a competition who chose this piece and I fell in love with its balance between fast and slow parts.  All the more fun!

Allegro Assai begins around 10:57

8. Sonata in D by Haydn

It’s not a particularly difficult pice, but it’s good practice for technique.  And good news, I learned it and performed it for my level 10 CM!

9. Pathetique by Beethoven

I mentioned wanting to play Beethoven Virus above, which made me interested in the original piece.  So I had my piano teacher teach me the piece.  But she preferred for me to play the first movement.  So, in 2014 I finished learning the grave and the adagio cantabile sections!

10. Piano Concerto 1 by Tchaikovsky

This is my ultimate goal as a pianist.  I mean just the speed, technique, rhythm, and effort needed to learn and put this piece together is incredible.  Just watch Martha Agerich play at 11:15.  Ahhhmazing.

 

Goals of 2014- The year facing reflection:

1. Cut down on computer time and spend that time with family and friends.

This is a major and ongoing goal of mine because I am a slow worker and often wrap myself up with homework, studying, the internet, and various entertainment.  While I am learning a lot and having fun in the virtual and school world, I realized that I have been neglecting to spend time and interact with the people I literally owe everything to– my family. A lot of my conversations with family and friends basically contain the explicit text with the implicit message: “I’M BUSY.”  followed by “eat dinner without me or go out and have fun without me.”   Here’s the catch: life will always throw things at everyone’s faces. But you have to find time because who knows when your chance to appreciate them expires?  So I have been working on this goal and this year I have been spending more time with family, but slightly less time with friends.  This is because I usually only see friends at occasional meetups and during school lunch.  But, since on some days I have quite a list of tasks to complete during lunch, I haven’t been seeing them as often.

2. Sleep more.

This has been my goal for a while now.  I have a tendency to get distracted easily, work when I’m tired, and look up every single little thing in attempts at learning as much as I can.  The last one is not always a bad work habit, however obsessing over each miniscule detail in every assignment will snowball into a detrimental tick.  My bad work habits which accumulate cause bad sleeping habits (I sometimes stay up from 6:00AM, I have a zero period that begins at 6:58, to 2AM).  Now, these are not only destructive to my health, but also the health of my family.  Every time I make some loud noise during the night, there is a high chance I will wake them up (my brother and I are heavy sleepers, unfortunately, my parents are not).  As a whole, this as affected everyone’s mood and everyone’s memory.  This year, despite an increase in workload, I have been sleeping a little more.  To some degree, I have found that I am much more efficient after a two to three hour nap, thus .  I have tried only taking half an hour naps, but I tend to be very cranky and my memory seems to be less efficient (according to my sleep cycle app, my REM cycles, counting the time it takes to move from sleep to deep sleep and back, seem to stretch from 45 minutes to an hour).  So I have actually been sleeping a little more since I adapted this method.

3. Read more often, go online less.

It kind of ties into goal #1.  I have always loved reading ever since I was a child.  From preschool to fifth grade I read about 250 books accumulated (I had a log), a majority of which were chapter books.  But since the introduction of the Nintendo DS light and a desktop to my life, I’ve replaced a lot of entertainment by educational text to gaming and social networking.  I yearn for those amazing times.  Unfortunately, this has not been happening, not because I can’t control my gaming or that I have been online for too long, but because I have replaced game and social media time with more work and tennis.

4. Maintain grades.

This goal isn’t a product of parental, “Asian-YOU-MUST-GET-A’s” pressures.  Rather, my ambition to maintain my grades through high school and hopefully well into college is because I feel a great sense of achievement when my parents are proud that my efforts and theirs has paid off.  Given the workload of junior year, tennis season, the pressures of SAT and ACT testing, and the time it takes me to register conceptual concepts, I have not been doing well with this goal.

5. No matter what, be happy and appreciative in life.

With all the hub-bub and pressures of teenage life, I seem to be doing fine with this.  😉 And whenever I’m stressed and unhappy, family and friends will always be there to help me “find my happy place.” (Reference to the card my friends gave in back in 8th grade).

6. Organize your room and workplace.

Um… Considering my room hasn’t been fully cleaned/organized since before summer, I think I’m epically failing this goal.

7. Play more piano!

In the past few weeks I’ve been somewhat fulfilling this goal.  Although it’s not hard to play more piano than what I played last year… It also helps that my teacher gave me a beautiful Mozart sonata.

Video found on Greatperformers1‘s Youtube channel of Daniel Barenboim.

8. Find a medical field-related volunteer activity.

As my aspirations for the future consist of medical field occupations (this isn’t a forced “want,” I genuinely LOVE science), I have been looking into hospital volunteering or research opportunities.  So far, no response from research opportunities, but I have recently received an email of my acceptance to a hospital volunteer program!

9. Don’t procrastinate.

Anyone who knows me well, or has me on social media will tell you procrastination was one of my strong suits in 10th grade and the beginning of 11th.  I knew and know that I could be doing so much more with my time, including sleep, but I let procrastination reign.   However, after tennis season and letting my grades wobble due to a wave of apathy and a flood of distractions, I enforced that procrastination must stop.  It’s been about three weeks since this revolution and I have been doing pretty well, substituting my typical procrastination block with naps!!!

10. Take breaks and block out work time.

Studies have shown that adult human attention spans are only 10-20 minutes.  So, it would be much more efficient and beneficial to the body if you sit and work in chunks followed by breaks.  I haven’t been doing phenomenal with this goal, but I have been improving.  During my occasional 5-20 minute breaks (I should make those less than 10 minutes), I make small talk with family, play with my cats, jump on the trampoline, jump rope, or  go outside and watch koi swimming about.  But often times, I forget to take breaks and just stare off into space, rendering my time wasted.