Tag: blogging

Wrapping up 2014: Very Inspiring Blogger Award

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very-inspiring-blogger-award

I would like to thank Prakash Hegade for nominating me for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award. It’s my first time to be nominated for this award and this would make it my second award nomination for this blog just this year alone. That is amazing!

I would like to thank everybody for visiting this site as well as reading the stories and tales I have written and giving me feedback.

The rules for accepting this award nomination are:

  1. Thank the person who nominated you by linking his/her blog and display the award logo.
  2. Nominate at least 15 other blogs (more or less). Link their blogs and inform them about the nomination.
  3. Mention three things that inspired you the most this week (you can talk about last week’s inspiration too).

Nominations:

  1. I’m a Writer, Yes I Am
  2. Blog Blogger Bloggest
  3. In a small compass
  4. Sugar-coating since ’91
  5. The Moving Quill
  6. Raven Apotheosis
  7. Funny Dog Moments
  8. The Excessive Gardener
  9. Ivy Mosquito
  10. teleportingweena

I didn’t think I can name this many wonderful blogs but these are as many as I can think of at this moment. Congratulations. Go check them out!

Three things that had been inspirational this week and the last:

  1. The weather. The first ever “real” snow storm hit on Christmas but the real storm was really Sunday. It delivered about 3 or 4 inches of fresh powder snow and made the whole neighborhood look like a winter wonderland. It’s inspirational because I can finally sit down at home to read and write. 
  2. My second inspiration is definitely to be able to sit down and finally finish reading two novels. My inspiration was running low and reading just help charge me back up.
  3. Of course reading other people’s blogs. I am always curious about what other people writes on their blogs and that often gives me an idea or two to help me write. 

2014 in review

Published on by Yinglan4 Comments

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,700 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

A Grown Up Trapped in a tiny body

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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.

One is Enough, Two is Too Much

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DSCF9326_ts
The crappy house with the stairs

I am frustrated and that frustration is growing by the day.

Last year, my mother purchased two additional houses. She planned to use those houses for investment and rental. To be honest, both of those houses are a pain in the neck. After closing on the first house last April, we spent almost the entire month cleaning, repairing, and re-painting the wall.

When I say “we”, I mean my mother and her friend. Meanwhile, I am not allowed to touch or do anything, I am to just stand there and watch. I hated it. I mean, what am I doing there? I could be doing so much more at home.

Thank god that house rented out quickly and the tenant had been stable. A few months later, my mother closed on a house at the end of our street. This house is a bucketful of problems.

First it was the furnace, then the AC, and then at the beginning of this year, we found out there’s no return vent in the basement, making the basement of the house freezing cold.

It’s a crappy house. Well, what do you expect when the first owner of the house was a know-it-all handyman?

Anyway, in the latter part of 2013, after yet spending a few weeks cleaning up the place, we rented the house to a very nice family who was waiting for their house to be built in another city.

They moved out early January of this year. Thank goodness, the wife of the tenant was a clean freak and kept the house sparkly clean. We didn’t have to do much and within 2 weeks, the house was again rented to another family from Texas and that’s when the problems began. They built a bathroom in the basement without consulting us. The bathroom turned out awry and weird. Don’t get me started.

That family moved out suddenly before Thanksgiving. It was ridiculous. Not only they broke the contract but the house was a mess!

My aunt and cousin spent the afternoons in the days followed at the house cleaning and picking up dog poop in the backyard. It’s disgusting and I would never ever do it. I couldn’t be more grateful to have them here.

A few days after the advertisement for our rental house went online, two families came and browse. One family was so so eager to move in that they didn’t even cared if the carpet was cleaned. I wasn’t having a good vibe about this candidate. They seemed nice and all but there’s something off.

I told my mother to go with the other family, but she didn’t listen. I was completely right, by the way. The “bad vibe” tenant has an excellent credit score but he didn’t even had the money to pay the first month rent and deposit.

My mother got scared and turn them down. That left the “good vibe” tenant but unfortunately, they grew impatient waiting for our response and had already found another house. That house has been empty for past month. My mother’s incessantly worried about the furnace failing and constantly nudging me to go check.

Yeah, like I know anything about the mechanics of a furnace.

In the recent day, it’s become my dread to go into that house. It’s not haunted or anything. There are just too many stairs and the stairs are thickly carpeted. Did you know it takes more strength going up a flight of carpeted stairs than any other kind of staircase?

My consensus: that house is horribly designed and I would never live in it.

I still don’t understand why my mother had to purchase that house. Why couldn’t she be happy with just one rental home? This other house is going down the drain if we don’t get some tenants soon, I tell ya.

When she bought the house, she says my aunt wanted it but I highly doubt it. For all I know, my aunt could’ve said, “随便吧!” or “Anything’s fine.”

A Wrap-up of 2014: Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award

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A few months ago, SUEJU TAKESHI nominated me for the Sisterhood of the World Blogger Award but as usual, my procrastination prevails. But since I am on my winter break, I thought what better time to publish this than before the new year. I like to give a big round of thanks again to SUEJU TAKESHI for nominating this blog for this awesome award. Continue reading “A Wrap-up of 2014: Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award” →

My Tight Little Corner

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Something has happened in my neck of the woods. I can’t figure out what but it’s making me feel singled-out, like I’m being forced into a tight little corner of my own. It’s like my spoken words are not being understood and there’s no one ’round here to clarify my words for me.

I’ve been searching and wondering far and wide and I have arrived with these three explanations:

  • Language barrier
    • I know, we all speak the same language here. But they seem to forget that I just know to speak everyday language, slang. My education level for this language is only up to the 4th grade. Still, they talk to me like I graduated college there, saying politically related college-level term that I probably will never understand.
    • And if I say the wrong thing, they’d just burst out laughing and it’s not just in the moment, they laugh for days and it’s really frustrating sometimes. Like yesterday, I accidentally mispronounced the word for Mount Everest and they laughed and laughed, making fun of me, making me feel like an idiot. Yes, I know I said the wrong thing but don’t forget I never went past the 4th grade.
  • Ethnic culture differences
    • Yes, there is a tiny or huge ethnic culture difference here, depends on one’s perspective. For example, my aunt doesn’t like to use the dryer. She hang wet clothes in the laundry. I hate that. When the clothes dry, it becomes cold, stiff, and wrinkly. It’s like wearing cardboard.
  • Too many personalities
    • Yes, I understand everyone has their own personality, no people are the same but my aunt’s personality is driving me nuts. She is so childish sometimes with her silly clothes. Yesterday, when it was snowing, she didn’t want her hair to get wet, so she wore a husky hat. I don’t mean a hat that looked like husky fur, I mean a hat that was an actual husky (dog) head. It’s the stupidest hat I’ve ever seen.
    • Often times, she’s been sitting at the kitchen counter watch funny babies video on her ipad. If you like watching babies so much, why don’t you have one of your own?

Meanwhile, my mother is not helping with my situation, she laughs along and her teasing had been increasingly irritating. I wish I can just tell them that but everybody in this house feels super intimidating and it’s making me feel frightened.

Just two more months, I will tell myself from now on. Just two more months and they’ll be gone.

Merry Christmas!

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I think this has been an okay Christmas. Other than the fact that it’s been snowing all day and my mother’s constant nudging to make me go outside with my aunt, it’s been all right. Continue reading “Merry Christmas!” →

My Hero

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My hero? Who else? Continue reading “My Hero” →

A Super Awesome Gift to…

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I hand my mother a white envelope. From the outside, it looks ordinary but it’s really a month-long all expense paid trip (hotels, transportation, etc.) for three to Europe plus cruise around the Mediterranean. My mother has dreamed of touring Europe but she’s always complaining about not having the time nor the money. Well, now she does.

Of course she won’t be going alone. You cannot expect to travel such a vast continent with a companion, in this case, companions. My aunt and I will accompany her on this expedition. If she gets lost, who’d be there to help her? What about the language barrier in a few places? Also, who will help her to take pictures to prove she’s been to these places?

Besides, I kind of want to go to Europe myself and this gift is price unlimited. So why can’t I tag along? She won’t know I’m the person who gifted her with this awesome gift, not unless I reveal to her I am the Secret Santa who sent her the gift. Knowing my mother, she will probably thinks I’m joking and will probably laugh in disbelief. I’m okay with that because I have just toured Europe too.

Resolutions

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I spent yesterday celebrating my yet another year in the U.S. I arrived in the U.S. on December 21, 2001 and so yesterday was a special day. I began a post yesterday morning but my mom insisted on heading out. She wanted to show my cousin how far far away the community college really is and that him wanting to go to the community or any colleges and universities in the state of Utah is a naive and unreasonable plan.

To be honest, the community college isn’t that far. It’s a 45-minutes drive and the route is incredibly slow and boring but isn’t far. But if you want the fun 😉 or long route which my cousin has to do since he can’t drive, it can take anywhere from 90 minutes to 2 hours. Anyway, I tagged along in case she got lost.

We went home after going one round about the college and lunch at Costco and then I spent the afternoon watching movies and shows on the TV and writing a post just slipped my mind. Besides, I was having a hard time writing it since I had no clue what the prompt meant. Today, however, I have a slight idea.

I don’t do New Year resolutions, I used to but not anymore. I don’t see the point in making one since every year, I have the same two goals for myself and every year, it gets harder and harder to achieve those goals especially this year. So why make it?

The best part about this year has been getting this job but with my mom rushing me to complete the job day after day, I haven’t been able to keep up with my health. I’ve rarely seen my doctor or gone to the gym. It’s always just school and work.

Another reason for not going to the doctors was because of my insurance. When the insurance got switched to a new company at the beginning of this year, it started having problems. Most of the time, it wasn’t paying anything for me and I had to spend countless hours calling, trying to resolve dumb problems. Even a month ago, I was trying to resolve something that happened in June. I’ve already had enough to do. So you can see why I stopped going to the doctors.

I promise myself that once we’re in 2015, I will go to the doctors as well as the gym regularly. I’m not sure how well I will be able to keep the gym part going but the doctors, definitely, since I’m paying for my own insurance now.

Also when my mom’s away at training during March and April, I will try a self-controlled diet. Oh, and once January comes, I need to go see a doctor or a cardiologist or whatever to get my heart checked out. Let’s just say I haven’t been kind to my heart and it’s a little angry.

Other than that, all I wish for is to just get through the year as safe as possible. No casualty. No jitters and ignore my mom’s attempt to creep me out about the year of the goat thing. Apparently, she believes that if the current year is your Chinese Zodiac year, i.e. I was born in the year of the goat and next year is the year of the goat, bad luck will come to my door. I won’t say more otherwise I’d be jinxing it. Just wish me good luck in 2015, no more accidents or terrible news of any sort.

Anyway, my aunt wants me to take them downtown today. So hopefully the storm will stop soon and the sky will lighten up just a teeny bit.

Happy Winter Solstice everyone!!!

Here’s a beautiful painting to admire.

The Sun Stands Still by Becky Vigor, 2010.
The Sun Stands Still by Becky Vigor, 2010.

Sharing Creative Workspaces: A Project from WeWork

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Even after almost two years of blogging, I still haven’t really shared the space that inspired all my posts. Continue reading “Sharing Creative Workspaces: A Project from WeWork” →

Christmas Trees, Presents Delivery, Time Off, That’s the Holidays

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That's just about the only thing festive in the entire house.
That’s just about the only thing festive in the entire house.

I have been trying to write a post all day today but for some reason, I haven’t been able to finish it. This morning, I woke up, washed my bedding (finally!), and had breakfast. Then I went back up to my room, trying to write something about the prompt today but somehow, I was feeling rather frustrated and uninspired. I mean, it’s not that difficult of a prompt but at the present moment, this is my third and possibly fourth attempt at writing anything today.

My first attempt was kind of awful, talked about how I’ve grown to somewhat fear the end-of-year holidays. I’m not sure if anyone wants to hear anything that negative today.

My second attempt was a list of my love and hate for the holidays. That list was going successfully until my mother interrupted and said she wanted to go out. I’ve been stuck at home all day and thought that was the culprit for my lack of inspiration. So I accepted and we all went out. First, it was to the air force base to pick up my mother’s medicine as well as to get some groceries but then it turned into a 30-mile road trip to Morgan, Utah, a rural little town just beyond the canyons.

Okay, this is completely misleading, it did NOT look like this!!!

It’s a beautiful town, quiet and serene. The moment we exited I-84, my mother saw the sign to East Canyon State Park and immediately wanted to go similar to a child wanting candy. Am I the only mature one in the family?

The sign said the park is just 12 miles north. So northward we went. The road was narrow and twisty like riding a slow boring endless roller coaster. My mother’s patience was running short and after 5 minutes or so, she began to wonder if we’ve gotten lost. No, we haven’t. I began to doubt too  but on the other hand, I was sure we were on the right route.

Okay, is this it? Is this what I’ll see if my mother kept going?

When we reached mile post 7, my mother decided to turn back. “I’ll bet you anything that the park is when you reach mile post 12.” I told her but as usual, no one listened to me. So after 40 minutes or so, we’re home.

To be honest, I enjoyed Morgan, it seemed like one of those places I like to see myself living when I finally move out of my mother’s house. It’s quiet, quaint, and just rural enough for my taste. Best of all, there are no planes!

Anyway, I’ve returned to my computer to try to compose my daily post again. When I finally got two paragraphs done, I was interrupted again! Now what?!

I went downstairs to find out what my mother had wanted. Apparently, she suddenly want my aunt and I to play Santa and deliver all the presents to all neighbors, ugh, one of the things I dislike about the holidays. Every year, it’s always me who had to deliver presents and never get anything as nice or anything at all in return.

I just came back a few minutes ago, delivering presents to one of our tenants. My face as well as my hands and legs are still freezing cold and I’m feeling a tad dizzy. I need to go see a doctor soon to make sure I’m still as healthy as I used to be. But for the rest of today, I have no wish to go anywhere else. I wish to rest a bit in my room while waiting for a little inspiration to struck.  Until then, I think I’ll leave you with the list from my second attempt at the prompt.

Things I love about the end-of-year holidays:

  1. Time off! Oh yes, definitely the time off. For one thing, no homework and no school. The thing I don’t like though, grades. The end of semester grades are coming out and that is my fear for every year. Thankfully, I’ve done alright this year. 
  2. Pies, pies, pies! The only time of the year when my mother buys pies. I’m a pie lover and so that’s good. 
  3. Family gatherings! I used to love this back before my mother and I left Texas. 

Things I dislike about the holidays:

  1. Lack of things to watch on TV. All my favorite shows wrap up with its mid-season finales and won’t be back until mid-January. What does that leave me to watch? Not much but reruns and Christmas specials.
  2. The holiday music on the radio. They all sound the same, just sang in a different way. The jingling, joyful-themed, as well as some of the sad-themed songs just feels a tad annoying.
  3. The cold winter and the inability to go out and not get a red nose. This year is especially worse. There’s no snow and it’s incredibly cold. It’s like being stuck in an ice chest. 
Orange

Pumpkin Pies for Lazy Cooks

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I made a pumpkin pie yesterday! It’s the first one I made in 4 years. Read about it to see how it turned out! It’s beautiful, isn’t it?

Yinglan's avatarCrazy About Food

So on Tuesday night, my mother came home announcing her office at work was having some kind of get-together on Thursday and they had asked her to bring something. She didn’t know what until she got home. A pie, she insisted. But where can she get it? She didn’t want to drive 20 miles to Costco. So instead, she requested me to make one.

Fine, one Pumpkin Pie pronto.

We took a trip to the commissary up at the Air Force Base and gathered the ingredients.

  • 1 Large Can of Pumpkin Pie Filling
  • 1 5 fl-oz of evaporated milk
  • 1 pie shell
  • Along with that, I needed 2-eggs.

DSCF9596

DSCF9597

Yesterday, during my small break in between work, I went into chef mode and worked on the pie. The last pumpkin pie I made was more than four years ago, Thanksgiving eve, 2010, when a blizzard hit and I was snowed-in from school. My attempt…

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Can I relax now?

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Well, this week has been fun. Not really. Monday was my first day off for my Winter Break and I mean real day off where I have the house to myself for a few hours. I thought I’d write a lot this week, perhaps work on story I noted on my other blog but unfortunately, my week was ruin by my project manager and her stupid concern email. After working for such a long period, my creativity meter’s level fell to zero.

Thankfully, I just finished my work, just a few minutes ago actually. Hmm, I wonder if I can finally let out a breath and enjoy my holidays. In the last 3 days, I have worked 20.5 hours and translated over 5000 words. I woke up at 4 am yesterday and 6 am today to complete this annoying and boring monthly deadline. Yesterday, I’ve check and found out next month, there’s more. The deadline? January 12, the first day of school. I do hope I can complete it.

Anyway, now that I’ve done this month’s work and ran out of “me” time, I think I’d spend the last measly hours today, aside from going to the orthodontist and do the impression for my retainer, I think I’m going to blast the music on my stereo and sing. Ha ha, maybe but I think I have some other matters to take care of first:

  1. My AAA card will expire, got to call and take my mother’s name off it and pay the bill.
  2. I received a gift card two months and I think there’s a problem with it, so got to call and wait and wait.

After that, I hope people would chill for a while and cool it with the deadlines.

Art and Coil Pots: Major Disappointments

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Object of My Dejection, huh? Hmm, I don’t think I have any. Oh, art maybe?

I suck at art. I can’t draw anything, well, except straight lines with a ruler or circle with with a compass. The thing is in middle school, we didn’t get to choose what class we take and so aside from the fundamental classes (math, language arts, PE, science, and history), I was randomly placed in other classes.

My favorite and least favorite class was Art. It was my favorite because I didn’t need to take anything out of my backpack and I didn’t have homework in that class. It was my least favorite class because I sucked at it.

The most disappointing thing I made in that class? Two super-sized coil pots.

I found this on google and it looks like it belongs to another wordpress site. I give you full credit for the picture, whoever you are. Great job on the coil pot! It looks like mine but yours looks way better! 🙂

It’s disappointing because of all the things to make with clay, I can only make coil pots and very ugly ones too. When I made the first one, I thought to make a coil cylinder to hold my pens and pencils on my desk. Instead, I made an odd oval shape coil pot that can hold nothing. Ugh, it was heavy, ugly, and horribly glazed. Still though, I remained somewhat proud of what I achieved.

A few weeks later, I was given a second chance. In the least to say, I failed again. This time, it was the same thing except it’s purple instead of light blue. These two were in such odd shapes that it couldn’t hold anything.

When I moved from California to Texas, my mom forcibly threw it away along with my dearest blanket. So unfortunately, no pictures of mine. I think I was young at the time, maybe too young and un-creative to create any sort of masterpiece. I think if I’m given another chance now, I believe I can do better.

*****

Oh, I can’t believe how early I got up this morning, 4 am. I’ve been working since then and I’m just getting a break now. Anyway, I have to get back to work if I supposedly want to finish this today.

Why A Simple Life…

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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. 😉

Convey Emotions to Get Something

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Okay, these prompts are getting more ridiculous and uninspiring by the day. Did something happen? Did the group of people that usually come up with the prompts go home for the holiday, leaving a bunch of substitutes in charge of the prompt?

Anyway, I’m terrible with conveying emotions with objects. And something I learned over the years, you only mean something to someone when they need something or want something from you. Like would my dear friends from middle school contact me unless they need help with homework or other sort of things? No!

My mother’s friends are the same, they don’t call her unless they need help with something. So in reverse, I really don’t see the need to convey this message unless I’m stuck on a island or something in need of help. Then, I would arrange tiny rocks on the beach that will spell out, “HELP!”

If I’m trying to convey my emotion with my mother, I wouldn’t need 5-10 objects, I would just use a big box of chocolate in the shape of a heart. Doesn’t that says enough?

*****

I guess I jinxed my vacation in yesterday’s post because yesterday afternoon, I received a somewhat urgent email from my project manager asking why aren’t we working. I mean, can’t a girl take a break? After all, finals are just barely over and it’s the holidays!

Apparently not, so today, I have to work. Ugh!!! 😦

A Rebel and A Hero

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Unsung heroes, eh? I’m not sure I have any having known so few people in my life. My biggest hero at the current moment is my mother who wakes up and leaves for work at 4 am everyday. Then she’d come home at around 5, cook, browse the internet, sleep, and then do it all over again.

I admire that about her, hard working and willing to sacrifice. I mean I think I’m a hard worker too but I don’t think I will ever be as a hard worker as she is. I don’t think I’d have the courage to go through basic training at the age of 42 or be able to complete 2 miles in 15 minutes.

Also I don’t think I have the guts to rebel against my family whereas my mother went against her parents’ wish by going to school and get a higher education instead of going into the job force right out of high school like her siblings. At the moment, my mother’s the only one in her family with a college degree and just so happens be the least favorite person in not only my grandfather’s mind but everyone else’s mind. I guess that makes her the unsung hero in her family.

*****

I have exactly 20 hours to myself this week and I intend to cherish every bit of it. Yes, I’m the only one who’s off this week. My mother has work and aunt and cousin has school. So now, I need to eat, go to the gym, and work on rewriting the novel I’ve been working for the past year.

See you tomorrow. 🙂

Proving my Generosity

Published on by Yinglan6 Comments

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.

The Opportunity He Threw Away

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There he was, sitting in the back seat behind me. I could hear the pull of the seat belt. I hate that noise, it sounded like something was being pulled. What the heck is he doing?

That’s how things break, from pulling too often and too hard

It wasn’t the first time I heard that noise. I’ve heard it every time when I give him a lift the past three months. It felt like he was trying to lean forward but the seat belt wouldn’t give. It made me fear that the more he pulled, the larger the chance that it’d snag and break. That’s tension, I learned that in my second semester of engineering.

Some pedestrians is slow and annoying

Sit back, won’t ya. I wanted to scold him for moving around but couldn’t. I was having enough trouble maneuvering through the pedestrian-filled downtown to shout at anyone. Beside, if I scold him, I’d sound like my mother. I decided to focus on the music blaring from the radio. It distracted me slightly. I almost ran into the back of the car before me.

Ugh, I thought, and that’s why I prefer to go see my orthodontist alone. Downtown is such a complex area of the city with the new mall and Temple Square and the hills.

Once I made it out of downtown and toward the freeway entrance, my grip on the steering wheel loosened and I asked. “So what did you think of the school?”

More than an hour ago, I had dropped my aunt and cousin off at the university so they could tour the campus while I got my braces examined. “It’s okay.” He answered.

I arched my brow. Okay? That’s it? “What do you like about the school?” I inquired further, sounding like a journalist. My chest was pounding because I didn’t want to come off as invasive even if I had thought of asking as a concerned relative.

I watched him shrug in the rear-view mirror. Then he sighed. “It doesn’t really matter. I’m going to this school.”

What? Why? I almost wanted to shriek. Instead, another question escaped my lips. “Then what are you going to study?”

He sighed again. “Engineering?” It came out like a question. Perhaps he wasn’t sure, I thought hopefully.

“Are you sure? It’s going to be hard.” I said but I also meant to implied that after all, I just went through the same thing. I watched him shrug again.

“But why this school though?” I knew the reasons why but I just wanted to hear it coming from him.

My aunt had actually implied several weeks ago when he was registering for his TOEFL exams but I read between the line. He wanted to go to this school so he could be near us. That’s what she said. Yeah right.

He wasn’t planning to live in the dorms, he was planning to live here and use our water, eat our food, and occupy the basement. Another part of his clever plan was to have one of us chauffeur him back and forth between the train station. I secretly raised my brow at her at the time. She can be a scary woman but my point, NO WAY. You’ve already lived in my home in China for all these years, I’m not having you take over my current home either.

“I’m still deciding. I need to see my TOEFL score first. Even then, it won’t be too late for me to decide.”

I quietly scoffed. Not too late? I beg the differ. I focused on my driving and the car ride grew silent for a few minutes while I waited for the commercial to be over and return to the music. My mom and I have always disliked this quality about these people we called family. Whenever they are asked to plan something, they’d say, “Whatever, we’ll decide when the time comes.” Whenever they’re asked what they’d like to eat, they’d say, “Whatever is good.”

Well, how should we know? We aren’t mind-readers. And if you don’t plan ahead, you’ll miss out on the tiny details and you might even have to delay your plans.

I sighed. “You need to be ready as soon as possible.” I felt like I was sounding more and more like my mother. “Here in the U.S., everything is about planning ahead.” You need to tone it down, now. I told myself. “When you go see your adviser in the first semester, he or she will ask you to map out your entire path at the university. I did that in my very first class. It’s all about long-term and short-term planning.”

“Mmm,” that was his response. That was all I get? For telling him my experience? Mmm? No how do I get admitted? No what do you recommend I do? Not even a thank you?

The car ride is silent afterward. Neither he nor I asked another question and I’ve decide you know what? You don’t deserve my expertise.

If you’re so clever to ignore my suggestions, I’ll watch you hit road block after another. You can get yourself admitted into the school, register for your first semester of classes, and get yourself into a dorm room. I already know those would be his first challenges because he’ll think the deadlines are still a long ways away for him to be worry and he still has to try again on his TOEFL. I have a feeling he’ll stay here for as long as my aunt lets him because heck, my aunt’s on his side. So he’s enjoying playing that card.

Well, cousin…

Don’t come crying for help because you didn’t read and understand the dates of when to submit the admission forms and when each tasks need to get done.

Don’t come crying for help when you go to the bookstore and saw all those ridiculous prices on books and wonder how some people can afford them.

Don’t come crying for help when you don’t know what courses to take for your first semester because this is all you’ll get from us. “Uh, I don’t know.”

Figure it out yourself because you didn’t listen when I told you to plan ahead.

Sometimes, it’s best to hide

Published on by Yinglan9 Comments

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.

Breathe, Relax, and Smile, Exams are over

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Breathe, relax, smile, exams are over!

To be honest, I didn’t want to write today but my mind kept telling me that today’s prompt’s easy and I should at least write something. Oh well, at least I’ll complete this in 10 minutes.

I woke this morning at 7-something by my mother barging into my room shaking me awake. Today was my last final exam of the semester and it’s the toughest, individual taxation, yikes. Right now, I feel like my brain’s fried and about to explode into a million pieces but I’ve missed my TV show. Oh well.

At 8 am, after I had two pieces of toast, I proceeded to my mother’s room where she went over every single note she’d written down for the course. You see, she took the same exam yesterday and had a few ideas of what I’ll encounter today.  As I sat there and listened to her talk, I felt like my brain was about to explode with new knowledge flowing from my ears and eyes to my brain every single second.

It went on for roughly two hours. After that, I went back to my room and studied everything all over again, twice three maybe five times (I lost count) before I ate lunch and drove to school, to my doom.

The exam was both what I expected and not what I expected. Some questions325420429_ManyQuestions_answer_2_xlarge jumped out while some, I felt lost like I haven’t a single clue what to do. I did alright, I guess, enough to secure me a “B” in this class, if the professor’s nice enough to give me the remaining 0.2% to get me a “B” instead of “B-“.

What I’m worrying the most about is yesterday’s exam. I just hope the professor is nice enough to give me a “B” in that class too. Then I won’t have to live with a “C” in my first semester of my graduate program. A “C” is not too bad though, at least it’s better than an “E”, now that’s devastating to my GPA.

But anyway, the semester’s finally over and I can finally take a breath, yay! 🙂

All or Nothing?

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“Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.” — Sylvia Plath

Which do you find more dangerous: wanting nothing, or wanting everything?

I find both ends of the spectrum dangerous. Wanting everything can put a person in desperate situations that can lead a person to stealing, fights, and a whole lot of other things. Wanting nothing can mean a person is depressed and needs help. It can also mean this person wants no any sort of object whatsoever. It can just mean they want money.

I find a person healthy when they want something in between.

Horrible post for a horrible prompt and it’s not linking!

Got an exam to study for, later.