Archive for category Complaints & Confessions

Date: December 13th, 2009
Cate: Complaints & Confessions, Reminiscence
7 msgs

I Have This Friend

Yeah right!

I have this friend.

Everytime I talked to him, he would say he was unhappy.

I used to be like that. I used to look through magazines, stare at the TV, flip through web pages and be discontent with all the clothes I didn’t have, the culture I couldn’t grasp, the beauty I wasn’t born with, the money I could only hope to possess by winning the lottery. Which reminds me, he was hoping to win the lottery the last time we talked.

But all the time you lose researching trends and browsing online stores is only that, lost time. Time you lost realizing all of the things you aren’t and don’t have. The pursuit of materialistic nirvana is fun, but you have to remember celebrities, models are paid to dress well and look good–we’re not.

I have this other friend.

She is always unhappy too, but she’s not looking for fame or riches. She just wants to find someone to marry, settle down and have kids before 30. To most of us, this sounds pretty strange, pretty contradictory to the modern world we live in on the West coast.

But I’m kind of domesticated right now and I kind of like it. Clearly speaking, I enjoy the sense of fulfillment you get from housework. The smell of freshly folded laundry, the gleaming white of a clean toilet bowl, the comfort of the couch after a filling meal and the dishes done. Maybe I’m just an intellectual deadbeat.

There comes a point in time in everyone’s life where some things just don’t matter anymore. You can love the way you feel in your banging new outfit, but nothing compares to the warmth of family. You can feel great after a successful day of shopping, but nothing feels greater than accomplishing something with your bare hands - redoing the living room, helping your brother finish a school project, cooking a dinner that’s liked by everyone. You can have hundreds of friends on Facebook and bump into somebody you know everywhere you go, but what’s that worth compared to having just one friend you can count on to pick up the phone at the end of the day and listen to you rant?

Maybe you’re the first friend and have a closet that exemplifies materialistic nirvana. Maybe you’re the second friend and have friendships like the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Or maybe you’re both and have as many reliable people on speed dial as Louboutins on your shoe rack.

But I have this friend.

And she has neither.

Date: October 20th, 2009
Cate: Complaints & Confessions, Family, Reminiscence, School
4 msgs

Vomiting Pumpkins

Yeah, it’s good to be back.

Well not really I guess. Not on these terms. I got my parents on me all the time, bedtime restrictions, TV and Internet restrictions - you’d never know I was turning 20! I’m behind so many episodes on Mad Men, Gossip Girl, 30 Rock, Desperate Housewives - you name it, I watch it. I’ve said good bye to going out on week nights and reveling in those last minute school night outings that come just in time for exams and papers. I’m losing followers on Twitter now that I hardly use the computer and use an old flip phone to replace the one with a full keyboard that I broke. Facebook? What’s that?

Alright, just kidding about that last one. But now that I’m here, it’s like they always say: It’s good to be home. Now I have more time for leisure reading from my favorite library here: Cupertino Library. They have lots of new books (I saw a used copy of Outliers in mint, just-like-new condition for sale on the Friends of the Library shelf for only $2!) and a huge fish tank wall. Not to mention it’s spacious, airy, quiet and comfortable. Now I can spend more time with my siblings too. We’ve already watched two movies together, all three of us: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, which we all loved, and Where the Wild Things Are, that one not so much. We’ve played Monopoly, run to 7-Eleven to get “coffee in a Domo cup” and planned to carve vomiting pumpkins for the upcoming holiday.

And how I’ve missed the NorCal people. When I go to school it seems like everyone is friendlier and more willing to talk to you. Yeah girl, I see you in yo boots even though it’s sunny and hot outside. Yeah, they all say “hella”, so what. Yeah, I like to have my 2348935 choices for pho or bun bo hue for lunch. I feel right at home in this sea of Bay Area plaid.

Oh hay Korean guy, I see that Infiniti key hanging from your jeans. Some things never change.

Yeah, it’s good to be back.

Date: May 4th, 2009
Cate: Complaints & Confessions, School
3 msgs

In most ways, I`m not grown up. At all.

Download Your New Twin Sized Bed, Death Cab for Cutie

It’s time to move out. Time to find your own place, pay your own bills, cook your own meals, clean your own bathrooms, etc. These past two years have taught you live away from home; the next two years will teach to make a new home.

I have never done anything monotonous or tiresome like apartment-hunting. You ask all the same questions multiple times, walk through many pools, gyms & business centers, and everything starts to look the same.

Life pushes you to grow so fast, and not in a good way. In these times, kids buy expensive things, go away for school and live in their own places. But most of us are still financially dependent - as students, we can’t afford to pay rent, food & tuition by ourselves. We are lucky, living our “own” lives but essentially still living off our parents. And at our age, our parents were already holding jobs and paying their own bills. But I guess back then we didn’t have cell phones, the Internet or the Disney Channel. more))

Date: March 31st, 2009
Cate: Complaints & Confessions, Friends, School
6 msgs

So I upped my Retin-A…

There’s always reflections to be had when a break ends and academic life resumes. This Spring Break I got my teeth cleaned, got through two doctor appointments, took my first trip to Berkeley for a good friend’s birthday party, reveled in the chance to consume decent food and finally threaded my mother’s new Singer.

I also got peed on by my own dog, rejected by my eyebrow ring, was on self-imposed house arrest, burned my forearm with an iron (who irons anymore) and didn’t get to stop by Falafel Drive-In or go to the city to watch Tokyo Sonata, try macarons and grab Belgian fries. While I was doing the dishes, my mother discovered my nape piercing - see, flat hair is never good for anything! more))

Date: February 25th, 2009
Cate: Anger, Complaints & Confessions, Friends, School
2 msgs

Spinning Out of Control

This is my current desktop image: my dog B, when he was a puppy. My friend S recently commented on how he liked my desktop because it is clean and uncluttered. I have a minimal aesthetic and told S how really, I just hid all my desktop icons. Reflecting more on the matter, I realized my life is just like my desktop - a ridiculous illusion. From the outside it seems like everything’s in order, but under my tight seal of concealment, I think my life is unraveling quicklier than ever. more))

Date: January 9th, 2009
Cate: Complaints & Confessions, Family, Friends, School
4 msgs

Lobster Salad and Champagne

Poet and masochist Lord Byron proclaimed that lobster salad and champagne were the only things a woman should ever be seen eating. Madame de Pompadour, mistress to the king of France, said of champagne: It is “is the only wine that leaves a woman more beautiful after drinking it”. We know it as the glamorous bubbly drink of celebrations, romance and New Year’s kisses.

I learned this stuff over Winter Break, reading the book by Tilar J. Mazzeo, The Widow Clicquot. Although I didn’t finish it, it was pretty interesting stuff - how a woman reinvented the champange empire. Reading over vacation? Yeah, my break was pretty lame. Besides little gets and meet-ups with assorted friends, it was totally eventless. Utterly boring. I spent Christmas Eve freezing my little fingers off wandering Christmas in the Park with the family and Christmas Day playing Rock Band 2! NYE was equally unexciting: drove the long commute to Union City and sipped mojito wine coolers with my cousins and their two friends. Knocked back bad Hennessy that tasted like fire water and sat lonely on the couch next to my cousin and her boyfriend for the countdown. Can someone tell the Economy to cheer up?

Back at school,  I was glad to be back in my cozy little room. After putting on my satin pillowcase with my new comforter and matching black sheets, I realized how much I was dreading classes and that I was ready to go home already. Good thing K and C are coming down to hang out with me and J! With me living on campus and J living off, I didn’t get to see much of them, but it was still fun. Finally got to hang with K more, talked to J about how “it doesn’t even take a type sometimes”, had lots but-still-not-enough jolly laughs with C and all four of us sipped margeritas on the rocks during Sin City which I always find heart-wrenching. They showed me all the pictures they took on the drive down and hanging out together, and I found myself wishing I had another margerita to wash away the sad feelings welling up in my stomach.

For the New Year, friends and I talked about the tradition of resolutions. Some confessed to haven’t had made any for the past few years, some declared personal goals, some conjured joke resolutions for each other and I just wished I could diligently attend all my classes - which will prove to be a difficult task since economics classes decided to all take place after dark this quarter. I know there will be bad habits I won’t kick but also good ones to be adopted.

So here’s to the New Year: to being a good student and a good friend; to meeting new people and making new friends; to finding something that makes me earnestly happy.

Date: December 12th, 2008
Cate: Complaints & Confessions, Friends, School
3 msgs

This One’s For You, K

Coming back to college as a second-year, I thought there would be a period of “reacquaintance and refamiliarization” that comes with the start of school. After all, a full three months’ of time separated the end of Spring Quarter and Fall Welcome Week. Absence makes the heart grow fonder they say, but it also gives people the chance to grow apart. Moving into my new apartment and single room, I thought heavy-heartedly: This is the moment of truth.

Much to my surprise and delight, sophomore year began right where freshmen year left off. We come back and continued college as if summer vacation didn’t happen. Inside jokes persisted and personalities remained the same. Appearances evolved, but it was so comforting and relieving to know that under the new clothes were the same people also eager to remain friends.

After the reacquaintances and catching up, everything about school followed the same trend of having stayed the same. The same sheets were spread on the same uncomfortable fireproof mattress (and one new duvet); the laptop with its charger snaking down behind the same hideous wooden desk (now it sits on a laptop stand flanked by new external speakers); the same unsavory food at the dining hall (exacerbated by the elimination of plastic utensils and take-out containers); the same boring classes and vast campus (revamped with a Burger King and a King Triton statue). It seemed that my nervous expectations about change were a bit melodramatic.

more))

Date: December 3rd, 2008
Cate: Complaints & Confessions, Random
4 msgs

Does it Really Have to be Mutual?

It never fails to amaze me how long Asian couples manage to last. Their relationships are always so committed and full of devotion, i.e. it seems like they can never get enough of each other. Even in college freshmen dorms, couples are springing up everywhere - people don’t even need to get acquainted with campus first! Maybe someone should ask them the secret to staying together, not Dr. Phil.

But I’m not writing to comment on the relationship turnover velocity of those boys and girls. Thinking about life and its trivialities (as I frequently do!), I came across a familiar question of mine:

How is it possible that two people really like each other?

I mean, simultaneously. Does it really take two to tango? Does the feeling really have to be mutual? What are the chances that someone actually feels the same way, right then and there?

more))

Date: November 25th, 2008
Cate: Complaints & Confessions, Miscellaneous, Reminiscence, Television
1 msg

I Want to Build an Empire Like Walt’s

My favorite Christmas gift that I received when I was little was this “Polly Pocket” style Cinderella castle. It was my first exposure to the ingenuity of the vast Disney brand. There was a secret chamber where Cinderella “transformed” from rags to riches; a stair that flipped over to reveal a lone glass slipper when you wished to replay the scene where she runs from the Prince at midnight; a spinning dance floor where Cinderelly and the Prince can twirl together to “So This is Love” to the disdain of her stepmother; a hidden pull-out compartment in the back to store the three Cinderellas (Maid, Ball, Wedding), her fairy godmother and all the others. Of course, I still have the thing - it sits on a shelf next to my prized Japanese food miniatures, special edition Peter Pan action figures and golden Mickey ears.

I highly doubt anybody doesn’t have a fond children memory involving Disney. After all, the fairy tales we learned were the work of Walt and his minions, not the originals of the Brothers Grimm - maybe the “Cinderella” we knew first was easier to fall alseep to than the German version where the stepsisters actually mutilate their feet to fit the slipper. Who didn’t yearn for a Disneyland vacation as a youngster, only to encounter crowds and long lines; memories of fussy crying while waiting to fly in Dumbo or meet Sleeping Beauty are still memories. We all had Mickey Mouse clothing (I’m not referring to the retro t-shirts people have now), bedding or backpacks.

The genius of the Disney brand lies in its lasting impression and ability to progress with the times. Of course, its portfolio diversification doesn’t hurt either. Because Disney is a well-known and distinguishable theme of fairy tales, “happily ever after” and memorable characters, it fares well when branching out from cartoons. It can keep the unique but recognizable characteristics without being tacky or obvious. Disney’s subtlety and adaptability ensures that it will be “Part of Your World” for decades to come (sorry, I couldn’t resist the pun).

more))

Date: November 19th, 2008
Cate: Complaints & Confessions, Random

Nothing’s Better Than a Good Hair Day

I really don’t mean to brag, but if I had a nickel for every time someone complimented my hair, I’d have a lot of nickels!

Well, let me give something back: my favorite hairsprays are Dove Extra Hold (scented or unscented) and Garnier Fructis Style Sleek & Shine Anti-Humidity Hairspray. The only way to go is aerosol (sorry, Environment) and these have fine mists that don’t leave hair stiff - always remember to spray with your arm extended.

I should compliment people more.

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