Things on my mind
I don’t ever remember a case where I needed the internet as bad as I had this past weekend. Sorry, that sentence came out sort of weird. I guess I’m just a bit off my rhythm from not blogging or writing for two days straight. It might also be the fact that I’ve been staring at Chinese characters so much that my English is starting to deteriorate. 😛 Continue reading “Sometimes, I wish the internet and I are strangers” →
I wonder, for once, can I just have a nice, peaceful, enjoyable weekend? I mean, is it just thinking about it wrong?
This past week This past weekend had just been awful and full of drama. First, my neighbor did a good thing for us and it backfired on me. Then the internet modem broke. What’s next??? In the midst of all this, guess who is getting blamed?
Last Thursday, around 10 am, the internet modem suddenly shut off by itself. I reset it a couple times and it seemed to work alright since.
Later that day, my neighbor came over to look at our basement to see if a bathroom can be built down here since my cousin’s coming and I don’t want to share a bathroom with him. He even replaced a bad GFCI outlet. You know, the one with the reset and test button but he only made things worse.
Now, not only the outlets in the bathrooms don’t work but the outlets in the kitchen are also not working anymore. Mom went berserk and began insulting me as soon as I told her the news. As always, I held back my tears and ignored her until our neighbor showed up and the two of them talked on and on about god knows what.
Then on Friday, mom suddenly went on a frantic search for the 4G hotspot wall-charger which she “evidently” left it at work. For some reason, she wanted to return the hotspot device she purchased a week ago because the data rate is draining too fast. Apparently, if you go on sites with a lot of ads, Your data goes like water. I thought it’s pretty obvious but apparently mom doesn’t pay attention to ads.
On Saturday morning, I was woken up at 6 am. The internet modem failed just like on Thursday except there wasn’t a miracle like on Thursday. That day, no DSL, no internet, no phone! As usual, mom thought I could fix anything or call customer service at 6 am on a Saturday morning.
That entire day, I felt exhausted and weird, like I was miles from civilization. I still do even though we are in possession of the 4G hotspot (thank god we have a car charger) but I cannot watch anything on the internet. I’ve never felt so limited in my own home. 😦
Anyway, I called the customer service 3 hours later and the guy was no help at all. He said he’s dispatched some techs to come out here but he doubt the problem will be resolved at least not until the end of Tuesday. I’m like TUESDAY! Are you saying I’m not going to have internet until Tuesday?
The guy responded calmly, “yes.”
I responded calmly as well, “Okay, can the techs be here sooner?” I don’t know, like today?!
“I’m sorry, ma’am but techs don’t usually work on Saturdays unless it’s an emergency.” Oh and you don’t call this an emergency? Hello! I have to work here.
There are just no talking to customer service agent, they’re just so freaking calm like they’ve just taken a chill pill, literally. I got off the phone with nothing resolved. Fortunately, I’ve set up an appointment to have new high-speed internet installed on Thursday Tuesday (the highlight of my week, yay). 🙂 Then I’ll be 10x faster and no more limit.
For the past two days though, I’ve been trying to conserve the data usage (with 4 1 days to go and <3GB of data). I’ve only gone online for about 5 minutes at a time every 4 or 5 hours or so on Saturday but yesterday, mom was pushing me to work, so I’ve been online all day but I didn’t do anything except work.
Ugh, this limited data thing is making my life boring as hell and it’s slowing me down to reach my goal of 100 posts this week. Life isn’t so bright when there’s too many things happening at the same time.
Thanks for listening to my droning rant. 🙂
It’s been a slow and frustrating day so far. I woke up at 7-something this morning, eager to start the new semester for my Masters program only to find both of my classes incredibly difficult to get in, the websites that is.
What is the deal with the teachers running these online classes? Are they trying to give the students enough headaches and hope they’ll drop the class the first week?
Seriously, I have taken plenty of online classes before and never had I have such a headache with an online class before. Sure, the syllabus said the course would be a piece of cake and blah blah blah but it doesn’t say anything about accessing the course. I’ve already paid the tuition plus a bunch of expensive small fees for each course. Shouldn’t you at least make this tiny thing easier for me? For everybody?
Just getting into the course part took me almost two hours and in the end, I still couldn’t get in. I had to call the customer service. The customer service! I’ve never had to do that before! For all the engineering and history online classes I’ve taken as an undergraduate. What, now I’m a graduate, you decided to up the computer difficulty level?
It’s just an economics class, not a computer class. Don’t make it so complicated.
Another frustrating thing is I used to be a computer nerd, now I can’t even figure out a simple website?! I feel like my patience level just went from way up there to way down here. Hmm, I wonder, am I getting old?
Just looking for some place to vent my frustration, thanks for listening.
Happy Saturday, Everybody!!! Continue reading “The Weekend I’ve been waiting for” →
It’s hard to believe May just flew by and it’s June already. May has been an over-productive month for me Continue reading “Last Day of May” →
Last night, as I tossed and turned, kept awake by the lack of air conditioning and wind, I had an epiphany. Continue reading “An Epiphany” →
This picture is so right, blogging is a journey. After more than a year and 50 posts later, I think I should dedicate this single post to tell about my journey to blogging.
One day, I was in the university’s coffee shop having lunch. I noticed the guy sitting next to me was eating a bagel. Of course, at the time, I thought about food and eating more frequently than usual. Then a completely unrelated thought hit me. My mom always said that bagels are the most traditional American food she’d known.
At once, I opened my laptop and googled “bagels” and clicked on the wikipedia link. As I read the article, I was surprised that bagels came from Poland and not what my mom said at all. I immediately opened Microsoft Word and began typing. I didn’t know what I wrote at first but after a short while, it was starting to come together like a jigsaw puzzle.
After researching two more different foods (Fish and Chips and Pizza), I became convinced that this was my 7th speech for my Toastmasters Competent Communicator. The different varieties of foods influenced by different cultures. (Need reference? Look back at my very first article from last February!)
I was beyond excited and believe me, in those days, I don’t get excited about writing. So I finished my speech about two weeks ahead and all of the sudden, I wanted to write MORE!!! But what should I write about? Also, I wanted to not only write everyday to improve my writing and communication but I also need some feedback from someone other than myself, from total strangers perhaps? 😀
A few days later, while I was doing my homework, my mom came in and asked me about microblogging, you know, what it is, how to set it up, and whatnot. The term blogging collided into my brain like a meteor. This was it! This was how I was going to get my feedback. I’m going to share my writing with the world!
As I waved my mom away, promising her I would research it later, I quickly googled “blogging websites.” A bunch of links came up but the one that caught my attention was wordpress. It sounded familiar like I used it before and I was right. I had to turn in a blogging assignment more than two years ago for my American Economic History course.
I signed a blog and posted the essay I wrote about food. Within a couple days, I noticed people were liking it and some even became my followers. Not a lot, I might add but it was progress because I never had anyone like anything I did before. I’ve been told I’m flawed at many things but maybe I’ve finally managed to find something I’m good at.
However, with my busy full-time schoolwork and two-hour exhausting commute trips between home, school, and work, I didn’t have the time to keep writing. So I went into a long blogging hiatus until last September when I suddenly thought of blogging again while sitting in my empty classroom. I began writing again.
Since then, although I’ve been spotty with posts, I managed to keep up, writing about my observations, my daily life, and most importantly, about what I know. As I posted my own articles, I was reading other people’s posts to get a sense of how can I improve in my blogging and writing.
It was a good journey for me to be able to reach 50 posts and more than 100 followers in a little more than a year. For the past three weeks, I have been persistent with my blogs and writing almost daily even though I’ve hit many bumps along the way. Like work and slight writer’s block now and then but I have fun though and I’m looking forward to reaching my next goal.
Next goal: 100 posts and 500 followers!
For about three weeks now, I’ve been looking at this piece of land with my mom. For some reason, she can’t make up her mind about purchasing the land. For me, it doesn’t really matter since I may or may not live there.
In these three weeks, she’s been coming up with excuses after another.
After once again going out to the piece of land a few days ago as well as looking at a model home, another set of excuses were made.
After her colleague/potential neighbor told her that there are snakes in that part of the neighborhood, it scared my mom out of her wits. She has been terrified of snakes ever since her high school classmates placed a tiny snake in her dresser as a prank. I don’t know if that’s the true story, although I doubt it, her classmates are way too serious to pull any sort of pranks.
Anyway, I think that’s the silliest excuse I’ve ever heard. There are snakes everywhere, does that mean you’re not going to live anywhere?
I also don’t believe in snakes just popping out from nowhere. There has to be something that lures the snake to its destination (i.e backyard, garages, house). I told her, if you see a snake in the house, you would’ve been the luckiest person in the neighborhood.
That turned out to be the ultimate deal breaker, right after she demanded the agent to lower the price. I think the agent might have a melt down after he tried so hard to negotiate the price. She doesn’t want it!!!
I feel a little bad for the agent now. 😦 On the other hand, I kind of have a feeling from the get go that this wasn’t going to work out no matter how gorgeous the view is and I have no interest of getting in the middle. The middle man always gets blamed whenever something goes wrong! I remembered how well that worked out when she purchased our current home.
More or less, I think her latest excuse is just the same as excuse #2. She just might not like the view no matter how high the house goes.
This was it! For the past week, just about every other night, my mom and I have fought and fought leading up to last night’s little rounds of slamming doors. Continue reading “The Unwinnable War” →
Graduation is one of the most memorable days or nights in anybody’s life whether you are graduating from high school or college, the ceremony itself just somehow makes you feel like for just this one day, you are the most important person and nothing else matters. Continue reading “Most Memorable Nights of a Lifetime” →
Every parent dreads the day when their son or daughter is leaving home to find a life for themselves. They may try every way possible or maybe even give up everything to get their children to stay a little longer but sooner or later, they know they have to move on. In fact, I believe that is exactly what is happening to me right now. Continue reading “Moving on” →
Yesterday was officially the last final of my academic career. I could feel my brain sagged just a little the minute the TA collected the test papers from my hands. I was like, “Yes! After 20 years, I’m finally done.” Continue reading “A Life of Endless Learning” →
As I sit here at my desk thinking and thinking and I realized, it’s almost the last week of February and I still haven’t written a single post for this blog this whole month. It’s strange to think I’ve done so much this past week let alone this past month. Hmm, what to write about? Ding, a light bulb lit up in my head, let’s summarize how 2014 has been for me so far; sort of like a timeline I can look back at the end of the year.
January:
First of all, 2014 started on a light note. On New Year’s Day, I had the house all to myself as I sat on the couch in my pajamas watching the Rose Parade which I enjoy watching every year. Then on the second week of January, school started and I was incredibly excited to see my friend Laura, who I haven’t seen since we took the FE back in October. Speaking of school, it started that same week at Layton Christian but I wasn’t back at work until the last week of January.
Of course, there’s happiness in life but it has to also have some anger and sadness to even it out. So there wasn’t much sadness during the month of January but there was plenty of anger that went with it. You probably know this from my post at the end of January, on the eve of Chinese New Year, I called home to China and well, got into a bit of an argument with my grandparents. Now, I’m betting that they’ll never want to speak to me again.
On to February:
February was and is still a bit of an annoying month for me. The Winter Olympics seemed to taken all the joy of watching television
from me. Everything’s on rerun and there are hardly anything to watch. Guess that just leaves me more time to do my homework and work on my writing. The most annoying thing of all is my mother, she got into a little mess at work and she felt she has to tell me not once, not twice, not three times but repeatedly every single night for the past week.
I’m like, I know already. Just stop talking about it, please. But still, I find her muttering the same thing to herself every night while cooking dinner or just surfing the internet. Otherwise, February’s been an interesting month for me, a bit slow but good.
On another note…
Earlier this month, I’ve finally decided to just hell with it (pardon me) and posted the entire fantasy novel I’ve written last summer onto booksie and hopefully receive some comments. You can view it by clicking here.
Also late last month, I’ve posted a supernatural romantic novella I’ve written at the end of last year. It’s basically the prelude to the fiction series I’ve been doing on this blog working titled “Fiction time.” You can read it by clicking here.
Best news of all, at least for me, I quit my tutoring job and found a so much better substitute, translation/quality control. I don’t know how long this one will last but it’s so much more stable than my job with the Li’s family. Hopefully, I can rack up enough hours these few months to buy myself a newer used car. My current car is almost 20 years old and it’s dying.
As for school, well let’s just say I don’t want to jinx it. I’m doing so well right now and hopefully I can keep it up and get a good grade. Let’s just say I want to graduate from my program on a high note.
As for this blog, I will try to post more than one post next month or maybe I’ll even start perhaps next week. Who knows? I’ve been itching to write a post about money or maybe a snippets of a new fiction I’m working on. We’ll see.
Arguing and picking a fight with old people can never end well. They will always say they’re right and you’ll most likely be forced to admit it in the end. Most of the time, those arguments and fights will most likely lead you nowhere. Continue reading “Grandpa Always Wins” →
2014 is upon us, well, 13.5 hour-ish. So let’s give 2013 a look-back to see what I’ve accomplished.
This blog was started. I had an idea that I just couldn’t resist writing it down and that’s when I decided to start a blog about random things. But then something happened and made me quit. I’ve got some interesting entries on it before I quit though.
The Influence of Culture on Food – Learn about what I’ve found out about bagels and other interesting foods
A Wild Wild January – It has been a wild January, freezing rain and the ridiculous number of snow depths, my neighbor even managed to make a car size dog!
The Difference between Stubborn and Polite – Some people tend to confuse between two.
Traditional Chinese New Year Delicacy – The most “Liked” blog post to date.
I completed my summer semester with two “A-” and I even got on TV.
I started this blog again because I was bored at work and I happened to have some stuff I wanted to get off my chest. Since then I’ve managed to keep going which I would consider to be a miracle because I don’t have a lot of patience when it comes to writing and work. Here are some of my memorable blog posts from September:
The Incidence with Public Manner – My boss did gross things everyday at work and I just want to get it off my chest before I threw up on anyone.
What is the Difference between 21 and 22 – A post where I dissect the different privileges that a 21-year-0ld has that an 18-year-old don’t have. Also should I feel any different now that I’m 22 maybe older and wiser?
Fiction Time: Gretchen’s Run – This post helped me gain quite a bit of followers since it’s a serial fiction and all. So far, #6 is in the works and it should be posted at the end of this week or next week. Be patient.
Government shutdown. My mom got furloughed and she spent the time in the backyard putting up patio bricks while I chauffeured my boss’s wife everywhere. Also it was the month that I had to take my engineering licensing exam again for the third time which by the way, I failed again. Anyway, here are some of that month’s posts:
Day #3: No work Govt shutdown stinks – How did my mom take the news that she didn’t have work the day.
Do these people ever care about price tag? – I took my boss’s wife shopping and she just grab grab grab without ever looking at the price tags.
Am I Anti-social or Do I just like to be Alone? – A lot of people call me anti-social, well this post will show them why I’m not.
I remembered all my students were already thinking about the holidays. I don’t blame them, I was losing it as it is with tutoring, school, and work. That was when all began, Thanksgiving week. Bad luck just came out of nowhere. Fortunately, it seem to be gone now, I haven’t tripped or fall for no reason and I haven’t misplace any of the important things. That month’s memorable posts includes:
Sunshine Award – Thank you again Jennifer Windram for nominating me.
Fiction Time #4: Tatianna’s story – Well that post got a lot of “Likes,” I guess people wanted to know what it’s like to be stuck in a house for 50+ years.
Well I completed a four-part arc and posted on different places. That got mixed reactions but most of them were positive. Also, my mom’s high school friend came to town and we went skiing with my boss’s family except only my mom’s friend’s son skied. My boss’s family prep for everything and even before we helped them sign up for classes, they got chickened and so we traveled back down as soon as the next bus got here. How shame and all because of a comment made by my student’s sister about someone fall and broke their leg during a beginner’s lesson. I guess my most memorable post for the month is the “Last Memories”.
I know I made some goals at the beginning of 2013 that I can hardly recall. Sad news is those goals never got accomplished.
Now what are those goals again? Oh yeah, to get back to 110 lb, not to fail any classes, and to complete the two beautiful Chinese painting jigsaw puzzles downstairs. Well, I never got to that and as for the pounds, my body seemed to have stopped at 113.5. So I’m stuck at that no matter how hard I exercise and how less I eat. As for the third goal, I did fail one class during the spring semester of 2013 but that’s because the instructor was cruel. 40 people took that class and he failed half of them. Good thing he’s not teach the class this semester.
For 2014, my goals remains the same except instead of setting a weight limit, I will try to exercise more consistently. As for my goals for this blog, I will try to write at least entry on this blog each month. No matter how many words, just a minimum of one post each month. Also right now I have 65 followers. For 2014, I want my followers to reach 100 and I will try to get more likes, I guess because right now, I keep on getting only a maximum of 7 likes. Odd!
December 21 is a very special day. It marks the day of the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. It is also the day I stepped
onto a Boeing 777 at Guangzhou Baiyun Airport and stepped off of the same plane 11 hours later at LAX. Thus, this day makes it that much more special to me.
Even after 12 years, I can still remember it perfectly and through the years, I’ve spent this day at home with peace and quiet as I commemorated the journey and adventures I’ve had since I’ve been in the United States as well as celebrating the holidays. Some of the years had been fun like flying to Texas or driving to Las Vegas while there are the one where I was ill and had to spend overnight in an emergency room. That was not a pleasant experience for me.
It all began second to the last day of school before winter break. I was in seventh grade, by the way. As I went back to class after lunch, I began feeling chilly even though it was 70 degrees. My head suddenly felt so heavy. I thought maybe I’m just tired after lunch.
I sat down at my desk and let my achy head rest on my arms while waiting for the teacher to call the roll and get on with the lesson. After a while, my head became so heavy that I couldn’t even lift it up anymore. That was when I knew I was coming down with something but I just thought it was a minor cold or something. So for the rest of the day, I did the best I could to concentrate on the lesson while my head pounded with my heart beat.
By the time school ended, my mom came to pick me up, I was pretty sure I was running on a temperature by this point. As I rode home, I told mom how awful I was feeling. She said, “It might be just a little cold. You’ll be okay tomorrow.” She didn’t even bother with feeling my head.
It wasn’t true. The next day, that “little cold” became much worse and my parents decided that I wasn’t fit to go to school even though it was the last day. After they took me to a doctor in the morning, I spent the remaining of the day in bed, feeling bored as the bones all over my body burnt and ached, preventing me to do anything including move.
My step-dad constantly came into my room, urging me to drink juice and water while periodically fed medicine to me like I was a baby. The fire in my bones was temporary put out not long after I ingested the awful tasting syrup but it came back after about 30 minutes.
For the next three days, I took my medicine and drank an undesirable amount of water at one time while spending my time in bed, drifting in and out of sleep. I had no appetite to eat anything either as I never got hungry lying in bed all day. Of course, that doesn’t mean I don’t have to eat. Mom fed me liquid food when she could, trying to make me feel better.
By Monday evening, I was still feeling feverish. My condition had not improved at all since I began taking the medicine three days ago. My bones still ached, so I decided to take a hot shower and just head to bed hoping tomorrow would be better.
While lying here in bed, my vision suddenly became slightly blurred as I stared into the light. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep but I involuntarily opened my eyes again. That’s weird, I thought, there’s nothing in front of me, it’s all white light.
I blinked and the image warped. It warped into a spinning image of my room. Why is my room spinning or is my bed spinning? I tried to grab the bed to hold on but all my muscles seemed to be locked and uncontrollable. What’s happening to me?
Suddenly, distorting voices came into my head include my mom and a voice I haven’t heard in a long time, my dad. I know that sounds scary and I don’t think I was imagining things but sometimes these situations can do things to you. Anyway, it was my dad telling me to hang on in my native tongue.
“Daddy?” I wanted to say but my mouth was working.
“Don’t give up. Keep hanging on. Relax.” He kept saying.
I tried my hardest to relax and hope my muscles would come back to me while a new voice chimed in. “Wake up, please, wake up.” It said.
My mom’s worried face suddenly filled my sight. “What happened and what’s the noise outside?” I asked.
“You had a seizure. We didn’t know what to do. So we called the ambulance.” She pulled me up and wrapped me in a hug. “You scared me to death. How did this happen?”
“I-I don’t know.” I stammered.
My step-dad came in with two firemen. Mom pulled me to the side of my bed while one of the firemen tested me to make sure I didn’t have any brain damage. I followed his finger as he moved it and stated clearly my name, address, and birthday.
After a few minutes, he concluded that there’s no damage to my brain but I do need to go to the hospital for a check-up, at least to make sure everything’s fine. One thing’s for certain though, my fever is finally going down.
So my mom and I waited in the emergency room until after midnight by which I’ve already taken a nap even though my step-dad advised against it. They put me on a bed and started me on saline and for the first time in four days, I felt better.
About three hours later, the doctor came back with the result from my blood test. He said my calcium level is way below normal and that was what caused the seizure. He prescribed some medication to help with the flu and recommended me to drink more juice and milk and I was allowed to leave.
As mom drove home, I stared out the window thinking about my dad’s voice during the seizure and then I’ve decided I would never let anyone know for the fear that they might think I was out of my mind. “Are you okay?” Mom asked as we were approaching the apartment gate. I nodded quietly. She glanced at the clock and said, “You know, you’ve just spent the first few hours of your special day in an emergency room.”
She smiled and it suddenly came to me that it’s already December 21. I’ve just spent the first 3 hours of my third anniversary in the United States in the hospital. I gave a soft chuckle. This has been the weirdest experience of my life.
When I first arrived in the United States, before leaving the airport, my mom said, Continue reading “The Incidence with Public Manner” →
Continue reading “Traditional Chinese New Year Delicacy” →
This is Another Story