For some reason, I am feeling very eager to have the new year come already but at the same time, I am Continue reading “I Wish the New Year Would Arrive Already!”
Category: Diary
A Grown Up Trapped in a tiny body
I just spent the entire morning shoveling ankle deep snow on my driveway and the incredibly long sidewalk. Oddly though, the only places aching are my shoulders and neck. At the moment, I do not want to move from this couch.
My mom said I needed the exercise and for once, I couldn’t be more agreeing with her. This entire holiday season had been nothing but eat eat and eat. Honestly, I can’t wait for this to end. The biggest consequence? I haven’t been able to get some exercise and I gained 2 pounds from all that hot pot. That’s the down side to eating hot pot, you keep putting food into the pot and eating more, never knowing when you’re full.
I wasn’t really going to write today. I’ve been obsessed over reading the Night World series. I began reading book one yesterday and finished it this morning. Once I started reading, I couldn’t stop. Besides, today’s prompt feel kind of repeated, oh look, it is. It’s a recycled prompt and what’s point in writing when there are already 130+ posts waiting to be read?
But what the heck, I’ll answer it anyway. I can’t remember when was the first time I felt really grown up. I guess I’ve always felt like I was a grown-up trapped in a child’s body. I’ve never partied nor have I taken advantage when my mom left me in charge of all her credit cards and money when she went off to basic training. I responsibly spent and paid the bills. I think that’s the one thing she’s ever admitted to be proud of.
On the other hand, I can say my aunt’s the opposite. She’s like a child stuck in a grown-up body. Over the years, I feel like she’s becoming more and more child-like.
I’ve written a post about a similar topic about grown-ups, you can read it by clicking here.
Why A Simple Life…
I was updating the About page and noticed it’s been about six months since I changed my blog name and I never bothered to introduce how it came to be A Simple Life.
So since I’m done for the semester and have few short days alone by myself, I thought I’d take the chance and do this late introduction to my blog. Oh and you’ll notice I’m playing with colors here, that’s how bored I am. 😀
F.Y.I, the underlines are links to ancient ancient posts, I thought I’d let you re-live them as part of looking back this year.
My blog is call A Simple Life. I changed it recently from My Simple Life after realizing I don’t have a simple life anymore. So now, this is A Simple Life and it reads in the heading, Tales and Life of a Simple Girl.
That tells a lot, doesn’t it? This blog is a tiny bit more stable now than a year ago. You see, this started out a nameless blog and then I went, “Oh, heck with it.” and named it The Random Blog.
Then I forgot about it, from February to September. How do you forget you have a blog? Shrug. I don’t know.
How did I come back?
I got an email one day last September saying someone likes my post. It was this post like that somehow inspired me to come back. After I came back, I didn’t know what to write at first but then I working three jobs and my boss was driving me insane. Also I had no one to complain to. So I wrote this post and several others.
Quickly, I took out the in the title and this became just Random Blog. It didn’t attract a lot of attention though 😦 no matter how many post I published. Hmm, I wonder why.
I didn’t find out until about six months ago. I was tagging too happily. 🙂
I still didn’t like the name though because I thought it was too misleading, perhaps make the readers think maybe I just re-blog other people’s material or maybe just post some random stuff. Nah uh, that’s not me. I’m a storyteller.
So on that hot summer night, while I was lying on my warm bed, kept awake by the F-16s and the heat, out of nowhere, a name hit me, Diary of An Optimist. For that short month (June and July), this blog was known as the Diary of An Optimist. I thought I liked it but then I was like, “Nah, too thought provoking.” I’m not into that.
So I changed it again. I kept thinking and thinking. What to name this darn blog? You see, I’m terrible with naming things.
What is the thing that simply described me and what this blog entailed. Life! That’s one word to put it. It’s about real life, my life, full of ups and downs, happiness and sadness, troubles and chaos. That still doesn’t give me a name though.
Simple! My aunt and cousin were coming soon and once they arrived, I would have to cook for them, teach them, help them. Even the months before they came, it was becoming complicated, with me stuck at home daily waiting for the man to come everyday to work on the basement. Meanwhile, my mother’s temper flared every time she spoke of their arrival. Not to mention my life will no longer be two-some but four-some. I just wish that life could be as simple as what I have now.
That was it! Simple Life that’s the name for the blog!
A Simple Life is about my life as it is. I am a person who strive for simplicity in life. I’m sure I’m not the only one. As you can see, everything about the design of this blog promotes peace, tranquility, and simplicity.
I’ve always wanted to become a graphic or web designer, either one, no preference there. So making my desktop backgrounds look good as well as playing with web design is kind of like my second hobby aside from jigsaw puzzles.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this how my blog came to be post and I do hope that I will still make it a habit to blog everyday in 2015. That’ll be my goal and hopefully, I’ll have some juicy stories to share. Oh and please follow, follow, follow!
Gotta get back to work. So ciao for now. 😉
Proving my Generosity
I thought about doing the daily prompt today. Then again, I’m only in my early 20’s. And because of the wonderful doctors who somewhat cured me of my genetic disorder, okay, not cured specifically, more like prolonged my livelihood past my 30’s. My point, it’s a little too soon for me to have a bucket list let alone an anti-bucket list, if I even decide to have one.
Anyway, I got into a small argument with my mother on Friday because my aunt was whining her clothes got ruined from painting the rental home. My mom said it’s because I wouldn’t spare some of my clothes. Well, I’m sorry but I never said to buy this house, my aunt did and I’ve got plenty of clothes ruined from painting houses. Does it mean now that she doesn’t get to sacrifice some of her clothes?
I lost my temper and screamed at my mom because she kept calling me selfish. What made me lose my temper wasn’t what she called me but how she said it, in that mocking tone, like a tease. I don’t like to be teased or mocked.
I kept telling her I don’t have any clothes to spare. It’s not because I’m sentimental and selfish either, it’s because I really don’t have any. Most of my clothes are brand-new, purchased in the recent months, less than a year old. Besides, most of my clothes are short-sleeved and twice as big as what my aunt owned and my aunt’s like a Quaker, I’ve never seen her in anything less than a long-sleeves turtleneck, long pants, and childishly colorful socks.
So my aunt wore one of her turtlenecks and jeans that day and she and my mom spent the whole day Friday painting the rental home while I spent the day running around town on my own. Her turtleneck and jeans were slightly ruined (splattered by paint) but she was reluctant to throw it away unlike my mother. So it’s currently soaking in a large bucket of water downstairs in the laundry room.
It was completely wrong of my mom to call me selfish. I am not a selfish person, if anything, I’m unselfish. If I’m selfish, I would’ve kept all my food to myself instead of sharing it with everyone else. I wouldn’t have allowed anyone else to watch TV or use my internet.
So I spent the entire day yesterday proving to everybody I’m not selfish. We went out for dim sum and morning tea for the first time in months and I paid for it with my own money. I even threw in a generous 20% tip because we occupied the table for so long.
Then when we went to the Chinese supermarket and bought enough grocery to hopefully last more than a week this time, I once again paid for it out of my own money. I felt kind of gut-wrenching when I swiped that card because I’ve never spent more than $100 a day except when I get my course material for school and tuition payment due date. But it proved my point. I am not a selfish person. End of discussion.
Sometimes, it’s best to hide
Happy Friday!
Today is the first day of my winter break but I woke up this morning by this pain in my right arm. I hope the nerve in neck aren’t swollen again and is not now affecting my arm.
Anyway, I took a look at the prompt this morning, more question and answer. Will there be a prompt that actually inspires me to write a story? Of course, lying is not okay, it’s never okay! Otherwise, why would anyone teach us that? On the other hand, you can’t expect a person to tell the truth all the time either. The truth hurts sometimes, you know.
Sometimes, it’s better to just tell neither, to simply to just hide the truth.
I remember the start of junior year into my engineering program. My grades from the semester before were terrible. I couldn’t understand why except that numbers just aren’t on my side. The entire semester, I couldn’t find a single proper answer to a single problem. I followed the exact same procedure as taught by the instructor and still couldn’t get the right answer.
About two weeks after receiving my grades, I received an email from my adviser saying that I’ve been down-graded from major status to pre-engineering status. That was terrible news for me, for anyone, in this matter.
To be back at pre-engineering status meant I couldn’t be enrolled into the already registered classes. It meant the only class I could be enrolled was the one I’m retaking. Worst of all, it meant I only had one course.
Quickly, thoughts swirled in my head. How am I going to explain to mom when she sees the tuition bill and only sees one course register? What am I supposed to tell her? That my grades were so terrible that I’ve been kicked out of the program?
My head and chest pounded as I got up and paced back and forth in my room, trying to come up with a solution. Then I decided. I’m going to fix this myself and I’m going to tell mom nothing. She will know nothing of this. My adviser and I communicated back and forth through email.
For two days, my hands shook and I hardly had any appetite. I felt bad about hiding this from her. In my freshman year, I failed Chemistry. I hated this, I’ve never failed anything in my life. When mom discovered, she was angry but at the time, she didn’t have as bad of a temper as she has now. But she told me, “If you don’t tell me, I can’t help you.” So maybe she helped me then, she could help me now.
But another part of me thought otherwise. So I kept it from her. Two days later, a solution came, it was like god-sent. I discovered in my degree audit report that they never took the “E” I got from Chemistry away and thus lowering my GPA to below requirement. I emailed my adviser and told her what I’ve found and asked her to have that removed since I’ve already taken that class. I was back on track.
The lie in that little story was that I pretended to be fine when everything was fine. I should have told my mother the truth instead of hiding it from her. On the other hand, I wanted to prove to her that I can handle things on my own, that I don’t need her guidance on every misstep I happen upon this crazy journey call life. I guess I’ve proven that here.
A Mighty Risk Paid Off!
As some of you know, I recently joined my university’s chapter of the Beta Alpha Psi, a professional club for Accounting and Finance major. I’d say that’s a pretty big risk for me, both socially and professionally. I joined the ASCE when I did my undergraduate and look where that landed me, still unemployed and living at home. Continue reading “A Mighty Risk Paid Off!”
Why couldn’t I just left it alone?
If there is one thing I regret doing, it would be doing that surgery more than a year back and getting braces. Continue reading “Why couldn’t I just left it alone?”
The Long and Bumpy Road
Sometimes, I think back to three years ago, I was in the third year of my undergraduate degree, when my mother suggested that I switch major from engineering to accounting. I didn’t listen. I even argued that if I switched, I would have to start over. Except for the math courses, I would have to take the lower requirements courses all over again.
I went on to my degree until the end. Now, three years later, I am sitting in an intermediate accounting class, trying to understand something I have no knowledge of. Yes, I have an undergraduate degree but without passing the licensing exam, I cannot get a job. So I’m kind of back to square one and have to go back to school to learn about something else. Sometimes, I feel like if I did switch major three years ago, I would have graduated this year or the next and I might even have a job instead of now, still in school, next to jobless, still living with mom.
But I didn’t fail, I believe I have just hit one of the bumps on the road of success. The road of success may be long and bumpy but sooner or later, we will reach the end which at that time, we will tell our extra spicy success stories.
A Little Life Update: So So Busy
Do you know a horrible way to cook hot dogs? I didn’t realize it until this morning when my cousin did it. Microwaving it without water. The whole house smelled like exploding hot dogs. I can even smell it now in class! It’s horrible! Continue reading “A Little Life Update: So So Busy”
TGIF: I am achy and exhausted!
I think if you look at me now, I would probably look like the picture on the left. Not to complain but my back aches, so do my knees, legs, and heels. My arms don’t hurt but my fingers were full of pain about two hours ago. Now, I just have the usual wrist pain in my right wrist, probably from what people call the “mouse hand”. Continue reading “TGIF: I am achy and exhausted!”
The Good, The Bad, and the Oddest
So I’ve had a wonderfully odd day that was full of good and bad, how ’bout you? Continue reading “The Good, The Bad, and the Oddest”
Too much socializing for this great night
I did so much socializing tonight that my throat feels bone dry right now. I just drank a bottle of water (0.5 L) and my throat still feels strained. Before you ask, no I wasn’t at a party. I was at an event at school. It’s call “Meet the Firms” and it’s held every year, the second Wednesday of September. Basically, all the companies around the area come to one place and as Accounting students, it’s our jobs to go meet them and try to secure an interview for an internship or a full-time position.
It turned out every firm is hiring interns. All the firms I met tonight ask me which way I’m leaning, auditing or tax. I answered them, no preference. I am still exploring. Was that a risky answer? I have no idea. All I knew was my heart was pounding every time I approach a representative. I don’t know why. I guess I just want to say the wrong thing and then end up on their “do not hire” list if they had one which I’m pretty sure they do. 🙂
Anyway, I arrived there at a little after 5:30 pm and walked in. From the get-go, I had no clue what to do, where to start, and where’s the club. Everyone looked the same. I couldn’t tell who from who. Everyone except me wore suits. Guys, white shirt, black jacket and pants, and slick shoes while ladies, white shirt, skirt, jacket, and heels or dress shoes. Me, slacks, my most formal shirt, and tennis shoes. I guess that made me stand out just a little.
My face immediately turned red while making a round around to see what kind of firms are here. There was a lot and by a lot, I mean, much more than the turn out for the engineering career fair earlier this year.
After a few minutes, I gathered my courage and approached a company. I introduced myself, told the representative my name. He asked me where I am currently in the program and I recited my 30-seconds elevator pitch as I’ve practiced earlier today during the general career fair held at the school.
“I am currently leveling to get into the Masters program.” I said.
Immediately, he knew I didn’t do my undergrad in Accounting. “What was your major for you undergraduate?” He asked.
“Civil Engineering,” I said and immediately, I could tell he was surprised just like all the other company representatives I visited. They all asked me why I decided to do accounting. I told some of them I wanted to try new things but I also told most of them all the females in my mom’s family were accountant and I decided to follow family tradition which it’s partially true.
It did the trick for some of them, I struck a conversation while some of them just told me to go online to their websites to check out the internships. Was that a hint that I am not getting hired? Anyway, after talking to that first company, I finally found the club and I was supposed to report for volunteering duty for the next 30 minutes. They asked me to sit down and do check-in duty. It was a piece of cake since I worked as a secretary and a receptionist. After a while, I even struck a conversation with the girl sitting next to me. She was also on volunteer duty.
The 30 minutes went by just like that but now I have finally mustered the courage to go speak to the companies. Conversing with that girl helped me warm up, now I knew exactly what to say. I have made it through half of the companies by the time I checked the time on my cell. An hour had gone by. Whoa, and I thought I would rush through this and go home. Guess not.
Another 20 minutes had gone by by the time I finished talking to the other half of the companies. I’ve collected so much souvenirs, brochures, and business cards from the companies that I had to find an empty spot to organize them and put all of them in my purse. My three copies of resumes were gone, I’ve handed them out to the only companies that requested it. In the end, I got a water bottle, a dozen business cards and brochures, pens, and chocolate. I was done. I drove home and now I am going to enjoy the remainder of my lunar B-day.
Good Night!
Late Night Thoughts
I am a bit scared right now. Outside my bedroom window parked three cop cars. The last time there were this many cop cars outside my home was a few years ago when mom and I had just moved into our current home. Our neighbor had called the cops one night after they heard shots fired.
It turned out it was a group of idiots in the next street playing a game of paintball with BB guns and plastic bullet. Then when the plastic bullets ricocheted off of the garbage cans, it made this loud bang. It scared me to death when I went to take out the garbage. Anyway several police cars came that night and I never again heard another loud bang in the neighborhood again.
The only other time I’ve seen a police car outside my home was when a cop pulled someone over for speeding. That is until tonight. I could’ve sworn those police cars weren’t there when I watched the carpet installer left a hour ago. When did they get here? Why are they here?
I cringe at the sight of cop cars. I don’t like police but then who does? The last time I had a run-in with a police-officer, I got a citation for not yielding cars going straight. It wasn’t my fault, I tell ya but the cop rather believe the big-breasted lady with sad puppy dog eyes and totaled car. Also, at the sight of police, I feel like I’ve done something wrong even though I didn’t.
When I noticed the cars 30 minutes ago, creepy and horrible thoughts began to take over my mind. What if they are monitoring my activities? Or could the cops be friends with my next door neighbor and he’s just over there visiting or staying the night? Or what if one of my neighbors had done something wrong? My teeth are clattering here.
Stop it! Geez, it’s not like they are flashing lights or screaming over the bullhorn to tell me to come out and surrender. Relax. They are just parked there, occupying a quarter of the curb to my driveway, but they are just there. Oh, please tell me that’s it. That’s what all it is. It’s been a long, confusing, and horrible day and I don’t want to deal with anything else.
Good night and be back tomorrow morning. 🙂
Shutting Down
This morning, I woke up, un-energized. My body ached while my brain felt like it’s gone into shut-down mode. I cannot think of one thing to write. I looked at the Daily Prompt and cannot think of one situation to relate. Continue reading “Shutting Down”
Don’t want to get up!
I live in Northern Utah. So I don’t get to see sunrise because well, the mountains are in the way. But I still think the sun is very annoying. Sure sunshine’s nice but when you’re driving eastbound at 8 o’clock in the morning and that sun has reach high enough over the mountain to shine in your eyes, it’s not so great. Continue reading “Don’t want to get up!”
Changes are coming which means challenges challenges challenges!!!
In two days, I am back in school and I can’t help but feel like changes is coming my way. First of all, I am back in school, five days a week, each day about 3 hours (that’s not so bad 🙂 ). Continue reading “Changes are coming which means challenges challenges challenges!!!”
An Ironic Situation
When someone tells you you need to buy a new something to replace your current something and then your current something suddenly breaks down the next day or so, do you consider this situation to be weird, ironic, perhaps? Continue reading “An Ironic Situation”
False Accusations
Okay, so I don’t usually make accusations and assumptions unless there are evidence and fact pointing me to it but my mom, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. She likes to make accusations and assumptions. It’s almost like that’s all she does. Worst of all, her accusations are based on evidence that is not there. Almost every one of her assumptions are flawed and I have complete evidence to back me up every time.
Ever since I graduated and began staying at home, she’s been assuming I wake up very late in the morning. There is no evidence proving that. In fact, this assumption is completely 100% false! I have been waking up at 7-something every morning because I cannot sleep due to the heat. Then during just about everyday in July, when she was going to school for some language training, she shook me awake before 7 every morning.
She claimed that I can fall asleep whenever I please including after she had left at 7:45. That is completely false, too. When she was gone, I have already changed my clothes and she knew how much I hate sleeping in anything but my pajamas. Also, she is basing the fact that I can fall asleep whenever I please from when I was a baby. Babies sleeps, a lot! Well, I’m not a baby anymore.
I tried to prove her wrong a couple times by waking up at 7-something on the weekend but she didn’t acknowledge and continued to accuse me of waking up late in the morning. Ugh, so frustrating. Sometimes I just want to shout, STOP MAKING WRONG ACCUSATIONS!!!
A Curious Tale For a Saturday
It is very hard to sleep in sometime even when I’m given the chance. This morning, I woke up to loud laughs and shouts downstairs. Continue reading “A Curious Tale For a Saturday”
Looking back so far…
The new school year is approaching and summer is rapidly drawing to an end. Therefore I thought I’d review how this year has been like so far. Continue reading “Looking back so far…”
Paid off Finally!
Last October, when I dropped below half-time (<6 credits) in school, the loan company immediately needed me to repay my student loan. How dumb is that? At least let me finish school, earn a decent wage before making me repay the loans. Continue reading “Paid off Finally!”
There is no better feeling than knowing all your work is done
The entire week last week, mom has been pushing me. She was like, “I want to get this done this weekend.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy. You can’t rush when it came to updating a website. Continue reading “There is no better feeling than knowing all your work is done”
How long does it take…to learn English
When I was teaching English to newcomer students at LCA, a private school I work at for the past two years, I often get this exact question from either my students or some concerned parents who like to waltz in and out of the school as they please.
How long did it take you to speak English so fluently?
Me: About 3 months
Concerned Parent/Student: Wow, tell me your secret. Maybe I can do what you did.
That was usually my queue to tell the brief summary of my experiences during my first year in the U.S. But I never got to tell the whole thing before I was cut off like when someone yells cut in the middle of a scene and walks off the set and never comes back. Anyway, I want to take this chance to finally get all my words down in this one single uninterrupted article.
I came to the U.S. when I was 10, an age when it’s all about curiosity and learning. Moreover, I was prepared. In fact, I’ve been preparing for this trip ever since I was 7 and it did help that when I went to school in China, I was elected the class group leader for the English subject (英语科组长) two years in a row.
When I landed that night at LAX, I was dove head first into a conundrum. My step-dad spoke nothing but English. I didn’t have a choice except learn the language. After a frustratingly difficult first Christmas, I was enrolled into the second semester of 5th grade even though I didn’t even finish the first semester of 4th grade.
Luckily, there was a Newcomer’s program. I was in a classroom 8 hours a day, 5 days a week learning the basics of the English language along with 15 or so other newcomers from other parts of the globe (mainly Mexico).
Each afternoon, after getting home from school, I sat in front of the TV watching non-stop comedy and other shows. I wasn’t even allowed to turn to the Chinese channel. At first, I couldn’t understand a thing. It wasn’t until a couple months later that I finally managed to grasp the jokes and the funniness of the shows.
That first summer, mom got a job at a tutoring center teaching newcomer kids English and dragged me along. By the time summer was over, I was as fluent as I could be after 9 months of constant learning. On the other hand, my Chinese went way down because of the lack of usage. I can still speak fluently but reading and writing, not so much.
Most of the time, all they grasped was that watching TV can learn English and nothing else. I told them though, if you are willing to put in the effort, you can accomplish anything.
This is Another Story 