for the love of SHOPPING!

Clothes, FOOD, puppies, toys, FOOD, mole removal, shoes, FOOD...

Shilin Tourism Night Market: heaven on earth (plus 35 degrees). So basically, I had a wonderful stinky tofu, oyster/clam/something? omelette, and da bing bao shiao bing (literal translation: "big pastry wraps little pastry") dinner. The power went out mid-meal but that sure didn't faze them... vendors kept right on waving me down to their stands and shoving menus in my face. Determination is a powerful thing.

I also scored:

• two dresses for $15
• a pair of heels for $12
• two headbands for $1.50

The best thing about shopping in Taiwan, I think, is that a shopping trip isn't like an ordinary trip to the mall. Normally, in America-shopping, I usually buy nothing the entire time and then allow myself an overpriced "pity item." [pity item: something you buy that you don't like all that much but a trip to the mall is just not worth it at all if you come home emptyhanded... so that little something gives you a tiny, fleeting feeling of satisfaction that lasts at least through the car ride home.] However, in Taiwan, you find and consider and actually buy so many things that by the ride home you kind of forget what you bought. But then you open up your bags at home and you discover that wonderful top you completely forgot about. It's like getting Christmas presents that you actually like. It's like having your cake and eating it too. It's... it's just awesome. See what I mean? I just looked through my stuff and realized I bought the cutest pair of $5 sunglasses that completely slipped my mind.

God, I love beating the system.

Note: Oh yeahs, I mean it about the mole removal. There are literally little stations where you can have them burned or scraped off or something for a price so reasonable that I seriously, seriously question anyone who would trust their faces at such things.

The daily grind.

Taiwan is sticky. And as my dad says, "How you say it... been raining cat and dog?"

I went underwear shopping yesterday and my boobs are officially different sizes. One's a B and one's a C (Asian bra sizing makes me feel so good about myself!). But girls here are literally flat as boards. I feel like my boobs, pressured by the media and the population of flat-chested Taiwanese girls, are deflating at top speed to assimilate to society's expectations of them. Yes. Boobs have feelings too.

I'm still jetlagged, so I've been waking up at 6 in the morning. I go for a run around the local park, where old ah-mas sit around on benches chatting up a storm. Given the billion degree weather and my intolerance for it, I'm also dripping wet when I'm through. My mother and I walk to the outdoor market a couple of blocks down to pick up groceries for lunch - water spinach, tomatoes, eggs, clams, edamame. Duck wings and seaweed for the walk home. Basically all of this for $6... you have to love the exchange rate. Sanitation is in doubt, but since when does anyone in Taiwan care about sanitation? I was examining this fuzzy-looking thing while my mother was picking out pork bones to make soup. 10 seconds later I realized it was the ear of a full on hog's head... good grief.

In the afternoons, it rains. My mother believed otherwise and refused to buy an umbrella (so that's where I get the stubbornness.) We emerged from an accessory store to the pouring rain and had to shop down that single side of the street with the meager protection of the overhang for about, 1.5 hours. Fun.

I also came across a cockroach on the towel after my shower. It's my second showertime cockroach encounter at my dad's Taiwan apartments. This either says something about my dad's level of cleanliness or something about what I deserve for things I've done in past lives. My dad claims he's never seen a cockroach here though, so it must be the latter.

Anyway I'm going to head out soon to the drugstore. I love Taiwanese drugstores. Just yesterday I picked up oil absorbing papers, fake eyelashes, a nifty comb, nipple tape (cool huh? I thought so too), among other things. Every trip to Watson's is seriously an adventure... and they are full of cool Japanese products with labels I can't read. Somehow this is reassuring, like if I don't know what it's for how could it possibly go wrong?

I'm leaving on a jet plane.

6/26/07 - 2:12 AM PST

My little monitor is providing the following information:

Altitude: 35000 feet
Ground speed: 555mph
Outside temperature: -50 degrees celsius
Distance to destination: 2405 miles
Time remaining: 4 hours 54 minutes

All of which is relatively useless and extremely depressing.

So apparently I'm a frequent flyer or something, allowing me to have Eva Air Silver Club membership. This means absolutely nothing except that I'm allowed lounge access, which is equivalent to free internet and tea eggs, among other things. I ate like four eggs (much to my mother's dismay), and took 3 mini water bottles and several tiny tuna sandwiches for the epic journey. Would have gotten some Lays and Oreos as well but I was under the watchful eye of Mommy "Why are you so fat" Wu.

Airplane bathrooms are so questionable. I always get scared when the toilet goes WHOOSH. I mean, even though I'm the one flushing it, so I kind of know it's coming but that has always frightened me.

The person behind me totally stuck his nasty feet up onto my armrest. I mean I don't have cute feet myself so I don't judge, but at least I have some common courtesy and I don't stick my feet up into other people's business.

I hate airplane food. Not to the extent of my hatred of ketchup, but it's pretty high up there on my hate list. Chinese airline food especially. Well, I can't remember the last time I've been on a long haul flight that wasn't Eva Air or something, so I can't judge what say, Southwest Airlines serves. But we always get these totally questionable things of like, braised beef with curry sauce or equally unappealing sounding/looking/tasting food. Even the bread rolls are usually lacking. On occasion, there is some ice cream cup that is my saving grace.

You know what though? I don't understand why it's so difficult to make a decent airplane meal. I mean, I buy $2 microwaveable TV dinners at Safeway all the time of fettucine alfredo or chicken and rice that taste perfectly delightful. This is the only time that I will eat cuponoodle (which I can proudly say I have not eaten a single one of all year in college). Currently I'm having to survive on little snack bags of "mixed nuts and rice crackers" as well as my tiny tuna sandwiches, which we all know are not enough to sustain me through the 12 hour flight.

the sound of a heart breaking

Why do I always overanalyze EVERYTHING??!?!

I can never just go with gut instinct. I have to assess all the possibilities and risks and potential negative outcomes...

Exhaustion & purple haze.

I started packing Friday afternoon, thinking that hey, I'm a minimalist. I don't have that much stuff. How very wrong I was... the whole packing process was completely exhausting and took forever. My flight was at 4:00 on Saturday - by 4:45 we were still putting things into storage. We were supposed to take one more trip to get my stuff, but the storage place closed before we got a chance. So not only did I miss my flight, I couldn't even get on another one last night because I still had a fan, microwave, tv, drawers, and two cardboard boxes to go.

Move-out was supposed to be completely done by 6; ResLife started locking the suites/dorms shut. So I was a homeless girl with boxes of stuff in front of the building. I ended up moving it all to Rishi's, and from there we put everything at Gavin's. We were supposed to drink, but I fell asleep in the most awesome oversized couch at Gavin's while the boys watched Ghostrider and participated in questionable activities. We missed our flight again today at 1:05 because Johnson and Rishi were lagging... so they decided we should smoke with the extra hour of free time. Which ended up with us being delayed once MORE, and missing the 2:40 flight as well. Honestly, three missed flights. I felt like I was passing in and out of consciousness on the ride/at the airport/on the plane.

Moving out was bittersweet, especially being the last one in the empty suite. Europe Hall was more than anything I thought it would be. I'll miss living only a floor away from my closest friends. Even though we never made that magical sisterhood that some suites find, I grew to appreciate my suitemates. Even the ones who gave me disapproving looks when we ordered pizza three times a week, as I bounced drunkenly down the hall on Wednesday nights, etc. I really honestly did believe that Europe was full of the most amazing people... We had our stoners (Chang, Mike, Will), flamboyant gays (Brooks and Andrew), crazies like Joeva, Bri, and Lisi, talk show host Brandon, Varun the big-haired, my Kappa pledge sisters... Definitely the most unique of characters. I feel like freshman year is a condensed form of life experiences - you learn independence, gain new friendships, keep in touch with the old, develop your tolerance, discover things about yourself you never knew. As I've said before it's funny how all of us being put into this one building together put the wheels in motion for so much more. A whole year's worth of laughter, tears, and memories.

When I arrived, Europe Hall was just this huge and impersonal place, full of a hundred or so strangers. But at some unnoticed point in time - I started to call it "home." Somehow the personalities and habits of the people I lived with just started to grow on me. don't know if I could do my freshman year justice, so I won't try.

I can't believe I'm off to the motherland in a little more than a week. Excited but a bit apprehensive... my Chinese more or less incomprehensible these days. Between now and then I have errands, errands, errands. DMV, eyebrows, haircut, golf tournament money, schedule... so busy! This summer I'm missing out on the luxury of utterly unproductive, sticky days of sleeping in until noon, catching up with friends all afternoon over iced coffee, or vegging on the couch watching ANTM reruns.

Life is like a bag of popcorn...

I have an 8-page paper due tomorrow for Sociology that I am desperately avoiding. Finals week has taken a toll on my health. And my face. I have Final's Face; in other words my skin has gone seven kinds of crazy. My sleeping schedule is disastrous. I should really win a prize for Most Consecutive Hours Spent at the Library. It has reached the point that now I bring my pillow, blanket, and toothbrush. I should start an anti-finals campaign, based on the number of cigarettes that litter the ground in front of the library. Finals: NOT anyone's anti-drug.

I just finished my MUS15 (Japanese Pop) final, and let me tell you this: things are not looking good. I'm not by any means proud of this, but I won't lie, my multiple choice answers are a combination of no less than four different people sitting around me, none of whom I have very much confidence in either. In previous quarters when I studied for finals, in the end there's that sudden moment - where the big picture, the whole enchilada, what have you - finally hits, and you experience this great wave of understanding, in which all the pieces fall into place, and the little bits of information suddenly all make sense together. This quarter I had no such thing. I'm still very much in the dark about what my courses were about.

No meal points and no cash meant no dinner, so I ate half a bar of chocolate and made myself a bag of popcorn. Those stories about starving/broke college kids are entirely true. Now that I'm done munching there are over a hundred unpopped kernels. I always come up with these silly analogies that seem really brilliant in my mind. I got to thinking, when you make popcorn - yeah, if you pop it into the microwave for too long, chances are you'll end up with some black popcorn. But the alternative is to undercook it - resulting in handfuls of leftover kernels. Kernels that had so much potential... but nope, they go entirely to waste.

So yeah, maybe you take that risk, and you microwave your popcorn just a little longer. It might be a mistake... you might end up burning your popcorn. It might not taste as good as it could have. But at least you don't end up with these kernels of unfulfilled chances.

Though I really shouldn't be talking, seeing as I tend to avoid risk at all costs. Unless it involves my GPA - somehow I'm willing to throw that to the wind and see how things go. I realize this tells a lot about my lack of common sense. But in all other aspects of life, I analyze the potential for disaster and in my imagination, there are always grand Star Wars scenes of destruction and annihilation.

On matters of the heart...

I cracked it open, gave him half, and read the fortune.

Maybe I'm just reading too much into it. Somehow these things are always easier said than done.

College kids these days.

Some frat boys just borrowed my sociology book and did lines of Adderall in the library bathroom.

My book feels kind of powdery now. At least it wasn't cocaine?

It's 9 AM, and I'm still locked out.

On normal nights, my suitemates lock the suite doors at 12 AM, and then I proceed to go in and out several times, leaving the doors unlocked in the process. Tonight I happened to be at the library until late (not gonna lie, the UCSD nerdiness gets to even the best of us at some point or other). And just my luck... I go upstairs through the backway to my balcony, and upon trying the door... I realize that my normal method of entry is just not going to happen tonight.

So I've been downstairs in my friend's room for the past four hours trying to get some studying done as he snores away happily. His roommate is reading aloud facts about LDL cholestrol and reciting the Kreb cycle, all done while rapping to TI, very atrociously I might add. But he raps with passion, and really, I have always been a supporter of all things done with passion.

Periodic trips upstairs to check if my suitemates are awake have proved more or less futile. Somehow in my sleep-deprived state, standing at the window peering in with a puppy-dog expression seemed like it might telepathically elicit some sort of response. Obviously not, as I'm still here, and nothing has changed.

Friday night was the last drinking episode ever of freshman year with H, K, and S. Andre Nickatina backing out of the concert last minute was a disappointment, but Mistah FAB was fun. I got trampled and lost a shoe, but I dared not to venture back into that mosh pit until the crowd had subsided. After one too many incidents with my never-healing big toenail, I wasn't about to take any more chances. That thing has been a sight to behold for about six months now, with virtually no signs of improvement.

I am never doing laundry on a drinking night again. It is far too much obligation to wake up to the combination of 1) bad breath and day-old makeup, 2) the unpleasant sight of alcoholic clutter littering the desk and floor, and 3) three loads of laundry to carry/de-wrinkle/fold. Saturday mornings were created only for happy things, like Belgium waffles and Facebooking in bed.

As of 9:14 AM I have lost all interest in my MMW3 notes, as fascinating as Bedouin nomadic pastoralists are. As always, Facebook came to the rescue and picked me up momentarily out of the fiery pits of boredom. The best Facebook group discoveries are most definitely discovered during all nighters, e.g. "Writing Papers Single Spaced First Makes My Double Spaced Result Climactic" and "I Want Detective Stabler to Specially Victimize Me with His Unit." I have never felt more strongly so early in the morning about such causes.

Early birds & early commuters.

I don't believe in alarm clocks.

This would be acceptable if a) I went to sleep at a normal hour, or b) my body had any sort of sense of time. Unfortunately, I can make neither claim, which means that my sleeping schedule is more or less a wreck, and what I do manage to achieve in the hazy waking hours is little to none.

Somehow this doesn't bother me in the slightest.

I've officially become a night owl. Something about being awake when hundreds of other people in this college are fast asleep is is strangely satisfying, like having a secret to yourself. It's comforting, in a way, to dabble away through the night, accompanied only by the hum of the refrigerator. This has become so routine that the sounds of the morning cafeteria food delivery, the water running as my suitemates awaken one by one, and the campus shuttles beginning their daily loops are just the soundtrack to my nights.

Somehow I'm able to disregard my bodily urges to go to bed - the only sign that causes me to even entertain the idea of crawling into my heaven of soft cotton and fluffy down is the rising sun, accompanied by the sounds of chirping birds and light traffic. How on earth did I manage to get up (on the occasion that I did) at 7:00 in high school? These days I reward myself for even waking in time for my 11:oo music class; mind you, whether or not I actually find the motivation to attend is a different story altogether.

Time to sleep.

Wedding bells are ringing

I went to my cousin Cathy's wedding this past Saturday and remembered why I want to be a wedding planner again. You know how sometimes reality hits you, and you realize that your dreams are kind of ridiculous, and you should focus on more realistic goals? Well, I had that, kind of, but the opposite. I realized that I am basically in love with all things weddings (photography, dresses, food, cute stationery, party planning), and who am I to deny the desire to do what I love?

Plus, I would be amazing at it. I mean, I'm not gonna lie -- I'm not the most multi-talented of people, but event planning... that I can do.

Anyway, it was an absolutely beautiful outdoor ceremony. I wish more of my relatives had shown up though. Can you believe that out of the 23049820384 cousins we have, I was the only one there? I had a good amount of bubbly, despite my mother's watchful eye (she honestly thinks I'm going to pass out from alcohol poisoning after one flute of champagne). I was so impressed by the reception - the whole ballroom was absolutely decked out and so gorgeous.

When Curtis's sister started making her toast to Curtis about growing up with him, she just started tearing up, and then of course I started bawling because I'm the biggest piece of sap around. I got to thinking of the day my brother gets married and boy, I don't even think I'll get past saying his name before I burst into tears.

After that, I got all wedding-obsessed and started shopping for Vera Wang dresses online and checking out potential bling. Sigh. My future husband better be loaded... that's all I'm going to say.

My cousin's new house is on a street named "Summertime Lane." What an adorable street name. How in the world did we get stuck with "Portofino"? I tried to Google map it so I could tell my best friend exactly how many miles (or .75 of miles, or whatever) we are about to live apart, but we aren't even on the map yet. What the hell is Portofino? It sounds like an unappetizing type of mushroom, and I can already foresee having to repeat it and spell it out to people over the phone. We should be all moved in by the time I come home from school (June 16... almost there.) My new room is a seafoamy blue-green. I don't know what kind of whitewashed family we are becoming all of a sudden, painting our walls different colors and all of that.