I’m Just Scared

This year, I graduated from middle school and will be attending high school when school starts in the fall. Of course, going to high school calls for a long lecture from my parents about being responsible, mature, and excelling in everything so that I can get into a good college and have a good life. But guess what? I don’t WANT to grow up. I don’t want to go to high school. To be completely honest, I want to stay in middle school forever. High school looks intimidating, boring, and like a lot of work. Look, I know this sounds cliche. But I need to get all this out of my system. And I know a lot of you will resonate with what I’m saying here.

The first lecture came about two weeks ago. Managing my time, stop fooling around, all that. The main point was: STOP LIKING K-POP. It makes you into a screaming fan with no purpose in life other than following your idol. Well, excuse me. Does it LOOK like that’s all I’m doing in my life? Yes, I respect my idols and occasionally check to see what they’re up to. But let’s be honest here, it could be a LOT worse. Like, a LOT. To be fair, K-pop is my main source of entertainment. But most of it is watching stages and staying updated about comebacks. Not digging around to try and find out what they do everyday and how many times they went to McDonald’s this past month. Like, come on. I am definitely NOT obsessed or addicted and I will not allow myself to be. I do, in fact, have a purpose in life. I hope to go to Stanford and do something along the lines of start my own business. I’d also like to one day have a youtube channel vlogging daily life and art. But, of course the youtube channel is a HORRIBLE idea to my parents. It takes up too much time, it’s not like you have any talent in that anyways. By the way, my parents are your typical Chinese parents with a tough background. I know they want the best for me, but what they want is not what will make me happy. I AM a fan of k-pop and that won’t change because of what they tell me. We can all have our own opinions here.

The second lecture was a few days after that. Just a follow-up, making sure I got the message to STOP LIKING K-POP. It eventually escalated into my mom telling me finding out what my idols eat everyday is not helpful and me stomping out and slamming the door saying I DO NOT care what they eat everyday, jeez. I’ll admit, that was immature of me, and I feel bad about it. However, it’s the only thing that would’ve told my mom that I’m not that kind of fan. I still don’t think she believes me, though.

The third lecture was today. This time, it was because I was very unproductive for the most part of three hours and basically lazed the day away. I also admit that I was especially unproductive today. It happens sometimes. However, I had a plan. There were certain things I wanted to accomplish and I was going to accomplish them. I was yelled at, though, and told I was no longer allowed to dance or journal until I completed everything I hadn’t finished in the past couple of weeks. That was a little far for me, but I kept myself under control and managed to complete a decent amount of work in the next couple hours.

Normally, my schedule since summer started looks a little something like this:

-wake up at 9:15

-eat breakfast and walk around a bit

-around 10:30, start working

-1:30-lunch

-2:30- work again

-5:30-do my physical therapy exercises, work out, then dance(I’ve been learning k-pop dances because I feel that doing dance covers when I’m in college could be beneficial to my future bank account)

-7:30-eat dinner and take a walk

-9:00-start working again

-11:00-wash up

-I then normally stay up to a little past midnight doing whatever I want to do before I sleep

It’s neither interesting nor particularly fun, but that’s what I’ve been doing everyday. And by working, I mean math. I’m currently taking three online math classes and am trying to prepare for the AMC 10, which I hope to make it to the AIME through.

Anyways, dancing is honestly a pretty big part of my life. It makes me happy and proud to see that I can do something maybe a lot of people can’t, and I also enjoy it very much while getting a good workout. Of course, I also love the music. I have been showing each dance I learn to my parents, but after this most recent talk, I won’t anymore. I will just video them myself in my room and store them on my computer for future reference or entertainment. Dancing makes me really happy and it gives me something to look forward to each day. Not being allowed to do it honestly hurts. It feels like my day has no peaks, and it’s almost like I’m in one of those movies with literally no plot.

Up until now, my dad had been sending me a list of things to get done every day. Truthfully speaking, I don’t really look at it, I just find out whatever’s not done and start doing it. After the talk, he said he regretted always doing that and holding me in the palm of his hand, basically. I needed to start setting my own goals, and managing my own time. Well, here’s the thing. I WAS going to set my own goals. I mentioned earlier that I journal a bit. I just started doing it recently and I must say it has kind of changed my life. It’s a much better alternative for my health than watching youtube, and it does nurture my artistic side. I’m not trying to brag in any way, but I did take art lessons when I was younger and multiple pieces of mine have been selected to be in the school’s annual art and writing magazine. If I say so myself, I do have a certain amount of talent and skill in drawing and things like that. It’s just that I’m not particularly interested in learning all sorts of techniques and skills to become a real artist, and they don’t make much anyways. I think being able to draw pretty well is enough. Journaling lets me express the artsy side of me while not requiring much technique or experience. Since I like journaling in so many ways, I decided I would make a spread about my summer plans and goals. The thing is, I’m definitely more motivated when things around me are neat and aesthetic. This is also why I recently did a deep clean of my extremely cluttered and dusty room. The difference isn’t huge, but there’s more empty space now, which puts me into the mentality that there’s enough room for me to spread out my studying materials and get to work. So, I was going to make a nice pretty page with everything I wanted to accomplish over the summer. Here’s a small preview of what I wanted to incorporate:

-practice tennis to try out for JV

-prepare for AMC 10 and continue with my math classes

-study history and geography because I’m really lacking in these areas

-read, write, and draw more. These were common skills that a lot of older successful people at my school had.

-practice piano and cello(the two instruments I play)

-find ways to practice leadership, as once again I am lacking in this area

-learn some Java. I’m on a robotics team and it makes me feel left out that I don’t know any code at all(I was actually half asleep every time someone was teaching it-*facepalm*)

-possibly learn to cook. Currently I can only make eggs, cake, french toast, and boil water :P.

-learn Japanese and Korean. I’m already pretty far in Japanese, but Korean is just so…hard.

-dance more! One of my main goals was to watch a lot of basic dancing skills videos on youtube and improve my basics. I hoped to start learning some harder choreos such as the ones from 1 Million Dance Studio.

I was hoping to write about each of those goals in detail in my journal and also make it pretty to look at so I would frequently check back on them. However, my dad called it “playing around” and once again said I could not do it if I didn’t finish my work. I just don’t understand why he tells me to set my own goals, then does not allow me to do it the way I want to. He even keeps reminding me I should act like an adult now! Adults can make their own decisions then, thanks. At this point, I’m ultimately just confused. I was upset, but more so I was just exasperated at how one single person could make things so difficult to understand. After the last talk, he said I was on my own. I could make my own decisions now and write down my own list of things to do each day. I will start doing that. I do think that I should start taking some more responsibility at this point. You may be annoyed to hear this, but I honestly just don’t WANT to become an adult. Like I said, I want to stay as a kid forever. There could be fun things ahead, but what could be more fun than living through middle school with my friends and making all sorts of memories together? What could be more fun than excelling at all the subjects because that was my only goal? What could be more fun than just living life for the purpose of fun? Maybe it’s hard for some of you to understand, but I know there’s someone out there who agrees.

To sum up, I’m just scared. Of everything in high school. Of everything this summer. Even of everything just tomorrow. I need to start acting like an adult, but my heart will probably never leave middle school. I’m still going to be immature where it’s allowed. I’ll do my best, but there are no guarantees. I want to excel, but part of me is saying, as long as you can pay your bills, who cares? I want to make a difference, but I just don’t know how. How? How do I make people notice me, and admire me, and respect me? How do I make everyone happy and proud of me? How do I make my life worth it? How?

Well, those were some pretty intense last lines, but thanks for making it to the end, guys! I know I rant a lot. I’m sorry. I really needed to get it out of my system, and this is the way that creates the least sound pollution :P. Please like and leave comments! I need to stop being antisocial. Bye!