reow!

the moment speaks for itself ;)

[courtesy of wei-hsin's camera... thanks to my sexy lady! *wink wink* ]

one day at a time

nothing too special on the menu tonight... at least, compared to some of the great food i had this past wknd... mmmm :)

all that talk about china and taiwan... i take it all back. not that i'm not gonna go. i still wanna learn mandarin. but it's funny how i pray for direction and then things get thrown my way and before i know it, i'm back at square one. not gonna get into it... dun wanna talk about it anymore. anyway, i talk too much (and don't do enough) as it is. no more getting ahead of myself... just gonna take things as they come and be grateful of every opportunity that comes my way.

one day at a time.

great debts

u know what this pic is a reminder of?
1. it was beeeautiful that day.
2. samwise gamgee was standing behind me.
3. my bloody OSAP is due... grrrr >.<

needles

yesterday i added a new item to my list of pet peeves. i walked into the doctor's office expecting her to fill out a very simple form (or so i thought) and then she goes and tells me, u're gonna need some bloodwork done. within seconds, i was whisked across the hall and into a chair and before i knew it, my blood was being taken.

i'm not terrified of needles, btw... which is besides the point. the ordeal is psychological for the most part, and that's where my peeve lies. i'm sure there's more pain in walking around all day in 3-inch heels than being poked with a needle (and all the ladies can attest to this one!), but there's something about self-inflicted pain that allows my mind and body to accept it and cope with it. again, not that needles are so painful, but it's someone else stabbing me with a sharp object, for goodness sake... i feel violated!! unless, of course, i'm given some time for mental preparation, in which case i'm able to give them permission in my mind to poke me. then it's like i'm letting them take my blood. there's consent being given, even if only in my mind.

when i was young, i used to try to put my hand on the doctor's so that it seemed like i was giving myself the shot, or at least allowing them to give it to me instead of having it forced upon me. i hated it when they made me look away... as though it would ease the whole process... stupid people, assuming they knew how my mind worked... u see, by looking at where they injected me, i could see exactly what they were doing, and in knowing what was going on, my consent could be fully realized. imagine not being allowed to witness what i gave them permission to do... what kind of permission is that? how true of a consent is it when i'm being prevented from seeing what it was i consented them to do? (my mind really did work this way as a child...)

proverbs

salad, pasta, pot pie.

i can't believe i only have 3 more classes to go.

"Give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime."

i heard this twice today, coincidentally enough... first on a sitcom before class, and then again during class. in fact, today's lecture was based entirely on this proverb. i'm tempted to expand, but i'll do everyone a favour and keep tonight's post short and sweet :P i'll end off with a quote i stumbled across while eating a box of baci chocolates:

"A woman is always a mystery: one must not be fooled by her face and her heart's inspiration."

- E. De Amicis

p.s. i did not eat the entire box in one sitting

fry, anyone?

multi-tasking at its cutest :) this was my hamster pinkeye (pronounced pinky) a few years back during his healthy pre-cancer days. pinkeye was the dumbest of all my hamsters, not to mention the most fragile and sickly... but if he ever owned a saying, it would be: "don't hate me because i'm beautiful." pinkeye was one of the hamsters who loved to sleep in the 'skyroom'... we usually gave him a cut-up sock or towel along with the woodchips to keep him comfy. did i mention that pinkeye was a lazyass?? he luuuved to eat and sleep at the same time. in this pic, i gave him a fry to nibble on and he didn't open his eyes once... just sniffed out the fry, reached out, bit off a piece and proceeded to nibble on it while lying on his side. if u look closely at the picture, u can see the paws of his feet plastered against the glass :)

taiwan it is

i visited the chinese and taiwanese cultural centres today to inquire about their language study programs, and i was SHOCKED to find out that china had nothing to offer through the centre (which was bigger and nicer than the taiwanese one, btw). they have this 3-week tour in the summer where i can travel and learn mandarin on the side, but that's it... the most they could do for me was give me the contact info of the university that the centre is affiliated with so i can coordinate with the school on my own. oh yah, they couldn't even give me that on the spot cuz the lady couldn't find the brochure. on the other hand, taiwan's got a program that's the cheapest i've come across so far since it's half subsidized by the government, plus it fits perfectly well with my schedule. they've got the summer tour going as well ('love boat' i believe) but like i said before, i'm going there TO LEARN, and anyway, i dun wanna wait til the summer before i can do so.

the reason i'm so shocked is cuz the majority of the mandarin language study programs that i found online were based in china... to find the ones based in taiwan, i had to actually include 'taiwan' in the search. as far as tours ago, i think it woulda been cooler to go to china to visit places like the great wall, tiananmen square, etc. i'm not really sure what famous places there are in taiwan. anyway, i found a coupla good programs in china that were all-inclusive and stuff, but they were waaay too pricey for me... a semester (12 weeks) could easily cost me $5000 US. the program that the taiwanese centre is hooking me up with only costs (considering how well the canadian dollar is doing right now) under $900 per term (which is 7 weeks). that's already with the subsidization and includes everything but the airfare, ie. food, lodging, tuition, materials, extracurricular activities, trips, etc. i think 2 terms will do me good, and the ticket should be cheap if i'm flying in from the philippines. of course, there's always a catch to these things... the program is meant for youth ages 14-24 and they have some pretty crazy rules for me to follow. i'm gonna be with children! i feel like i'm going off to boarding school... the kind where i'll find myself severely disciplined if i talk out of turn in class or they find me awake past bedtime. and i'm not being forced to go, i'm choosing to go... *shudder* now if i had other motives (social or otherwise), then this would definitely not be the program for me. but guess what, i'm gonna do it... for the sake of learning, and nothing else. anyway, it can't possibly compete with my first month in the army :P

jerry maguire

so i was listening to some of the cds from the exchange last night, and something funny occurred to me. a coupla sundays ago, some of the guys at lunch were firing off all these quotes from jerry maguire ("the most quotable movie ever," as ed puts it) and i just couldn't join in. i suppose it was cuz i didn't care much for the quotes... not that i dun like quotes, cuz if i'm posting them here, i obviously do... but it's really strange what guys find memorable. so many of them can recall a ton of famous one-liners from a ton of movies, and frankly, i dunno how they do it. if famous movie lines were a school subject, i would fail horribly... i can't help it, my brain just refuses to retain these things. so anyway, that sunday i remember thinking to myself, nothing about jerry maguire (aside from tom cruise) gets me all worked up like how those guys were worked up over the quotes... how strange they all are, i concluded. but last night, bruce springsteen's secret garden came on and then it hit me... i remembered how much i love this song... and then all my memories of jerry maguire came flooding back. not so much the quotes, though... mostly the scenes that really moved me, plus all the emotions that came along with those scenes. and all because i heard a song... a song (and not some quote) that triggered something in me and got me into the movie again, if only for a moment. strange how all our minds work so differently... imagine if, on that sunday, instead of them hyping up those quotes to me, i was hyping up the theme song to them ("hey guys, remember when that song came on and then this happened and that happened and it just made u wanna cry?")... they woulda thought me to be the strange one. so in the end, who's strange really... me? them? both? neither?

brains like mine really ought to come with a shutdown option.

psycho

*enter alfred hitchcock's psycho theme song*

u know how some greeting cards break into song when u open them? passports should come like that too... on the page with ur passport photo on it. i've come to the conclusion that the passport photo of the average person looks equivalent to that of a mugshot, so might as well make the most of it. i've also come to the conclusion that 'expressionless' is actually an expression in itself... in my case, 'expressionless' looks like a cross between psych ward patient and prison convict, with a susan sarandon-esque quality to it.

i kinda like it :)

both dousing and feeding the fire, so to speak

our class had chicken wings tonight... along with macaroni soup, veggie egg rolls, and triangular potato things i've never tried before but tasted really good. i'm not sure what the dessert was either, but it had a lot of cream and also tasted really good. i do enjoy my monday nights :)

i've chosen another one of my favourites (why? no reason) to post from my 'archives'... an awesome and inspiring speech from babylon 5, believe it or not. i have brian to thank for this one:

"I give you what little wisdom i have. [....] From time to time, we will make mistakes; they are inevitable. Sometimes those mistakes will be huge. What matters is that you learn from them. There`s nothing wrong with falling down as long as you end up just two inches taller when you pick yourself up off the floor. At times, you may end up far away from home. You may not be sure of where you belong anymore. But home is always there, because home is not a place; it`s wherever your passion takes you.

"As you continue on your path, you will lose some friends and gain new ones. The process is painful, but often necessary. They will change, and you will change, because life is change. From time to time, they must find their own way, and that way may not be yours. Enjoy them for what they are, and remember them for what they were.

"There is not much left, except... I believe, I do believe that sooner or later, no matter what happens, things will work out. Now we have hard times, we suffer, we lose loved ones. The road is never easy. It was never meant to be easy. But in the long run, if you stay true to what you believe, things do work out. Always be willing to fight for what you believe in. It doesn`t matter if a thousand people agree with you, or one person agrees with you. It doesn`t matter if you stand completely alone. Fight for what you believe. Which brings me to the first piece of advice my dad ever gave me and now I`m gonna give to you: Never, never start a fight. But always finish it. Always finish it."

- J. Michael Straczynski

ever after

everyone's got their own take on the subject of finding the perfect mate, but the prince's take on ever after never fails to make me smile :) he kinda reminds me of myself... the way my thought process works, how i would pose a million different questions and scenarios and then freak out at the huge number of possibilities i've given myself... hehehe. i originally found the quote on someone else's page... can't remember who though.

“Do you really think there’s only one perfect mate? How can you be certain to find them? And if you do find them, are they really the one for you or do you only think they are? What happens if the person you’re supposed to be with never appears, or she does but you’re too distracted to notice? Let’s say God puts two people on earth and they are lucky enough to find one another, but one of them gets hit by lightning…well then what? Is that it? Or perchance you meet someone new and marry all over again; is that the lady you’re supposed to be with or was it the first? And if so, when the two of them are walking side by side, are they both the one for you and you just happen to meet the first one first or was the second one supposed to be first? Is everything just chance or are some things meant to be?”

- Ever After

reminiscences

i was cleaning up some files and folders, and i came across a wonderful collection of quotes and entries i actually bothered to save from my days on *ahem* aa (u know, back when everyone was on it :P). i'm so glad they've resurfaced cuz some of them are quite inspiring... i'll post them here, i think... starting with this one:

If you keep a journal or a diary like I do, it’s always interesting (or amusing, or humbling, or embarrassing, or fulfilling, or even painful) to go weeks, months, or even years back and see your journey unfold in your own words. The worst thing you can do is deny the reality of any moments that you’ve recorded. The best thing you can do is to acknowledge them all as learning experiences and to accept that they’ve all had a part in molding you into the person you are today. True, I can’t change things that have happened… but if there’s anything that the past year has taught me, it’s that I can change the course of events in my life if I’m only willing enough to do so. Every day that God blesses us with also comes with many chances for us to do something that will make a difference in our life or someone else’s. Despite the many storms in my life that have made me want to give up time and time again, God never fails to throw me a lifeline… a beam of hope that pierces the darkest of clouds and reassures me that the sun will shine again in my life. And it has. It is :)

rabbit starvation

"rabbit starvation (a term coined by v. stefansson) refers to the fact that rabbits and hares have very lean meat. as a result, if rabbit or other lean animals are the only source of food, it is possible to starve to death even if large quantities are consumed."

this stefansson obviously hasn't met my bunnie. she's sitting up in this picture, but u should see her resting... she's just a big brown tender blubberball of fur.

as jennie would say... twisted.

2004

...latest tan granddaughter.
uncanny resemblance, no?

1982

first tan granddaughter...

brown fat

it was freezing in my house today. funny enough, i was the only one who thought so... and it's not like i had a fever or anything. i walked into the kitchen and my grandma cracked up cuz i was covered head to toe: hood, sweatshirt, coat, gloves, sweats, wool socks, and fuzzy slippers. she was only wearing a set of scrubs. one of us just HAD to be waaay off, i thought... but i touched her arm and she was warm, and she touched my hand and realized that i really was freezing. what's up with that?! u know what i need... some brown fat. cuz being too cold is just one of those things that renders me completely useless. no kidding. i can't get anything done cuz i can't get over how cold i am, and i can't stop thinking about how i wish i were warmer and what i can possibly do to get warmer. the best solution i've found was to take a hot shower... but alas, a shower can only last so long. another effective thing i've found was to dress myself in layers, go completely under the covers, curl up into a ball and remain completely still. needless to say, these solutions don't leave much room for multi-tasking... or any means of productivity for that matter... unless u count thinking... hmmm... wouldn't it be great if i could use the energy i put into thinking to generate heat? u know, i may just choose my mandarin study location based on climate... whichever one's closest to the equator :)

China or Taiwan?

i'm going... i'm really going. question is, WHERE?

dad wants china. more cultural. mom wants taiwan. less sars. me, i dunno what i want. (yes yes, F4's from taiwan, but they're all in different countries right now anyway so there's no incentive... that's for those of u who continue to believe i'm going for guys... for goodness sake, of course i'm going for the language! guys are overrated... but hey, that's a whole different post :P)

honestly, i'm torn. i thought wanting to learn mandarin was enough of a choice. turns out i have to choose whether i wanna learn in china or taiwan, whether i wanna study at this university or that university, this town or that town, for a few weeks or a few months, live in the city or by the sea, stay on campus or with a family, study in a class of 20 or 2, opt to teach english or study wushu on the side, learn the culture by travelling or taking more courses, etc etc etc. the more research i do, the more options i come across, the harder it is for me to make a decision, the bigger the headache i get at the end of the day! one option at a time, i guess... which brings me back to the first question: china or taiwan? feedback, anyone??

quarantine

i was having a discussion with my chicas the other day about memories. u can create them but u can't erase them. not purposely, anyway. u can lose them... but i don't think u can simply walk away from a memory. the whole idea behind 'losing' is that u have no control over it. u can't decide what specific memory u're gonna lose and when u're gonna lose it. and finding a memory isn't so simple either, cuz until u do (if u ever do at all), u'll never know if it's truly gone or just dormant. so what can u control about ur memories?

my suggestion was this--quarantine. accept that u can't make urself forget, accept that it's still embedded in ur mind... but isolate it. for analogy's sake, suppose memory is a person standing in front of u, close enough that u can reach out and touch him. in this case, my idea of 'quarantine' would be to close ur eyes and keep ur hands to ur side. this doesn't change or delete the existence of that person (ie. memory), but it kinda miminizes it, don't u think? anyway, things get a bit complicated with 'active' memories versus 'passive' ones. think of 'passive' as a person standing in front of u, doing and saying nothing... 'active' would be a person standing in front of u, wearing strong cologne, talking his heart out and reaching out to touch ur arm every once in a while. u can close ur eyes and plug ur ears, but u can't tell ur skin to ignore his touch or disable ur olfactory receptors so u don't register his scent. i believe that 'active' memories are those that jump out at u in certain ways that u can do nothing about... in which case, i suppose quarantine can't apply, since partial quarantine makes no sense. and anyway, how many memories are just passive? because quarantine can only be effective on memories that are passive in the strictest sense.

ok, i'm gonna stop... i'm giving myself a headache :P

mercy me

i was granted a week's extension for my midterm, woohoo! *celebratory dance* honestly, i dunno where i'd be without all the academic mercies (or graces) shown to me over the years. still in school and with a lower GPA, i suppose :P so i did go to class, and the speaker was awesome, as usual. i'll post my take every now and then about some of the stuff the course covers.

[plug - for anyone with even the remotest interest in missions, i HIGHLY recommend the Perspectives program... it'll tremendously impact ur way of thinking and living. classes are held at different locations... apparently, my group at Agincourt Pentecostal have it the best cuz we have volunteers preparing us meal-sized snacks... mmm... i won't deny that food is one of the reasons i attend :) ]

old habits die hard

given how much i write, i can't believe i've only now just started a blog... but hey, when has my timing ever made sense, right? here i am, exploring blogspot and playing with the settings like a little kid would a new toy... when in 4 hours, i have a class in which my take-home midterm is due. yes, MIDTERM. on top of the weekly quiz assignment. have i finished the quiz? no. have i finished the midterm? no. have i even OPENED the midterm package to start it? no. will i be going to class tonight? i dunno. will they accept my midterm after tonight? who knows. do i have a reason for falling behind? not really (unless excuses count... i have lots of those).

question of the day: WHY AM I LIKE THIS?!

i really don't understand myself. i'm done school, i have no full-time job, i have all the time in the world, and not only do i manage to fall behind in the one course i'm taking, i actually pull a GRACE... that is to say, i fail to hand something in that will make or break the course. why?? because...

I'M HORRIBLE!! I SUCK!! I'M HOPELESS!!

on that note, i think i'll email the course coordinator. (hopefully he'll have mercy on me like all the others before him.)

two of a kind

taken sept 2004.
we were plotting something, lance and i...

can u tell by our expressions?

my house. my tree. my favourite season.

taken fall 2004.

i love the colour of these leaves.

and notice the sun's rays shining through...

beautiful. just beautiful.