Tag: Lookback

Meaningful Hand-me-downs

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I am no stranger to hand-me-downs but then again who is, unless you’re incredibly rich but even then, you will have something that is sort of a hand-me-down. Mom and I almost escaped to Salt Lake City from Austin with just the things that can fit into her small car (long story, will/might tell later). So we didn’t have a lot when we came here but not to the point that we had to start over.

We moved into an one-bedroom apartment a few weeks after we arrived. We had no furniture. For the first few days, we sat on a towel on the carpet while eating from some spare bowls lend to us by mom’s nosy friend who lived several blocks away.

That first weekend, when her nosy friend’s husband was off, he helped move  all the furniture that’s been occupying his garage into our apartment. They were eager to get rid of it even though some of it were still pretty much brand new. It belonged to Mrs. Nosy’s uncle who decided to leave Utah and move back to San Francisco.

The apartment was soon furnished with second-hand furniture. An out-of-date flowery pattern love seat in the living room while a really weird texture Laz-Boy sofa-bed in the bedroom where mom and I will sleep for the next two years. Then a folded table and very heavy chairs for dining, a rectangular broken-legged mirror-glass coffee table as well as a square table for the hand-me-down TV and some shelves. Even the silverware were hand-me-downs.

The Laz-boy sofa bed and the square coffee table that used to hold the TV. See what I mean about the mirror-glass?
The Laz-boy sofa bed and the square coffee table that used to hold the TV. See what I mean about the mirror-glass?
The love-seat. Don't be fool by the length, there are only two cushions.
The love-seat. Don’t be fool by the length, there are only two cushions.

But I was thankful because we were struggling back then. Mom’s new job as a school teacher hadn’t begin so we didn’t have any income and I was only 16. Anyway, 100% of the things in that apartment were hand-me-downs.

A block away from the apartment was a thrift shop and that was where we would shop until we moved to our current home 30 miles away. Mrs. Nosy loved this thrift shop because a lot of wealthy old people lived nearby and their homes are full of beautiful antiquities. As well as that, a lot of the clothes that were donated were pretty clean and new. I didn’t like shopping in that store at first because I thought second-hand clothes were yucky. But I adjusted after a while and knew where to look.

We got quite a deal in that store, most of the clothes we bought were $1 and some of them were free. Anyway, when we moved into our current home, again, we were nearly furniture-less because when you move from a 500 square-foot apartment to a 2000 square-house, it will make a difference. We had no beds. So for the first week or so, we slept on the sofa bed which now resides in the family room. Then the love seat now resides in the living room. We rarely shop at the thrift shop now because we often find better deals at the Exchange in the air force base.

Out of all the hand-me-downs I had in my life and I have had a lot, there three items I think it’s the most meaningful.

  1. The television-set that was giving to us by my step-grandparents when we moved to Austin. We were just about broke back then with my step-dad spending every dime my mom made from her two jobs on alcohol and cigarettes. This television-set provided entertainment and comfort for me because at least for a short time, I can forget I live in tiny apartment with constant fighting parents.
  2. The sofa-bed that was handed down by Mrs. Nosy’s uncle. It provided me with a place to sleep. Not comfortable but it’s better than sleeping on the ground.
  3. The television also handed-down by Mrs. Nosy’s uncle. It provided mom and me hours of entertainment while we spent many late-nights during that first year staying up grading paper.

I know my definition of “meaningful” is different than everyone else’s but these three things got me through some tough times. Isn’t that’s what the term “meaningful” is about? Getting through memorable hard times? Anyway, when I listen to this song, it kind of remind me of those times.

Just writing this post makes me feel older already. Today is my lunar birthday. I may be turning 23 in a few weeks but I bet my aunt will send me a card today saying happy 24th because some people in China go by the lunar birthdays and count the 9 months in the mother’s belly.

Locked and Sealed or So I thought

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Once in a while, we all spill a few secrets, unintentionally of course, but we can’t help it. Conversations just starts and sometimes it just comes naturally. Some might think that this is just an act of nosiness. I don’t agree. In fact, I think this is an act of nosiness.

I remember earlier this year, at Chinese New Year, when mom’s friend invited me out to dinner, I ranted to her in confidence about my fight with grandparents two nights before. At least or so I thought.

Exactly a week later, when mom came back from her temporary duty in D.C. and asked her friend out to morning tea, that friend, the one I ranted to, retold the entire thing to mom. I just sat there, my face reddened and jaw dropped a little while my heart felt like it was going to pop out any minute. I was afraid to see mom’s reaction.

Fortunately, she decided to not embarrass me right there in the restaurant. She didn’t say anything. Mostly, it’s because she knew the whole thing already. I told her right after that phone call. Still though, I ranted to her friend in confidence and her friend had just spilled it out. It was like it was in the conversation either. We just walked in, sat down, and that’s the first thing she said.

After tea, mom and I got into the car. That was when she gave me the look of disapproval. “Why did you have to tell her that?” She asked me.

Yeah, why did I tell her friend the fight between me and my grandparents? Well first thing’s first, I did not expect her to blab to mom about it. I expected her to just keep it to herself. Also, mom wasn’t around, so I had to complain to someone about my failed relationship with my grandparents.

“I didn’t really tell her.” I lied.

“Really, then how did she know so much?” I shrugged. “Well, in the future, don’t tell her anything. You know she’s nosy. That’s why I don’t tell her anything about my work.”

That’s how that risky conversation ended and from then on, I just kept my mouth shut whenever I’m around that friend.

Lessons learned:

  1. Never complain to nosy friend. They’ll just re-tell it to someone else whenever they get a chance.
  2. Lying sometimes can help avoid an argument.

Have a great day! 🙂

A drama-filled past week

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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?

How this whole thing started?

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. 🙂

Flashback Thursday: An Unforgettable Summer Solstice

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I have always wondered why we need to rehearse for our graduation. After going to four graduations, I can honestly say graduation rehearsal is a big waste of time even if it’ll get you out of class. Continue reading “Flashback Thursday: An Unforgettable Summer Solstice” →

The Weekend I’ve been waiting for

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Happy Saturday, Everybody!!! Continue reading “The Weekend I’ve been waiting for” →

Took my dear old car for a drive…

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Yesterday, I took my dear old car out on a drive. Yes, dear and old. It’s a ’95 Ford Escort that I do NOT ever want to sell. Continue reading “Took my dear old car for a drive…” →

Back to Work

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It’s Monday and that means it’s back to work! Continue reading “Back to Work” →

Last Day of May

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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” →

My Journey to Blogging

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blogging-is-a-journey

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.

It all started with an idea…

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.

The bumps along the road…

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!

Most Memorable Nights of a Lifetime

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Close up of a graduation cap and a certificate with a ribbonGraduation 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” →

January’s gone, February’s creeping by, can’t wait for March

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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

Guess it applies to my work. Great quote!
Hey, it does applies to my work. Great quote!

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.

2014, What am I going to do with you?

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2014 is upon us, well, 13.5 hour-ish.  So let’s give 2013 a look-back to see what I’ve accomplished.

Let’s see…

February

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!

…a gigantic snow 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.

August

I completed my summer semester with two “A-” and I even got on TV.

September 

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.

October

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.

November

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.

December

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”.

Goals and Resolutions

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!