Today, my family is planning on dining at Artesia. Located near Long Beach, Artesia is known for its Little India, which is basically a collection of Indian restaurants and shops.

Ever since I was a child, my parents took my brother and I out to eat at Artesia.

One thing I like about Artesia is the authentic food that they serve. Nowhere else in LA have my parents found such excellent Indian cuisine.

There are so many little shops that look like they don’t have much, but when you go inside there are so many items offered.

The plan is that we will pay a visit to Artesia, and stay for dinner at one of my parent’s friend’s house.

On a different note, I am starting swim season next week, depending on whether varsity water polo makes CIF playoffs.

I am very excited for swim season. Although I am proud of myself for trying something new, I have come to realize water polo really isn’t my thing.

In my opinion, the sport is too aggressive for me. Over the short 3 month season, I injured my shoulder, which was previously fine, 4 times.

However, water polo is still a workout, even if it is very different, and I feel like I am still fit and in good shape.

Next year, I would like to try cross country, as I need a third sport to become a triathlete.

I also have been sure to make plans so that I stay in shape during the summer.

Today, the famous football event, the Superbowl, is occurring at 3:30 pm. This match will be the San Francisco 49’ers versus the Kansas City Chiefs.

Although I personally am not a huge fan of football, I usually watch the Superbowl on television, due to the fact that it is such a large event.

Another excellent part of the Superbowl is the ads and halftime show.

My parents have always wanted to go watch a professional football game, such as the Superbowl, and they might get their chance in 2022.

According to the NFL calendar, the 2022 Superbowl will be held in the So-fi stadium in Inglewood, Los Angeles.

I also would like to attend an NBA Lakers game, as I have never watched professional basketball either. However, that would be easy to fulfill, as there are plenty of Lakers games held in Los Angeles.

Although I do not have strong opinions about football, or football teams, I am rooting for the 49’ers this game, because they are based in San Francisco.

The halftime show is scheduled to be performed by Shakira and Jennifer Lopez. This is a stark contrast to last years performer, boy band Maroon 5.

In addition, there are always surprise performers, so we may also see other singers.

Overall, I am very excited to watch the Superbowl later this afternoon.

This weekend, I got accepted into a medical summer program at UC Berkeley. I will be gone for around 2 weeks of summer.

In addition, I visited a few restaurants, deciding which to review for my assignment. I eventually decided upon the Habit grill, for its traditional American cuisine.

Most of my weekend was spent studying, or in preparation of the next week of school.

Last week, I had 2 water polo games, one on Thursday and one on Tuesday. Diamond Bar won both of them.

As I am a starter, I played for the first three quarters of the games. Fortunately, I have recovered from my arm injury, and am now allowed to play again.

Our team has been doing better since the injured people have came back.

Unfortunately, the coaches did not let me participate in the tournament this weekend because I am still slightly weak in the shoulder, and they want to avoid risking strain on my arm.

From what I have heard, the team was doing fine in the tournament.

Next week, I believe freshmen have a game in water polo, but I am not sure, since schedules have not been sent out yet.

Overall, I am very proud of the progress our team has made. Our games earlier on in the season were pretty rough, with Diamond Bar losing its first match 0-14.

Now, we are winning virtually every game, due to improved strategy and better conditioning.

Since many of the girls did not know how to swim when the season started, it is impressive that they can now keep up with the game so well.

It is great that we are finishing our season strong, with the chance of maybe even making it to CIFs.

This summer, I plan on participating in a college-associated summer program.

I have been looking at the ones in Yale, UCLA, Johns Hopkins University, UC Berkeley, UCSD, UCSB, and NYU.

My goal is to sign up for a short medical program this year, since that is what I want to major in for college. In addition to learning a lot, attending summer programs like these look excellent on college applications.

As of now, I am undecided in which program I’m going to attend, but my parents are leaning towards UC Berkeley. This is because it is close, and my parents have friends who could house me in Berkeley for a few weeks.

In addition to academic summer programs, I have to attend a water polo clinic at Mt. Sac. Since it is arranged by the school, it will be free of charge.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about my academic summer camps. The in-state ones are around $5000, and the ones on the east coast are upwards of $8000.

However, my parents think it is a very useful class, so they are happy to pay the fees.

In addition to summer programs, I plan on swimming solo again. I will work with a coach twice a day, just like I used to do during all breaks before high school started.

While I miss club swimming, there are not very good practice opportunities for those over the age of 13. For this reason, my parents have decided that they will just have me swim with a private coach this summer.

Personally, I feel like I am not ready for living alone on the East Coast this year. I would rather be in-state this year, and try that next summer.

I have even heard about some people doing spring break programs. I would have considered those, but the deadlines have already passed.

In my past summers, I have done mostly robotics and computer science camps. When I was in elementary school, my mom took my brother and I to the science camps at the California Science Center.

In middle school, I went to a computer science camp at Cal Poly Pomona. I also attended a robotics camp that same year.

Overall, my parents and I agree that I learn a lot from summer programs.

My first week of school this semester went well, considering that I was still very jet lagged.

I attended all my classes again after two weeks away at winter break. So far, I am keeping up well with the new material.

Yesterday, my parents bought me an acrylic nail kit at Walmart. They did this to encourage me to do my own nails instead of spending a lot more money at a nail salon.

I spent around two hours last night trying to do my own nails. Overall, I did the false tips and even acrylic parts right but thoroughly messed up on the nail polish.

As of now, my entire hand is smeared in blue nail polish. However, that is my own fault. For what the kit did at $7, I think it was a really good deal.

I personally just need to improve on my application skills. In the future, I would also like to try nail art. Some nail designers like to apply glitter and stickers and such.

Another thing I bought at Walmart was Cantu curl cream. Recently, I have been struggling with my hair. Growing up, my hair was straight and not frizzy.

These days, my hair is wavy at best, but usually curly, and always frizzy. I decided that it was time I try some new hair products, since my old ones were not working well for me anymore.

Since I had heard great things about Cantu hair conditioner, I decided to give it a try. It is often referred to as a life saver for natural hair, which is not exactly my hair type, but I still wanted to give it a try.

I have also been taking better care of my skin. I use face scrubs and lotion everyday, to make sure my skin is moisturized and exfoliated.

My goal for 2020 is that by December, I will finally figure out what products work best for my skin, hair, etc.

I have just returned from my trip to India. I had an excellent time, and it was wonderful to reunite with all my family.

I met some people whom I hadn’t seen since I was born. I met my great grandfather who had just turned 90.

The food in India was delicious. It was well cooked, tasty, and flavored well. I am already missing going out to eat street food.

In addition, the restaurants were very nice. Most average priced restaurants still had very clean facilities and excellent staff.

This trip, I visited two states of India, Rajasthan and West Bengal. Both states are unique in their language and culture, but India generally has a strong sense of unity.

I say that in the sense that overall Indian culture is stronger than minor differences.

Rajasthan is a desert, and is located near the north-eastern border of the country. Almost all of my family on my mom’s side lives in that state.

One thing I like about Rajasthan is camels. They live free on the land, and when you drive through the open space, they can be seen strolling around.

The other state I visites is on the completely opposite side of the country. West Bengal borders Bangladesh, which was previously called East Bengal.

My family does not originate from this state, but they have purchased a lot of land there, so they permanently reside there.

West Bengal is beautiful in its own way. It is very lush, filled with rainforests and rivers. I had the opportunity to visit the famous Ganges River and even touch the water.

In Hinduism, water from the Ganges is considered holy. I also visited numerous temples in India.

This Wednesday, I am departing for my trip to India. The plan is that I will attend school in the morning, and head to the airport around 6:00 pm.

This week will be very hectic, as my family needs to complete several preparations that come with international travel.

We have already purchased most of the presents that we will be giving to my cousins. Yesterday, we went to the mall and finished our shopping.

In addition to studying for finals this week, I need to pack my suitcases. Traveling internationally means that you are allowed at least one check in and one carry on.

So far, I have not packed anything for my trip. I have been overwhelmed with water polo and studying for finals.

Unfortunately, traveling means I am going to have to miss all winter break practices for water polo. This will certainly be a disadvantage in the long run, as I will come back from winter break out of shape and possibly sick.

However, traveling is certainly worth the experience. I have not visited India in 5 years. Last time I went, I was in 4th grade.

I am very excited to meet my relatives again after so long. In addition, I am excited for all the food and sites to see.

In India, it is very common for street vendors to sell food near temples and other tourist attractions. This type of food is called chaat.

In the US, it is very hard to get your hands on authentic chaat, so my family is very excited to go to India and fill their cravings.

The states we are going to be visiting are West Bengal and Rajasthan. I have never been to Bengal before, so I am excited for that.

Previously, I have visited the states of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh is a metropolis, filled with lots of people and stores. Rajasthan, however, is a vast, empty desert. It is common to see camels roaming in the expanse.

Last time I visited, I went to a Ranthambore National Park, a wildlife reserve. We saw tigers, elephants, crocodiles, and deer. In ancient times, this site was a royal hunting site.

Yesterday, I finished working on a long term group project for English class. Our assignment was to create a five minute video that had a storyline inspired by one of the novels we have read over the semester.

Our group decided to make our skit about Romeo and Juliet, since that is what we spent most of the semester focusing on. In addition, we decided to use the Steve Harvey talk show as a model.

One of the group members was Steve Harvey, who asked Romeo and Juliet all the questions. Each player had the opportunity to answer his questions.

Filming our project took a very long time. I arrived at our filming location around 1:00, and we started filming at 2:00. However, it took nearly 4 hours to finish filming.

After filming, we had a lot of editing to do. Since I was the only one who had any video editing experience, I was unfortunately stuck with most of the work.

I finally finished editing around 8:00 pm. It was going to take another hour to render the completed video, so I left. The host was able to turn in the video for us.

Overall, this was a very difficult, but fun assignment that I will remember for a long time. I have not done something like this since 7th grade, but it was a completely different story that time.

That year, my group procrastinated on the video so much that we only had an afternoon to film and edit it. We had to film after school, and then edit it at night.

I ended up staying up all night trying to edit the video, and unsurprisingly, I failed. The finished product was a very sloppy video that had random cuts and pauses.

What I learned from that project is that procrastination will never have good results, so at the very least I would never make that mistake again. Especially considering video editing, projects like these tend to be very time-consuming.

I had a very fun and relaxing Thanksgiving break this year. My family did not do any traveling, so we stayed at home.

I had a couple of group projects to work on, so I invited my friends over to work on our assignments over the break. Unfortunately, my parents had to work, so I was home alone.

When my friend was over, we had fun cooking. She likes baking, so we made several cakes and cookies and other treats of the sort.

My friend also took the liberty of cooking pasta for me. We had walked home together after water polo practice, so we were both hungry.

While she was here, we also dyed my friend’s hair. She had gotten it bleached a couple of years ago, but hated the way it looked now.

We solved this problem by using a natural hair color called henna to darken her hair color. Since the dye is derived from plant leaves, it is not going to cause hair damage, whereas chemical dyes can results in lots of mishaps.

On the downside, henna is very messy, and stains a lot of clothes and furniture. After applying the dye on my friend, my entire marble sink was stained brown.

However, it will eventually wash off, and this can be overcome by laying down an old towel on the chosen surface.

After break, I feel like I am ready to go back to school and end the semester strong. I think it is very important that students occasionally get small breaks like these during the semester to help recharge.

Since next weekend is Thanksgiving break, many people are going Black Friday shopping. Black Friday is an annual event that takes place on the Friday following Thanksgiving each year.

Many stores and companies hold sales on this date to commemorate the shopping holiday. These companies undoubtedly make a huge profit off of this single day.

For customers, there are huge savings which would not be found any other day of the year. However, some shoppers are still skeptical in regards to this event.

There is a group of people who believe Black Friday is just a marketing trick used by companies to lure shoppers into spending more, under the facade of scoring bargains.

However, much research proves otherwise. According to dealnews.com, on a study of over 3000 deals, 46% of them were the lowest prices seen all year.

For that reason, it is very wise to get your shopping done on Black Friday.

A good strategy to avoid overbuying is writing a list of the things you are looking to buy before you head out the door. This will eliminate buying excess, or items that you don’t need.

Another opportunity to get your shopping done is Cyber Monday. This takes place the Monday following Thanksgiving weekend.

A lot of shoppers opt for this option because it does not require going in store. Often times, corporations will give discounts on whole categories as opposed to specific items.

In conclusion, it is really up to the individual to decide whether they want to spend their Friday in lines, or order from the comfort of their house on Monday.