Hi there.

I know I haven't been on here in a while, but here I am now.

Right now Stacy is painting her nails and begging for a piece of cheesecake.

Thomas is asking all of us to decide whether we want to watch either "Holiday Inn" or "Renee" (a.k.a. "The Bishop's Wife"), which, based on the descriptions that he is currently giving, both sound really creepy.

There is also something about some guy named Dudley. Hmmmm... Ok then...

Just trust me on this: my next blog posts will be a lot better.

Party on!

Apple Admits Defeat (?)

Surprisingly, when I went onto the apple website this morning, one of those four little boxes at the bottom of the home screen had changed. There was now a link--"A letter to our customers regarding Maps," because, as I've heard, everyone that has updated to iOS 6 hates the new Maps--and of course I clicked on it:

To our customers,

At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers. With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment. We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better.

We launched Maps initially with the first version of iOS. As time progressed, we wanted to provide our customers with even better Maps including features such as turn-by-turn directions, voice integration, Flyover and vector-based maps. In order to do this, we had to create a new version of Maps from the ground up.

There are already more than 100 million iOS devices using the new Apple Maps, with more and more joining us every day. In just over a week, iOS users with the new Maps have already searched for nearly half a billion locations. The more our customers use our Maps the better it will get and we greatly appreciate all of the feedback we have received from you.

While we’re improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, MapQuest and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an icon on your home screen to their web app.

Everything we do at Apple is aimed at making our products the best in the world. We know that you expect that from us, and we will keep working non-stop until Maps lives up to the same incredibly high standard.

Tim Cook
Apple’s CEO

I feel bad that Apple had to say how bad their Maps were, but I am happy to know that they will be improving, because before knowing how bad the features were, I thought it actually looked pretty cool.

Want to See an Embarrassing Video of Me?

So apparently every semester in Spanish you have to do two Cultural Project and Reports (I think that's what it's called) also known as a C.P.R. This first time around I decided to, as one of my options given, "learn a Spanish song or an instrument," so I played "Fandango," some Spanish folk song that's in one of my piano lesson books from like a year ago. After constant practice for a few days I was able to get it perfect.

I then recorded myself playing it, though when I did the song didn't turn out as perfect as I wanted it to be--there are a few obvious mistakes, one that really stands out among the rest--but I didn't want to do it again, so I just went with it, and here it is:

Mad. Piano. Skills. Kind of... :)

My Diet of Pie

So after my oral surgery Dr. Tyko prescribed some pills for me to kill the pain--otherwise I'd be dying right now--and for every one pill that I take I have to also take three Ibuprofen. This process is repeated nonstop (until I run out of pills) in four hour increments.

Of course, when you take Ibuprofen you have to eat something with it, otherwise the Ibuprofen will have some strange reaction in your stomach.

So yesterday (Monday), every time I took those pills, I had a slice of pie (from the apple pie that we had made on Sunday). And throughout that day, the only time I ate was when I took my pills; so basically the only thing I ate yesterday was apple pie!

I swear, I must've eaten 3/4 of that pie altogether. I wouldn't be surprised if the next time I go to the doctor's office that he'd inform me that I have diabetes. Of course the same goes for Thomas, who has ice cream soup practically every night!

Here's my breakfast from this morning.

Look at me eat that pie so lovingly, with my greasy hair...

Finals (which has now been published...)

Something I wrote at the beginning of summer but never published:

These past two days were FINALS. Unlike last year, I found the finals to be very easy.

English:
On the final on The Diary of Anne Frank, one of the questions asked where Anne and her family hid. Instead of writing Amsterdam, Holland, I wrote Holland, Germany.

Ah, those funny times when you slip up. :)

Wisdom Teeth

Aaaaaaaah! I'm in so much pain. Well, actually, it's not that bad.

Yesterday, I got my wisdom teeth taken out by Dr. Tyko of 1174 Montgomery Drive (though normally I would get Dr. Tolin (but he just HAD to break his wrist which brought him into retirement). Earlier this summer we met and set up an appointment to have them {all 6 [apparently I have 2 EXTRAS (as five is already pretty crazy)]} taken out, and now it's happened! Yesterday I woke up at 7:10 a.m., took a shower, and drove over to his office {with my mom's iPod [because mine doesn't have any music on it (I forgot to load some)]}, arriving at about 8:05. We checked in and then they took me to a room, gave me an oxygen mask (which had some very interesting smelling oxygen), and then gave me an IV (and of course I hate getting needles shoved into my arm). As it has always seemed to be in my family, you listen to one song on your iPod (or I guess your mom's...), and before you know it, you're out: I listened to "Now or Never" (for all you High School Musical fans), and I wasn't even halfway through the song before I was out.

So later I woke up in another room (which always gives you that weird feeling because you don't know what's happened to you in the past hour) with a bunch of gauze stuffed in my mouth to soak up the blood coming from my gums. My mom was there, holding my hand (so nice of her and so comforting), and then a nurse came in and gave me an X-ray to check for that sixth tooth (because apparently they only pulled out 5?!?), but apparently there were only five total... :(.

We headed back home {with a nice little "care package" from the office [with some more gauze, an (empty) water bottle, some chap stick, and a Juice Shack certificate for a free regular size smoothie (yum!)]}, but first we had to stop at CVS Pharmacy to pick up a prescription (painkillers) that Dr. Tyko requested for me. After that, we ACTUALLY went home, where I was ordered to the couch, where I had to sit all day and watch TV. Every twenty minutes I would switch switch between five packages of peas (which I would press against my cheeks to reduce swelling)--every ten minutes (during the twenty minute sessions) I would alternate from cheek to cheek with the pea bags--and then every forty minutes I would have to replace my gauze [which again my mom helped do (so kind of her!)], and then every 6 hours I had to take those pills, and let me just say, those things do stuff to you: I literally had like the happiest, most relaxed day (it's those pills!). During this time I watched 5 episodes of a 14-episode BBC TV mini-series, Little Dorrit (which is EXCELLENT and I think you all ought to watch), Phineas and Ferb, and Wizards of Waverly Place. I also ate some scrambled eggs and drank some beef broth. Then that night I had this really delicious crock pot chicken (the recipe was given to us by my brother and his wife) and then watched the Apple Keynote, "Introducing iPhone 4S" (CEO Tim Cook's first keynote) (probably my favorite keynote address, along with WWDC 2011 and WWDC 2012) from October 4, 2011 (the day before Steve Jobs died) (WHY AM I MENTIONING THIS???). And then while watching a few episodes of Monk, I accidentally pulled out a few stitches from my gum, but after calling the office today we found out that everything's okay. Phew!!!

Anyways, yesterday was a pretty lazy day...

Ok, now for some pics!!!

Here's me with the pea bag rubber banded to my face so that I could use both hands freely. Please excuse my awful hair.

Here's how I'd normally hold the bag of peas to my face. Again, please excuse my awful hair.

Oh yeah, and I also made myself some gourmet ice cream with some Original Moose Tracks form Safeway.

And then here are some pictures of my teeth!

As you can see, the tooth on the right is actually two teeth that were naturally fused together, which  is really unusual but really cool.

Here's a picture of the other two teeth, broken into pieces.

Here's a tooth with some gum still in it.

And then here's all the teeth together! Yay!

Yes, and as Matthew (or I guess his plaque) would say, "Don't forget to floss!"

A's Game

On Wednesday afternoon, my family and I went to an Oakland A's game (of course I'm guessing that many of you are Giant's fans, and one of you a Phillies fan, so you'll all probably hate this blog post).

So anyways, my Grandma and Grandpa Chem stopped by at about 9:15 a.m. while my family and I were packing up food and stuff for our tailgate party at the park. A little after 9:30 we finally left and headed for the park. Traffic was good, and we got to the park at about 11:05. We set up the Weber portable barbecue and started roasting sausages (normal and hot) and some casper hot dogs from Costco. While the meat was cooking and the condiments were being prepared, I walked up to the Bart station to pick up my grandma and uncle and bring them down to the tailgate party. The food was delicious.

We entered the stadium at about 12:15 p.m. The game went pretty well, and we got to enjoy some Junior Mints, Whoppers (yum!!!), Milk Duds, M&M's (normal and peanut butter), peanuts, and some root beer.

In the end, the A's won! Yay!

Now for some pics!

Yeah, most of these photos are very embarrassing ones of me due to the fact that I didn't get the chance to wash my hair, and because of the weird faces I made.

Left to right: Dad, Mom, me

Top Row, Left to Right: Uncle Dave, Grandma Carr, Grandma Chem, Grandpa Chem
Bottom Row, Left to Right: (see picture above)

...and now there's Thomas

Thomas and I

Uncle Dave

The FIELD

The FIELD... AGAIN

Random section of the crowd

I swear, those people looked like they were naked!

Uncle Dave and Grandma Carr

Grandma Chem and Grandpa Chem (with his... nice... face)

Random picture of my pants

And in the end I ate my nose... JK!

Star Testing (reboot)

If any of you would like to see what "Star Testing" (the one that was taken off by the California Department of Education), then just comment and I'll email you a copy of what it said.

Two more days of school left! YAY!

Finals... yay. :)

Piano Recital

This past Monday, May 21, 2012, my piano teacher, Sister Tarter held a piano recital at the Henderson house. I performed in it, and I played The Erie Canal and Calypso Rhumba. I personally feel I did really good, and I had a great time. Here's a video of me performing my two songs--edited by Thomas, as you'll be able to see:

Thank you, thank you!

Bollywood Dance

This past Saturday my ward and I had a dance festival with other wards.

The theme for my ward's dance was Bollywood, and our dance is really cool.

If the festival were a competition, we'd WIN.

You don't really see me that much, but heck, what matters?

(I don't think that made sense...)

Bring 'em Back From the Dead

There are those Presidents who, when they served as chief executive, really made a difference for this country.

If I could bring back one president from the dead, it'd have to be Richard Nixon.

I mean, look at what great things he did for this country! He..... did nothing... Though I know for FACT that he participated in the Salem Witch Trials!!!!!

Other than that.....

"I am not a crook."

Sure you aren't...

Hehehe...

Annoying Titles

Now I'm sure you've all noticed that my titles aren't really what the post is about, and it can often get quite annoying.

And now for the grand finale....

For the sake of yous that were FREAKED out by the LARGE picture, I have now made it smaller...

Yeah... I look pretty fat...

THE END.

Oh dang it. For the most part of this blog post the title had nothing to do with it!!!

Star Testing

This post has furthermore been removed for invalid information by the California Department of Education.


We apologize for this disturbance in you viewing.

Yours sincerely,









The California Department of Education

Happy Birthday to ME!

So as you all might have forgotten, this PAST Tuesday (March 6) was my birthday.

Thanks for forgetting.(?)

So anyways, Mom woke up early that day and made me a breakfast of sausage with biscuits and gravy. SO DELICIOUS!

Then I went to school. I got two delicious Kit Kats from Emily (DELICIOUS). Got a free Sour Lemonade lollipop. YUM. [It actually was delicious, the only problem was that it stings when you have a bunch of cuts in your mouth from the DENTIST prodding around in your mouth with a needle and drawing pictures of butterflies ("Ooooh, a butterfly," - Marina) in the roof of your mouth and trying to hurt you]. You'd better be reading this Matthew, cause this is some GREAT advice for when YOU become... I don't remember what it's called. Anyways... what ruined everything was that the dentist said I had 3 cavities. So I punched him in the face. (not really) Luckily, 2 of them weren't my fault, which I personally think means it was HIS fault because he failed to notice it earlier!

Sooooo... we went back home after that and had my (not) birthday dinner of REAL homemade macaroni and cheese, not the FAKE Kraft version. And I opened my wonderful present from Danny and Lena, a beginners engineering set.

Four days later...

We ACTUALLY celebrated my birthday (cause Dad wasn't there on Tuesday). That night we had Creamy Pea Sauce (LOVE IT!), and for dessert we had Chocolate Mousse Pie (LOVE IT!).

I got money from my grandma's and a wonderful memory foam pillow!!!

Then we watched my new favorite show: Once Upon a Time.

I had just woken up, so don't insult my hair.

YUM.

(Danny and Lena's present)

Beginner's Engineering Kit

Thank you, Emily

CHOCOLATE MOUSSE PIE!!!

John Steinbeck

My new best friend... (?)

Birthday. LOVED IT!