Sunday, June 29, 2008

Aloooone

I moved into Gramma's place in Flushing today. Now I'm all alone. Living alone sucks... Marlen, get that job quick so we can find a place!
Otherwise, nice things. No more naggy mom, which is nice. And public transportation and dance classes abound. I can't wait to take my first dance class since May...
O yes, and of course, the mandatory countdown. 13 days!

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Never Never

Tonight, my parents invited my uncle and his family over. Overall a nice evening with my second-cousins which I haven't seen in a while. Now that Angie is older, she's more interesting to talk to, and it was nice to chat with Yogi, who, for the most part, is elusive. We had a barbecue and then watched "I Am Legend" and "V for Vendetta."
My granduncle was also present. He's 83 and in the past couple years, he's gone from a somewhat grumpy, very sharp minded big man to a spare, very jolly and absentminded one. Apparently, he's in the early stages of Alzheimers. I saw him once before going to Europe so I was prepared for the fact that he wouldn't remember me, and, in fact, would need reminding every half hour. After a whole evening, we got into a little routine.
"Who's this lovely young lady?"
"O, I'm Ruby's daughter, the second one."
"O, that's lovely. Did you know you're the spitting image of your grandmother? Your mother's mother?"
"Um, actually, I look a lot like my dad, see?" [stands next to dad who smiles as I gesture from face to face]
"O, no, you look just like your grandmother. She was beautiful, do you know what she looks like?"
"No, we don't have any photos."
"O, all right"
At which point he switches to Taiwanese, I get wide-eyed, and walk about when Mom answers him. Then, the next time he sees me, he goes, "O, who is this lovely young lady?" Rinse and repeat.
One time he managed to retain the memory of me long enough to ask if there were hordes of boys chasing after me, to which I replied, "No, I'm too mean." And then another time he said I should be careful out in the big world because I'm so pretty.
Dad and I decided that he had a huge crush on his sister-in-law. Tee-hee!

Friday, June 06, 2008

Au Revoir, Paris!

It was a whole week that just flew by, I can't believe how quickly. About 5 days ago, I got a bit of food poisoning while eating some unwashed strawberries. Stupid me. Either way, the people at the pharmacy gave me something that I was very dubious about, but it ended up working in just one dose. I'm on the road to recovery, but my tummy is still quite tender. I can't seem to eat more than just a tiny bit at a time. Ah, well, at least I'm going to come home a little lighter rather than heavier.
I met a whole bunch of great people along the way at the hostel, and we all traded ideas about where would be good to go. I ended up going to the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay, l'Orangerie, le Musee Picasso, Sacre Coeur, Notre Dame, er....Galerie Lafayette, etc. I can't remember what else I went to, because I did a lot of walking (though far less after I ate those darned strawberries). Best meal I had there was the one on my second day in Montmartre at La Vrai Paris. Second best was the self -serve cafe in Galerie Lafayette. That's some fancy food there, and I would calculate that I had it all at about half the price it would be at a cafe because it was self-serve. But yes, Paris is lovely, I'm going to have to come back one day and make sure I wash all the fruit before I eat it.
On to Copenhagen and Morten!

Monday, June 02, 2008

Bonjour from Paris!

Bonjour! J'aime la vie a Paris! Well, mostly it's been a lot of walking, some glorious old buildings and delicious food. Uh...well, when I can afford it. People weren't kidding when they said that France was expensive, and more so now that the dollar is so weak. So far I've been mostly just assembling tasty little picnics of baguette, strawberries, salami and milk, or a Pizza and whatever tasty morsels I find along the way. I must say, egg on the pizza, quite tasty. So far I've only had one real meal - a goat cheese salad and a limonade. Tres delicieux!
[this spot is for the picture of the meal, when I get to a computer with a working USB drive...]
So far I've been all over Montmartre, the Sacre Coeur, Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Grand Palais, the Deportation Memorial...more places...I'm going to the Orangerie with Sarah, one of the girls I met at the hostel, today at noon. Should be good. I like the hostel, everyone staying there seems to be really interested in travel and are very willing to make new friends. Still, I'm looking forward to Copenhagen and Berlin where I can just leave my stuff out instead of having to take all my stuff to the showers in a bag and live out of a suitcase. Really tiring after a while...

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Bon Voyage!

I leave for Paris in less than a day! The long awaited trip, and no stupid airplanes flying into skyscrapers to screw it up this time around. Wish me luck!

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Unexpected Guests

Today we weren't expecting anyone over. All of a sudden, mom's best friend pulled up. A couple hours later, some old friends that we hadn't seen in a very, very long time pulled up, too. Just dropping by, they said. The guy I remembered being a baby is now 6 feet tall, but the girls were just as great as they used to be. I just wish they told us they were coming so I wouldn't have greeted them in my pajamas. So embarrassing...I didn't even comb my hair this morning.
O, and I stepped on a shard of glass today. I don't know how it ended up on the kitchen floor, since mom said that we didn't break anything glass-like recently. Strange...

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Ken's a F*** and he ruined my graduation

So today was nice, I had graduation. It was long, Al Gore was funny, I took lots of photos. Then, for the third day in the row, mom and dad helped me clean and pack.

And now, a letter:

Dear Ken,
Perhaps instead of yelling at me and thinking only about yourself, you should consider that instead of spending my own last days seeing friends, I was busy "doing my part" for the apartment. I got rid of all the furniture, cleaned the kitchen (and no, I don't blame Chang for all the mess, but I cleaned it once already not even a week ago so there wasn't much more than a light bit of wiping to do), cleaned the bathroom, and cleared out the hall closet as well as the kitchen cabinets of all of my things. I left those things in the kitchen for Brian and you to see if you wanted any of it because I couldn't take them and they were useful. I can see now that you only think that people are out to make more work for you.
Perhaps if you didn't want your mother to do be stuck cleaning up the place, you should have stuck around and helped instead of going out to play and leaving it all to her, seeing as I asked you to help, not her.
Don't you dare say I didn't do anything to help get the apartment cleaned. And don't you dare say that none of those plates or furniture were yours to deal with. I didn't buy them, they came with the apartment. If you had anything against them, you shouldn't have used them, and you used the furniture and tableware plenty. You didn't find people to take the apartment, you didn't find people to take the furniture, you weren't here when Brian and I spent three hours moving furniture because you were busy playing at the zoo. You weren't there the second day either when the second group of people came for furniture and I was the only when helping with the furniture. You never had to try to get Beth not to evict us because of YOU, you didn't have to worry about remembering to pay any of the bills, you never cleaned the bathtub or the sink, and before yesterday, you never cleaned the kitchen counters before. And don't say you cleaned the microwave, you liar, I scrubbed out the inside three times before I left.
If you had a problem with my lack of help, then why didn't you say something in the first place instead of calling me when I'd been gone for over an hour?
And don't think I'm an idiot, your half-assed email is not an apology. I'm not so stupid I can't see you still think I'm a lazy person who left your mother all the work. Stop being a selfish bastard and see what people have already done instead of expecting them to do more. And lastly? Go fuck yourself.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

5th Year Exhibition

After months of looming on the horizon, the 5th year show finally happened. Wednesday night was a tremendous success. Around 200 people showed up, people enjoyed the lectures and from Zach, I heard that guests really enjoyed the food I picked out. Today was family day which was a little desperate for me because the caterer showed up half an hour early. Fortunately, the person with the key was just down the street and was able to run over and let me in just a few minutes. I think the families really enjoyed the food and there was more than enough left over so we took it all and gave it to the design firm that was on the first floor. I do hope they enjoy it as much as we did. So, other than getting the card and key returned to the rightful owners tomorrow, my responsibilities are done and I'm home free! Wheeee!

Friday, May 09, 2008

Countdown

5 Days till the gallery opens
9 Days till graduation
19 Days till Paris
28 Days till Copenhagen
53 Days till I start work at H3HC

Life flies by too quickly.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Random Award!

Yay! I got an award! The Senior Leadership Recognition Awards! What's if for? Who's it from? I haven't a clue, I just know that I have to drag my family to yet another reception on Saturday now.

Sunday, May 04, 2008

Last Dance

Last night was my very last performance ever with Dancers Symposium. It's very sad... All the dances went well, except this one thing - one of my dances is pupput themed, and I was the puppeteer. We're supposed to do a bit where we pull each other around on strings, except that my strings wrapped around my puppet/partner's neck, so I had to let go. I think all of us agreed Friday night's performance was better for that one. All the others were great, though. High energy fun - I think I've finally mastered smiling on stage without pasting on my grin. O, and Rowena and the girls got me and Stacy flowers and told us that they liked our dance best. Yay!
After the show, we all went out partying. I dragged Brian along with me since he happened to be home. I think the clubbing experience last night could be best described as "sweaty." Everyone was sweaty, like pouring drenching, wet T-shirts sweaty. I mostly danced with my girl friends, and with one guy I know from a dance. Club dancing with guys...it's not so much dancing so much as dry humping to music...Oh well, all in good fun.
Oh, and one of my friends asked me about Brian because she thinks he's really cute. I told him to join Dancers Symposium if he wanted to find a girlfriend so much. Guess that just confirmed it. Too late now, though.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Dancer Things

So, on Sunday night, I sprained my thumb doing a handstand. Today is the first day where I could open a water bottle unassisted. So nice.
Also, Dancer's Symposium is this weekend so I've been dancing pretty much every night this week for a couple hours. I can't wait for the show...and for the rehearsals to be over. I have one tomorrow night at 11pm. It used to be normal, now it's annoyingly late. I turned old sometime during this semester.
Also, today was the last day of ballet. I was a little out of sorts because Jim decided to throw in some things that weren't part of his usual repertoire, but for once, I figured out the petit allegro (the part of class where you do a really fast jump combination). Anyhoo, class ended with everyone going up to Jim to give him a hug and a thank you. I got an extra "tremendous improvement" from him which really made my day. I'm glad he noticed.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Breathe Deep

Trees don't like to have sex when its cold. For the first time in a couple weeks, I can breathe without hacking up a lung.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

the Food Fairy

So, Brian's gone for the weekend leaving just me and Ken at the apartment. I actually am really glad it's just the two of us since Ken's far quieter and doesn't make a mess (or at the least, cleans up any messes that he makes). Today we made dinner together - he made bok choi and rice, I made salmon with a coconut tomato sauce. Tasty.
So when I went back to my room after showering just now, I found that I was visited by the food fairy. By food fairy, I mean that Ken decided to make me a plate of hor d'oeuvres using some onion crackers he got from the Strip District and topping it with some leftover salmon and a little of that sauce. It was reaaally tasty. I'm actually thinking about using it for the 5th year exhibition since apparently I'm in charge of food for family night. Yay for food! Hope mom and dad won't mind driving me into the Strip to pick up supplies...

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Oh, the Humanity

In my sheer desperation to keep myself entertained until shows return from the writer's strike, I've started watching...the Bachelor.
So, does the guy really expect to actually find a wife from a competition between 25 women? Looking back on the statistics, not a single guy has managed to make it to the alter. One fellow almost did and then the couple realized that once they didn't have all those fun dates set up for them, there wasn't anything there. Only one fellow was smart enough to realize that none of these women really worked. So, I can understand if a fellow's desperate enough, he might try speed dating and this show is like the ultimate speed dating, but are any of those women compatible? These Bachelor fellows are all investment bankers, entrepeneurs, things like that. How well does he work with a hot dog vendor or a make-up artist? And some of those women...I don't care what they do for a living, they're just plain..STUPID...
And would a girl really be okay with the guy at the end, knowing that he's kissed 24 other women during the time he's known her? And they all have to live together and interact while he's off in his little palace, only appearing to whisk a few of them off for a date. If it were a century or so ago, I'd think of it sort of as a harem. Geez, and the superficial little trials they have to go through to win...just because a girl's willing to try out rugby for a day doesn't mean that she's the one for you.
Speculating though, if I were ever to be a Bachelorette (career suicide!) and had to pick, I'd make all of them go to the ballet with me and then make them learn a little dance and perform it for me. Mwahahaha!

Monday, March 31, 2008

Annoyed

Mom annoys me. Everytime I call her and conversation goes into the realm of men, mom never has anything nice to say. Never. And it's about inane things like the government that a guy grew up under. He couldn't help it that he was born and raised in a different country! It's not like he asked to.
And everytime I tell mom to stop saying bad things about anyone who I'm friends or at all interested in, she completely denies it and says that she would never do anything like that. Well, mom, then why did you just say, "I don't like that he's still in school. He shouldn't be wasting his time like that." I don't have to defend anyone to you, it's none of your business. All I'm doing is visiting him and you want to go and change his entire life.
She's completely taken by racial stereotypes too. It's horrible to think that she disapproves of all of my friends simply because they don't fit her racial/cultural/economic whatever profile. O, all of May's friends are fine because they're white middle class people of similar intelligence to May. But my friends aren't okay because they're smart and are of all types of backgrounds.
This is why I don't like to call home.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Birthday

I think this year was probably one of the nicest and most memorable birthdays I've ever had. Waz put together a little wine and cheese think, and I brought the fancy hors d'oeuvres. I think during dance, the guys snuck over to Waz's to bake me a birthday cake...a pineapple upside-down cake is apparently what defines me as a person...I think it was supposed to be a surprise, but Ken stopping by the apartment, telling me he was at Waz's and going back there, and then leaving behind tupperwares with flour dust in them (which I washed), well, that was a big give-away. It's the thought that counts, and the cake was tasty.
At one point everyone sang happy birthday to me. It was somewhat embarassing as I assume birthday songs are supposed to be. I also got really really tipsy, as in loss of motor function tipsy.
Overall, the party was very nice. Rowena from dance was there because she and her boyfriend are good friends with Waz's boyfriend. I hung out with her mostly and then chatted with everyone else for a little bit. I really enjoyed it. O! And I managed to curl my hair for this fiesta, so its pretty and curly right now!

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Bah!

The landlady-issue yet again rears its ugly head. She's showing our place to a girl from NY in a little over the week and asked us to clean the apartment and rearrange just a couple of bookcases. Ken, o lovely Ken, has decided that he simply won't budge yet again. For a moment I convinced him to move simply to get Beth out of our lives once and for all (this is assuming she sells the place) and then he talked to his parents. Apparently it's his parents, his PARENTS, that are telling him to be a stubborn little ass-hole.
So I've decided I'll move the furniture myself. Yes, little me. And if Beth asks for anything more, well...other than asking us to rotate a frickin bookcase for 2 hours every time she brings someone around...
I've also looked around forums online. I don't think she can legally evict us for not moving a couple of bookcases around, or if it gets to a point where we have to go to court, the judge would most likely rule in our favor. The thing is I don't want legal fees. If Ken wants to get into a legal battle that's worth more than our security deposit (and considering a lawyer is $200/h, that adds up fast) then he can do it. All I can say is I did my part, and I hope that I can take beautiful revenge on that bitch of a landlady when all of this is over. Even if it only means being as rude and condescending to her face as she has been to us.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

I Hate Apple

I've been trying to solve this all semester: There are online listening exercises for the Italian class I'm taking and so far, the only place where I have been able to access it is in the Modern Language Computer Lab which is crammed and always closed. CLOSED! I've been working on trying to get the audio to play on other computers - really, any lab will do! But no, it absolutely refuses on any computer. It won't play on my computer, my sister's PC, my sister's Mac, or the computer labs at school. It's always either some stupid hidden firewall, or the plug-in is missing something. Really, how hard is it to have a .mov file that works? Or can't they just give us a CD or something?

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Employ Me

I've been spending the entire month of February and it looks like the rest of March working on finding a job. I need a job, an architecture one! Hire me!!
It's not that bad, though. I went to a job fair last week and spoke to a whole bunch of firms, all of which were interested enough that they asked me to visit their offices at some point. I just sent out all but two thank you e-mails today though apparently I should've had them out on Monday. Oops... I hope one of them will hire me. I want employment...