Jaycee Snelson Week 13: Making Memories


 Jaycee Snelson Week 13: Making Memories

This topic for our blogs could not have come at a more perfect time. Currently as you are reading this, I am making memories as I explore the wonders Japan has to offer. I have wanted to visit Japan for a while now. I love the food, culture, and history of the country. For me this vacation has been in the works for three years now. When I told my parents I wanted to go, all those years ago, they told me I needed to come up with an itinerary for the trip and then we would discuss it further. So, I came up with a devious plan. I used each of my family member’s kryptonite to make this plan happen. 

First my mom. She is a huge Disney fan. In fact, one of her dreams is to visit every Disney park there is. So I knew that telling her there was a disney park in Tokyo would work. In fact, the Disney park in Tokyo just happens to have Belle's castle, my mom’s favorite princess, making convincing her to go even easier. Now I just had to worry about the others. My dad was also relatively easy. My dad and I are more similar than I would like to admit. So, I knew if I showed him all the things that made Japan my dream vacation he would be down to go too. My brother, on the other hand, was the one I knew would be the hardest to convince. As my luck would have it, my dream vacation looked like a vacation made of his nightmares. I knew convincing him was going to be hard but, I had one trick up my sleeve. I used the one thing I knew he couldn't resist, a good baseball game. Baseball in Japan is nothing like American baseball. The energy of the game is thousands of times more than baseball here. I knew that my brother wouldn't want to pass up an opportunity to experience a different level of ball, especially since we are going to a couple of the World Classics games. 

With my trap disguised as an itinerary all laid out I finally convinced them all that this was our next vacation. Looking back to the first activity I added to my itinerary, I can’t believe that this vacation is finally happening and it was all because of me. So, while this memory is being created I want to enjoy the success of younger Jaycee as my family and I go step by step, place by place in the vacation I created. 

Comments

  1. Disha MurugupandiyanMarch 21, 2026 at 11:45 AM

    I can absolutely relate to the fact that you had to find something in your vacation that each person likes to convince them that the trip is worth it. From my personal experience, I feel like as we get older, parents expect us kids to take part in the planning process of our vacations, and we can no longer just expect them to do everything for us. I'm a terrible planner, since although I have place that I want to go to, I like to no have a set plan to follow. Unfortunately, my planning style differs completely from the rest of my family, who are much more used to having every single day planned out optimally to fit in every activity we want to do. On top of that, everyone in my family has different interests, mine usually the odd one out. My sister and my mom tend to like the same things, and while they are always interested in trying something new, my dad will always refuse to do the same. It is extremely admirable that you have figured out a way to include an activity for everybody in you family for your Japan trip, and honestly, I wish I could learn to do that too. While members of my family make concessions in what they want to do, it always ends up in us arguing, and nothing being decided. Like you mention, Japan is also a place that I have always wanted to visit, and is definitely on the list along with other countries in East Asia and Europe. I've also only ever been to the Disneyland in Los Angeles, so I'm super curious to see how it differs from the ones in other countries. I hope you had lots of fun during your vacation!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Casmin BuiMarch 24, 2026 at 11:42 PM

    Hi Jaycee! Japan sounds so fun! I also really want to go there because I heard the quality of everything there is lovely and the food is amazing. Like you, I was also able to convince my parents to go to Japan this summer with the help of my sister. However, I’m not the main planner for everything and I’m just tagging along. It’s amazing how well you incorporated small things that each member of your family would like along the trip to make sure that everyone has at least one part of the vacation that they can look back at. What foods do you recommend I should eat there? A few foods that I was recommended by my friends were udon and sashimi, but I’m open to hearing about more foods that are a must have! I’m only going for 9 days, and I’m spending most of that time in Tokyo and Osaka. Which cities did you go to, and which ones were your favorites?

    One of the best places to make memories is definitely during vacations. Not only do you get to experience different cultures, foods, and environments, but you also get to do it with your favorite people (if you consider them to be :))! I hope I can talk with you soon! Please update me on the many wonderful places you went to in Japan and please let me know if you have any recommendations for tourists places or restaurants.

    Thank you, Jaycee!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Josh KarthikeyanMarch 25, 2026 at 8:34 PM

    Hi Jaycee, I really love the “devious plan” you came up with. It is such a powerful strategy to appeal to others through emotion and logic. That is also probably why rhetorical appeals are so effective. One thing I am super curious about is why was your brother “the hardest to convince.” To me, when I see the potential to go to another Disney park and a new country that I have not explored, my heart screams to me to get ready and go! I really like how this blog also highlights the amount of effort that it takes to plan a trip. For me personally, I have not had to really plan out the logistics and the fine details. Once we have a destination, I will pick out a few places and tell my parents; then they will do their magic and we go. However, after reading about how you “came up with an itinerary,” it made me realize that if I want to go somewhere, I have to take action. Your blog motivated me to open up Google My Maps and it made me realize that I had planned out something so long ago. Four years ago, I had an assignment in my World History class where we had to plan an itinerary. I chose Berlin and have a realistic map all planned out. Thank you for reminding me of my previous work! I hope you had a great vacation!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Atharv Dua Q3 Blog #13 - The Egg Came First

Image
Which came first? The chicken or the egg? Well, chickens hatch from eggs but chickens also lay said eggs. My sister wasted my time on this question today instead of asking the much more important question (how dare she not be contemplating the nuances of political philosophy on a Sunday afternoon): do we have the power or does the government? With the recent “no kings” protests, that’s the first thing that I thought of regarding power. Jean-Jacques Rousseau didn’t have much to say about the chicken, but he wrote a full book “on the social contract” (look at him making integrated quotes easier). According to him (and the theory of the social contract that he created) “man is born free,” but to protect our natural rights, we give some rights away to a government so that said government can protect our other natural rights. For example, in a so-called “state of nature,” there’s no one to stop you from murdering someone else, which is why we give up our right to kill people in exchange for...
Read more

Annie Zhu Q3 Blog #9 - Free Will

Image
  Many aspects of my life do not feel like choices I got to make. Born into an academically-driven family and living in the tech bubble which is the Bay Area, everything I pursue (grades, college, extracurriculars) seem like things that are naturally expected of me. As a result, I often forget that I do, in fact, have free will. Although there are several factors to consider when discussing this term in philosophy, for the purposes of this blog, I simply mean “free will” as in the ability to make deliberate choices which affect my future.  I believe that people always have control over their actions at any given moment in time. Admittedly, while this may not be entirely true, operating as if it is is more empowering for me. As a high-schooler, I often try to squeeze myself down one path in hopes of guaranteeing a successful future: a stable income source, fulfilling relationships, and middle class leisure. The truth is that those things can be actually achieved in many ways, n...
Read more

Annie Zhu - Q3 Blog 11 - Pencil Pouch

 The most treasured item in my backpack is my pencil bag. It holds my best school supplies which I use every single day: the Uni Alpha Gel, Sakura Arch Foam , and more. Each item in this bag was selected deliberately, with attention to smoothness, life cycle, and vibrance. My obsession started in eighth grade, thanks to a classmate. She was an avid consumer of Japanese stationery, which essentially meant that she would go through different supplies every week. Sometimes, she would give one of those supplies to me, and as my taste for overengineered items increased, I began to yearn for a life beyond Walmart pencils. In the second semester of eighth grade, I ditched my boring stationery for a green Angoo pencil pouch with SIX pockets and EIGHT pen holders–thus began my extensive journey to fill these many storage compartments. Over the years, I have created a near-perfect collection of highlighters, pens, whiteout, sticky tabs, and pencil lead. It is a true pleasure to open my pen...
Read more