Tag: blogging

What Makes a Bad Day

Published on by Yinglan9 Comments

My strongest memory of heart-pounding, belly-twisting nervousness (it’s more anxiety than nervousness) was this morning. Seriously, I am having a bad and weird day.

I was super exhausted last night and I’m not sure whether I didn’t set my alarm last night or my alarm didn’t go off this morning or what. When I open my eyes this morning, it took me a second to register my clock read 8:09. I’ve overslept. Thank god the alarm clock is off by 10 minutes and that it’s actually 7:59 but still I overslept.

My chest was pounding as I almost fell out of bed. “Oh my god,” I kept saying as I dressed, brushed my teeth, and pulled my hair into a ponytail. I stuffed all my things into my backpack, grabbed a pair of socks, and a breakfast shake and I was out of the door.

When I got to the garage, I pressed the button to open the trunk, the trunk didn’t pop. That’s weird, I thought. I pressed again, still, nothing. I was really scared then and it left me with no choice but to do it the old-fashion way, open it with the key. On the way to school, I blamed my mom, blaming her for causing me to oversleep, blaming her that she’d done something to the trunk last night when she was moving all the things we got from her friend’s daughter’s apartment to the garage.

It was partly her fault because she knew I have school today and still dragged me to her friend’s daughter’s apartment in Salt Lake City last night. For two hours last night, I spent moving back and forth with pots, pans, and boxes of seasonings from the apartment to the car.

Two boxes full of seasonings

Her friend’s daughter and I’ve known each other since I was five and she was four, so you can technically call her my childhood friend. Four years ago, she moved to Salt Lake City to attend college there. Last December, she graduated with a Bachelor in Business.

Now that she’s graduated, it’s time for her to return her apartment keys to the landlord. Her landlord’s given her two days to move out but the apartment is still piled high with stuff. Seriously, I have never seen so much stuff in my life. I should had secretly taken a picture but I didn’t bring anything with me last night.

We didn’t spend two hours helping her pack last night, if that’s what you’re wondering. She’s rich, she has people for that. No, her mom has requested her to give her stuff away and only keep the essentials. Her mom has also bought so much stuff that her house in California has no more room. Even her brand-new BMW has to park on the street.

Two sets of knives

My mom spent two hours last night digging through through the things like people searching for priceless junk at the thrift store. I stood out of the way, only helping to transfer the things into the car. At the end of two hours, the back-seat of the car plus the trunk was so full that I couldn’t put another thing in there. So we decided to come home and go again tonight.

The best thing I got last night was my friend’s radio with the iPod plugin. My iPod’s battery is getting worse and worse and I’m pretty sure that I have to replace it soon. I mean I can only get through 200 songs now and it needs a recharge. Getting this radio is like the thing I wanted for a long time because if my iPod battery is going bad, I might as well listen to my music on AC power.

My favorite: I’ve been looking for ya!

I’ve had this kind of radio once but it broke within 3 months of purchase. So I had to returned for a refund and since then, I didn’t dare to buy another one. My friend’s radio looked promising since it costed her $200 and I thought, that has to be something if she’s willing to pay $200 for an alarm clock-radio. And it is. The sound from its speaker is magnificent and it can charge my ancient iPod and that is all I want. Just please last this time.

As for the trunk of the car, well, I guess I’ll wait for my mom to fix it. I saw her do something to it last night. So I’m pretty sure she can fix it.

Five Photos – Five Stories Day 4

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We are once again going back in time. Continue reading “Five Photos – Five Stories Day 4” →

An Unforgettable Sunday

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Daily Prompt: Take a subject you’re familiar with and imagine it as three photos in a sequence. Tackle the subject by describing those three shots. Continue reading “An Unforgettable Sunday” →

Five Photos – Five Stories Day 3

Published on by Yinglan8 Comments

Okay, I officially feel like I am going back in time with this challenge. The first day, I featured a picture that was taken last year, day 2 (yesterday), a picture from 2012, and now, for day 3, Continue reading “Five Photos – Five Stories Day 3” →

Surrounded

Published on by Yinglan4 Comments

Daily Prompt: When was the last time you felt really, truly lonely?

Um, I can’t remember. I actually want to write this post for a while, thanks, wordpress, for giving me this push with a prompt.

If you’d asked me when was the last time I truly felt depressed or angry or annoyed, that I can tell you. Truthfully, I’ve rarely felt loneliness. I am always surrounded by things whether being computers, electronic devices or people. My mom made sure of that.

Even when she left me for six months for basic training, she made sure I’m interacting with people. Every evening, I was told to ride the bus plus walk two blocks to her friend’s house every night for dinner and then wait for her friend’s son to finish his dinner so her friend could take me home. This sometimes took forever because he was like six and he didn’t like to eat unless his mom made him cry.

Anyway, even during those six months of living alone, I didn’t feel alone. I’ve always found something to occupy myself, always busy.  Now, my mom is preparing to go on another training next month, this time, for a month.

I am actually pretty excited because I’ve been surrounded with so many things and people lately that I feel a little overwhelmed and like a chance to be alone. Apparently, my mom doesn’t think so. She’s worried I’d get lonely and keeps asking me whether she should buy a plane ticket for my aunt to fly back here to keep me company. I am like “Hello, I’m almost 24, I don’t need a sitter.”

She’s afraid of something, I can tell, but she won’t say. The other night, I asked her, “Why do you not want me to be alone?”

She replied, “I just don’t want you to feel lonely.”

“Why, are you worried that something might happen to me?”

“Even if it happened, no one will know.” Because even though she’d only be 100 miles away, she’s not allowed to come home or use a phone.

At this point, I knew exactly what she was thinking and I said it. “Ah, you’re afraid I keel over and no one’s here to help me or discover my corpse.”

She laughed, “Maybe but if she’s here, she can call 911.”

“And I can’t?”

She laughed some more. “If you can call 911, then it’s not an emergency.”

I guess she’s got a point there. The thing is though, I’m perfectly healthy. I went to my doctor the other day and he said everything was normal. He didn’t even examine me. He’d sounded so relieved that for the first time after 4 years, I finally have some normal lab results. But I think my mom might be worrying about other things. I think she’s actually worrying about me suddenly dying like my dad. I’ve promised her a dozen times, “This won’t happen to me.” But she wouldn’t believe me. I’m still here, am I not?

“I’ll be fine. I think you should worry about yourself than worry about me.”  I told her but she wasn’t listening anymore. She was already onto other tasks, searching for plane tickets for my aunt on expedia.

Five Photos – Five Stories Day 2

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I actually remembered taking this picture. Continue reading “Five Photos – Five Stories Day 2” →

Welcome to My Ever-changing Hometown

Published on by Yinglan11 Comments

Today’s prompt is kind of a tricky one to write. Continue reading “Welcome to My Ever-changing Hometown” →

Five Photos – Five Stories Day 1

Published on by Yinglan8 Comments

I’d like to thank Priceless Joy for nominating me for the Five Photos-Five stories challenge, where I post five photos, five stories, each day for five days. Continue reading “Five Photos – Five Stories Day 1” →

Encore Post: Awards and Announcements

Published on by Yinglan2 Comments

Okay, since today is Sunday, I think this calls for an encore post. This post will be about so many things, a few things I have to announce. Continue reading “Encore Post: Awards and Announcements” →

Free land

Published on by Yinglan3 Comments

Apparently my mom has decided to vacuum at 8:30 in the morning. The house is noisy as hell and you know what noises do to me, it takes away my inspiration. That’s why I don’t listen to music or watch anything during my blogging time. Hopefully, she’ll be done soon and I can hop over to my other blog and create a lovely short story for this beautiful Sunday morning.

Anyway, on daily prompt today, we’ve been given a plot of land and have the financial resources to do what ever we please.

Land just like this, with a nice cozy house and a rescue / rehab / therapy horse ranch. With a cow pasture and godly morals. All I need.It’s funny because I glanced at this prompt at 6:30 this morning when I was still half asleep, I thought it said “we’ve been given a plot of land with financial resources” as in there’s something about the land that will make money. Oil, perhaps? Maybe gold?

Anyway, after I woke up and read a few responses to the prompt, I was more confused than ever. About 5 minutes ago, I finally went to the daily post page and gave the prompt a thorough read-through. It’s all clear to me now. We have the money to do whatever we want with that land.

What would I do with this magnificent piece of land, given to me by wordpress?

It depends on the answers of the following questions.

1. Does it have anything buried underneath, like gold, coal, or oil? Yes? I’ll invest it in the discovery of that substance whether make it an oil derrick or a coal mine.

2. Will it make me money? Yes? This question is sort of tied to the previous one. Investment in oil, gold, coal, etc.

3. Or will it be a useless piece of earth that cannot be used for anything except build houses on top of it? In this case, I can do nothing but build a gorgeous custom home designed by your truly along with a beautiful farm or garden, depending on the size of the land.

There is one thing I will never do and that is make it commercial. Don’t ask me why.

Image credited to google and pinterest

To Places of Curiosity

Published on by Yinglan1 Comment

Before blogging, I used to spend most of my free time watching television shows on Hulu and one of the show was House Hunter International. I watch this show not because I want to know what fabulous houses people are going to buy. I watch it because it spends a segment of every episode exploring the location, from basic detail like where it’s located to other fun facts like economy and its chief import and export, facts that might just get the viewers curious enough to visit the place as well.

Some of the places I want to visit someday, in general, are South America and Asia (excluding China). Of course, I want to see Europe as well but watching news, travel shows and reading some of the travel blogs got me curious about these places about whether or not the news had been exaggerating about these places or if it’s indeed dangerous to visit. Like Mexico, my mom told me that severed head hung on the highway. Hair sticks out my skin just to hear that. Yet I see people house hunting in Mexico. I know there are good places and dark places and then there are places that are too dangerous to visit but you know what I mean? Curious.

Pailón del Diablo waterfall, Ecuador
Like this waterfall in Ecuador

Like my mom, I am sort of a history buff as well. So I want to go into the heart of South America and explore all the places that only a few tourists are interested to go there. I want to mingle with the locals and learn about the culture instead of doing what tourists do, lay on the beach and go shopping.

Michu Picchu, Peru. The "lost city" of the Incas.
To explore the “lost city” of the Incas

I have to laugh a little because two years ago, before I even graduated with my Bachelor’s, I was already looking for jobs outside the U.S.. At the time, all I was thinking was getting the hell away from my mom because she wasn’t as tolerable as she had been these past months. Anyway, I showed her the list of location I want to apply and she was like, “you can’t go there. It’s too dangerous. No, you can’t go there either, living is too expensive there.”

Basically, the only places she approved were China and U.K. because she’s got a friend there and told me I could bunk with her friend and her husband. Okay, that would be the last thing I want, have another reminder of home. She also urged me to go down under since she’s got a friend whose son goes to college there. Again, no.

That’s why I choose South America and parts of Asia as my dream destination for if I ever have enough fund to travel. To places of the curious minds and places my mom and her friends would never go.

All images credit goes to pinterest

Don’t Waste Food

Published on by Yinglan4 Comments

The other day, I had to throw the remainder of a pumpkin pie I made more than a week ago down the garbage disposal. All because Continue reading “Don’t Waste Food” →

Off to a Painful Start

Published on by Yinglan10 Comments

Happy Chinese New Year!!!

Well, technically, it’s still eve here in the U.S.. In China, it’s Chinese New Year. This year is the year of the goat and I was born in the year of goat. As I mentioned in previous posts, my mom said I’m bound to be unlucky this year and guess what, I’m off to a painful start already. This morning, I was woke by a sharp pain in my back. Not again! Continue reading “Off to a Painful Start” →

An alternative to the Water Cooler

Published on by Yinglan4 Comments

DSCF9709

I would love to un-invent the water cooler. It had turned my life upside down ever since my mom bought it a year ago. Every two weeks, I have to go to the local supermarket to pump 5 gallons of water, $0.41 a gallon. Do you have any idea how heavy water is? I almost always end up bumping my bad knee against the shopping cart when I’m trying lift this thing to place inside the cart. Oh and don’t forgot about the possibility of tipping over on the car ride home even after I strapped it onto the backseat.

Having a water cooler also means my drinking water supply had been limited. Before when we’re still buying the filter for the refrigerator, I can fill my bottle water whenever I want. You see, I don’t want to go up and down the stairs to get water. I like to have drinkable water in my room.

However, the filter for the refrigerator is more expensive than what we have now, supermarket drinking water. So that’s all the more reason why this thing needs to un-invented. It had caused me to have to resort to filling my water at the school fountain even now that my aunt and cousin had left.

Trust me, when they’re here, 5-gallons of water would be gone in 2-days without me and mom hardly drinking any of it. They like the hot water function and are so accustomed to drinking hot water since tap water in China is just a big fat joke and everything needs to be boiled before it can be drunk. When they were going to community school here, they’d take 3 large liter-bottles to school each day since the fountain water is too cold for them.

Now that they’ve left, we once again have the water supply to ourselves and so far, it’s been more than a week and only half of bottle has been drunk. I will have to go fill a new bottle on Friday though since the pharmacy’s next door to the market and I don’t want run twice.

As for the consequences of un-inventing the water cooler, perhaps, companies and businesses can put out bottles of water or put a refrigerator with filtered water function in the break room. There problem solved.

Oh by the way, for those of you who are curious why we don’t drink tap water either is because the water here come from snow melt and as it make its way down the mountain, it collect too much mineral and sediment like Calcium. Calcium is good to build strong bones but too much will lead to kidney stones and that’s yikes.

Frightening, Unrealistic, Ridiculous

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Daily Prompt: You’ve being exiled to a private island, and your captors will only supply you with five foods. What do you pick? Continue reading “Frightening, Unrealistic, Ridiculous” →

This can be Fun

Published on by Yinglan14 Comments

I have been working on my System Understanding Aid (SUA) project for my online accounting class. Trust me, it’s very messy. I invaded the kitchen counter the entire day yesterday, scattering the paper in that red paper bag you see on top. I brought it up to my room in the late afternoon because I just couldn’t take it anymore, I need to see the hints. Last night, my bed was all scattered with papers. I didn’t even bother to organize it. I was so tired. I just stuffed everything inside everything and transferred it back to my desk.

My mom is in the same class as me and this project is due in two days. She wanted to help but let’s face it, she’ll just get in my way. She hadn’t taken enough classes to know what to do for this project. I think if she’s taking this class alone, she’d probably fail.

But it is always helpful to have an extra set of hands and minds on this project. So if I have an extra me, I’d definitely split the responsibility on this project. One of me can be in charge of entering numbers into the spreadsheet while the other me will be working on the paper-end of the project. The best part? I don’t teach everything to my clone! Because well, we think the same, we act the same, what can be more awesome.

Although this can happen…

To Occupy the Walls

Published on by Yinglan5 Comments

This has been in my home almost ever since we moved in. I think it sends a great message.

My mom picked it up for $0.50 at the thrift store. She likes to shop at thrift store and so do I but we shop for different things. She tends to browse for inexpensive cute rare antiquities while I like to browse for jigsaw puzzles.

You see, I am a big jigsaw collector, the bigger the better like 3000 or 4000 pieces. I like to buy them cheap, complete them myself, and frame them.

Anyway, there’s not much hanging in my home. My mom likes to keep the walls clean.  Aside from this, each bedroom also has a picture of its own. This is the picture that’s currently hanging in my aunt’s room next door.

Photo
Temple Square 1890

I don’t think we put paintings and artwork on the walls to create a mood. I guess we just put them there to occupy the walls, to make the walls feel less bland and empty.

Not much to say for this prompt. Anyway, I think I need a nap, been at my homework all day and getting nowhere with it. See ya.

To you…

Published on by Yinglan12 Comments

Today is Valentine’s Day and my cousin’s birthday, not the pain in the a– cousin. I probably should send him a birthday card, after all, it’s not everyday one gets to turn 19. Continue reading “To you…” →

Doubt

Published on by YinglanLeave a comment

So I am just now getting home after spending the past 5 hours touring and learning about a CPA firm. I must admit, I had an interesting time. I didn’t think I’d have a good time talking to people. I thought I’d get bored very quickly. But I got to learn about all the different aspects of working in public accounting as well as go into detail of what an accountant actually do. Continue reading “Doubt” →

Favorite Inventions

Published on by Yinglan2 Comments

“That’s the best thing since sliced bread!” I’ve been wondering what this phrase mean all morning. I have never heard this phrase before, how interesting. In the end, I managed to google it and found a site that will explain the phrase to people like me.

I grew up in the 90’s and surprisingly, I didn’t start to use a computer until the early 2000’s. Before that, it was just my cousin who knew how to use the computer, not me. In my mind, I’d thought it was a complicated object that hardly serve a purpose. I mean, the internet took forever to connect (dial-up) and once it got connected, there’s a timer limiting our access plus, we can’t use the phone while we surfed the web.

It wasn’t until the DSL age and my school started to grow dependent on the computer that I finally discovered its true use of a computer and I have to say, it is the best thing since sliced bread.

Another thing that I think it’s the best thing since sliced bread is the e-reader. I hated reading books. For one thing, my hands sweat a lot and make the books wet and the other down thing about reading a hard copy is that I need light. There is no way I can read anything in the dark.

Well, now I can. I have a kindle app on my tablet and it provides all the light I need to do some light reading before bed without the need to stumble to switch off the light.

Anyway, those are my two favorite inventions. My other favorite invention that no one uses anymore is the VCR. It helped me to record so much of my favorite shows.

Collection

Published on by Yinglan5 Comments

Daily Prompt: Dig through your couch cushions, your purse, or the floor of your car and look at the year printed on the first coin you find. What were you doing that year?

Okay, that will be a problem for me because first of all, my mom and I, we don’t put or hide coin anywhere and we certainly don’t keep coins in our pockets. We keep them in our wallet where they belong but even then I don’t have a lot of coins. I keep mostly bus tokens in my wallet, though I don’t know why, I have a pass that will allow me to ride whatever I want for free.

So therefore, I’m going to show you these…

DSCF9698

I am almost finish collecting the third set, just need Mississippi. I began collecting state quarters in I think 2003 (it seems like every interesting thing happen that year). I have no clue what got me interested, maybe I just like collecting money. :p

When we were still living in California, my mom and I used to go to the recycling center all the time, to sell plastic bottles and soda cans. Then we would tell the guy to give us quarters which he happily gave us, chunks of quarters at a time.

Once we arrive home, I’d go excitedly to the dining table to find if there was any quarters that I did not have already. The unwanted quarter would be for my mom to do laundry.

At first, it was easy because well, I’m new and I haven’t collected up to the current year yet. After a while, it got tough but I didn’t give up. The most frustrating period of this collection was when we were living in Texas when my step-dad would secretly take my state quarters to buy alcohol and cigarettes while I was asleep. See, that’s why I wanted to lock my door.

I stopped for a while because what’s the point if I collect one and you take one? I began again when I moved to Utah but in the last few years, I’ve slowed down a lot since both my mom and I don’t really use cash anymore unless it’s an emergency and we no longer need quarters to do laundry. So now I’ve fallen quite behind on my national parks and monuments collection and I need to catch up.

Well, I have to head to school. I actually got up early again this morning. I thought this problematic prompt  was interesting and knew I could squeeze a few minutes of my time before school to write this.

This takes me back…

Published on by Yinglan3 Comments

My step-dad was always big on music. I think me learning the piano was probably the proudest moment of his life. Continue reading “This takes me back…” →

A Great Day

Published on by Yinglan10 Comments

What a great day today! That was my first thought when I woke up this morning. Today is one of those rare days when I got up early which was at 6:15 am.

The moment my eyes opened, I knew I was alone, that my mom had already gone to work and there was no one else in this big empty house. I can do whatever I want. Isn’t that great? Unfortunately, I have homework and work. Ugh, why do these things have to ruin everything? Good thing I don’t have worry about beating everyone to lunch and I might not even have to eat. That’ll really save me a lot of time as I learned last night.

I was so stuffed from the lunch buffet yesterday that I couldn’t eat anything during dinner. So no dinner for me last night and this morning, I just satisfied myself on a cup of Hot Cocoa with Chia Seed and Flaxseed. Plenty healthy.

I am incredibly obsessed with this idea in my head for a novel right now. So that’s probably why my appearance had dwindled here as I’m spending a majority of my free time catching up on my shows and developing this idea on wattpad.

Anyway, I have to get to work on my paper for school. It is so beautiful here this morning. It is as if spring had decided to come early. I just hope the dark clouds will stay away and won’t drop some measly rain in the middle of the day again.