All good again (sort of)

Darling is all good now!

Prelims wasn't all that great but at least it's over. Time for some pampering!

I miss him

Even though he's really right beside me, or just in the next room, I miss having him energetic and happy.
I miss having him do all those little distracting things I usually wave aside.
I miss having him frequently ask for hugs and kisses.
I feel slightly emotionally crippled. Maybe because I'm tired. Yesterday's sleep was short and fitful because he woke up repeatedly during the night. I keep having to take cat naps during the day to get enough energy to study. And when I wake up, I have the sensation of being jarred back into reality.
I wish I had more time to take care of him.
If this is how I react when my darling is sick, I don't think I'm ever ready for kids.

Falling

My darling's sick and I'm falling into pieces.

Blogger Ate my Last Post!!!

Well yeah it did. First time it has happened but frustrating nontheless.
The next few weeks will be hectic what with the end of semester rush to finish projects. So posts will be even more sparse than this recent week :(

Yesterday, I was at PMall. The after Thanksgiving crowd was amazing. The queues were longer than normal and everybody was holding on to some purchase of some kind. It's been said that Thanksgiving marks the beginning of Christmas shopping. Whoever said it was stating the obvious. There were kids everywhere, clutching their new-found treasures. Is there pre-Christmas gift giving going on? It's like everyone is on some mad shopping spree. An inner shopping demon released in each on of them.

There was a santa booth near the foodcourt and kids would clamber on the lap of this guy in a Santa suit, all padded up and bearded. Wonder how many times he cursed inwardly when some would puke/ urinate on him? Some lady was taking pictures of kids with Santa with a poloroid camera. Good emotional push there to make parents fork out money so they can get pics of their kids with santa.

A couple of girl scouts set up booths to sell cookies in the mall. They actually package them into nice paper boxes but I don't know the commercial look of it kinda puts me off. Did girl scouts actually bake them? Or did some cookie machine in a factory bake them? Judging from the lack of overwhelming response, I'm guessing the Atkin's dieters have made a significant dent in their sales.

Christmas is definitely upon us. I'm surprised that the choral groups haven't started singing their Christmas carols yet and there were no jingly jangly Christmas songs blaring from the store speakers as well. Well, even more surprising was that I walk away from the mall with nothing new in tow.

Thanksgiving Thoughts

Thanksgiving is the equivalent of Chinese New Year's eve. Americans across the country gather with their families for reunion dinner. It's the day of roast turkeys and roast turkeys and .... more roast turkeys. Last year, we joined the Singaporeans for Thanksgiving dinner. (Or was that 2 years ago)The turkey was kinda dry and the gravy sparse; stuffings aren't really my kind of thing -- too much starch; the alcohol was cheap ( I wasn't exactly expecting pricey vintage wine. Anyway, most alcohol taste horrible to me. Even champagne tasted bad. :( ) I guess it was never really about the food. Unlike Chinese.

Break Time

Thanksgiving break is here!!!

(Well technically two more classes and one more homework to go. Plus homework and a prelim due after the break)

From exercising to needles

Bah I just found out today that the track at barton is only 200m per lap. And I thought I was running 400m. Man, I'm seriously unfit. I ran a total of 1080m. That's the total mind you, not what I ran in one stretch. I was pretty much pooped after about 2 1/2 laps. Oh well, at least I actually ran. It has been really irritating when doctors commented that I should exercise more when they try to locate my vein
for blood samples. That happenned twice. Sheesh can't you appreciate girls with some meat? Must be the prevalence of those anorexic types in Singapore.

Blood tests have always make me nervous. First there's the problem of locating my vein. The nurse or doctor would smack the tender inner arm furiously, trying to make the vein visible. It's like a screwed up gopher game -- instead of whopping the gopher that pops his cute little head out, you whoop the arm till the veins pop out. After the good arm exercise I give the nurse or doctor, they have the luxury of piercing my now variegated skin with a hollowed needle. Until now, I still squeeze my eyes tight when the doctor whips out a needle. Yes, even when I'm not the intended victim.

My first time was when first got to Singapore. I was nervous. I was so nervous that the blood gushed out and splattered the whole tube. I was rewarded by having to do it again. Actually I don't see what's wrong with blood geysering out. The whole tube was going to be filled up anyway. Maybe this is their way of providing disincentives to nervous patients.

Mudding

Been really tired this whole week. Not much sleep and quite a bit of stress. Esp over my entrepreneuship group project. Oh well, we'll see how it goes. Part of the lack of sleep can be attributed to the fact that I MUD.

Crash course on MUDding. MUD stands for Multi- User Domain. They are usually text based adventure games. Pretty much like an MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Role Playing Game) without fancy graphics. Imagination provides far better graphics than current technology for MMORPGs can anyway.

Taken from Wikipedia,

"(In a MUD),Players assume the role of a character, and see textual descriptions of rooms, objects, other characters, and computer-controlled creatures or non-player characters (NPCs) in a virtual world. They may interact with each other and the surroundings by typing commands that resemble plain English.

Traditional MUDs implement a fantasy world populated by elves, goblins, and other mythical beings with players being knights, sorcerers, and the like. The object of the game is to slay monsters, explore a rich world and complete quests. "

To sum it up, it's a nerd thing. MUDders are pretty much a dying breed. In the MUD I play, racewars and player killing are the main features. The races are divided into the good and evil. Close to 100 people at any one time are sitting at their PCs typing furiously, cursing when they die and rejoice when they loot the corpse of the opposing race. A lot of people MUD because they enjoy playing with some of the others whom they have come to know. I dislike quite a lot of them actually. To me, this is like an RPG that I can play together with darling. I'm probably also satisfying my dragoness cravings -- I have a tendency to gather hoardes of equipment.

As I've somewhat hinted, some of the players can be real dinks. There's this guy, he's self-centred and basically a big bully. But he knows how to lead some difficult zones. So I heard. I've never followed him around before so I wouldn't know. What surprises me though is not only the number of people willing to put up with his boorish attitude, but the people who started justifying their own behaviour and started saying that he is actually not a bad type. Suuuuuure. Whatever. I'm not going near that shit with a 10-foot pole. The MUD is such a accurate reflection of people it's sometimes scary. Perhaps it's because most people are anonymously behind their PCs, allowing them to exhibit behaviour they would normally curb because it looks "bad". Plus doing something like climbing the MUD "ladder" doesn't seem quite as ack-ifying as climbing the corporate ladder. Sure, we all wish for respect from people we meet but I wouldn't pander to people I dislike so I could be in a band of so called elites.

Hmmm so judging from my MUD behavior, I have an aversity to interacting with people; I don't care about being the creme de la creme (well at least not in a text based game!); I like to hoarde; I'm more insecure than I think. Well,except for the hoarding part, the rest sounds pretty accurate :P Haha so keep your trinkets safe before I release the dragoness within me and take them all away.

Withdrawals

4 days away from my blog and I'm starting to experience verbal diarrhea. Firstly, ten thousand interesting things are begging to be said. Well at least they sounded interesting to my abused and traumatized, steamrolled- by- exams brain.

As I was typing out an email to my team members, I noticed how verbose it was. Part of the email was regarding our meeting with the advisor today. One of the team couldn't make it so I was providing an update (almost blow by blow) The summary of the 45 minutes meeting grew too long for an email so I had to put it in a word document. Then I was outlining what I think we should be working on and that became another mini essay in it's own right. I even wrote in point form. Dang it! I can only conclude that the few days of thinking in math and formula speak has resulted in withdrawal symptoms -- namely one excessive verbosity. Maybe not so much verbosity, I just seem to have lots of things to say. Wait, that's the same thing... errrm.... yeah.... it's good wordiness not bad. Like "good" cholestrol instead of "bad". Well, guess who's going to be working hard on the written part of our project? Might as well put this wayward talent to use.

Highlight of the week:
At the end of one of my prelims, the fire alarm went off. For a full 10 seconds, the students froze in their scribblings like deers caught in headlights and the prof looked stupendously at nothing. Nobody did anything. We stared at the professor and he stared back. It was actually quite a cinematic moment. Luckily, there was only 5 minutes of the exam left so he asked us to scribble down what we think we would have done, promising to curve the grades up a little.

I haven't read the time traveller's wife yet since I didn't have a chance to drop by at the library. I'm now reading A Thousand Orc by RA Salvatore. Been reading a lot of his books with the drow Drizzt Du'orden over the summer. Under the influence of darling, I've been reading a lot of fantasy books. But I've always enjoyed the fantasy genre just that I never knew what to read nor the time to do so. Next up, I'll talk about my MUD obsession :P After dinner maybe.

Akindled Passions

I was about to start on my homework when I saw a lined sheet of paper with my scrawl. It was something I wrote while sitting in class on Friday (obviously not paying attention) and I started thinking about what plot I could possibly use for my novel. Well, actually I thought about it on my way to class and when I was in class, I figured I shoud write it down before I forget. The theme was change - how different people view and handle change, about whether change is good. As a member of the movers club, I've been through three different countries and cultures. Going from not-very-swinging single to firmly attached was a significant change as well. I feel like I can actually write this book. Now I just have to think of a plot. And characters. And setting. Which is basically everything. Hrrrm. Doesn't sound that promising but I'm feeling optimistic about it somehow *beam*

The other thing I wrote was some ideas on how to formulate my MEng project as a simulation model. I didn't realize until now that I'm really looking forward to working on it. That I thought about it at the same time I worried about one of my greater passions, writing, was significant. At the very least, I liked my team members. I actually feel like I can trust them which is a far cry from my other group last year.

Well, probably won't be posting until Wednesday. Two prelims and a problem set between Monday to Wednesday. More of my quantity-not-quality ramblings later.

I celebrate my sensibleness

I almost bought something today. It was a styling set with 3 different ConAir brushes, a wide tooth comb, a pair of flat hair clips, a pair of crocodile jaw clips, some hairties and a cheap plastic vanity mirror -- all in an attractive millenium metallic blue. When I saw it, I felt like I just needed to try out the different types of brushes: the round spiked mace looking one; the flat, oval based, shaped for spanking one and something that was in between.

My mind started ticking away the moment I laid my eyes on it.

"I could use the wide tooth comb for after I've washed my hair. I'm already losing enough hair from lack of sleep. Not gonna lose more to a brush"

"Those hair clips are too chunky. The matte color won't look good on my hair either. Will have to write those off"

"Hmm, the jaws hairclips look kinda cute. But too big/ugly to wear out of the house. Might not even be comfortable wearing in the house. NEXT!!!"

"Elastic hairties. Could always use more of those. Wonder if they are ouchless. Hate it when I pull my hair removing elastics."

"The metallic blue is just so irresistable"

"Well, it's only $7.99... This could be my Christmas present. Nevermind the fact that I never care about nor have XMas presents"

So I hung on to the box and it's ribbon trimmings. Until darling commented, "Hey, it's made in China" Well most things in the US are made in China so there's no reason to balk at that comment but I did. Images of the crudely made souvenirs and jade passing off as "genuine oriental flavor" in Chinatown popped up. Somehow the matte metallic blue looked tacky and it failed the "Would I bring this home (aka Singapore/Malaysia)" test. In fact, it would be one of those things that get junked without third thought (second thoughts might be about how I've only used this for 6 months) One of the good things about moving around is that you're forced to keep only things you really value. And since there are no room for junk, it's good motivation to curb impulse buys. Like this one.

So in the end, I put the box down. I instantly felt great for not frivolously spending the money. You know when you buy something you really like, you feel happier as time passes by as you validate your purchase. In a similar manner, I'm feeling darn good right now for NOT purchasing it.

For the past month, I've been basking in the afterglow of my various purchases only to find out today that I can derive the same amount of pleasure from abstaining. Interesting.

However, I'm still somewhat miffed at the less than pristine reputation that sensibleness has. People have the impression that being sensible equates to being boring. If I think smoking is disgusting/ irresponsible/ reprehensible, am I being boring by not doing it? Would doing something I obviously do not want to do make me an interesting person? If there was something I truly, really wanted to do and I didn't do it because I thought it was "sensible", I'd be pretty stupid. In many cases, people think of being sensible as doing things that they think other people think is right. That I believe is trying to exonerate yourself from the responsibility of making the decision, blaming it on an external factor like the virtual societal pressure. To me, being sensible is about doing things my way, the way that makes sense,both logically and emotionally.

NaNoWriMo Part Deux

I didn't explain NaNoWrimo in my last post. It's short for National Novel Writing Month. It's a month where people who ever had thoughts about writing a novel join a competition to write 50,000 words in one month. Namely in November. The prize for winning is that you have written a book. The whole writing thing is about quantity not quality. It jolly well could just be writing a bunch of nonsense for one whole month, averaging 1,633 words a day. It's just suppose to get people started. It's for people like me who would say "Some day, I'd write a novel". What they are trying to get people like me to think is "Why not today?"

I'm a horrible procrastinator. I also have an inability to make myself do things I don't really want to do even if I have to do it. Inability is probably too strong a word since I've actually done those things. Melodrama at work. Lack of talent is probably more like it. Most things don't get done unless I have to. Sometimes, there is this surge of enthusiasm in me and I'd start cleaning/ cooking/ washing up/ emailing people... nothing that is really sustainable. Sometimes I wish has more willpower. Most of the times I can't be bothered. I'm happy as I am -- whimsical.

Well, at any rate, I'm not really ready for the whole writing thing this year. Next year, I promise I'd try. Meanwhile, I'll hunt for a plot and some potential casts to my story.

NaNoWriMo

My new nickname in the house is bloggerbot. I'm a bot that blogs.
Johnny is the graderbot ("Graderbot, online). He's a bot that grades.
Moocow is the softtoybot. He's a bot that softtoys.
We are family of bots. People who bot-ify ourselves.
Not really.
I'm just being.... retarded.
Thinking of doing the NaNoWrimo.
But I'm already 10 days into November.
Can I really do 50,000 * 20/30 words in the remainder of the month?
Maybe.
Am I ready to do that?
Not really
So should I try anyway?
I guess.

I'm such a procrastinator.

In Memory of Days Warmer

Overnight, all the remnants of summer had been stored away. Even the most stoic had discarded their handy flip flops and opted for something closed-toed. The goose-down jackets were whipped out in preference to the lighter summer coats. Suddenly, winter was here. In this ulu (translate: faaaar away from civilization) little college town, there are only two seasons: winter and not winter. And now that not winter is gone.

In preparation for my return in under a year, I've stopped looking at warm clothing altogether. Looking at the things I've accumulated so far, I'm gonna have some trouble bringing them back. Somehow it's Singapore all over again, an enforced spring cleaning that makes you evaluate all your belongings, give them some value and then discard the ones at the bottom of that list. Thinking about it alone gives me a headache. In the same thread of thought, I was reminded of the fact that I'd need to find a place to stay in Singapore as well. That's like a whole new headache altogether. Suddenly I'm really not looking forward to graduating.

On a different note, I'd be going to Phoenix in January to look at our clients repairshop. My feelings are rather ambivalent at the moment.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

The very first snow of the academic year is here. The bulk of it melted within an hour leaving only a thin veneer of white powder. We drove down to turn in my homework which I had forgotten was due today until this morning. Well, at least I'm forced to finish it so I have less work left for the week now. If only I screw up the motivation to finish the rest...

I've become a lot more health conscious lately. Somewhat regularly exercising, cooking with olive oil, drinking low fat milk (lots and lots of it), using moisturizer with SPF... haha well, prevention is definitely better than cure. Won't really want to end up being those old ladies buying really expensive anti-aging cream in desperation. No real cure for wrinkles anyway. Nopes, Botox doesn't count. I'm determined to grow old graciously and accept my age whatever it is. Clinging on to youth that isn't there anymore is way too silly for someone old. Their immaturity makes me wonder what the hell they've been doing all these years besides seeking an elusive perfect self. Don't even get me started on women who need plastic surgery to feel more confident. If you really hate yourself so much you'd rather look like something else, I don't think you need surgery, you need to see a shrink.

Hrrrm, for that matter, most of you should have noticed that I've been a lot more fashion conscious as well. Not fashion in the I- must- follow- the- lastest- fads- and- get- those- bloody- overpriced- Manolo- Blahniks- and- Prada items. Just more interested in clothing and accessories than previously. I guess it's a result of the imminent work life. It appears that I'm preparing myself for the next phase of life. Or could it be I'm turning into a *gasp* girl? Whatever. I'm enjoying myself so it doesn't matter why or how. As long as I don't turn into one of those credit card swiping, debt- laden kids who spend way way beyong their means.

Insomnia

Wednesday night: Slept at 1am. Woke up at 8am
Thursday night: Slept at 1am. Woke at 8:30am
Friday night: Slept at 2am. Woke up at 7:30 am

Not much of a pattern there but I'm definitely losing sleep. And all that is voluntary. I'd wake up, lie in bed with my eyes wide open for all of 5 minutes then decide I can't fall back asleep and hop out. This is making me grumpy.

Evolution

Check out www.bugmenot.com if you are sick and tired of registering for websites to access content (like the dumb ole straits times)

It's Friiiiday! The chill has finally caught up with the reddening trees. The past two days were colder than ever and there didn't seem to be heat in the house. I had to pad around in my black cotton pants, a t-shirt and my hoodie, instead of my usual semi-dressed state. I hope the landlord didn't decide to turn off the heat in a stroke of genius to reduce utilities.

Sometimes people do the most redundant things subconsciously. We are such imperfectly inefficient creatures. I wonder how anyone can think homo sapiens are the elite of the earth's creatures. It was raining hard yesterday when I walked to C.town Bagels to meet Johnny for lunch. I clung on to Johnny's flimsy aluminium silver umbrella as the wind tore at it. I switched between hands to give the hand holding the umbrella and thus exposed to the deadly chill some respite. Two Asian girls were walking towards me. They were chattering away rapidly in what in my mind translated as Korean or Japanese. I couldn't understand what they were saying. Not exactly. But it's amazing how universal the distress call of a damsel can be -- the increase in verbel velocity, the frantic flick of her hand across the chic brown leather bag and her brows furrowed towards it. The act of backhanding the raindrops from her bag was so earnest yet so futile.

We're a race surviving on our intelligence. The brain singularly consumes more energy than any other part of the body. It uses up a significant portion of the energy we gather each day. (Maybe the next revolution of dieting is to stimulate brain growth!) We're born defenseless and stay defenseless for a long period of time. We have no natural weapon besides a sometimes sharp wit. We built our empires on knowledge. Yet, there it was, that hint of inefficiency. As a race, our evolutionary path should be selection of the more intelligent. Either that, or start growing claws and bigger teeth. Or at least longer and faster limbs.

Somehow, it appears that our own intelligence is hindering that evolution. University degree holders marry later and have fewer fertile years; well-educated career women do not have as much time to nurture their offspring. On the other hand, a stay-at-home mum has more time to take care of the kids, making them less likely to be screwed up; Intelligent people who are more likely to succeed spend a lot of energy being successful but it does not mean they will procreate more than less intelligent people; The hoi polloi will cry foul at what they construe as social engineering but shouldn't our goal as a race be to ensure its continuation? As we stay stagnant or even regress with our cries for equality (for who?), could other more single-tracked and efficient species one day overcome us? Fortunately, not within my age but that's really just trying to exonerate myself from my duties as a human being. So does that make me more amenable to procreation? No sir-ee!

Directing Anger

Something from Self magazine, October 2004 issue:
"A new study finds that knowing when to vent (and when not to) may make you less stressed."
Okay makes some sense so far.

"Your guide: Someone cuts in front of you at the grocery checkout. ZIP IT"
Snort of disbelief. Let's read the rest of it before outrage takes over.

"In general, blowing up at a stranger is a bad idea, says Pam Brill, author of The Winner's Way (McGraw Hill). Not only do you not know how she will react, but you also don't know the reason she is rushing. (Wouldn't you feel bad if it's because she has a sick baby at home?) Instead of griping, grab a glossy and chill"

My take on this: Firstly, it is not correct to cut someone elses line. Period. Secondly, it is downright rude (somewhat akin to spitting into someone's eye) to cut a queue without asking first. Maybe you do have a sick baby (note: sick babies should be taken to a clinic, sick babies should not be left at home alone and sick babies left at home are not dying babies who can't wait 2 minutes more. Also sick babies do not deserve a rude and self-centred parent), or you have to catch a flight, or you have to buy that bottle of spagetti sauce or you'd drop dead. Whatever the reason, I'm sure you can spare the 2 seconds to tell the person you're cutting in front "I'm sorry. I'm in a rush and I'm about to pee in my pants. Is it okay if I go ahead of you?"

By keeping quiet, we're condoning what they do, sending signals to queue cutters that it's okay to do so. I mean, they have to wait in line for a shorter time and no downside at all to it ("not like it'll appear in my testimonial/report card/transcript"), so why the hell not? Some people might not even be aware that they have done something wrong. So by telling them off, you might be doing a service to others who are suffering in silence. I'm not saying make a scene, scream at the guy and give him hell in general. I usually prefer the more unoffensive way which starts with an "Excuse me, but ".

Some of these people can be pretty thick-skinned and I find them usually self-centred. If I made them unhappier by forcing them to lie or find a lame excuse for what they did, I hope that I have discouraged them from doing what they did a second time. Like the dumb CS100M consultant who ALWAYS sits at the PC with the scanner in the computer lab on Fridays. Usually, there are notes telling people to NOT use those PCs unless they need the scanner or the lab is full. In two consecutive Fridays, I found him sitting there when I needed it. So I asked him nicely, "Do you need to use the scanner? Coz I need to scan some pics." He had to gall to ask me, "Oh do you have many to scan?" and then vacated his seat. However, he left all his personal items at the PC, expecting me to scan my pics and then scram. So after a few irritated minutes of scanning, I stood up and told him that he should not have used this PC in the first place. He defended himself by saying when he came the lab was full. Well, it isn't now!!!! And it's somewhat dubious that he always comes into the crowded lab and voila! there's one space left and it's the one with the scanner. Well, seeing him all apologetic and awkward pretty much made my day.

Yesterday, we had a team meeting for the MEng project. Some measly little OR580 people were in our meeting room, so we opened the door and told them "Sorry, we've booked this room". One of the guys got up and said "oh okay. Is there any other empty room around?" He walked past me out of the door and said "Next door's empty, could you guys use that instead?" We relented given that there were three of us and we decided to be nice. But that made me pretty ticked off so I retorted "Next time, make sure you book the room". I mean the gall!!! If you are using someone elses resources and caught red-handed, you should jolly well apologize and scoot off ASAP. Not ask the owners to find an alternative. So what if you had 2 laptops plugged to the wall. Are 2 laptops too much for 4 guys to carry to the room 3 steps away? Learn some courtesy, boy! Next time I wouldn't let you off so easily.

At any rate, I've felt pretty good about voicing my thoughts instead of keeping them inside and building this volcano of anger towards humanity. So onward with the verbal abuse of people who treads on my toes.

Idiot Count: Idiots told off so far -- 3 (imagine a Mac's "Hamburgers made" boards they used to have outside their chain)

I've been conspired against!!!

*waaaaah* I was going to bid on this Victoria Secret bra in luscious rose. Being the "savvy" ebayer that I am, I was going to snipe it to increase my chances. For those not familiar with the eBay lingo, sniping is to place a bid seconds before the auction ends. And to my dismay, as I clicked on the "Place a Bid" button, a horrible death sentence announced to me in the form of a pop-up text box initiated by Mozilla -- "The document has no data" What what whaaaaaaat? Another furiously click on the refresh button followed by the "Place a Bid".... the same window appeared. How can it be that as I was about to place my bid, the link just go dead?!? And then the auction ended. As I clicked on the old page which still told me I had 10 seconds left, I was able to place a bid. On the auction that just ended 2 seconds ago. *sigh* I really wanted that particular style and color too!!! Super grouchy now...

Busy busy busy

Looks like life will be getting more exciting in the months ahead. The MEng project is starting and with it the ensueing conference calls with the sponsor, group meetings with the rest of the team, weekly meetings with the project advisor, read-up on the subject and all the little details like booking a room, filling reimbursement forms. Next semester I'm absolutely taking the minimum number of credits possible. And no more 8:40am to 4:30pm (with a 2hr lunch break) tortures hopefully. Today is one such day. And I still have a group meeting from 5pm to 6pm. *groan* At least my teammates this time are not utter morons. *dances in relief*

A Parent's Wedding

Read a piece about a girl who had to attend her cousin's wedding. The wedding was held at some archaic Chinese restaurant whose mouth yawns open daily to artificial rocks, probably waitresses in cheongsam and prides itself on its "traditional" fare of shark's fin and abalone. (Haha really traditional fare probably be fish! and meat! and lots of veggies! What luxuries they were then!)

Waitresses in cheongsam might look like this! 

The bride's mum trekked to Chinatown and got the young couple a tam tui (chamberpot or potty). The Chinese one looks sort of like a fat vase the size of your butt and comes with intricate designs like a cockerel or flowers or some scenic Chinese drawing. The last time I used that was when I was 5 when I was too short to let myself out of the bedroom in the middle of the night. Wonder how my parents can stand the smell of ammonia right in the room where they sleep. The last person I saw using one was my grandma. Hers was full of urine and phlegm. I stayed far, far away. My paternal grandma and our family didn't get along very well. To put it simply, we didn't like her and she didn't like us. Too bad our other not so responsible relatives thought the same. So my family and an aunt's had to take turns taking care of her.

To me, she was a representation of everything I hated about the old Chinese: sexism (she wanted to name my sister dai di which stands for "bring brother"), mindless traditions (if you're born in the year of the tiger, you can't attend the funeral or enter the bride's room), hierarchy (the oldest person in the household is practically king; mother-in-laws get to bully daughter-in-laws; my grandma seems to think this applies to her except she's so old she can't remember much so her advice were pretty much useless but she would insist on people following it). By association, the fragile tam tui became a container for all evils, a Pandora's box waiting for the unsuspecting victim of blind tradition.

Generally, I love tradition. They are beautiful things that have characterized my childhood. Folding red packets to decorate the house on Chinese New Year; staying up till midnight on chuxi (the night before Chinese New Year) to welcome the new year (see, chinese also have countdowns). Children staying up till midnight on chuxi is supposed to be a blessing bestowed upon their parents, wishing that they will live a long (and fulfilling) life; lighting candles and lanterns during Mid-autumn festival; eating ba zhang (Chinese dumplings (?)) during duan wu or Dragon Boat festival which commemorates Qu Yuen; dong zhi (winter solstice) when mum and I would make plates and plates of pink and white tang yuan ; I'd wake up at 7am for qing ming so I could go with my parents to pay respects and tidy up the graves of our ancestors; not forgetting the hungry ghost festival which is the only time I ever get snacks when I was young!

Those were some of the traditions I would love to preserve. Others like the silly chamberpot can pretty much suck my balls. But the entry really got me thinking about my own planned-to-be-nonexistent wedding. Yups, no wedding dinner, no wedding ceremony, maybe not even a white wedding gown.

I did find another dress I wouldn't mind wearing for my wedding though. 

I thought about the various day long affairs when my cousins got married and how very, extremely bored I was. Being a bored and tired bride isn't exactly my day of fun. Paying a bomb to be bored is pretty much asking me to jump off a building. Paying a bomb to be bored, make small talk with relatives I hardly care about AND feeding them shark's fins is pretty much like a "Kill me now" message. I can think of so many other ways to spend that money: renovating my house, having a lavish honeymoon, luxurious dinner for close family and friends, making a bigger downpayment on the house, buying myself pretty things that I can wear for more than one night... the list pretty much goes on and on and on.

Most women think of wedding as their one big day. In America, brides-to-be starve themselves silly to look good for that day. Planning a wedding is a 2-3 month affair and everything looks Hollywood wedding wannabe. I personally don't particularly care about being fawned over with the customary "You look pretty". Every bride is pretty as far as I'm concerned. Given my lack of interest in a lavish affair, some might wonder if I had gone through some trauma. After all, every little girl yearns for her own wedding. I guess I'm just not every other girl. Me and my sister had never played bride and groom when we were young. I didn't even really care to get married until I met darling. And as I said, weddings bore me. It's pretty much something I attend out of sheer need and petulantly think every other minute "Are we done yet?" I've yet to attend the wedding of a close friend so maybe those are better.

But while I plan my spartan ( and sacrilegious) wedding, I have to worry about my parents. For the Chinese, a wedding is pretty much not for the children but for the parents. Think of the newly-weds as the centerpiece, placed on some pedestal and displayed to relatives. The parents, want to proudly show relatives "Look at how well my child has married". Or they are expected to show it. If we didn't have a wedding, it might be construed that we married badly or in disgrace (like having a pre-marital fetus in tow). I don't know, I could go along with the whole ugga-wugga to make them happy; on the other hand, parents just want their child to be happy so perhaps I should do things my way? What do you guys think, would you want a traditional Chinese wedding or a walk down the aisle or both?