101 for New Year's Eve. Video's worth a thousand words. :)



More pictures at Flickr because I'm too lazy to type the same comments for the third time. :P

Hope everyone has a great 2008! ^^

Last night we (my sister and I) went clubbing with an old high school friend, Jon. Clubbing in Taiwan's fun, well, clubbing in general is fun if you have the right amount of alcohol, good music, and good company. :P But yesterday's was especially interesting due to a couple of first's ...

1. The clubs we go to normally play hip hop and trance music (in two separate rooms). I definitely always head to the hip hop because I can't stand trance, and hip hop is just easier to dance to (shake your butt! move your hips! sway from side to side!). Anyway, you never hear any rock, or as I call it, white people music (hah. hope that's not racist :P), which is my favorite kind of music, so it's always sad. The last time I heard white people music at a club was when we were at Rain in Vegas. They played some old school rock and that was awesome!!! Anyway, so last night the DJ actually played three Linkin Park songs, which were surprisingly good to dance to (well, the kind of dancing that is jumping up and down, headbanging, and screaming the lyrics at the top of your lungs). There were also a couple of other white people music songs, but I can't remember them anymore. Linkin Park made the biggest impression. That was cool; hopefully they'll play more of those kinds of songs in clubs from now on. :P

2. We were all dancing along when we got a surprise visit ... from the po-po (police lah). My first ever random check up by the police at clubs - I think they were checking for underage people and illegal substances? No idea. It's kind of hard to judge if a person is underage by the way they dress, though, considering how all the girls had tons of make up on and most were wearing skanky clothes. :P They didn't check my ID and I didn't see anybody else get their IDs checked, but we kinda stayed in the locker area for the most part, so maybe that's not where the underage/illegal substance using people hide. Eh. Anyway, there were like, a couple of police officers - I'd say ten? Maybe more. One good thing that came out of this random check up is they gave us free beer! WOOOT! Haha. :P Anyway, took a picture of the police when we were upstairs at our table.

3. I love to dance! Especially when I'm not entirely sober. And I dance kinda crazily when not sober and don't feel self-conscious when not sober. :P Anyway. The point is that I was dancing crazily on one of those podium thingies they have at the club and this random chick starts dancing with me. I'm like, hmm, ok. Why not. And then I leave because of the police visit. And then we go back afterwards and I'm back up on the podium dancing and the girl comes back! She's like, remember me? I was like, sure. Ok. And then she stuffed her business card in my shirt. Mmmyah. I was like, what? Okaaaay now. Run away. Fast. So I go and hide behind Jon. :P Anyway, so I check out her card later that night and apparently she's one of the people at an entertainment management company. Yah. And one of the things they manage is show girls. HAH. Does that mean she thought I'd make a good show girl? Did she not see my fat jiggling while dancing? HAHA. I just thought it was funny and interesting. I don't get hit on by guys at clubs, I just get business cards of chicks from management companies in my shirt. Interesting.

Anyway, so those were the firsts that occurred last night in relation to my clubbing experience. Good times! Other than that, got to meet some of Jon's sister's grad school friends from Nevada. One of the guys, Johnny, was super funny and a super crazy dancer. Never seen a guy so HIGH when it came to dancing at a club. But yah, met some people I'd heard a lot about, so that was interesting. :P Finally get to put faces to names. Also got to see some NEHS class of '07 kids. Yes, I said '07. They are four years younger than me. Aih. And one of them is attending UCLA right now, as a freshmen. Makes me feel SO OLD. :(

But yah, it was an interesting night - probably one of the latest I've been out in Taiwan. Normally we head back home at 2 or 3. Didn't get home till like 4 last night. Crazy.

Ah, I love clubbing. I just want to dance!!! *waves arms crazily*

... till the new year! Till 2008! Crazy. Five years ago I was still a senior in high school, finishing up and sending out my apps for college. Five years later, I'm back in Taiwan but working instead of studying. Crazy how five years can change so much, yet so little at the same time.

Speaking of the new year, I think it's time for some new year's resolutions because I have nothing else to do. :P So, in no particular order (except the order they come to mind), my resolutions for 2008:

1. Stop cussing so much - I think I've come to cuss a bit too much; I blame it on UCLA and all the cussing that happened during my time there. Once in a while it's ok, but I think I'm bordering on excessive, especially when I'm playing computer/video games.

2. Figure out what I want to do - This one's hard. Don't know if I'll actually be able to figure it out, but it'd be nice. Need to know what I want to do with my life! And maybe have a plan for at least the next 5 to 10 years.

3. Learn to drive - This shouldn't be too hard, I just need to get off my lazy ass and find a driving school.

4. Visit Belgium - I'm getting a little bit wanderlusty (as Picker puts it) and I want to go to a new country. The best one is probably Belgium because that's where my parents are at, so free lodging! and fooding! so it's all good. Just need to either quit my job or get some time off. Boo.

5. Lose weight - The same one every year. :P Never get it done. Too hard! Boo!



Mmmm, lets see if I can get any of this done. 加油! (Jia yo aka add oil!)

I feel like the title's grammar is a bit off; today implies the present, so I should be using the present version of the to be verb, yet I'm using the past-tense version. I feel like today's already over even though there's still two more hours till the end of "today." I guess "today" is a pretty subjective word - my today and the standard definition of today (as in this present day, not this present time) are two different things. And if you take it to mean this present time, then that's even more subjective. My view of the present time could end tomorrow, while my friend's view could end in 10 years. So then, when tomorrow comes, do I use the present or past tense when referring to "today"? However, I'm talking about Christmas, so I guess I'm not really referring to the today of present times. Ahhh, I'm not making any sense.

It's just that it doesn't really feel like Christmas. This Christmas is the first one in the past four years that I didn't 1) spend with my parents, 2) have the day off, and 3) have to worry about winter vacation ending soon. That's because I spent Christmas Eve and Day at the office, working (where my freaking pc crashed again so I had to redo everything because I'm stupid and don't save every 5 minutes), so I don't have to worry about the end of vacation since I don't have one. I guess it shouldn't really matter that much because we don't really celebrate Christmas. I think it's just the thought that everyone else is either on vacation or getting the day off that gets to me and makes me a tad bitter. Which totally defeats the purpose of Christmas - isn't it supposed to be a joyous, happy- and gift-filled holiday?

And besides, I had a nice Christmas Eve dinner with my sister and her college friends (where are my friends? ... I have none in this city.). It was a dinner filled with laughter and good food, but sometimes, even with all that merriment surrounding you, you can't help but feel a bit lonely.

Things are different now. I kinda wish I could return to the good old days, be it high school, college, or even earlier. However, alas, we cannot turn back the hands of time, and all we can do is live in our todays toward our tomorrows, whatever, whenever that may be.

So we come to the point of the entry (I really didn't mean to sound all depressing and self-pitying; I'm just tired and I actually had to do a little homework for work. Boo!):

Merry belated Christmas! Hope everyone is well and had a much better Christmas than me. :)

Picture from Wretch/Cwwany.

However, to get rid of the pain, I stuck these muscle relaxant or painkiller thingies on my neck for two nights in a row, and now I'm having an allergic reaction to them. !@#$$#@#!@# ... breaking out in hives and swelling and itchiness. Woe, I can't catch a break. So now I am itchy and sometimes the stabbing pain will return, so I itch and I ache. Why? Why me? :( Is it a sign for me to stop using the computer so much? But my life is my computer! How ... sad. BAH. This sucks.

Anyway, I bought The Game by Neil Strauss about his time spent with the different master pickup artists and his eventual becoming of a mPUA. Ok ok, I don't know why I bought it, but when I saw it I was like, COOL! I want to find out what the guys are learning to help them pickup girls when they could never do it before. And I have to admit, it's pretty interesting. If you don't think about how degrading it is to the women they're picking up and just read it for the story and the characters involved, it's pretty good. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and now if I ever run into a guy who's doing magic tricks or asking for advice about which cologne is better or just wearing really ridiculously flashy clothes I'll know that he's either read the book or actually went to one of the many seminars there apparently was for learning how to pickup girls.

Maybe one of these days I'll be able to organize my thoughts better about the book and write a decent entry about it. But for now, I'm still like, whoa, that's pretty awesome. :P

I have super big crush on this guy, Eric (林健輝). Haha. :P He was on the Taiwanese equivalent of American Idol as a challenger, and he was so good and cute. ^^ Anyway, the video below is him singing "My Way" by Frank Sinatra, and I think it was one of his best performances on the show. Didn't get to see his performance tonight yet, though. Have to wait till replay tomorrow or someone posts it on Youtube. Anywho, fast forward to 20 seconds to hear him sing! :)



<3

If, for some odd reason like me, there's no video showing up there, click on the big white space, which should take you to the youtube site where the video's at. :( iono why it won't show up. Suckah! (Maybe it's just me. heh)

Yes, Picker, I kinda stole the title from your Comfort entry. :P It has inspired me to write a follow-up of my thoughts on your insightful post. :)

(Except my sister just yelled at me for giving her random stuff on Neopets, so I've kinda lost my train of thought. Hmm. Speaking of Neopets, is it weird that I'm still playing it when I'm in my 20's already? Oh man, I can't believe I just said in my 20's ... That makes me feel so old. I feel like I'm still be 15 and in middle school (more like I wish). Where has the time gone to?! T~T)

Anyway, I digress. Being in your comfort zone for an extended period of time isn't the best because it doesn't promote growth, or change, or motivation for the above. You grow stagnant (is that an oxymoron?) in your knowledge, ambitions, thoughts, and just live life pretty much in a routine manner. Wake up, work, eat, watch tv, sleep, repeat. Out of your comfort zone, you strive to find a place where you belong and be comfortable in the world; and during that struggle you grow in wisdom, experience, and mental age (yay maturity!). You learn new things, meet new people, understand yourself a little bit better, and become a better person (yay optimism!).

Having said that, comfort zones are still a good thing to have once in a while.Aand right about now, I wouldn't mind finding my own, even if it only lasts for a couple of weeks. Actually, that's probably the ideal length for a comfort zone so that I can still work towards something that I want instead of staying in a job because it's "comfortable" and not because it's helping me work towards whatever goal I have. Anyway, all this stress from work (afraid of messing up, making a fool of myself, not knowing anything that's going on, etc.) and stress about the future (WHAT DO I WANT TO DO WITH MY LIFE?!?!?!!) is probably making my cortisol levels soar. And then my immune system is probably all suppressed (that word took me forever to spell, and I ended up having to look it up in the dictionary to get the correct spelling - is this the beginning of the end of my English skills?! nooooo!) and I'll probably get sick and AHHH. More stress. Sigh.

I think this shoulder/neck/headache's also stemming from stress. Being tense all the time probably affects your muscles in some negative way, especially when I'm tense and sitting in the same position constantly. But so yah, besides a complaint about my ailments, what I'm really trying to say is that even though comfort zones shouldn't be dwelled upon for a long period of time, once in a while, it's not a bad thing, especially for the health. I need to find my comfort zone or just settle into a healthy routine soon or I feel like my health is going to go further downhill ... and no one wants bad health.

Hello, comfort zone! Where for art thou? Come to meeeee.


Image from Despair.com. Love it.

The tendon/ligament (for once! a word I know how to say in Chinese but not in English) in my neck is frickin swollen, and it hurts. Like. A lot. Like, it's not a constant pain, but I get these sharp, shooting pains every two seconds. Sigh. It hurts. :( I don't know how to make it go away, especially considering how I have to sit in front of the computer for at least two more days. Speaking of which, I probably shouldn't be sitting in front of my computer right now, but there's nothing else I can do that doesn't cause the same pain anyway.

I can't draw because I have to bend my neck down since I don't have a desk (although I did attempt to draw some, but the pain kinda distracted me). I can't read because of the same reason. I can't watch tv because the sofa is perpendicular to the TV so I'd have to turn my head to see it. SIGH. I guess I could go to bed, but that means I need to go shower, but I don't want to because that means I have to wash my hair which will probably involve more neck pain. WAAAAAH.

Why is it swollen? I have no idea except that the muscles in my shoulder are super sore as well. AHHHHHHHH. This sucks. SUCKS. I'm not even old yet and I have all these health problems. SIGH.

Yes, this is a self-pitying, whining-filled entry. I think it's about time for another one anyway.

Three things to be noted:

1. I got my first real paycheck on Friday; real as in being paid for a full-time-(9-6)-with-benefits-and-no-jeans-allowed job.

2. My family (including the extended relatives) has this tradition where whenever we get our first real paycheck, we treat them to food. One of my previous entries was about treating my relatives to fooding because of this tradition, but that was technically before I got my real paycheck.

3. I owe my cousin and her boyfriend and my sister big time for taking care of me while I adapted to this semi-new environment and totally-new, non-student lifestyle. Taking care of me in the sense of making sure I am well-fed (fattie) and treating me many a-times before.

SO! I decided to treat them, on Friday night, to good food, and I decided on French food. I wanted to go to another French restaurant that I'd tried out senior year in high school and enjoyed, but for some reason, four of its six stores had closed down, and the two remaining were either too expensive or too far. After some searching online, we settled on L'Appetit in the East side of Taipei. The price seemed decent, and the reviews seemed good, so we thought we'd give it a shot. Why not!

Not the best French food I've ever had, but then again, I guess you just can't really compare French food in Taipei to French food in France, even if the chef is French. Working with different available ingredients always makes for different tastes, and I'm sure there's a certain challenge to making authentic French food when you're not exactly in France. Anyway, it was good, enjoyable, and very filling. The service was really good, though. The waiter spent like 10 minutes introducing us to the various wines they carried and in the end had to actually pick one for us since we couldn't decide. Thank God for good service! (Especially when you get charged for that service). Anyway, here are some (by some I mean lots of) pictures ....

L'Appetit's sign.

A shot of the interior that doesn't quite do it justice. I missed out on a couple of areas, but the general atmosphere was pretty cozy and nice. There weren't too many people there when we first arrived, probably because we went a bit early. More people started arriving when we were mid-way through our meal.

Yummy pickled olives. That's all I can say. SO GOOD.

Bottle of red, thanks to my sister. From the southwest of France and pretty decent. Yay for good choice made by Mr. Waiter.

First up, soup! Vegetable soup, to be more exact, made of seven (or was it eight ...) different veggies, but it predominantly tasted like carrots.

Les escargots, anybody? Oh-so-yum! Who knew snails could taste so good?

Another yum appetizer - potato gratin. The name they gave it was much more sophisticated and better sounding, but too long for me to remember. >.< Anyway, potatoes, cheese, and bacon. Can't go wrong with that combination. Yum!

The third appetizer - camambert (sp?) cheese and some other stuffs. The cheese was the best part :P

Main course for my sister and me was steak, which was decent, but the steak was kinda chewy (not in a good way). Meh.

Should've gotten the ribs - that was tasty. (Oh man, Fergie's gotten to me; I spelled tasty t-a-s-t-e-y before realizing my mistake. T~T)

And then there was the fish, which was pretty good, too; but meh, not a big fan of fish.

The dessert! Number one - some sort of chocolate cake, which I enjoyed. Thoroughly.

Number two - some kind of roll, which was ok.

Number three - not sure what exactly this was, but it was yum!

Number four - the best one!!! creme brulee .... so good. SO GOOD. ahhhh, too bad so small and the four of us had to share it ... haha. :P

Anyway, the participants of our French cuisine night:

The sister (aka Cathy)

The cousin and boyfriend (aka Karen and Ryan)

Et moi! (and Ryan who looks like a sketchy doode here).

I think I need to start taking more and better pictures of humans and stop focusing as much on food. One can see where my priorities lie. :P

T'was a good and filling dinner; good thing we went walking afterwards to digest. Mmmm, I love French food.

I recently started drawing my usual designs on different mediums instead of my normal paper; thought I'd share. :)


First one - fabric paint and Chinese ink on canvas. Fabric paint was supposed to be for me to paint on fabric, but I had no available fabric, so I used it for the canvas. Paintbrushes are ridiculously hard to control, that's why I ended up using Chinese ink - that brush was way easier to use and thinner too.


My desk at home is actually an ironing board, so I used a piece of cardboard to put my computer on so that my mbp doesn't end up overheating. Anyway, decided to draw on that cardboard, et voila!


It's a ... bottle! I used to draw on bottles a lot back in high school during class (heehee). The designs were way different from now, but that's where this inspiration came from. I wish I'd kept some of those bottles instead of throwing them away every time I finished. Ah well, I've learned my lesson.


Another bottle, but this time it's a glass one. I think I like glass bottles better, not sure why, but it's easier to draw on. Anyway, learned from drawing on the plastic bottle that drawing all the way around makes it kind of too busy and messy, so ended up just drawing on one side. There's actually a little boy on the back (right pic), but the reflection from the camera flash covered him up. :(


Finally found me some fabric for my fabric paint. Got a white hat that someone didn't mind being ruined. It turned out better than I expected when I first started. Paint brush was hard to wield, as I knew from before, but the fabric made it even harder, so there are still some bits of white. Luckily, I had the smart/stupid idea of using a toothpick to do the smaller, more detailed lines. Aih, it took forever, but I'm pretty happy w/ the end result. Still trying to decide whether to just leave as is or actually fill up the bill with the designs. I've been told to leave as is, so I just might.

One thing I've decided - I need to get me a real desk with a desk lamp so I don't end up with a dead shoulder (it's on its way to being dead) and pained neck and blind eyes.

... for allergies. O.M.G. I hate allergies. They're going to be the death of me one of these days. I just want to chop off my nose, not that it'll do anything, but still. Yes, if you can't tell, I'm suffering from a bout of allergy attack right now at work, and I really, really want to bang my head against something in hopes of relieving this stuffiness in the head and nose. Ah!!! Frustrated. I already took my Claritin, but I feel like the reditabs just don't work as well, but that's all I have right now, and I just want allergies to be gone! Someone should name an allergy medicine, allergy-b-gone. Hah. I think I'd totally buy it, especially if it works. Claritin-D definitely works better, but I'm out and I have to wait another two weeks before I can get more from my cousin returning from the States. I sound like an ad for Claritin.

But you know what's the stupidest thing? I don't even know what set off this bout of allergies. There are no cats or dogs in this damn building, and the dust isn't any different from any of the other days I've been here, neither has my amount of sleep varied that much. So what is causing this attack?! I have no frickin clue and that's just frustrating.

And another reason I want this allerginess gone is because I want a cat so badly. They're so cute and recently wherever I go, I've been seeing tons of cats and I want to pet them, but I can't really because of my allergies. And I just love cats and I want one, but I can't because of this stupid allergies!!!! Ahhhhh. I also want dogs, and there are hypoallergenic ones, but I don't want those, I want huskies and german shephards and golden retrievers; not malteses (like terror dog) or poodles. Speaking of huskies (there's a reason why I posted a picture of cute huskies puppies), we saw a cute (adolescent) one last night while walking in the park and it was so furry and puffy and big and cute and awwwww, I just wanted to hug it and kiss and smush it. But alas, all I could do was pat it on the head .... I think I'm not as allergic to dog fur because it's not as thin and gets-everywhere-like-your-nose as cat fur. But cat fur's so much softer and nicer to touch and makes you want to snuggle it ... Aih. I am cursed. Cursed with this allergy when I'm such an animal lover, especially of furry mammals.

Does this entry seem disconnected and rambling and long and not correctly grammatically structured? Does that sentence even make sense? Does any of my sentences flow and connect and make sense? Am I using too many ands and not enough commas? Ah, whatever. I can't breathe, but snot is running down my nose at the same time, which sucks because since I can't breathe, I can't sniff it back in (ew), so I have to blow my nose like every 10 seconds or sniffle really, really loudly ... and my eyes are itchy and watery and getting smaller by the minute and I just want to sleep (TMI? Probably.). So I'm not in the best of shape while attempting to get my work done. And that's why I'm typing up this random, rambling post; better than staring at tiny little numbers that all blur together. BLAH!

(I like how when I google for Husky pictures I get football players ... haaaah; picture from here.)

Wait, is it even possible to find a cure for allergies? Is anyone even attempting to find a cure? Not the Asian kind where you eat garlic pills or drink nasty-ass herbal concoctions to change the chi of your body or whatever, but like, scientifically-backed-permanent cures that'll allow me to snuggle and huggle with doggies and kitties? Aih. Life continues to suck.


[Update] Immunotherapy!! ... Dude! How come I've never heard of that till now? "Immunotherapy works best for allergies to pollen, mold, cat dander, insect stings and dust mites." That's everything I'm allergic to! How come all the allergy doctors I've gone to have never mentioned this treatment before? Does it not exist in Taiwan? I wonder what it's called in Chinese ... Hmmm, looks like it's time to make an appointment with an allergy specialist ....

from xkcd.com ... click image for larger image.

I love reading Postsecret because it's just interesting to see what some people consider their secrets. And I know I shouldn't judge the secrets, but sometimes it's hard not to think "whoa. what's wrong with this person .. " Guess that's why they mailed their secret to postsecret instead of telling anyone. :\ I always feel bad whenever I think/feel that. Hmm. Anyway, here's one from this week that I can totally relate to:



My sister and I were singing all the Christmas carols we could remember on our way home today. I think people who heard us either thought we were really stupid or way too into Christmas. Heh. The holiday's still a whiles away, but it's in less than a month! But it's not like we celebrate it ... Just singing Christmas carols always brings back old memories and brings a warm, fuzzy feeling to my heart. <3

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/world/asia/30ship.html?ref=world

Basically we're not allowed to defend ourselves when China attacks. We'd be like sitting ducks waiting for their missiles to rain down on us. I understand the U.S. is in a hard place - helping one will most definitely anger the other. But hello? Are we really just supposed to sit here and allow China to attack us without having any form of defense besides our tiny military and whatever weapons we are in possession of?

If the US gives in to China and their threats, then they'd be sending a message to Beijing that whenever Beijing wants something or is angry at the US, then all they have to do is deny US warships entry into the HK port.

They'd also be leaving Taiwan somewhat defenseless in the event of an attack by China.

All I can say is, RAWR!!! Gah!

Taiwanese people are supposed to be family-oriented. I think my family is pretty family-oriented in that we all still keep in touch (well, at least my mom's side) and eat food together once in a while. It's rare that all of us are in the same country, much less the same city all the time. My parents are mostly out of the country because of my dad's job, a lot of my relatives still live down in the south, some have moved to the US, so it's hard to have a full family gathering.

Tonight us kids decided to treat the relatives that were in Taipei and free to dinner. For me it was because I've become full-time at my job, and we have this family tradition that whenever someone gets their first paycheck, they have to treat dinner. So anyway, big family gatherings at restaurants are never fun. There's always the nagging, yelling, arguing, fakery, etc. that's involved.

Tonight was no exception. They complained about the food (but also praised it ... for once!), nagged me about finding another job (geez, I JUST found one ... cut me some slack) and other assorted things that I already know I need to do, but just taking one step at a time right now. Also had the obligatory "when are you getting married?" question - thank God not to me since I'm the youngest. That was directed toward my cousin and her boyfriend who was also present and footing part of the bill. I worry the day my cousin and my sister get married because that means I'm next. UGH. Nowadays it's more like, any boyfriends? why no boyfriends? blahblahblah.

Although speaking of being the youngest, my uncle thought I was freaking 26 and had a masters. I have no idea where he got that idea from. =( Made me feel so ... old. SIGH. Do I look that old? God I hope not.

Anyway, enough ranting although this entry nowhere expresses my frustration at sitting at a table surrounded by people yelling from all sides, expressing their own opinions about everything without really listening to others'. Also telling the owner how good/bad their food is - the good is ok, except it kinda sounded very kiss-assy; the bad was hmm ... well, I guess it's a good thing to let the restaurant know what we think, but eh, it always makes me feel uncomfy when listening to my relatives discuss the bad with the restaurant owner. BLAH.

I hate it when people think they're always right no matter what other people say. Stubborn.

Yay! I actually finished work early today, mostly due to the fact that two of my regularly scheduled tasks did not have to be done by me (whoa, major passive voice). I'm still puzzled about the disappearance of one of my tasks - the dude who normally gives me the data to input isn't here today, but last time he went missing, someone else gave me the data. But today, there is no data! ("There is no data" reminds me of my LA neighbor's wireless router name - thereisnotry; it took me forever to figure out what that said - the reis notry? (huh?) there is notry (wtf?) ... ok, random stupid tangent.)

Anyway, on a work-related topic - Everday, I have to check up on these different websites to grab information that I need off of them, and everday, those websites have to be updated by the God of Website Updates. Otherwise, the information isn't current and is of no use to me! Most websites are good at providing up-to-date information; I can just go to my bookmarks, click, and voila! Information! There are a couple of exceptions, though, and those just bug me. Bugs the crap out of me because I have to sit there and constantly refresh to see if the data's been updated (because I know it will be! I will it to be!). Refresh, nope, refresh, nope, refresh, nope, refresh, nope, refresh, YESSSSSS! Thank you God of Website Updates! PRINT! That's basically what goes on in the mind - I feel a sense of happiness and elatedness when I see the date that I want, that I need. That sounds so wrong. Why is my happiness dependent on a measly date? Why do I have to sit here and click the refresh button a bajillion times? Why can't these websites just update their information earlier on, like everyone else so that I don't have to keep on clicking refresh?! Why do some websites not update at all, making me have to do more work the next day because I have to find the data for the previous day and the current day?!?! A;LKSJAD;LKJDAF - can you sense my frustration? I just want to smack the computer when the websites aren't updated.

Yes, it bugs. Bugs me bugs me bugs me! And I hate bugs.

Oh yes, and I also have to constantly refresh my e-mail to check if I've received info via the God of E-mails. Oh man, my whole day can be spent refreshing. Refresh! Refresh! Refresh! YES! DATA!!!!

On a much happier note, I bought Mario Kart for my DS. It's so fun! Too bad no one else I know in Taiwan has a DS so that we can play multiplayer. It's so much fun to hit other people with red, green, blue shells and make them trip over your bananas, especially when it's people you know. They start cursing at you and retaliating and then you curse back and retaliate. Woo! Talk about fun times - I remember playing it on the Gamecube with my Roomie and wasting hours and hours that should've been spent studying and doing homework. Muahaha. Can't wait to play some more when I get home!

Hey! It's a photo slideshow of my pictures from Flickr! Cool! :D

I thought it'd be cool to have a slideshow of my photos on my blog. I was going to use Slide.com, but their slideshow ended up being too big to fit in my small little right column, so gave up on that. But lo and behold! Blogger's come up with a new page element that's exactly as I wanted, and it lets me use an online photo album that I actually have an account with already! Wootness! Hahahaha. Ok, this is really pointless.

My work-update blog is turning into a home-update blog. Work's gotten too busy that I have no time to update! O dear. Things to do one after another that by the time I'm done it's either nearly time to get off or past time to get off. Sigh. So now I have to update at home, but I'm starting to shy away from the computer after coming home. Too much computer-ness at work, making me go blind. :(

Been going walking post-dinner. Should start bringing camera .. maybe. It's always kinda rainy, so maybe not. Ah.

Ok, I will have an interesting post one of these days ... when I have inspiration! Wee!

This story depresses me.

Why would anyone do something like this to someone else, even if she was just a girl who your daughter had a falling out with. Falling outs happen; it's part of life. Some people just need to learn to deal with it without having to hurt others just to make themselves feel better. And to not feel any remorse for what happened? That's even worse. These people ... I just don't get it.

And how is there no law against something like this? It just doesn't seem right.

Today, I got my letter of acceptance for my full-time position. (Yay! Except I'm still on my three-month probationary period. Hmmmm. One wrong move and bye-bye full time job.)

Letters of acceptance - are they what we get to live for for the rest of our lives? It all starts with applications for undergrad. After application crunch time in high school, we all sit around waiting for those letters that supposedly will change our lives and determine our futures - whether for the better (acceptance! yay! I have a future!) or for the worse (rejection! omg, what am I going to do with my life?!). Then after that, it's grad school acceptance/rejection for some, while job acceptance/rejection for others.

If we're unhappy with our jobs, we continue looking, or we give up with the attempt at living in the real world and head back to the sheltered world of schoolage. Either way, it's more letters of acceptances or rejections. It's scary how most of our futures are dependent on these letters (and in extension, the people who control which letter you get). These pieces of papers with words decide whether you'll be stuck in a rut for a little while longer (or forever) or actually get away, a step closer towards your goals or dream.

I can see why people want to be their own bosses and open their own businesses. Generally, you get to make all the rules and decisions, you get to be the one to offer letters of acceptances or rejections to others, and your future is in your own hands. Or so it seems. At the end, no matter what kind of business you run, your success or failure still remains in the hands of others (open a restaurant? Need diners and other people to provide you the materials needed; be a self-employed artist? Need people to buy your art so that you can buy materials to continue creating), and in that sense, you can never outrun those letters of acceptances and rejections - they just take up different a form. How. Sad. :(


What does any of this have to do with the picture? Absolutely nothing - I just think the owls are too cute; and I didn't know what kind of picture to put with this entry anyway. I was thinking of an acceptance letter, but that's boring. Meh. Picture's from cuteoverload.com. Love the site!

Terror dog update! HE IS GONE! muahahahahahahahahaha. It's so good to not have to come home and hear the dog barking or sniffing his nose off and scratching my leg and following me around and howling. It's also good to be able to keep our door open so our room doesn't turn into super stuffy land and to not have to put up with his constant scratching or expelling of his snot onto our door. It's good to not have to sleep with him on the super uncomfy couch only to have to wake up 20 billion times at night so he can pee or poo. It's good to not have to smell his stinky breath when he whines in your face. I want to say it's good that we don't have to smell his stinky body odor after more than a week of no showering, but it's not true (yet). Our apartment still smells like his BO and pee (ew). But o my my, it's good to be terror dog-free. At least he is home and his mommy has returned. Hopefully he will quit being such a terror now that he knows his mom has not abandoned him, and I can go back to calling him by his name, Nike.

To commemorate this joyous occasion, I present a picture that is truly him (when he's not butt annoying):

Today was a sad, sad day in terms of quality of sleep and food (The doggy, above, is to represent how I feel). Shitty sleep is thanks to me having to sleep with the terror dog on the couch. Then, having to wake up constantly to coax him to come back to the sofa after he jumps off the couch because he hears our neighbors walking up and down the stairs or my sister moving around in her room. Oh, and of course I had to wake up in the middle of the night to let him pee. Thank God it's just one more day. Just one more! So close. (Right now, he's outside our bedroom door exhaling snot into the bottom of the door, trying to get our attention so we'll let him in. Ya right, keep dreaming, terror dog.)

The saddest part of today, though, was the not-so-great quality of food we ingested. Lunch time we went to this Malaysian curry place. The food wasn't so bad, at least from what I could tell, but it was super spicy. Like spicy to the point that my mouth , lips, and stomach were on fire. I couldn't even finish my food. I ate like maybe half of it and gave up. It was ridiculous! Especially when I can't stand spicy food in the first place. Ah, lesson learned - always ask if the curry is spicy. Too used to Taiwan curry where it's not spicy, at all. Because it was so spicy, I couldn't really taste the food itself. Just kept chugging down tea and soup. >.< Ouchie.

Then, for dinner I was craving sushi after watching this Japanese show on TV, so we went to this little Japanese restaurant near the apartment. I had a bad feeling because fresh fish is hard to find, especially when it's in a little shop in the middle of the city. Mmmyah, so it turned out to be pretty crappy. Wait, I mean REALLY crappy. The sashimi was not fresh at all and had this slimy quality and really weird taste. And to make matters worse, the boss lady messed up our order and gave us this dish that was more expensive. We only brought a certain amount of money, so when we were ordering, we calculated it so that we would have enough money. Thankfully, even with that mess up, we were still within budget, but that also meant that we did not have enough money for dessert (sadness!!!!). So we were a sad bunch after dinner, trying to find some place where we could spend the remaining 55 NT. We gave up after visiting various tea places and realizing that we didn't have enough money for the three of us and also after discovering the soymilk store we normally go to and could have at least bought two pearl soymilks was closed. We were an even sadder bunch after that failed adventure.

The only plus side to today was Cold Stone! They opened a store near the Taipei Main Station. But I don't know, I think the Cold Stone I ate in LA tasted better - maybe the location actually makes a difference in the taste or it's just all in my mind. Probably. Eh, we ordered the strawberry cheesecake fantasy and the chocolate one w/ brownies, which turned out to be much too too sweet (boo!). And it's super expensive! I think more expensive than LA (more sadness), so we can't go there often. Maybe once a month, maybe less. All we need in Taiwan now is a Chipotle somewhere in the vicinity of Cold Stone. Then I can re-live my last summer in LA where it was Chipotle for dinner then Cold Stone for dessert. Mmmmm, getting hungry just thinking about it. >.<

Food is what makes me happy! and when the foods of the day turns out to be nasty and disappointing, it makes me so, so sad. Hopefully there'll never be another day like this again, and we'll make better decisions when trying out new restaurants.


On another note, I installed Leopard! So now my fantastic mbp is running Leopard, and I really like it, particularly Spaces. It makes my desktop much less cluttered; it comes in handy, especially since I don't have an external monitor anymore. Too bad my macbook pro is kind of dying - my fan's whirring and making crazy-ass sounds, and one of my USB ports has decided to die on me. Ahhhh, need to go find an Apple certified repair center (in Taiwan, bleh) to fix fix fix before my warranty is up. Boo!


Image from Jupiterimages.com.

I tried looking for a picture of the dog, but I guess I didn't upload any even though I could've sworn I did. So I googled it and found this , which kind of looks like Nike except for the tied up fur part. Geez, just looking at this picture makes me scared. Classical condition -ing doing its magic on me. I wonder how long it'll take for me to lose this conditioning.

The little terror dog couldn't have picked a better week to terrorize us, or me rather. Work's getting busy, learning new stuffs - never a good thing to do when you're lacking in sleep. Rawr, I've want to growl at the dog and be like, WHY CAN'T YOU JUST BE MORE INDEPENDENT AND STOP FOLLOWING EVERYONE EVERYWHERE AND HOWLING WHEN NO ONE BIRDS* YOU?! Gah. Frustration. He has to be with someone at all times. If not, he'll start whining, crying, howling. Thank God I'm not my sister having to stay at home with him since she doesn't have classes in the afternoon on Tuesday and none all day Thursday and Friday. Although, she did get a slight reprieve today since she had to go to school - I'm sure she's never been happier to meet with her advisor.

We figured out a way to have him NOT howl while we try to sleep at night. Someone has to sleep with him on our fantastically dusty sofa bed that no one's slept in for, oh, 8 years - maybe more. The other downside for the person sleeping with a smelly dog on a dusty bed is that the dog needs to pee, constantly, even at night, when all is asleep. He'll whine, cry, bark just to get you to wake up so he can either take a piss or a dump. Luckily for me, when I slept with him, he only woke up once - well, technically twice. The second time was like three minutes before my alarm went off, so it's ok. Kinda. My poor sister (again) got woken up four times, I think, and one of the times was to poo. My cousin got her boyfriend to do it for her, so she hasn't had to suffer since that first night (lucky butt). My next turn is Saturday night. Which isn't so bad because at least I can take a nap, not do anything that requires brain power on Sunday.

All I can say is, I don't think I ever want a pet that requires so much attention (Galileo - the pet snake back in LA - has never seemed more of an ideal pet, except when it comes to feeding time. Hmmm ....) or kids. I'm afraid I'll raise them and they'll end up like this needy dog of my aunt's.

I cannot wait till next Monday when this dog goes back home to his mommy!

*Bird (v.) - A saying in Mandarin that when someone doesn't pay attention to you, you say, "s/he's not birding me!" (in Mandarin, of course)

What? Does the title make any sense? =.=

We are dog sitting. We are dog sitting a spoiled nine (or ten) year old mommy's dog who panics and cries the second his mom is out of his sight. My aunt's off to Japan for a week, so we're looking after Nike, her dog. Honestly, he's like one of those insecure-attachment type babies who get anxious and cries the second their mom leaves them to go the bathroom or something. Especially when he's left at a "strange" place (strange being any place that isn't his home).

Don't get me wrong. I love dogs! I love Nike, he's so cute and stuff, but only when my aunt's around. Once she leaves, he turns into this whinny ball of smelly-bad- breath furball who can't stop hyperventilating. Last night, the first night he spent at our place, he pretty much spent the whole night howling and crying away. It's like, holy crap! Do you not get tired? Does your throat not get sore from all that howling? Actually, I'm not sure if it lasted the whole night because I plugged my ears with my earphones and turned up my iPod and fell into fitful sleep, occasionally waking up because of the damn dog's howling or my cousin/sister yelling at him to stfu.

Woke up this morning with a headache and heavy eyes. Attempted to stay awake at work and then passed out for half an hour during lunch. Feeling better now, but if this continues for the remaining time he's here (six more days), I'm either going to go deaf from constantly having the iPod on while sleeping or he's going to be a dead dog by the time my aunt comes back (not an option, she loves that dog like no other). Is it wrong that I kept imagining having a shotgun in my possession and loading it in preparation of shutting the dog up, permanently? Probably. Are all dogs like this? Or is Nike an exceptionally neurotic and insecure dog who likes to pee a little too much?

Image from Yuckos.com

The diet has ended. It actually ended on Friday night when we all gave up and went out to eat fried rice. Oh man, I have decided that I cannot live without rice. Just something about rice that makes me feel so much happier with life. (:P) Can't say it was a total failure, though, because I have lost a couple of Kg's and that was part of the goal. Just can't live a week on that kind of diet, I guess three days is enough. Heh.

Anyway, went to Ximenting this weekend. Saturday was an attempt to find some presents for my buddies in LA, but I ended up buying shoes and a t-shirt. Hah. Will attempt to find more presents next .. time. =P

Today, we went again after lunch to Taipei Main Station where they opened up the 2nd floor as a kind of food court area with food from different countries. For example, they have Pho (yay!), which hasn't opened yet, food from Southeast Asia, and Beard Papa (YAY!). They even have this Sweet Berry, which I think is just a ripoff of Pink Berry, even the logo looks the same, but I haven't tried it yet, so can't tell what their quality's like. We went to eat at the Southeast Asian restaurant called Little Penang. The food was pretty good, a bit overpriced, but the service sucked majorly. It's probably the worst I've seen since coming back to Taiwan. The waiters didn't know what they were doing, didn't know what food they were serving, didn't say anything, didn't get food on our table without us having to rush them. Bad service can be expected in Taiwan because we don't tip our waiters, but in this restaurant they charge a 10% service fee, which is ridiculous because there is NO service. Ahhhhh, it was frustrating. If the service wasn't SO bad, I'd totally recommend the place. But the lousy service takes away 50 points (out of 100) because it just made the meal not as enjoyable.


After that horrible meal, we decided to walk off our calories at Ximenting, which is a really popular hangout for young people - lots of stores, cafes, restaurants. Super crowded during the weekends.






On our way there we saw a toilet restaurant! I wanna go try it just to see what they sell inside. It's kinda interesting. :D





We went to this old theater that they turned into a temporary street vendor-ish place. Each vendor sold stuff that they made, so it was made up of a lot of artists and their crafts. It was totally awesome to see what different people can come up with. Some stuffs were cute, others were pretty, and still others were cool. Meh. Here are some pictures. :)














These next two were inside the theater itself where they were having a sort of exhibition of old stuffs found in Taiwan ...


Old school film camera? Or Something?


Old school hair dryer and iron.


While we were there, a famous Taiwanese pop singer Show (羅志祥) was have his autograph session there. The line was craaaaazy long. I guess his latest album's color is yellow or something because a lot of his fans were wearing his yellow shirt.



To finish our trip at Ximenting, we went to a famous Star Fruit Juice store and had some of their star fruit juice. It was sour, but good! Thank God we had given up our diet, or we would have had to forgo the yumminess :)



More pictures at flickr/xlisapoox