A one man Babel

So, um, yeah. It's been a while hasn't it?

For those who don't know, I've spent the last few weeks in Zhuhai trying to improve my Mandarin. It definitely helped my speaking skills, but the whole thing was more of an interesting sociological and cultural study. It was like Real World-Survivor-Big Brother-Discovery Channel: Zhuhai.

On the subject of language, I seem to be incapable of holding on to a language once I stop using it regularly. As my Mandarin improved, my English became increasingly grammatically incorrect, and Cantonese kind of...stopped happening since I was mixing up the tones. And I did speak some French, but it was mainly limited to curses.

So who knows, maybe one day everyone will be talking like the characters in Firefly.

On that note, I should stop looking at pictures of shuai guys and go shuijiao, because I have to meet my friend at 11 tomorrow for wufan.

Hello 2010, hello land of the sheep

First post of 2010, woo!

I will be taking off for Scotland later this week, and personally, I cannot wait. Bar the freezing cold. I've somehow managed to pack winter clothes along with a suit (other work clothes to follow by mail) and other necessities to prevent me from freezing/starving/dying from lack of hygiene in a total of 1 suitcase and a carry-on. One bloody suitcase. With a weight limit. But hey, whatever. At least even by April it'll still be too cold to switch over to warm-weather clothing.

At the same time, I'm a little sad I'll miss out on the spring games/gigs and seeing the class of '10 people before they graduate.

If the Trojans in Edinburgh blog gets set up and begins to function, this one might not be updated as regularly.

Coast hopping

So I'm in the 2nd to last week of this internship and while I can't wait to get back to LA, move in, see everyone again, get all my stuff unpacked and get ready for band camp (woo?/!), I'm gonna miss the time in DC. It wasn't one of those self-discovery journeys that inspire Oscar-winning films, but it gave me the chance to do things I wouldn't normally do elsewhere. Like get up at the crack of dawn to go to Gettysburg. Or camp out at 5pm to watch 9pm fireworks while being serenaded by the US Army band. Other things:

I still can't answer where exactly I come from (up to 3 different answers now), my hair is now a strange shade of brown/burgundy/orange, and I think my accent has taken on tones of the Mason-Dixon states as well as picking up certain military/nautical terms. I survived 2 months without murdering (or getting murdered by) the Notre Dame tuba or the UCLA alum officer. (Should I have? Most likely yes. But I'd rather not get in trouble with the US Navy, thank you very much.) I avoided getting questioned by the NCIS over classification issues. On a whim, I took the 6 hour Amtrak up to Providence, bruised my arse and killed my lower back on an hour of polo, watched a polo game, stayed up till 5 to go and have breakfast at a diner, and loved every moment because I did it with a friend. LA transportation seems even crappier than before after the lovely DC metro (minus the Red line crash). Shellbacking makes frat initiations seem like a welcome tea party. It's way easier to travel on the East coast than I realised. Thanks to the good ol' grid layout of DC, I visited most of the Smithsonian museums in a week by walking. There are people whom I would never have hung out with had we not ended up in the same internship, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to miss them. And while the reference letter is nice, I'm just glad I got to work with the people in the archives and hope I will see at least some of them again after all this.

Not a bad summer, by all accounts.

Cardiff-Lake District-Scotland

Hello from the freezing (except for those in the Midwest I presume) cold part of the world. I spent a nice Christmas down in Wales, then headed up to the Lakes for a couple of nights and now I'm in Scotland and will be for New Years. I spend most of my days eating and the rest of the time in a post-food coma, hence a vicious cycle of getting progressively fat.

Between Birmingham and now, I realised one thing that I had completely forgotten during my end-of-semester reminiscing and should have figured out after this summer in Colorado: being the only person under 50 for the better part of a 2.5 week holiday can really, really, epically, suck.

Much as I love my family and family friends, between the several maternal (and the odd paternal) figures discussing and advising about life, love, marriage, and looking after your parents when you and they get older, I'm starting to go batshit insane. Taking any advice from the parents has also become several degrees more difficult with each year; yes I know I can put on my hat if my ears are cold, yes I do have a hat, no I don't think I need it right now, yes I will eventually give you pocket money, but not until I can look after MYSELF first. Of course I'm the good daughter, mainly because I don't cause trouble, because I just shut up and sit there awkwardly instead of snapping back and then feeling guilty afterwards.
(I'm fairly sure my parents aren't as overbearing as most, I just have a pretty short fuse sometimes.)

Sigh. Filial piety clashing with desire for more independence.

Scarborough Fair

Actually the weather's pretty shitty right now and all the parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme have turned into mud or are going to be used in the Christmas dinner.

I'll only stay a night here before picking up a friend from Durham and then heading back to Birmingham. Then on to Wales for Christmas!

I am still severely jetlagged, which really really sucks, and the tendency to sleep in moving cars is not helping either.

London

I hopefully will post entries during these next couple of weeks wherever I can get Internet.

Right now I'm in London, and will be heading up to Birmingham in the afternoon to stay with friends. All I can say is that I am super happy that finals are OVER and I can get around to eating and enjoying Christmas. Also, the parents got here this morning so that's even better.

I can also stop worrying about band now that I won't be going back for the Rose Bowl. I will however send the obligatory game day text/call if I can, and if I can't catch it on TV (they don't seem to have ESPN much) I'll track it online or something.

It turns out finals and papers stressed me out so much I forgot to pay my last phone bill (and I'm usually pretty diligent even without auto-pay) . And today I made up for it by double-paying by mistake. =P

Time to go get pub grub.

Helloooo from New York

After a 15 hour plane ride, a 3 hour delay due to air traffic among other things, and a $10 taxi ride that got jacked up to $24 that led to my mum calling the police, I'm back in the US.

On the East Coast, that is. At 4am.

And it seems that I have missed an exciting/terrifying event back on the West Coast. Glad to see everyone's okay though.

In other news, I failed my driving test back in Hong Kong. I had just done my 3-point turn and parallel parking, and was going down a steep narrow road when two trucks sort of loomed up in front of me.

Cue momentary panic, minute swerve and gentle bumping of the curb.

Yeah, that pretty much killed it for me.
I was really nervous though, especially when it turned out that my test was going to be 30 minutes earlier than stated just because everyone else had gone ahead of time.

So I'll most likely retake the test in LA. Not the best location, but I don't have much choice.