Absolutely Not NORMAL

There Is Always A First Time

2011-06-10T17:28:00.002+08:00

When I feel a bit down, usually there are two things that I would choose either to do to cheer myself up and stop me from mutating into a total pessimist. One is to get my hair trimmed, the other, which is also more frequently used, is to eat a nice meal. But this time I decided to take a brand new approach.

I bought two Thai massage coupons of a newly opened SPA shop from one of those popular discount websites at the time when I felt drained preparing for my IELTS exam. The offer on the website was not only in a very tempting price but also sounded exactly like what I needed then - with only 14 quid I can experience a 120 minute long ancient Thai style massage for the whole body to help relax your tense muscles.

However, I neither used the coupons during my IELTS preparation, nor did I use it as a celebration of passing the exam. I don't know what I was waiting for. Guess it was a bit like my 'Chrismas chocolate complex.' When I was still a kid, my younger sister Ruby and I always received loads of beautifully wrapped chocolate and candy at Christmas. Both of us had a tin box, Ruby's was sliver and mine was black, where we would put all of our chocolate and candy in. The bottom of Ruby's tin box was usually seen within one or two months after Christmas. As for mine, even though it was not my original intention at all, I usually let the chocolate and candy stay until passing its best-before date. Cos they were just too beautiful to eat. And I was also waiting for a 'special' mood, whether being depressed or happy, to feel like having the desperate need to enjoy them.

Despite intentionally choosing to walk for about forty minutes, instead of taking a bus there, I was still fifteen minutes early. A mild smell of incense wafting through the doorstep when the glass door was opened. The shop was pretty much the same as the photos I had seen on the website. Under my feet was clean and cool dark brown wooden floor. A wall of green plants stood at the left hand side at the entrance. Cozy rattan sofa formed the waiting area with a small bowl of white plumeria flowers casually placed on the rattan coffee table. There were also several different sizes of wooden and stone elephant sculptures resting at the corners on the floor and on the cabinets.

Although surrounded by very relaxing ambiance and having my feet washed and massaged, somehow all I was thinking was a footage of the famous Amercian chef Anthony Bourdain's programme Anthony Bourdain : No Reservations. In one episode he travelled to Turkey and went for a Turkish style massage. He was all wet and barely naked lying on a platform in a tiled bathroom with only a small towel covering his butt. Straddled by a Turkish guy he was painfully whining whiling having his limbs and body twisted and folded in a certain way. He claimed later in the interview that it was one of the most humiliated moments in his life. Suddenly, I felt a bit nervous and wanted to ask, 'errr, could somebody please explain what exactly the 'ancient Thai style massage really means?'

After the feet washing, I was brought to a room called Lavender in the cellar where I got changed into a loose-as-size-14 white cotton top and bermuda pants. My No.9 'master' (as what we call masseuse/ masseur in Chinese) is a slim Thai born Chinese woman in her early forty. To recall our conversation before she started her service, feel somehow now it sounds like lines in some kind of porn film.

'Is this your first time?'
"Yes, and actually I am feeling a bit nervous right now."
'Well, it is a bit painful if this is your first time. But, don't worry, I will try to be gentle. And you can always tell me if you want me to be even more gentle.'

There were some positions I think we might look like women wrestling on WWE women championship and I was preparing to scream if she bent my legs toward my head one degree more. Although I didn't fall asleep, which is what I had imagined and expected, we exchanged some interesting conversation. And I was surprised to know that actually there are much more men going for a massage than women. Interestingly, she also said that comparing to people in other countries, she thinks Taiwanese people prefer probably the most intensive strength on their massage.

Walking out the shop I can't wait to call Sabrina who recommended me to buy the coupons and shared with her my first time experience of having a professional massage. Although think I will add having a massage on my list as one of the antidotes next time, maybe not a Thai style one. (10 quid for a coupon to enjoy an ancient Thai style massage, anyone?)

Another Pre-departure Briefing

2011-05-11T22:46:00.000+08:00

In my family it’s mainly my mum’s task when it comes to our education. Besides providing bread, one of the most related things my dad was responsible for probably is picking me up after school and my piano lesson. My dad always looked uncertain when his friend asked him what year I was in at university. Not to mention when he tried to introduce me to his friends about what I studied for my MA, it took him quite a while to get used to say all the three words ‘intellectual property right’ together.

His indifference to our education will be the most unconvincing reason. But not sure whether it’s because he has an autocratic daughter who usually makes her own decision or because she just seldom worries him on her study. My parents, especially my dad, gave me great freedom on both what I want to study and which school I want to go to. Even though my mum was more informed, the information she obtained was still very limited.

Soon my life is going to take an exotic new turn and my academic study is going to be extended. After attending the pre-departure briefing host by British Council this Sunday, the outline of my coming new life will become even more vivid. Well, but only to me, I think. So far my dad still has no idea which city I am going to go to. Guess he couldn't really point out where Cardiff is on a map either, even though I have been there twice. My mum remains referring to the University of Warwick and the University of Bristol by saying ‘the school at the boring place’ and ‘the school closer to Cardiff’. Ruby, my younger sister, has heard of the city Bristol but has no idea at all about the place. As for my little sister Lucy, 'Xiao Wen is going to study in the country where Harry Potter lives' is pretty much all she knows at the moment.

Maybe my family they need a pre-departure briefing too. They have been very supportive since the moment I announced my big plan. And I know sometimes they worry too. A powerpoint presentation may not be able to provide them a clear image of my coming new life, but at least might stop my mum from nagging me to buy a new down jacket to defend British winter or even better, to seduce them to visit me next summer in the UK!

haven't decided what I am going to put in my powerpoint yet, but hope mentioning the author of Harry Potter was born near Bristol will contribute some positive influence to Lucy.

Counting Steamed Buns

2011-03-24T00:14:00.003+08:00

Since the day James left for his one-year compulsory military service, there have been love missiles launched every day from the Liens' apartment, well, from Ruby's room, to be exact. It has been more than three weeks and my sister Ruby is still sending a letter to her boyfriend by post every day. And the missiles always hit the target precisely according to James's telephone report every evening.

I seldom hear any of my male friends being looking forward to the military service. Most of them either worry about the strict discipline in the army or consider the service wasting their valuable time, especially my law school classmates. Because it means an extra year wasted to pass the bar exam. Yet, James was one in the minority who felt very positive before leaving for his service and was even hoping that he can serve in the toughest unit on one of those tiny islands around Taiwan. But after three weeks in the military, his determination starts to waver. Now plus Ruby's help from God, I guess we will never be able to see James in the uniform of marine corps.

Shortly before the first month's basic training is completed, James and other rookies will need to draw lots to determine where they are going to be and what they are going to do for the next 11 months. When things depend on pure luck, unsurprisingly some of us start to do what we Chinese are really good at - being superstitious.

A square and thin slice of rice cake, a half of rice ball with a 'dragon eye' fruit (longan) on top and several packets of biscuits on the kitchen counter were the clues that someone went the temple and prayed for something in our house. It was Ruby. She said she went to pray that God will send James to a relative easy unit and make him stay in Taiwan, even in Taipei. Meanwhile, James also received some tips from his fellows about how to have a lucky draw. For example, he was suggested to draw an eye on his palm when it is his turn to draw lots. Also, don't use the hand which you use to wipe your butt after you poo. Cos everything related with poo is also related with bad luck.

I shared Ruby with my friends' experience about serving on those small islands, 'It will not be that bad. Actually they said comparing to serving at Ministry of National Defense in Taipei, the task is much simpler and easier. And the meals are even better there. James will not only still get the same amount of holidays but also obtain an extra allowance. Besides, that's the only opportunity that you can visit those islands. I think that's pretty exciting.' Ruby looked at me the same way as some of my male friends. They think I have no idea how gloomy they sometimes felt.

In the old days when steamed buns and soy milk were still the food for breakfast in the military, consuming one more steamed bun means the soldier is one more day closer to going back home. Now the phrase is used to express and imply a soldier's feeling of wishing time can fly much more faster.

Think they are right that I may never be able to understand how it feels to serve in the military or how it feels to launch a love missile every day. But my empathy for James is absolutely undoubted. I really wish time can fly much much faster too.

Butt with No Thorns

2011-03-15T20:51:00.000+08:00

Mum used to say that there are thorns on my dad's butt that he couldn't sit on the sofa for more than 30 minutes. I think she was just trying to describe how energetic my dad is.

Dad has no problem finding something to entertain himself. I remember when I started to play rollerblades at about 14, he not only got himself a new pair of rollerblades too but also a skateboard. Today, besides swinging his golf clubs in our lounge, he has found another thing to keep him busy.

A few weeks ago mum and dad invited Ruby's boyfriend James to the restaurant inside a nice hotel for a farewell dinner before he left for his military service. Even though dad is usually immune to fancy technology products, after letting him know how the female Taiwanese golf player Yani Tzeng was doing in the Honda LPGA Thailand this year during the dinner through my iPod touch, he was totally charmed by smart phone.

He has been sitting on his chair playing his smart phone for more than two hours after dinner now, sipping his tea and sometimes making strange noises when he couldn't figure it out how to let his smart phone work in the way he wanted. Mum said she hopes dad's new toy can make him learn how to check and reply emails himself, instead of asking us to do it every time. Well, if it doesn't turn out to be that way, think I can at least comfort mum that there are no thorns on dad's butt.

To My New Relationship. Cheers!

2010-04-11T06:31:00.004+08:00

Don't quite believe in love at the first sight, but understand how important first impression is. So I tried to present the best of me, external and internal. Tried to convince him that I am the one for him, only I am talking about getting myself a job, not a man.

Usually it helps and saves a lot of time and work when I reveal my academic background. But when it comes to meeting "upper class" company like TSMC, ASUS or Acer, it seems like trying to meet people from the Royal Family. No overeas diploma, no qualification of a bar exam in America or in Taiwan and no enough full-time working experiences, my background can never be more humble. This is not surprising and is also quite understandable. No big deal since now doesn't mean forever.

And just like trying to have a relationship with someone, sometimes you might have some strong feelings for someone whom doesn't quite feel the same way about you, or somtimes someone likes you, but you only want to offer your friendship. Somtimes you might feel alone, but sometimes you might have difficulty deciding which man you're going to go out with. And sometimes friends might like your new partner a lot, but sometimes they might question your sanity.

Sabrina said I have only tried for slightly more than a month that I should be more patient. But I just feel tired of waiting. I'm not very worried I have to live by my very modest savings. It's with no income that makes me down sometimes. Because it makes me feel like being glued to where I stand right now, can't go anywhere far.

Don't think Sabrina understands actually I'm quite looking forward to my new relationship and nothing she said about my new partner diminished my interest and excitement to him at the moment. So congratulations to myself that I'll start a new relationship from next Monday!

And even though it's still several thousand millions miles away from the serious word 'marriage', I am definitely going to have a hen do this weekend!

One Word In Life

2010-03-29T05:25:00.002+08:00

I was very glad when I found the book in the secondhand bookstore. It was called Six Kinds of Solitude. I've heard of it for quite a while. It was recommended by many book reviews. But after some pages, actually I found myself couldn't even finish a half of it.

Even though I didn't feel getting inspired at all about what the author said, it was its tone that really bothered me. I felt I was preached. Reading the book I felt like I was walking on the street and being approached by a person and he tried to convince me in an unnatural tone that I need to be forgiven and I should believe in God.

I'm totally fine with religion and their believers. It's just the author's tone that really annoyed me. Why can't those believers and the author just talk like ordinary people in a natural voice when they give a sermon?

I am not crazy about any religion at all, not even Taoism or Buddhism. But I remember since I was a teenager, every time when I saw the slogan on the street lamp said, "Believe in God, then you can go to heaven", I always can't help to compare it with the Buddhist slogan "Put down the sword with blood, then instantly you can become a Buddha." From the two slogans I always felt Buddhism seems to be more generous since you don't need to believe in anyone, but only need to stop doing what is evil to be forgiven. Anyway, I just want to say that I really really don't like to be preached, especially in an unnatural tone.

I heavily closed the book just to stop its litany and spit a relaxing sigh out. I loosely and cozily lay down in my bed and let my belly button look at the ceiling of my room as if I was trying to float on the sea. I was wondering how talented the author is that he could write a 288 pages book about only one word. What am I going to write about if I can only choose one word?

I had no intension at all to make a contrast with the author's profound choice - talking about solitude, but all I could think about was really the word F-U-*-K. Not so sure how vulgar or offensive this word is in English, but not many women, at least not many of my female friends say it in Chinese.

But seriously and honestly, I like the word. Cos it can always immediately and exactly express or release the intensity of my diverse feelings. Not a pinch more and not a pinch less. Very precise and direct at the exact moment. However, just in case people misunderstand that mostly it's only an urge to reveal the degree of my emotion than to offend or insult people, I usually said it when I was only with myself.

Therefore, when a taxi driver pressed his horn to my butt trying to remind me there was a taxi behind my back that I might want to take, I would yell silently, "Stop being so fu*king polite! I know how to do it when I need a cab!" The jingle when I threw myself into a swimming pool in a cold winter evening feeling all my body hair standing up was always me with a shivering voice singing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in my mind with the only one word lyric, you know which word. This word was also a must line when some shitty food cost me more than it should deserve. Recently, I found myself said it a lot when I had no choice at all or had more than one undesirable choices. Life can really be so hard or confusing sometimes.

think this will not be a very hard subject to write about for me but I can also reckon which word people might want to say after reading my book (if it's ever written and published).......

Five Things That I Don't Understand About That Big Island

2010-03-18T03:13:00.002+08:00

1. How beautiful do you want to look, women?

I know some women are willing to suffer to look beautiful. And sometimes I also show my support with my short dress or skirt to those women. But this time in Cardiff some women really got my eyes opened and also think they really pushed the idea to the extreme that I can never ever achieve.

During this trip, besides some London girls I met at the pub admitted they were as confused as I was when watching a rugby game, another comforting thing was I didn't need to wrap myself til being stumbled by my own layers of clothes to against the winter in Europe. Moreover, many locals I had talked to unanimously confessed they felt very cold as well.

The last evening when roaming around the city centre, I saw a lot of young men and women walking along the street wearing a burning summer outfit without ANY coat, jacket or cardigan covered or even just lingering on their arms. However, this didn't surprised me that much since I had been told (and warned) so many times before. The thing really surprised me and I really want to know is how they prevent themselves from shivering? How do those young people cheat their bodies?

2.Are you going to somewhere around Howell School?

That's the question I always asked the bus drivers when I needed to take a bus back to where I stayed in Cardiff. I had no problem and felt like a local taking a bus from where I stayed to the city centre, but going back by bus always exposed my identity as a stupid tourist.

The evening when I came back from Bath, at Cardiff railway station I thought taking the same bus which brought me to the railway station in the morning should be able to take me back. But the bus driver told me it's another bus I needed to take. Even though it confused me, I followed his advice.

It bewildered me a lot about the bus system in Cardiff. In Taipei, generally, buses go and come back by taking the same route. Buses can bring you back to the place where you get on. And there is usually a electrical board to tell you what the name of the stop is. So no need to worry even if you have never been to that place or whether you will miss the stop. But it's totally not the rules in the UK. Why can't you Britons make taking a bus simpler?

But, thankfully, the bus drivers I met were all very friendly and helpful.

3.How impatient British people are when it comes to tea?

It was absolutely not the first time I saw how to make some tea by using a tea bag or a pyramid tea bag. And I've bought some loose tea from Harrods, Fortnum and Mason, Whittard of Chelsea and Lipton, but none of them can compete with the speed of making a cup of tea like a PG tips tea bag did.

Once I pour some boiling water in my mug with a PG tea bag, then even before I put the kettle down, the water in my mug has already been perfectly dyed and also become strong enough to fresh my brain. (I don't even have the time to yawn and feel how much I miss my bed in the morning!)

Being a tea addict, no matter it's Chinese tea, Japanese tea, herb tea or black tea I had, at least I needed to put myself in a Zen mode to wait for a few seconds, then I could feel comforted with every following sips. Therefore, at first I was surprised and also kind of worried how tea could be made that fast, but quickly I became a fan of it, since I am not just a tea addict, but also an impatient one!

4.What are the ingredients of Britain's cookery programme? - A comparative study of cookery programmes in the UK and in Taiwan

1 big and posh kitchen
1 pretty woman, with a big butt (optional)
2 hairy bikers
4 total unfamiliar dinner guests
500g of stylish, rural, or cozy atmosphere, plus extra for dusting
3 tbsp tension
pinch of tears

They are the ingredients I roughly conclude for making a Britain's cookery programme after watching Nigella Express, Jamie's Kitchen, Come Dine With Me, The Hairy Bikers, Ready Steady Cook, Rachel Allen:Bake, Cooking It and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. And I am wondering if a cookery programme to British people is mainly about entertaining more than providing basic rules or key information of cooking a dish.

The programmes were taken in a shinny, expensive or a professional kitchen or in a beautiful garden. (By the way, I learn the word "pantry" from Nigella Lawson's own kitchen in the show. Jeez...it reminded me how humble my background is. Cos before that I didn't even know there is such a space in a house!) To British people, in a way, cooking seems to become a dreamy living style, not something basic and realistic to our daily lives.

Cookery programmes in Taiwan are usually taken in a studio. And so far, I don't know why but besides a chief, there got to be a host. The kitchen in the show is just a combination of a stove, a sink and a working surface. Nothing really fancy or posh. And in the beginning and the end of the programmes usually they will clearly list on the screen all the ingredients for the dish and give you a review of the method. But, in the UK they don't list it and the chiefs (mostly is also the host) usually speak very fast. They don't seem to expect people to take notes of it.

Don't get me wrong. I like those programmes very much. I enjoyed observing what people wear, what they talk about or what they do during a dinner party on Come Dine With Me. I would also root secretly for the participant and hope after a few weeks' training, he/she could really defeat the other two professional chiefs and cheat the judges. The shows were all amusing, entertaining and educational (from a cultural and English learning aspect), but if I tried to recall what dishes were made and what I've learnt, the images in my head are usually in pieces. Is It because they belong to the Reality Television genre more?

Anyway. I am just curious that after watching those cookery programmes, how many Britons feel stimulated and really cook something, or they just feel entertained and think they need another bag of chips?

5.When will British people become superstitious?

I seldom buy lottery tickets in Taiwan. Because from limited experiences, I found I got little luck on gambling. In Taiwan, you can only buy lottery tickets in a lottery stall and it's usually not very easy to miss a lottery store, especially when the stall has sold a winning ticket of the biggest prize.

Normally, they will hang a long red banner or put up a big red poster in front of their stall to tell you that. Because many Taiwanese people think it means the place is full of luckiness or the god of fortune has greater chances passing the stall so that they have higher possibility to become a billionaire. Besides, you can always find the god of fortune on the counter of a stall. And I don't know where the ritual comes from, but I've seen people touching the head of the god's head with their lottery tickets. (No wonder the good of fortune is a bald guy....)

Compare to the lottery stalls in Taiwan, the places where people buy their lottery tickets in the UK are very 'quiet'. You would not see any banner or poster on the wall. In fact, you will not even notice they sell lottery ticket! I remember the day before going to Manchester, I got my lotter ticket from a grocery store where I didn't even notice a single sign they sell lottery ticket, let alone seeing Britain's god of fortune.

Ok, maybe we Chinese are too obsessed with money.

Last Cruise

2010-03-06T03:17:00.027+08:00

After noticing my zits on my right cheek have got much better, after feeling getting more used to say “cheers” instead of “thank you” to a bus driver and after finally reducing the times of saying “hao”, which means "OK" in Chinese on the phone, it has also come to the end of my journey.

My last evening in the UK, sitting on the cozy red sofa listening to people accusing each other on Jeremy Kyle's show, I felt the urge to get away from the ugly side of humanity and have a last cruise of the city.

Clip-clop. Clip-clop. Listen to the certain, confident but easy clop from my boots when they kissed the chilly ground, I found it interesting that in both ends of my journeys to Germany and to the UK this time, I felt I’ve lived in both of the cities for much much longer than just five and fifteen days.

Walking down Cathedral Road, I passed the grocery store, the old lady's vegetable shop, the butcher's shop that I had been to and then some beautiful waiting-for-let houses with their winter sleeping gardens. I started to wander between the reality and my fantasy. I picked a house I liked and began to picture what if I really live here, what I would be doing right now in the evening.

"Hmm…will I be crouching on my chair in front of my desk, having shit Chinese food from Tesco alone with a legal textbook on my lap and also trying to swear at the same time while eating it?! I may have no choice since I was as homesick as my best friend Gina used to be and being a student here has already made me too exhausted to cook...... OR…after all these years here, I have been totally assimilated that I will be sinking into a dark blue cheap cotton sofa from Ikea, stroking my gradually bigger and bigger, thicker and thicker belly and thighs with a remote control in my hand and thinking about what is the junk food I am going to have next…"

Imagining both of the pictures along the road, I tried my best not to grin like a dumbass and continued my walk toward the shopping centre.

When getting closer and closer to the city centre, besides trying to buy myself a pair of shoes in this country, I discovered the second frustrating thing living in the UK – It was just about 7pm, but most shops were ready to close, even coffee shops. And the only available cheap food seemed to be Burger King or Subway this kind of place. The voice-over resounded in my head and said, “No wonder binge drinking is such an issue in this country - Cos they don't have many choices of entertainment in the evening! Poor British people…”

It was Hobson's choice that I walked into the Burger King. The young girl in her uniform standing opposite the counter had a very familiar face and reminded me of someone. It was not because of her black hair, yellow skin and her Chinese name suggested by the name tag on her left chest. It was Wei-Wei’s ponytail and hard-working attitude that reminded me of Sylvia, a friend whom I had visited and stayed with for two weeks in London in 2007.

Sylvia had a BA degree in Music in Taiwan. Her major and minor were Vocal Music and Piano. I still remembered the evening she was in her slivery white dress being radiant and singing on her mini graduation concert. She looked very elegant and her performance was beautiful.

When I saw Sylvia again in 2007, she has just got her MA degree in Arts Administration and Management in a university in London and also just started to work from early evening till early morning as a waitress in a night club. There were many times I wondered if those customers knew the waitress, who just took their orders and brought them their fancy cocktails could actually play wonderful piano and sing like an angel.

I could still recall a few times watching Sylvia dragging her stories with heavy steps going to work. And if I dug out my memory, I could still hear Sylvia's sobs when she told me parts of the stories and the reasons why she was rather being bossed around and working like a dog in the UK than coming back to Taiwan to have some claps she deserved on the stage.

Sylvia had lost a very close family member due to a serious car accident when she was studying in the UK. And because of many many family and her emotional issues, Taiwan has become a place that’s too sorrowful for her to live in.

Even though the journey in 2007 was full of fascinating memory, after coming back to Taiwan, occasionally even till now I still think about Sylvia's story and wonder to what extent or because of what incident that I'll make such a sudden turn and find a new balance, like Sylvia did, in my life.

Wei-Wei handed me my tea and stopped me before I went any deeper to my question this time. I smiled at Wei-Wei and tried to squint gently down as if it would make me discover what story she was dragging to work in such a cold evening with her.

Time is never enough for remembering all those good and sad old days. But tea is always helpful when it comes to digestion, even when it's about memory. I quickly finished my tea after doing some writing and then kept cruising to the rest of the evening.

Didn't really look down while walking, but I think, like Sylvia, we all drag some stories behind those smiley faces with us, no matter where we are or how hard we try to forget.

Guten Tag, Deutschland!

2010-02-04T18:43:00.001+08:00

Before the plane really kissed the ground at Frankfurt International Airport, I could glance outside from the window that except the runway, most of the places were dusted with a generous layer of icing sugar. Didn't feel worried at all. In fact, I felt like a seven-year-old little girl going to Disneyland and seeing Micky and Minnie out of TV for the first time. And it also reminded me the short conversation I had with a girl from China when I was waiting for boarding in Hong Kong. She shared with me how difficult and how many documents she needed to provide to get the visa to visit her sister in the UK. And also told me it was her first time taking a flight. It's not hard to tell how excited she was because when we really stood in front of our plane, she said to me, 'awwwww, THIS is a plane!'

When my flight landed it the white theme city, Frankfurt, I kind of understood how the girl felt. Because I also had the excitement and wanted to say, 'awww...THIS is snow!' However, the romantic feeling about snowing soon disappeared. After dragging my chubby lagguage and trying to take S-Bahn to the central train station to my hotel, I understood how much inconvenience it might cause.

The hotel room I stayed at the first night was nice - free minibar, a big sofa, a bathtub and everything was pretty tidy. But there was one reason I really needed to get my room changed - the extremely unstable wireless internet connection. Thanks for the helpful hotel staff. My new room allowed me no need to sit almost at the hallway to use the internet and also provided a better view by facing the central train station. But this came with a price - I lost the big sofa and the bathtub. Damn.

The first culture difference I discovered was German must be a very patient people. Cos when the first time I entered the lift in my hotel, my unconscious action next was to impatiently find the 'close' button to close the lift doors. In Taiwan, it seems an unspoken rule that the lastest person coming into the lift should press the button and close the doors. But, in Frankfurt, there's no 'close' button in the lift! Therefore, I felt slightly embarrassed and inefficient no matter I was standing sliently for six seconds (Yes, I've counted it.) with just myself or a group of people in the lift waiting for the doors to close. Am I being a too impatient Scorpion?! Or it just explained how tense our life was in Taiwan?!

Besides, I also gave Germany some of my 'virgin experience' - first time I learned it may also look like bigger breadcrumb when snow falling from the sky, first time I understood how salty a real Brezel should be, first time I tried and found that Japanese wasabi has a twin brother called horseradish......

I knew I was going to be fine when most of my family intimidated me how cold it may be in Germany. The thing was I didn't even feel the need to swear to expel the coldness or to spend time checking whether my nose and ears were still staying at the right places. But maybe it's because five days were still too short for the challenge. Ok, Germany, I promise I'll be back again!

Advice needed - How To Dream A Dream?

2010-01-09T02:34:00.015+08:00

I woke up with an half-wet t-shirt this morning. It's all because of a scary dream. Well, it's not about blood everywhere or about ghosts, that kind of scary.

In my dream, I was visiting a skyscraper with some friends. The building was taller than Taipei 101 and was even much taller than the new record winner - Burj Dubai, which is about 800 meters in Dubai. In fact, in my dream when my friends and I got to the highest floor of the skyscraper, we were actually in outer space.

Before I noticed that my friends and I were standing and taking some rest under a dark blue sign, there had already been thousands of people queuing after us. And I was the head of the line.

The dark blue sign seemed like a MRT station sign. So I was thinking, "ok, taking MRT, ummm...not a bad idea. think it will bring us to the center of the city."

After a few minutes, a roofless black train followed his track arrived. Because of being the head of the long queue, I was sitting at the first row of the roofless train. The train departed elegantly and smoothly. No doubt it was a normal train until we kept speeding up and I realised that it was actually a roller coaster!

While we were reaching the supersonic speed, the roofless black roller coaster also came to the end of its track. Suddenly, it was like a hystrical cork which was just popping out from a bottle of champagne after massive shakes. The roller coaster was not only flying and dashing with a mad speed in all kinds of directions in the universe, but also doing some tumblings and spins at the same time. And when friction from doing all the tricks slowed down the roller coaster, there came a long long free fall to bring us from the universe down to about sea level to meet another track. And then, it would speed up until we were in the universe and fast enough to do all the tricks again.

After many repeats of the whole process and running out all my energy to continue screaming and swearing in my dream, I woke up. No surprise that even with eight-hours sleeping, I still felt very tired.

Don't know what will come out if I try to google "how to dream a baby pink and princess theme merry-go-round dream."

I just want a good sleep tonight.

Always Get The Right Line Ready

2009-12-26T23:09:00.164+08:00

Many years ago once I remember telling one of my college friends Yang that she and I had almost the same height. Yang felt hilarious but also slightly annoyed and said, 'Can't believe you say that! Don't you aware that your line of vision was going up when you're talking to me?!'

My explanation and theory to Yang then was maybe it's because most of time in my life I have to lift my chin with different angles when I talk to people. Since it is too often and I've got used to it, I stop feeling others are actually that much taller than I am.

I almost forgot about my crap theory until this afternoon Hannah, who I am sure is at least 5cm shorter than I am, said, 'After not seeing you for years, you are still petite and have the same height with me.'

Hannah and I were college schoolmates. Even though we usually found it interesting and relaxing talking to each other, we seldom hung out together then. After losing contact since our graduation, the connection was built again via facebook.

But not like those 'only-want-to-be-a-muted-voyeur' friends, Hannah sent me a message and asked me if I want to have a cup of coffee with her shortly after I clicked the 'accept' button.

Not hard to tell that Hannah brought me to a famous and popular afternoon tea shop. Layers of people were surrounding the small patio outside of the shop as if we were waiting to see a brilliant street performer playing ten oranges with his hands and spitting out flame at the same time. According to the waiting number we got, I estimated an hour of waiting was inevitable.

Queuing for at least an hour to get a cup of coffee and a piece of cake or some sandwiches while it was chilly and had some thin liquid threads falling from the sky?! Come on! It's crazy.

While I was planning how to make Hannah understand that patience is never my virtue and persuade her that the coffee and the cake next door would be as good as well, a waitress came out and said, 'Excuse me. If there are two guests who don't mind to sit at the counter, you may go inside right now. Anyone? Please raise your hand to let me know.'

I know I should ask Hannah first, but I just couldn't help to instantly stand on my tiptoe and put my right palm as high as possible above my head after the waitress closed her mouth. Maybe Hannah felt the threats from my eyes when I asked her. She smiled and said she doesn't mind before the waitress decided to let us in.

Honestly I don't understand why most of people preferred waiting for an hour than enjoying their time with their friends at the moment while also be able to monitor that their sandwich will be spread with enough butter and be put in decent amount of smoked chicken.

The afternoon was a bit like Hannah's press conference about her wonderful three-months trip in America. But I didn't feel annoyed at all. In fact, I often feel fascinated about people's self-help journey. I can understand that it's what may happen when you discovered and experienced the unexpected scenery or enlightenment from the expedition - you may have no time to swallow your spit and want to share the joy and excitement with others about what you've encountered.

I asked Hannah a question which I was asked frequently when people knew about my trip to the UK and Japan in 2007 - Did anything dangerous happen? Have you felt scared during your travel?

Hannah gave me the same answer that I offered to the people - 'No. I seldom felt afraid. Think it's because I prepared the information I need in advance. Or maybe I was just lucky.'

While I was just going to identify myself with her, Hannah continued and shared her friend's story with me.

Once on a very crowded tube in New york, Hannah's Taiwanese friend was sure that there was a palm sticking on her butt. She turned her head and stared at the man with a firm and serious voice, and said, "Do not touch me." But the guy wore a evil smile and answered with an obscene look, 'Why not?' Then it ended up with Hannah's friend getting off the tube at the next stop embarrassingly.

Hannah and I both felt lucky that none of this kind of thing happened to us. But think even if it does happen, I have my line ready. My advice for Hannah was - Never hesitate to start with the F word and make sure that everyone there knows that his name is wanker.

To Ignore Or Not To Ignore

2009-12-07T00:26:00.079+08:00

I am not being too serious about it or taking it too far. I am just trying to value having such a clear and very straightforward chance to decide who can or can not walk into my life.

People may use Facebook for many different purposes. For me, it's all about sharing my PRIVATE life. Maybe I am self-obsessed. But just think it's equally rude for people to be a peeping Tom, make themselves at home in my life but NEVER even try to say hi after I accepted their 'friend' request.

I know there is privacy setting and there is also a button called "delete" in friends list. Trust me, I think some people may have found themselves getting lost on their way to my home now (if they try to.) But there are still some peeping Toms who swear never going to talk to me hiding in my friends list.

This evening I saw a new friend request on my Facebook. It's not at all a stranger. But since I can count with a single hand about how many sincere "Happy birthday!" I have received from the person during the past recent years, I can only assume that this 'friend' will not have the time and the energy to leave a comment when he sees the five-year-old me in my red bikini.

Problems must be solved from the root. Therefore, this time, about my pompous friends list, I decided to take action at the very beginning rather than grumbling and trimming it later.

Sorry! ("Ignore" button clicked.)

The Life-Changing Ten Months

2009-12-03T14:12:00.314+08:00

The draft of this entry has been deleted and rewritten many times since I started this blog. Cos just thinking about the still vivid past and the disorientated future often make my fingers spend most their time being in a trance on the keyboard.

From junior high school to university, can't explain how my compass and my eyesight worked. The direction and the sign of my future were always clear to me - no professional or technical school, but high school, and then university and will definitely not choose English as my major.

None of my parents' opinions were involved at all. Not that I totally ignored their opinions. It's just I never really felt I would need them to tell me which way to go. It's like my everyday walk from home to school. On the way, attention and time could easily be distracted and wasted, but the crucial turn was just hard to be missed. It was as simple and nature as that. And the future even became more specific when I was at uni - to become a lawyer, just like most of my law school friends.

But after uni, the compass was somehow lost. And also, soon I suffered from one of the downsides of getting older - gradually deteriorating eyesight. Things became vague and it even got worse when I started my first and only full-time job I have had so far.

In 2005, I had my second job interview after only graduated from uni in a very short time. I remember I was trapped in a fancy library for about three hours to finish a paper test and for another 40 minutes for an interview. Finally, I left the impressive building with a free, cold and skinny chicken sandwich as lunch and an offer to work as a paralegal from next Monday.

It never occurred to the smug that it would turn out to be the longest and the darkest ten months of her life.

If people want to quickly get a picture of our life in the law firm. I will highly recommend the film, The Devil Wears Prada. For the people who haven't watched it, especially guys, I can assure you that it's not another chick flick. It's a documentary or a mental war film based on a true story!

Not sure it's the devil in my office acting on the silver screen, or simply just one of the many other devils in this world. One thing for sure about the common feature of the devils is a harsh tone and an icy look. And conventionally, even with the mahogany door firmly closed, it can still be loud and clear when the devil is yelling at someone in her office.

Moreover, under the devil's ruling, the clock ticked with a different sound. Time flies one hour a unit in the office to meet the format of the timesheet. Every entry of the timesheet must also accompany an equivalent work product. For example, 1079-01 0.2 Telephone conference with the officer of Patent Office about the patent application. It means I spent 12 minutes discussing a patent application for Client No. 1079-01. And the equivalent work product will be a short telephone conference report recording the conversation about it. This is how we charged our big company and celebrity clients with an hourly-rate bill. By how many chargeable hours we can provide from our own timesheet, it proves our value to the law firm.

There were times I worried about having an easy working day, since it would be difficult to fill the timesheet and come out with evidence to show how much I am worth.

In the law firm, 'freedom is slavery' is really being believed, since you will have your freedom once you become one of the senior partners. So, before achieving that, we have to endure being watched. By the devil. Through the timesheet.

Think people will still never get to imagine how tense our life could be, even when I share the private fact that Kevin, a junior lawyer, once shown me he got two coin-big areas on the back of his head that had no hair and I had already got my period missing for three months with no medical explanation then.

You may raise a question by now : why didn't you just quit if it's that stressful and painful? The answer is plain by looking at the past from now - cos I wasn't permitted. Not because of my supervisor, but myself.

In my generation, we are not only branded as "Generation Y" but also called "The Strawberry Generation" in Taiwan. The latter especially means an irresponsible generation that can't stand with pressure and will easily run away from challenges.

Turning in a resignation somehow meant to me was to admit my own failure and the rest of synonyms, to admit I was heavily knocked down with no teeth left in my mouth. Not to mention I would also be misunderstood and associated with the bad name that I always despise. Besides, it just wasn't that easy when you discovered and tried to face that the life was totally different from what you had pictured at uni. Hence, that's one of the reasons why I took an entrance exam to study for a master degree - to justify my resignation.

Luckily, I passed the exam and successfully got rid of the devil. But my dim future started to haunt me since then. To light the way to my future, I understand I need to be honest with myself and carefully listen to what I really want from my soul. But the process of it is like to consciously operate for myself.

It feels like I have to cut through every layer of my own skins, tissue and then bravely deep down to my bones to find out which cell or nerve goes wrong to blur my vision and also make me come up with so many questions : why can't I just like those 'normal' people who think some things will still be the same when you do it at the age of sixty after retire with my pension? And why can't I just accept that it will be a shortcut to things I want as long as I suffer for a relatively short time? Why am I being so serious about this? Why can't I be quiet not to ask so many questions? Why... Why.... And why.....?

While still being at the early stage of the operation, I think it is still too early to claim my breakup with law. The only two preliminary discoveries are : (1) Law firm will be the last choice of my future working place. (2) I am really not a pushover. I need MORE convincing answers than others about the questions above.

Another Guinness World Record?!

2009-10-08T23:48:00.032+08:00

From Taipei Times - Taiwanese to kiss 100 men in Paris
English interview at the bottom of the page by Dan Bloom
The photos

Before Christina sent me the links above, I didn't notice it was on the news and had already had a storm-tide of viewers visiting her blog. Obviously Christina knew part of my appetite about news. The title did intrigued me and made me immediately gulped the links with my mouse. But after reading the article by Dan Bloom, I am...disappointed and worried.

The thing which disappoints and worries me is in the interview she said, as I quote, "now, a kiss seems like an amazing exchange of very interesting 'energy' for both the people kissing each other. That's what I've learned." If I were her ex-boyfriend, I would probably feel ashamed and then secretly try to find a cram school teaching about kissing or question if she had ever really loved me - is this something we need to spend two years living in Paris or to kiss 54 total strangers to know?!

Don't get me wrong. No matter what people think about her idea, I think the 27-year-old woman, Yang, is completely entitled to say it loud and proud that she did it for no reason but merely just a whim. And also about that's what she has learned. However, if it is going to be published as a book, her lack of purpose and a more creative enlightenment will greatly dilute my interest about the book and make me feel it is just like some of the Guinness World Records - it may mean a lot to the person who achieves a new record, but it brings and means almost nothing to me.

Before her coming book reveals her tips of how to break the ice when asking for a kiss from a stranger or shares with us that the exotic kisses will remove the shy and implicit character of we Chinese and make us be able to express the feelings more directly to the people we really love, I think I will tend to save the money to watch Daniel Craig being topless on the silver screen and walking in slow motion with his six packs and then passionately kiss the sexy Bond girl on the beach while the sun goes down.

The rainbow I miss

2009-09-21T17:20:00.025+08:00

Last Saturday evening Gina and I took a casual cruise at Shida night-market before doing dinner together with Ivy. Usually the surroundings would be automatically switched to a muted mode when Gina and I hanged out together. Because our laughter, banter and oral reports of new developments of our recent life often became earplugs to block the rest of the sounds. But that evening, the voice from a radio programme from a small hair & beauty shop carried some powerful wind to blow away Gina's earplugs and thrust both of us into our own memory lane.

The radio programme might be called a Taiwanese version of Jeremy Vine's show on BBC Radio 2, which also talks about some hot topics of recent news . "Oh my God, I haven't listened to this programme since I came back. I think it's around 10 am in the UK right now" said Gina.

I have no idea how much an overseas phone call from the UK to my cell phone might cost, but according to the frequency Gina called me in 2007 during her last four months in the UK, I'll say it's pretty cheap. She was extremely suffering from homesick then. And the Taiwanese radio programme was her antibiotics to keep her temporarily healthy enough to count down her remaining days in the UK.

"Do you still remember the day we met at the coach station in Leeds? You know, your eyes couldn't look any smaller then," teasingly said Gina. "But seriously, even though we only spent three days together in the UK, you have no idea how glad I was to see you then." "I thought my eyes couldn't look any bigger! Since barely got any sleep on the plane and on the coach and met you at 5 am, it should be able to create double eyelids for me." I jokingly defended and repaid her a moved smile.

For the following three hours, my memory lane was clogged when having dinner with Ivy and Gina. But on my way home, it became smooth again. This time I walked into the scene of the opening night of demonstrating my pajamas to the UK. With a unique way to come on the stage, I was grinding my teeth in Gina's bed and sleeping with a letter "K" pose.

Due to my jet lag and lack of enough sleep, in the first formal evening in the UK I went to bed very early to review the beauty and hospitality of York that Gina and I discovered earlier that day. The mummy was well fixed in the "K" pose until Gina woke me up at about midnight. And I could tell from her serious face that it couldn't be about me invading her half of the bed or the noise my teeth had made.

"I only got two days left before going back to Taiwan and I found there were still soooooo many things to do before I leave. I even haven't collocated enough materials to bring back to Taiwan to complete my dissertation. Therefore, do you think tomorrow you can go to Manchester without me?" asked Gina. As a thoughtful, considerate and VERY sleepy friend, I told her "sure, of course" and then immediately and unconsciously back to my "K" pose.

The next day when I woke up in the early morning, I didn't know how to wake Gina up and told her I had been a somniloquist when I said yes to her last night. It would not be fine with me to go to Manchester by myself since I prepared nothing but relied on her to show me the city as we had discussed.

But, before I plowed a trench with my indecisive steps back and forth in Gina's room, I told myself that things couldn't be more frustrating and boring to wait until Gina wakes up or to find myself doing nothing in the end of my second day in the UK. Hence, "I am going to Manchester now. Let's have dinner together in the evening. E"- the note of me taking an adventure was stuck on Gina's laptop.

Follow the trail of my memory breadcrumbs of how Gina took me to York the day before and with some helps from a police officer, I got myself safely and smoothly to Manchester. That morning, outside of Manchester Piccadilly Station, the sky was painted with my mood - a widely spread of uneasy damp grey and a few gentle brushes of exciting white.

Not like my rest of well-planned days in the UK, Gina's sudden absence made me become duckweed and had no choice but drifted forward with the tide of the crowds. Don't know if it has anything to do with being a Law School student for many years. I was trained and used to put things into order or an organized plan. But at that time I even found the map from the Information Centre at the railway station was useless since three people I had asked all couldn't point out where I was and they included a guard from Primark. Time just couldn't crawl any slower then.

But strangely, the more I breathed in the slightly chilly air of the day, the more relaxed I became. And the air also brought my previous expectations about the whole journey back to me. Wasn't this just a part of what I had hoped for - to take a rest and have a cup of tea whenever and wherever I want and have time to watch how people walk, drink and laugh in this country!

I started to realize how rare the chance might be for me to quietly monopolize the view from a small cabin of the big wheel behind Manchester Arndale. And sometimes maybe being lonely is the beginning of being not lonely. Because as I was alone visiting Manchester Cathedral, a warm old British lady unexpectedly approached me and offered me a free guide about the cathedral. That afternoon I was taught a new point of view of getting lost and how to get along with a sense of feeling disoriented.

Even though I missed the announcement of the platform's changing and took the wrong train, back to Leeds I was still early enough to catch the dinner with Gina. Gina told me we were invited by her friends to have some simple dinner together at their flat.

The pizzas and the roasted chicken were well served with my story happened at the coach station at the airport. Gina's friends were amazed by my experience that the British old man sat next to me on the plane bought me a cookie and a cup of tea and left me with his business card for emergent help and also some coins to make phone calls to make sure I would be picked up in Leeds.

Chewing my pizza at the same time with their jealous exclamations of why they had never had this kind of luckiness during the past year in the UK, my focus and my mind were contentedly zooming out to the rainbow hanging outside of the window. I think the journey was destined to be beautiful and memorable.

Long time no see, beach!

2009-09-06T22:56:00.065+08:00

For a few minutes my mind went completely blank when I took Ho and his friend's invitation to be a beach girl this Sunday afternoon. It was because the word "Beach" has disappeared in the dictionary in my mind for one or two years. I had tried, but still couldn't recall a vivid image the last time my feet were seasoned with a lot of finely ground black pepper after walking along the seaside.

The only beckoned memory was Ho was shining and popular when we studied at Law school. He played basketball for the basketball team of our Law school and also formed a band and became a leading singer of it. And apparently after not seeing him for quite a while, these days he has developed a new interest of going surfing during the weekend. And Ho's friend, Lin, was his high school classmate and used to be the drummer of Ho's band.

It was Lin's first time going surfing. I found it amusing when Ho told Lin how to carry a surfing board. Is a surfing board to man like a Hermès handbag to woman that there's a specific way to hold it to make you look posh?!

Today's waves were not suitable for surfing so we spent a lot of time sitting at the shallow part of the seashore and chatting under a foldable shed shared by a group of hospitable guys. Those guys were in their early thirties and were very friendly. They not only prevented us from getting sun burned, but also recharged our battery by providing snacks and beers.

Those guys were pretty creative since they made a crocodile (or a bad fish you might call) with sand. And just when I was going to compliment about their artistry, two of the guys started to discuss how about making a huge poo behind the tail of the crocodile - Ohhhhh, grow up, men!

Anyway, I stopped them from making the poo and had a very relaxing afternoon.

The academic dinner

2009-08-31T00:01:00.101+08:00

After Jimmy announced he's going to tie the knot in the end of this year, the Saturday dinner was immediately turned into a symposium of "Two People, Or Two Family - The Difficulty When Planning A Wedding." And, of course, Jimmy was the main presenter and the rest of my schoolmates and I became inquisitive commentators.

The sweet news from Jimmy also proofed his heart has become seamless now. More than two years ago, Jimmy was deeply in love with a girl and they had been living with each other for almost two years. One day while everything seemed alright and he was at work, without any notice in advance, the girl called and told him that she had already packed her things and moved out. There was no the other man between them and no clear explanation about the sudden breakup. For the following months, Jimmy was looking like a living zombie.

But, after such a sudden and deep stab into one's heart, now look at Jimmy and the girl he's holding hand with! Obviously the zombie has already reincarnated and lives in the seventh heaven.

Although Jimmy just started to plan the wedding for about four months, it's long enough to make him talk like a prestigious eighty-year-old professor. From the traditional customs of the whole wedding to the reception, there were so many times Jimmy said it's not something I can decide when I told him what I want or what I think about it. I didn't say something like I want to wear a puffy dress and get married in Disneyland. But the reply from Jimmy sometimes made me feel daunting in a certain degree.

I won't call myself a feminist since think men and women can never be equal in so many ways. To me, the key point is always about respect. But feel there are some traditional customs of a wedding that contradict my belief and emotion.

For example,
1. On the wedding day, the mum of the bride has to splash a basin of water to the road after the groom comes to pick up the bride from her place and the daughter officially leaves the house. It symbolizes the daughter is like the splashed water - she belongs to another family from the moment.

I love my family. I just don't like the hidden idea that once you get married, you'll have to cut the connection with your family even it only has a symbolic meaning. Besides, I am confident that my love is big enough for my future and current family members to share.

2. After getting in a limo, the bride has to throw away a hand-held fan from the window which represents she will abandon all her bad temper to start a new family.

I fully agree it should be encouraged if we try to make ourself become a better person. But can my future husband be that perfect that I am the only person who has bad temper to throw away? If I need to throw away a hand-held fan, can I ask him to do the same thing with me?

Jenny said she has never thought about the meanings of all these customs. Jimmy said they are just some customs and I shouldn't take them too far. Besides, as an expert of a wedding planner, he emphasised again that sometimes they are not something I can decide - the parents of the groom might feel offended if I don't do so.

I still admire the culture within a wedding. But just can't stop thinking at the same time if some customs are really that unbreakable or can't be omitted, especially when people don't even think about the meaning of the customs.

Maybe they are really something I can not decide. But Jimmy, at least I can decide how much money I am going to put in the red envelope to give it to you.

Asking A Woman's Phone Number For Dummies : Taiwan Edition

2009-08-27T23:15:00.095+08:00

No matter how instant and convenient a man can meet a woman through the internet, the old fashion way to meet a woman in the street is never really forgotten.

But, without a virtual flower, heart or any other emoticons to send, in real world some men's ability to ask a woman's phone number in the street when he wants to know her seems to backtrack to a single-celled organism. Tonight I feel obligated and commissioned to bring those men back to Darwinism. So, guys, here are my advice. Listen up!

1. NO! NO! NO! Never ever just pop up a line like this, "errr...can you give me your phone number?" Are you a policeman or what?! Be patient and polite!

2. Yes, you want her to stop, but suddenly park your motorcycle and block her way, believe me, it's not a glamorous way to come on the stage, especially when she is wearing her earphone listening to her music and walking with very impatient pigeon's steps on her way home.

3. Wearing a suit will add about 50 points for you, but, remember, the total points will be 1000. Besides, I know you might still be on your motorcycle, but still wearing your helmet when you are talking to the woman is like talking while still having your food in your mouth - good friends won't mind at all, but to a potential friend, 500 points will be lost even before you speak!

4. Don't chicken out at the crucial moment when the woman stops and looks at you. Be a man!

5. Will you make friend with a person you don't even know his/her name? Mind you, you are no more than a total stranger who makes her stop alone in the middle of a dusky lane. Unless you want to hear "fuck off" - introduce yourself first!

6. Not only be a man, but also be a gentleman - don't forget to say "thank you" even when she turns you down determinately.

Although I hope my advice will be helpful, I'm not confident about it at all. I doubt I'll give my phone number to a stranger even he takes all the advice. Maybe I need a book called "Giving Phone Number To A Man For Dummies."

A could-not-be-more-true nightmare

2009-08-13T22:35:00.027+08:00

Taiwan mudslide survivors found
Taiwan rescue effort continues
People crying to President Ma for help
People crying for witnessing their own house being washed away

This is absolutely the last way I want my country to be noticed to the world. And sadly these videos only present small ripples of the lives that people in the south of Taiwan have at the moment.

Compare to the northern capital city, Taipei, the southern part of this small island is really like another country. Besides the consecutive heavy rain in the afternoon during these two days, there's nothing really changed or damaged in Taipei. In fact, the only difference I can directly feel is just fewer choices of vegetables that I can have in a restaurant.

Being a capital city, the safeness is not surprising at all. But after watching the news these days, it will be hard not to wonder and worry if the capital city has become the only city the government cares about.

During my dinner break at cram school this evening, I shared my table at a cheap buffet restaurant with a middle-age woman sitting opposite me. While watching the news as our side dish, I could see clearly that those despairing and helpless faces on TV painted the corners of the woman's eyes red and made her eyes moist.

Although the vivid images on TV these days were plenty enough to swallow me up easily, my mind still went completely blank when I tried to imagine any of my family member is missing or the most valuable property, our apartment, which is almost everything mum and dad have earned for all their lives becomes mounds of mud.

Hope President Ma's government will run as fast as his last name suggests and also hope they can learn a lesson from it that when Taipei is safe and fine, it doesn't mean the whole island is safe and fine!

From Point A to Point C

2009-07-28T22:27:00.201+08:00

The remaining effect of leaving a comment on my friend Gary's blog about quitting a job makes my bleached past and uncertain future hovering in my head during these few days.

After my graduation from university, I have only had one full-time job experience which lasted for about eight months in a law firm. How was it? Well, to make it short, what I can tell you is all units in the world for measuring will never be big or heavy enough to describe the pressure I had.

The image is still vivid when the junior lawyer Kevin who had been working in the law firm for ten months showed me the three fingernail-size areas on the back of his head that had no hair. While Kevin paid the price to keep his decent office with losing some hair, I defended my pride and expectations about my first real job with the price of having my period late for more than three months without any explanations after some medical checks. It is definitely the longest eight months in my life.

Even though this segment of my memory is too bitter to swallow and will be buried deeply at the darkest corner in my head, I seldom feel regretful about accepting the job. Because it made me rethink about what a job really means to me and what kind of life I might really want. If to explain it with my philosophy, the eight months were an inevitable and necessary "Point B" that I needed to pass through in my life journey, or I can't become who I am now.

My best friend Gina, who went to the same law school with me has depressingly yelled at her parents to stop expecting her to become a lawyer when we graduated from university. She firmly claimed she really had no interest in it. But after receiving a master degree in Marketing from Leeds University and came back to Taiwan in 2007, she recaptured her passion for becoming a lawyer and decided to go to a cram school to prepare for it. Many people consider it was totally a waste of time and money for Gina doing a master degree in Marketing in the UK. But somehow I can understand it. It's just Gina's "Point B."

After walking on some unexpected and winding roads of my life journey during the past few years, sometimes I really believe before reaching the goal of our life or finding what we really want to find, we need to go somewhere or do something else first, even we don't plan to. And now think the next thing I need to learn is to appreciate the scenery during the journey from Point B to Point C.

A Yellow, Yellow Sun

2009-07-24T23:09:00.011+08:00

O, my friendship has been like a yellow, yellow sun,
But is eclipsed by your elusive appearance.
O, my friendship has been like a sweet, sweet bun,
But is consumed by your successive indifference.

As selfish are you, my utilitarian friend,
So deep in disappointment am I,
That I will not give you a red envolope, my friend,
Till all the seas go dry.

Till all the seas go dry, my friend,
And the rocks melt with the sun!
And I won't give it to you still, my friend,
While the sands of life shall run.

And fare you well, my SINCERE FRIEND,
And fare you well forever!
And we'll never talk again, my FRIEND,
Unless the imbalanced friendship is over!

I've endured the fact that my cell number only appears in your contact list when you need my help. But after not hearing from you at all for more than two years, today the way you started your greeting really irritated me - "Hey, my mum said everyone in their life should have a lawyer friend or at least a friend graduated from Law school. So, today when I got my legal problem, I think about you right away. And oh! By the way, I may need your address soon since I am going to get married next year. You know who I am, right?!..."

You may just try to be funny and you may say I have no sense of humour, but I didn't feel amused at all!

After trying hard to hide my disappointment and measuring the frequency of your sincere phone calls during the past five years in my head, I could only offer you very limited information about your legal problem.

I know you may not read this. But just don't bother if you are trying to send me your wedding invitation and ask for a red envelope. Cos there will be no money in my envelope but my blessing and what I just wrote above!

Overestimated legs

2009-07-19T21:06:00.129+08:00

Went hiking on Saturday morning as my first practice for going climbing Yushan (玉山) next month. I didn't plan to do any special training until recently some friends and relatives tried to convince me that jogging or cycling only do little help to hiking or mountain climbing. And even with going jogging or cycling at least three times a week, I'll still need to experience and get used to the different pain that hiking will bring to me.

With the eager to proof the "threats" from my friends and relatives were not applicable on me, there was not even a pore for a tiny sleepy fairy to stand on my eyelids when I heard my alarm. I met my uncle and aunt precisely at 6am at the bus stop.

Despite sitting at the last row on the bus with my uncle, a glance at the faces of other passengers was unnecessary. I could tell undoubtedly I was the youngest person by merely looking at those almost bald and gray heads.

45 minutes later, Yangminshan (陽明山) was getting bigger and bigger. I expected her to be familiar and hospitable as usual since my friends and I had spent countless evenings and nights enjoying the night view with beers or coffee and sharing tears or laughter in our recent life with her. But she didn't look exactly the same and I also found during the daytime she wore not only a different colour of her outfit but with a fresher face.

When you go hiking at Qixing Mountain(七星山), you will get enough chances to practice saying "Good morning!" in Chinese to or back to people you don't know and may never see again in your life. But almost every one did the practice, even the two westerners we met.

My aunt, uncle and I were only trying to chat with each other in the very beginning of our hiking. Cos we knew it was very rude to interrupt the fervent conversation between birds, cicadas and other insects. Besides, think even without our own manners, my heart beat would still violently remind me.

A billionaire must drop and scatter some teeny diamonds on his way hiking. With the diamond-like water drops, the leaves and grass at both sides of the trail were shining. The dust carried on our shoulders were blew away by the natural A/C while the dark green window shutters blocked the stalk of the sunshine for us.

I don't know it's my seventy-year-old uncle or me trying to show "I am still young enough", my aunt said she couldn't keep up and wanted to give up going to the top with us. (Ok ok, I admit after feeling the gentle ache of my knees, it flashed through my mind for a few seconds that I wanted to stay with my aunt.)

It took us slightly more than an hour to stand at the highest spot in Taipei area, 1120m high to be exact. Due to the coming typhoon, the strong wind made me walk like a drunk person. And with its violence of rolling my eardrums, I had an illusion of riding a roller coaster.

Although I brought my camera with me, think it's the muscular pains of my lower legs mainly took the job of recording the whole trip for me. Now great, my friends and relatives do successfully make me start to worry if I can finish climbing Yushan in less than two weeks.

Practice will make perfect (hopefully)

2009-07-16T22:57:00.096+08:00

Bought a cooking book a few days ago, which is about recipes of making a dough for Chinese cooking. After rehearsing with some flour and water for several times in my mind, today I finally got a whole and quiet evening to hear the word - "Action!"

The scene for this evening was about me in my black cotton shorts and white vest reading the cooking book in a small kitchen for five minutes in the beginning. Then after some mixing, kneading and dry frying, I should show to the invisible camera about my speckled-brown 蛋餅. (蛋餅 is something similar to tortilla. It can be used and presented in many different styles.)

I followed the recipe successfully until I needed to cut the big dough into equal pieces and rolled them out to very thin pancakes. It was easy to make them oval, square, or other unidentified shapes but somehow they refused to look like a full moon. The best one I got looked like a three-year-old kid's butt.

I know it requires a lot of techniques to make a nice dough, but it just never came to my mind that to roll it circular does, too. It looks easy!

However, the feeling wasn't completely strange to me. I remember the first time I tried to learn how to serve in tennis. My excitement quickly turned into puzzlement when my coach told me to put my racquet down. I tried hard to hide my puzzlement and not to ask him, "I have never watched Roger Federer serving without a racquet. Why should I put my racquet down?"

After showing me the serving pose, my coach wanted me to throw the ball high and then caught it with the same position and at exactly the same place. I was thinking, "Oh, come on. I've watched plenty of tennis players doing it on TV. And it is just throwing a ball. How hard can it be?" But for the next 20 minutes, I felt I was dancing Cha Cha with the ball. I just couldn't stop moving back and forth to catch it.

Even with a perfect circular shape, think the cooking was still doomed since I used a different kind of flour. Although the texture was different and the shape wasn't quite right, it didn't bother me at all. Isn't it what cooking about? Fun and full of experiments.

Before it stops looking like a butt, my dear family and friends, please be patient!

Generation undecided, still

2009-07-10T23:20:00.116+08:00

Cinema is one of the pretty good shelters I would highly recommend if you feel you are going to melt or vapor soon from this small island during this season. Today I went to Shin Kong Cineplex in XiMen and watched another film from Taipei Film Festival 2009.

The film is called Generation Undecided, directed by Elmar Szücs, who suddenly found out that apart from having a new born baby, he was in the middle of nowhere with his coming 30th birthday. I was immediately intrigued when I read the introduction of the film from the program booklet - Isn't it also about my story in a certain way?

Guess many people were as interested in generation classifications as I was. The seats were almost occupied with different sizes of butts. Without any unreasonable and fancy scenes of digital effects or a sexy actress in her lace tank running with her breasts counting beats, (Go watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. You will understand what I'm talking about.) the film was rough and plain in a very friendly way and I enjoyed my visual travel in Germany very much.

But don't know if it's because I didn't pay enough attention to the film, I left the cinema without any enlightenment and still carried the same question with me on my way to the cram school.

Special moments in our life

2009-07-08T23:36:00.018+08:00

Got an email lying in my inbox this morning with a subject - "Want to share this special moment with you." "The special moment" had nothing to do with any romantic atmosphere, but a special (well, at least, to my friend it is) combination of numbers.

The email said, at 12hr 34 minutes and 56 seconds on the 7th of August this year, the time and date will never happen in your life again! (123456789)

Although obviously I would not only share the special moment with my friend but also with at least 30 unrecognizable recipients, I still appreciate his time clicking my email address from his contact list.

I am just wondering : How special was the moment? Doesn't it also make "at 10hr 10 minutes and 10 seconds on the 10th of October of 2010", "at 11hr 11 minutes and 11 seconds on the 11th of November of 2011" and so on special, too?

Maybe there is an implicit message in my friend's email that some special moments indeed will never happen again in our life, but some special moments are still there, waiting.

Priceless egg fried rice

2009-07-07T00:06:00.064+08:00

It was almost five o'clock when mum and dad got home this evening. Usually if the kitchen still remains dark after five, it means my sisters and I should probably start to decide later in the evening - turn left or right? Shida night market or Yong Kang street?

As the cheap but delicious Thai restaurant on Yong Kang street and the Japanese style roast chicken in Shida night market were still trying to fight for the championship in my head, dad knocked my door and asked me if I want some egg fried rice for dinner.

"errr...ok", I answered with many question marks on my face.

Don't get me wrong. I have no bias against egg fried rice. I was just googling in my head if I had tried any delicious egg fried rice in Shida or on Yong Kong street.

I tried to find out which food stall or restaurant we were talking about. But, "No, I am gonna cook it for you all myself." That's the answer I heard from dad.

From kindergarten to high school, no matter how early I needed to get up, I often had my breakfast at home which was made or at least prepared by mum. Even for Taiwanese women, it's still not that common to make breakfast for your children in the morning. I have many classmates that their mums were still sleeping when they went out to school.

I remember when I was about 10, for a child who seldom had any chance to eat outside I used to envy some classmates who could have their lunch box ordered from the school. But after trying it, I immediately realized I was just charmed by the colourful pictures outside of the lunch box.

With a really good cook in my family, sometimes it's hard to show how much cooking talent I have, let alone dad. The only memory of dad cooking for me that I can still scoop out now is about twelve or thirteen years ago when mum went travelling to Canada for around two weeks.

Even though curry and chicken noodle soup took their turn to be my sister Ruby's and my dinner for quite a few days during that period, we never complained about anything. Because after seeing dad trying to toss the pan like a chef to give us a tasty fried egg for breakfast, but ended up with the egg clinging passionately on the wall, it's hilarious enough to convert our attention of the constant attack of the curry and the noodle soup.

As a thoughtful daughter, I asked dad if he needed any help when he was heading to the kitchen. He said, "Oh, come on. It's just egg fried rice! It's easy." Well, he might be right since eggs and rice were really the only ingredients he used.

Not like the good egg fried rice we have tried, dad's rice didn't separate from each other completely enough and without any supporting characters, the only two leading characters were clearly recognizable.

But, believe it or not, the bland food was very delicious.

Chinese idioms with animals

2009-07-04T01:55:00.050+08:00

After learning some idioms from my dog-tired friend Gary this morning, it kind of reminds me when I was a little girl, a comic book about idioms related with animals used to be my bedtime reading for quite a while.

We have a lot of idioms about animals/insects in Chinese, from a tiny ant to a big elephant, from animals with no legs to animals who need plenty of shoe racks. Below are some I find interesting. (And literally translated by me.)

A cat crying for a rat (貓哭耗子)
showing insincere sympathy

A three-legs cat (三腳貓)
doing something clumsily, especially because of not having enough knowledge or skill

Playing piano to an ox (對牛彈琴)
talking about something to someone who can't understand it at all or is not interested in it at all

Looking for a horse while riding a donkey (騎驢找馬)
looking for something you have already had, or keeping staying with something you're not that satisfied with while looking for something better to replace at the same time

Add legs after drawing a snake (畫蛇添足)
doing something unnecessary

Roars from an east riverbank lion (河東獅吼)
shoutings from a very angry wife to her husband

After watching the great match played by Andy Roddick and Andy Murray and being struggling in which Andy I am going to root for during the whole match, I am dog-tired, too. Bed time.

Sometimes maybe it should be as simple as that

2009-06-10T10:53:00.157+08:00

Cathy was a colleague from my part-time job at school. I don't know if it's because her funny and silly problem of keeping walking straight on a pavement amuses me very much or it's because she also has the height of a hobbit as I do. I usually forget she is actually three years older than I am. The two hobbits became good friends.

During the past year, Cathy had always been a supporter of having black and straight hair as her DNA suggests. She usually ties her hair into a ponytail which suitably meets her simple and quiet dressing style. But about two weeks before she quit her job, she walked into the office with a romantically curled hairstyle which also carried a comfortable red-brown shimmer.

Cathy explained that since she is going to move to Japan soon and gets married in July, her mum thinks the new hairstyle might become a fashion shield which can keep her safe from any possible attack from those stylish Tokyo girls.

For Cathy's own safety and beauty, she changed her hairstyle, but the rest of her still remains. She's still the girl who thinks it's unnecessary to spend any money wearing her wedding dress and take photos before the wedding ceremony. In fact, if it were not for the wishes from her fiance's family, she even wouldn't want a dinner reception.

The spark between Cathy and her Japanese fiance was lighted in the first year while they both studied for their master degree in America. From then on, together for the following two years they took some courses which are not only about English teaching but also about dating.

After leaving America and respectively going back to Japan and Taiwan with a diploma, they advanced their learning about dating by taking another two-year, long-distance and cross-culture course.

Even though they saw each other every six months in Japan or in Taiwan and texted each other once or twice a day, they seldom chatted on MSN and only talked once every two weeks on Skype for usually less than 40 minutes during the past two years.

I thought I have already been well aware how few I can recognize the faces of love. But after knowing Cathy's story, I found out that when it comes to love, I was more ignorant and uneducated than I thought - Do you know in a long-distance relationship the temperature from a lover's hand can last for six months without any frequent help from Skype or MSN to maintain the heat?

Cathy usually walked with me to buy my coach ticket back to Taipei. Once while we walked along the calm and beautiful lake in our school campus, she told me she felt uncertain about quitting her job to start a new life in Japan. I asked her if it's because she is still not so sure he's the right man to marry and feels the two of them should spend more time living together before they get married.

She slightly bit her lips and gently shook her head while two baby pink clouds floated through her cheeks. "Never. We have never doubted about it.", Cathy answered bashfully.

I believe sometimes it's very important and necessary to show how much our love is and how hard we can try for the one we love. Even though I seldom question about how brave and defiant I can be for love, Cathy's story reminds me maybe it's equally important to learn that sometimes it is not the harder the better and it might be perfectly enough to try with the efforts it just needs.

Me and the prince

2009-05-09T11:41:00.060+08:00

I can't remember the exact age during my adolescence when the first time I read Le Petite Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in Chinese. But I remember the puzzled feelings after reading it that it seemed not that brilliant as people said. At that time I blamed myself for being too young and too foolish to realize its profundity. I deeply believed there must be some misunderstanding between me and the little prince.

About a month ago, accidentally I bumped into Le Petite Prince in an English version in a second-hand bookshop. It was quite unusual for me, whose eyes are sometimes too BIG to find things in front to notice this aged, slim and wrinkled book standing at a very unnoticed corner of the bookcase. I immediately took it as a sign that the prince wanted a chance to appeal. He wanted to claim his innocence to me and regain his reputation.

Sorry to let the author down that I didn't do what he mentioned in the end of the book to inform him about my encounter with the prince. Instead, I took him home with me secretly and silently.

Honestly, after reading the book again, I feel it turned out to be proving my innocence more like. I still feel almost the same way as the first time I read it.

Even though I do envy the moments when the little prince is being romantic to his rose and I would also like to go to any pawn shop to exchange for any childlike imagination like the prince's, I think I have a problem appreciating the beauty of the could-not-be-more-obvious ideas in this parable.

It's like some mums who try to hide some very finely chopped carrots in a hamburger and persuade their kids to eat it. Carrots are still carrots which still can be seen clearly.

Besides the-finely-chopped-carrots-like metaphors to me, I also have a different feeling about some ideas the author mentioned in the book. For example, in chapter six the little prince says, "You know - one loves the sunset, when one is so sad.."

There is one very famous line from a poem by Li Shang-Yin in Tang Dynasty says, "Sunset is extremely beautiful, but night is drawing nigh." It's the same in Chines culture that sunset is usually related to some reminiscent and sadness atmosphere.

To some people, to be embraced by a nostalgic color tone of twilight might be a trigger to immerse themselves in their bitter sweet memory. But instead of keeping drowning myself in the tide of my irrecoverable beautiful past, I would rather wear a shallow smile, admire the feminine and not-so-aggressive beauty of sunset and tell myself I am just waiting for a more beautiful future to come.

Perhaps I have already become a serious adult with no imagination, just like what the prince says. Maybe the prince will want another appeal. But guess he will have to wait for quite a long time to see me again in my supreme court.

A period of repeat

2008-12-31T15:20:00.030+08:00

Every year around this time, from one week before Christmas until the last day of the year, I call it a period of repeat. It's a period that someone seems to press the "repeat last year" button for all of us. (If you can rewind your life to every year around this time, you might understand what I mean.)

The period starts from playing "Last Christmas", "Do they know it's Christmas", or "I wish it could be Christmas everyday" as a prelude. We will never get a chance to remember which one was played first to remind us it's Christmas time. Because those songs were played repeatedly until we got confused.

After Christmas, although it depends, most of us will feel content but also a little melancholy in a certain way. Therefore, not an excuse to gain some weight but to cure ourselves of the depression and also make it more festival under such a cold season, we drink and eat more. After the "treatment", we might not be cured completely but at least will always have something for our New Year's resolutions - will reduce circumference of thighs by 2 inches. Then, here comes the must-repeat line, "5...4...3...2...1, (You know what to say next...)"

As for one of personal repeated lines of my family every year around this time, my mum's is "Oh, so fast! It's another year?! can't believe it!", my dad's is "Any special place you want to go today?" and my middle sister's is "Dear mum and dad, I will stay at my friend's place for the following two days."

This kind of repeat never really annoys me, not like the red big zit on my right cheek again now. Because although many things may be the same every year during this time, I can still have everything the same differently.

For example, this year, I helped my mum cook a roast chicken instead of steak for Christmas Eve's dinner, spent some time having a cup of tea with my best friend, Gina, on Christmas Day instead of being with a group of friends, enjoyed a quiet evening instead of a strident dinner on New Year' Eve.

And the difference of my New Year's resolutions this year is I only have one resolution - will try to live a simple happy life. Although simple doesn't seem to mean easy when it comes to life, New Year's resolutions are never something easy I think.

Bye, my roller-coaster-like 2008 and hello, the foreseeable unknown and poor 2009!

All they need is a bicycle, a scooter or...some reindeers

2008-12-12T13:29:00.019+08:00

As usual, I tried to find something interesting to entertain me when I was doing my lunch. And I couldn't help to write this immediately after watching it. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7778553.stm) It's about some delivering staff complaining they are being bullied into walking at four miles an hour to help meet delivery times.

Who has the privilege to see me being very sluttish with my tousled hair and wearing my pajamas in the morning when I just get up? Well, besides my family and my boyfriend (if I have one), it's a postman in Taiwan!

Sometimes the door bell rang when I just got up and my mum was busy speaking on the phone or doing something that she really couldn't get down stairs to get the mails from the postman herself. Then she would raise her right eyebrow to deliver a quiet but firm order to me - "get down stairs to get the mails NOW." Since I have always tried to be a very considerate daughter and there was no way to say no, I usually prayed not to meet any friends or neighbours and ran like an Olympic sprinter during the whole process.

Although I got down stairs so many times with my sleepy face and hardly open eyes, I am still quite sure the postmen in Taiwan all accessorize with a scooter. I can always remember seeing their green scooters lying docilely aside waiting for their masters to keep taking them for a walk.

Even a small country like Taiwan the postmen need a scooter to help them. I am quite surprised that postmen in the UK deliver mails to one's home all by walking?!

Of course I understand it's the busiest time of a year for postmen and I do have sympathy for them. But I thought the situation is not hard to tackle and there are many resolutions instead of delicately calculating the realistic speed.

It's just a little weird and funny for me.

Love you anyway!

2008-11-19T16:05:00.016+08:00

I can't recall the first English single or album I bought. But I surely remember who was the first one that exclusively won my heart and became my first love.

During my junior high, I almost got every single and album that Take That released. It was not easy while I was still a junior high school student who had very limited pocket money. But I still gave them all my heart.

When their new and final single, how deep is your love, released, they ignored my echo which tried to say my love for them was very deep, they still decided to split. (It's ok, Gary, Mark, Howard and Jason. I know it's all because of Robbie! Sorry, Robbie, but a trauma is a trauma. I guess that's the main reason I still don't like you even till now.)

After such a heartbreaking breakup, Boyzone was very very considerate and took good care of me. Then they became my new lover. I supported them not only mentally but physically. For that matter I mean I even went to their first and only gig in Taiwan so far. It was in Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in 1998 and I bought the most expensive ticket which was NT2,000. Under their spell, in the gift shop before the gig started, I even bought a Boyzone hat which was obviously too big for me.

I must confess I am not loyal when it comes to music. I soon found someone else when I went to college. But they all absolutely have a place in my heart. Now Boyzone is on their tour to Taiwan to promote their new single, love you anyway, and gig next year. After spending the whole week without TV in Hsin-Chu, I finally found them in a Taiwanese entertaining program on Youtube. (http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=rKk3LcI0pRg&feature=related)

Although their new single may not cause my attention now, if it were not sung by them. Their dancing seems quite, well, "interesting" in their new music video. And I am also wondering if they can still be called BOYzone... But don't worry, Boyzone. Just like what I said. You will always have a place in my heart. I will love you anyway!!!

What will my wedding and wedding reception be?

2008-11-11T16:35:00.017+08:00

Besides eating our own birthday cake, receiving a wedding reception invitation in our own names is also a very obvious way to notice we are getting older. Yesterday was the third time since I have begun to attend not my dad or mum's but my own friend's wedding reception.

When I was a little girl, I was always very excited about attending a wedding reception to congratulate the newlywed with my parents. If you asked me then what kind of wedding I wanted, I would probably answered that except a pumpkin coach, I wanted every fascinating thing that Cinderella had. Yes, it included a delicate pair of glass slippers.

In my adolescence, my dad asked me more often whether I wanted to go to his friend's wedding reception with him when my mum couldn't keep him company. Being a teenager, who would rather spend more time with her friends, I said yes selectively. It depended on if the food would be good or not and if the place of the reception would be beautiful or not.

Attending a reception was like having certain kind of internship for me at that time. I took it as a great chance to learn some experience. I also regarded myself as a wedding reception commentator. I would try to mark everything during the reception and muttered to my dad. My comments and conclusions were usually something like these, "Don't you think the decoration of the whole reception is a little tatty?", "I want to make a short video or a slide show at least about how my husband and I met. What do you think?", "Oh no, the gown doesn't suit the bride. It makes her butt look even bigger.", "Wow! What a gorgeous and elegant gown. Remind me I would have the same one when I get married.", "Where do you think will be perfect for my wedding reception?" or "I am between Chinese and Western style now. It's such a difficult decision!"

Instead of discussing or arguing with me then, now I understand why my dad usually chose to remain silent and merely smiled at my comments and conclusions. Not only because I amused him in a certain way but I think he knew I was still living in a castle with Cinderella at that time and will have totally different ideas about my wedding or wedding reception when I really get married.

After starting to attend my own friends' wedding receptions, I still can't help to continue my amateur job, being a wedding reception commentator. But without my dad being a good listener next to me, I can only murmur to myself now. Because I am wondering if people will be like my dad, who will understand I am just doing it for fun and still wish my friend will live happily ever after from the very bottom of my heart.

When I am getting older and older, my dream wedding and wedding reception become simpler and simpler. Besides a pumpkin coach, I can compromise on not having a pair of glass slippers now.

Although I am still not sure how simple they will be, it's really unnecessary and silly for me to worry about them now. Because just like my mum and dad said, I will have to start from finding myself a nice boyfriend first!

Oh god, my dear Prince Charming, where are you?

Two words in English and four words in Chinese

2008-11-04T14:05:00.014+08:00

The songwriter is talented but very lazy I guess. Because the melody of the song is just so simple and even the lyrics basically are only four words for the whole song. But it is still so popular that family and friends will sing it for most of us once a year in front of a cake before candles are blew out.

From the very early morning I could feel my cell phone nudged me and tried to tell me many friends were saying the two words in English and four words in Chinese or even singing the song to me through texts, but they all somehow became a lullaby that I slept incredibly well.

The gentle sunshine sprinkled on my bed when I woke up. There was no need to get out of bed hastily while I reached my cell phone and tried to taste all my sweet texts in bed. When I was informed by those texts that officially I became one year older, instead of being panic I wore my big smile on. Since I could never modify my true age on God's book of age or deceive God in any way, I always believe it's the age of my heart that really matters. Besides, I knew a big smile would always perfectly suit any dress I wanted to wear for the dinner tonight.

Quietly but confidently, I was ready to embrace the day. At the moment, I proudly said the two words in English and four words in Chinese to myself,

"Happy birthday & 生日快樂"

Questions and answers

2008-10-23T02:21:00.006+08:00

"No."

If the questions are -
Whether I get the scholarship.
Whether I feel regretful after spending much time and energy contacting through 104 emails.
Whether I will punish myself and think if it's because I am not good enough.

I seldom cry. I can't even recall when the last time I cried was. But I admit when I checked the school website this afternoon and found out that my name wasn't on it, I could feel some warm liquid was trying really hard to blur my eyes.

I totally understood those words my friends tried to enlighten and comfort me. I still felt a little bit depressed. But I think I have a right to feel depressed and I know it will not be long and I will not be hysterical.

After I knew the outcome, I just can't stop humming a song - "Fix You" by Coldplay.

and "Yes."

If the question is whether I am OK or not. Because Coldplay is trying to fix me now.

----------------
Now playing: Fix You - Coldplay
via FoxyTunes

Have fun, you law school students!

2008-10-14T23:06:00.009+08:00

It is a pretty tense period for most of law school students in Taiwan now. During this period, there are some key words that may better be avoided in daily conversation, such as "the exam" and "a lawyer".

I call it a disease that only infects law school students who are waiting for the outcome of a Bar exam. The prevalence of the disease peaks in late October every year. The symptoms are being utterly anxious and become very conceited, depressed or even extremely elusive when the outcome is announced.

Yi-Wen, my law school classmate, told me she has tossed and turned at night in bed recently because it is the third time she took the exam and it will be almost the end of the world if she still can't find her name on the website this time. Although I have never prepared for a Bar exam, let alone taking a Bar exam, I can still understand how Yi-Wen feels now.

In fact, getting the disease is not the worst part. It is the stage before getting the disease a law school student really suffers. To prepare for a Bar exam, most students will go to a cram school and try to study for ten to thirteen hours a day, almost seven days a week for a whole year in a library or at home.

Every morning when you wake up, there will only be two places that you are going to - a library or a cram school. You will have your breakfast on a bus because you may rather spend more time getting some sleep in bed. You may not want to brush your hair or make yourself look nice because all textbooks and rules that you need to read and memorize will exhaust you first. Watching a movie, having dinners with friends, daydreaming will all become a luxury because time will never be enough. You will feel guilty and hopeless to pass the exam if you give yourself three days on vacation. Because everybody is still studying so hard in a library.

I am not exaggerating it and it is certainly not just Yi-Wen's story. It is a lifestyle that many law school students have right now.

How much time do we law school students have to afford living a lifestyle like that? To what extent we will consider it is not worth to sacrifice our chances to explore the world for merely a piece of paper which proves we pass a Bar exam?

Sometimes I am wondering if those students know that there are a lot of choices besides being a lawyer. You might just be a good paralegal that provides legal opinions. You might become a novelist who writes an interesting novel about law. You might become a secret agent working for the government. You might even choose to run for the president!

I doubt if it will be the end of the world for me if I never pass a Bar exam in my life. But living a lifestyle like that will surely be. I can be a paralegal because spotting the loophole in a contract is like a treasure hunt. It is usually fun. Writing a novel about law sounds a great idea because I might become next J.K Rowling. Who knows! Even though I have never thought about being a secret agent, it might be an interesting job, too, as long as there is no limitation of height to be a secret agent.

After getting some working experience and watching some classmates preparing painfully for a Bar exam, I question myself a lot recently if I will be happy when I really become a lawyer. I think I can only find out the answer when I really become a lawyer.

The answer about my future career may be still unknown. But one thing is for sure that after I get my master degree, I will also try to prepare for the exam but I will do it in my own pace and also try my best to keep my own lifestyle at the same time.

The interpretation of friendship

2008-10-09T00:15:00.009+08:00

There is a Chinese idiom as "Like attracts like" trying to say that we will make friends with people who are the same or at least similar to us. But what kind of similarity does it mean? Can the idiom be proved between my best friend, Karen, and me?

If I start to look over the similarities between Karen and me from our appearance, well, I admit I was shocked a little bit when I saw Karen in her extremely colourful pink heels. It is just not the pink that will be on the list of my Top 50 colours of heels. But don’t get the heels wrong. Karl Lagerfeld, one of the most influential fashion designers, will agree that a pair of heels, like Karen’s, with a candy-like colour and covered with a layer of sparkling syrup was a must of the year. Honestly, I have only seen a few girls looking good in it and for some unknown reasons Karen did look gorgeous and stylish.

Compared to Karen’s wardrobe, mine is quite boring because the styles and colours of my clothing are all quite simple and similar to each other. I don’t know what kind of style my clothing is. But if someone can put more fabric on Britney Spears’s clothes, I will be very open-minded and love to give them a try.

Even though Karen and I have totally different tastes in fashion, it just also explains why Karen is always a good shopping partner - I do not need to worry that I will have to fight for a short skirt with her.

I like Japanese food, but Karen doesn't. She is good at mathematics and can do big sums in her head very quickly, but I am even too lazy to take out my cell phone to do the calculation. She also has the talent to make incredibly ingenious birthday cards or presents with her hands, but I can only knit clumsily my boyfriend a scarf with holes.

A man who is an American-born Chinese and with a real accent is like a powerful magnet to Karen, but for me, ok, I admit that a tall man will make me want to know him and ask him if the air above is fresher.

Karen is sometimes too nice to reject others' unreasonable request or is easy to compromise after some marathon-like persuasions, but I am usually the kind of person who will still do what I want when I have already made up my mind.

Am I feeling bemused if I have something in common or at least similar to Karen? Well, not at all.

We will get very excited if we find each other a pair of heels that she/I feel it has my/her name on it. If we both like the heels, it means that it may gain some compliments even from different styles of fashion lovers.

Because of being attracted by different types of men, we are somehow equipped not the same, but quite similar radars that enable us to detect if an American-born Chinese or a tall man is a wanker and try to remind each other.

We have a similar personality that like to be thoughtful to people. Karen will provide a good and creative idea for me if I don't want to knit my boyfriend a scarf with holes as a birthday present. She will always do the math for me even before I try to take out my cell phone.

Some female friends I know will call or meet their best friends almost everyday even there is only what kind of food they had that they can talk about. Luckily, Karen and I have similar ideas that we will need some space for ourselves.

I don't feel embarrassed or uncomfortable at all if we sit in a starbucks and have our coffee quietly. She will understand that it is not because we have nothing interesting to share or to gossip about.

If smiles can be marked into different sizes like clothes, I think we will have a similar size of smile - XL. Except Japanese food, Karen will love to have a food safari with me. We both like to be a teacher if she needs someone to teach her how to be defiant or if I want to learn how to use my brake when I am too anxious about something I can't control.

As a law school student, I have been taught and required to be capable of interpreting laws from different points of view. Similarity literally and logically seems to imply that there must be something different. But I am just wondering if the concept of difference and similarity will always be contradictive to each other. As far as friendship is concerned, I think I will try to interpret and believe that differences may become the components that constitute similarities in friendship. I am not sure if my professor will agree with my interpretation, but I know at least Karen will.

Things to do on my summer vacation

2008-08-24T22:52:00.059+08:00

When I was a child, my teacher usually encouraged us to have a plan for our summer vacation, but the plan she meant often referred to a plan which helped us do a small part of our boring homework everyday and complete the whole in the end of the vacation.

It was still a mystery that every time when the vacation came, somehow I would be shifted into an unknown time zone where there were not even 24 hours in a day, or how come I only spent some time playing my barbie, forcing my sister to act a student or a maid to play with me, who played a teacher or a princess, taking a nap, watching some cartoons and then it came to bedtime? Therefore, my plans were seldom carried out at the time.

When it came to my adolescence, I was quite materialistic. I naively believed that being on a vacation only meant to take a few days off and go to another country, or at least stayed in a beautiful and expensive resort or hotel in south of Taiwan.

But after some practical and extremely stressful working experience, I was reluctant to admit that in reality, budget, time and my boss's permission played a very big role when I thought about getting a vacation. This also forced me not only to readjust my idea about the way to be on a vacation but also to reinterpret my definition of vacation.

So, if I were an editor of a dictionary, the definition would be something like this - without any geographical limitation and no fancy resort or hotel is required. If you can spend a few days doing nothing or something makes you happy and relax, then you can say you are on a vacation.

Doing nothing absolutely will not be my option since I have known myself for 26 years. I know after the initial thrill of saying goodbye to the life of getting up at six every morning, I will start complaining about being bored very soon. For this reason, this time I am going to be a good student and take my teacher's advice to list the things I want to do during my summer vacation.

1.To bake some triple chocolate brownies on the first day of my vacation
It will be a kind of ceremony, just like the Olympic opening ceremony, to announce my vacation has officially begun. But why brownies? Well, how can people say no to brownies, especially when they are not just brownies? They are triple chocolate brownies! Of course I do care about my weight and I always gain a few pounds easily. But compare to a taste of happiness, it will be a necessary evil that can be neglected. Moreover, if an obese problem can be coped with merely through jogging for extra twenty minutes after having a brownie, then I don't see why I should be panic when I have one. Furthermore, if baking and eating some brownies can bring me good luck to win some brownie points in the future, then why not?

2.To have a movie marathon in a second-run cinema
Second-run cinemas in Taiwan are always top five best places for students to go. No matter you are a student who just needs a place to kill time for skipping a class or you are patient young lovers, you or both of you can always be satisfied when the lights are off.

In a second-run cinemas, you can watch six or even eight movies in the same day and the best part of this "marathon" is you can "cheat". You can always stop and go out for lunch or some coffee to feed your mouth then come back to keep feeding your soul.

I have been nowhere near any cinema since I started my internship which really depresses me. Because I am so behind schedule, my aim is three movies in one day at least but the dream goal will be five which I think I will feel dizzy if I really do that. But I am not worried about it because I can always "cheat."

3.Drinking capacity training
It is said that beer is liquid bread. I love bread and unlike some Taiwanese people, I can have bread for three meals a day. But when bread becomes liquid, it is totally another story.

Don't get me wrong by what I say about getting some drinking training. I don't want to be a drunk. I just think that when I hang out with some friends in a pub, I want to stay conscious at least while most of my friends still are, after all, I love chatting with my friends and I will never want to miss any laughter.

Although I am not very good at drinking beers or any alcoholic drink, practice makes perfect, right? Therefore, I will try to have more beers when I go to a pub and my target is to shorten the time it takes from five seconds to two seconds when I answer some questions, like "how much is one plus one" or only have red ears after having three or four half pints of beer.

4.To do bicycle riding or jogging at least three times a week.
The audience will probably tell me to get off the stage if I want to give them a speech about the advantages of doing exercise. Keeping your body in good shape, becoming healthier, releasing your stress and so on are all cliches that people have already known. But I might have a new discovery.

It rained cats and dogs last Saturday afternoon and I was in my black shorts and blue T-shirt at Chishan MRT station and waiting for my friend to have some coffee together. The ensemble was not tarty at all. Actually, it was quite close to what I will wear to welcome the garbage truck.

After getting ourselves some coffee and a cozy seat, my friend told me that he saw me across the street while I was waiting for him. But he doubted if that was really me. Because he thought the girl's legs seemed too long so that girl couldn't be me. He even asked me if I am taller. I admitted I was quite pleased and I must clarify that the heels I wore that day were not even heels to me.

I had been thinking about every possible reason why I looked taller. The only explanation I could find is I jog more often and start bicycle riding this year which might help keep my body in good shape.

Although I have already got used to be a Hobbit, I still won't mind being taller and I believe that if doing exercise can make a petit woman like me, who is no longer in her adolescence taller, it will be one of the most important discoveries that cheer many short women up.

5. 100 words for my dissertation everyday
Look up the dictionary I edit again. I never say it will not count a vacation if you do a little work during your vacation. Frankly, if I can easily leave my dissertation aside just like that, I should not have any sleeping problem. Besides, 100 words everyday doesn't count work. On the contrary, it may remove my sense of guiltiness when I take a long vacation and even helps me enjoy more about my vacation for my vacation.

I got the idea of this article when I was on my coach back to Hsin-Chu from Taipei on Sunday night. Don't know why after couldn't think of any interesting things to write about for the whole week, the idea just popped out.

I complete this article piece by piece from Monday to Thursday. Although my vacation is going to begin next week and currently I am still trapped in the office in Hsin-Chu and maybe I will be still like a 10-year-old child, who can't carry out her plan for the summer vacation, through writing and thinking about what I am going to do next week is like a warm-up or a "pre-vacation" to me and I just can't wait for my vacation!

My Waterloo Sunset....

2008-07-28T17:19:00.017+08:00

Although it rained cats and dogs because of the burgeoning typhoon, I was not annoyed at all. How could I complain? I mean, after all, I was definitely not a greedy person and got a day off on Monday would be completely enough. Therefore, with my satisfaction, I stuffed myself into a comfortable fluffly sofa with my rose tea and tried to find something interesting to learn from BBC News website and enjoyed the unearned day.

With such a versatile website, I always wished I had 48 hours a day to read everything. Before I could find any method or person to make my dream come true, I recently choose to focus on "The Flatmates" which provided educational and entertaining conversations that not only irrigated me with more advanced vocabulary, phrases and idioms but sometimes also reminded me of an exotic and memorable journey.

The memory came powerfully toward me just like the overwhelming wind and rain outside when I saw the idioms--It's daylight robbery. I smiled. I thought it would only appear in Chinese, but it was not the reason that I laughed. It was because I used to say it almost everyday when I was in the UK.

I remembered vividly that it was a sunny cloudless Sunday morning, I invited a friend to join in my first adventure in London to Spitalfield Market. She recommended fervently I tried a quite famous stall of hamburgers. A hot, juicy and with high calorie hamburger that was much more than I could expect in my first adventure in London. How great that was, especially after eating cold sandwiches for almost three days in Leeds, York and Manchester. That was definitely one of my dream food at that time. I was pretty quiet on our way to the market because my mouth was full of expectation.

I saw the queue before I got closer to the stall. It was absolutely a good sign--a long queue. I loved a long queue because it often suggested that the food was good, well, at least in my country. Although it was quite cruel I was only allowed to feel the hamburger until it was my turn to order, I still waited patiently. But the closer I got to the till, the more mysteries I had.

Why everything on the grill all heavily burned? Was it really the food that I was going to pay for? Or were they just some accidental imperfections that would not be sold to customers? It cost about 3 quid a hamburger so did that mean they burned the food in a completely tasty way?Well, like I said, I was definitely not a greedy person. The hamburger was good because at least it was totally hot and with high calorie.

That was the first time I said it's a daylight robbery in London. Besides food, there were lots of things I found they were insanely expensive compared to my country, such as flats, the tube, trains, toilets and so on. After watching my friend eating a 2 quid small ice cream without any guilt, I started wondering maybe it was a reward for working from 5PM to 3AM as a waitress in a fancy restaurant.

Luckily, I was not the only person to feel it was quite expensive to live in such a beautiful country and I could still find myself numerous and amazing enjoyments without costing any penny. All the free and wonderful memories might be in a certain way to explain why I yearned for going back to the UK again so much.

Listening to Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks from my IPod Nano, I spent my last night in London at the patio of Royal Festival Hall and tried to compose my own Waterloo Sunset. With a little sip of my homesick tea and a big bite of my unwilling-to-leave cake, I started to write a postcard to my family to tell them how much I gained from the journey and how grateful I was to have their support. I told them I was very proud of myself that I had done another special thing in my life and there was only one thing I felt regretful that was no matter how hard I tried to keep everything in my diary and took as many pictures as possible. There would still be no way to share all the marvelous experience I had with them.

Well, obviously, my mum was quite moved by my postcard. Although it was completely not my main purpose to send them a postcard like that, my mum still decided that after ten years from our last family overseas travel, we all went to Japan for a vacation after ten days I went back to Taiwan.

Pessimistic Optimist Doctrine

2008-07-24T00:00:00.014+08:00

Sign the attached non-disclosure agreement before you read this post.

The following content will reveal a discovery which takes me 26 years to verify. After my countless experiments and expensive clinical trials, I now announce formally the doctrine-- Pessimistic Optimist.

Without any hesitation, my friends will all definitely agree that I am one of the most energetic and enthusiastic people they have ever met. I will also consider myself as an advocate of optimism. One of my mottos is "Everything will be better after I get some sleep". I thought God will be pleased and satisfied with how optimistic I am. But, on the contrary, I felt punished when I was optimistic and confident. The more optimistic and confident I was, the more I suffered. I also found out if I pretended to be pessimistic, humble and understated inside my heart, everything would work smoothly without facing any difficulties that I expected.

Take the presentation I gave the day before yesterday for example, my supervisor assigned a legal issue for me to research as my first job to start my internship and asked me to give a presentation to all colleagues in my division after 2 weeks. Although I had already been here for 2 weeks, I still had not know everyone or been known by everyone yet. This was not only the first time that I could let all my colleagues and supervisors realize how professional I could be even though I was merely an intern, but also a perfect chance to make them consider me as their potential employee in the future.

There were my evident footprints in books, articles and court decisions which were related to the issue. After I plowed all the documents, I was still very anxious about the presentation. With scarce confidence, I entered the vast conference room. But, since I started to give my presentation, my doctrine was proved again. All my colleagues said they couldn't feel my tenseness but calm instead.

I know you can't wait to retort me that it was because I was well prepared. Then, how do you explain my presentation in my Internet and Law class last semester? True to form, I did all the research I could and even made an extremely fascinating slideshow about it. Couldn't stop giggling because I thought I would have all the spotlight on me due to give such an excellent presentation. However, somehow everything just got out of hand and I came under fire after the presentation. It ended up in a totally disaster and I was in a huge blow. If you think that it was because I didn't work hard enough, then you would definitely hear my outcry now.

After 26 years' experiments and clinical trials, this doctrine has already deeply embedded in my mind. Therefore, according to this doctrine, in order to share my exciting news with you without being punished by God at the same time, let's keep our voice as down as possible and pretend to be the humblest and most modest people for the moment.

Are you ready?!

Ok, my exciting news is I got more "Yeses" now. Besides, Queen's University Belfast, I also have Aberystwyth University, Brunel University, University of Stirling and Nottingham Trent University.
Shh! I have told you to keep your voice down.

If global warming is Al Gore's inconvenient truth, then mine will surely be pretending to be a diffident pessimist when I am not. Please feel free to contact me if you find my doctrine is terribly wrong, I will absolutely be happy to hear that. But, before that, let me remind you again, you have already signed an non-disclosure agreement.

What can a notebook tell?

2008-07-16T11:21:00.013+08:00

In an internal meeting early this morning, all employees of my division were required to attend. As an intern in Technology Transfer and Service Center at Industrial Technology Research Institute,this is my first time to join in a formal meeting here. I was prepared, well, actually I didn't have to prepare for anything for this time since I just started my internship last week. With my curiosity and excitement, I got there on time.

After finding myself a understated seat and glancing round the conference room, I suddenly noticed something funny and embarrassing. Why was I the only person with a red and slim notebook which has a cat on the cover showing its queer attitude to ask for kisses while others all carry a fat and big "brick"?

When I was a girl, I used to wish that one day I'll become a successful lawyer wearing a fitted ARMANI black business suit and black patent leather heels. I thought that was very cool to be a pretty and professional business woman and help people with my legal advice at the same time. But among my limited working experience, it is sometimes annoying that there are always some dress codes to obey and they will even give you a professional yellow pad that have their name printed on it and force you to take notes with it. I know that a law firm needs to be attractive to their clients and it is always true that splendid appearances win a better impression. But after getting clients inside the firm, then? Anyway, the meeting was quite boring and after seeing a colleague's amusing drawings of my boss wearing a green hat in her brick, I am more convinced that it's the thing on our neck that matters, not our fancy business suits or our professional notebooks. Besides, I thought this is our client's or the market's choice to decide whether they want to hire a stupid but wearing luxury suits and heels lawyer or an intelligent but just neatly dressed lawyer.

So, dear boss, can I wear my mini skirt next Monday?

A makeover that we all need

2008-07-15T00:52:00.008+08:00

"Time for a judicial makeover?" This is a report I read from Law in Action of BBC News today.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/law_in_action/7495199.stm)

Despite the dissenting opinions, Carole Malone of the News of the World says that judges in the U.K. are not only largely out of touch but also belong to a pass-the-port culture of a long time ago. David Rigg, the managing director of the communications consultancy Project Associates, even suggests judges engage with the media with care. Well, this is definitely not just a UK story. Judges in Taiwan are also facing the same scenario for quite a long time, too. There is even an old and bad joke about it!

Before the joke, there is something needed to explain first. If we literally translate the Chinese slang of “blow job” into English, it will be close to “play the trumpet.”

One day, while a judge tried to devote all his attention to a sexual-harassment trial, he had his patience to ask the pale and still panic victim to describe all the facts. The victim sobbed out her story. She said, “He just kept grabbing my butt and asking me if I could play the trumpet for him, even after I said No firmly” With a long deliberation, the judge finally said, “It seems that the trumpet is the most crucial evidence but why I don’t see it among all the evidence? You need to submit it to the court!

Well, the joke just reveals that judges in Taiwan are also considered to be out of touch, however, this is a very old joke and I have confidence that most of judges are not living in the ivory tower anymore. But why do the public still consider that judges are those people who will ask them why not enjoy meat while they don’t even have any rice to eat?

Is it because their decisions are always too dense, too ambiguous or too ideal for the public to understand? I have to admit that even after 8 years legal training, sometimes I still want to ask those judges. “Do you speak Chinese?” or “Are you sure you are writing in Chinese?” As a result, it’s not hard to imagine there will sure be a certain distance between our judiciary and the public.

Another reason I think it’s because of the bloody media. The media in Taiwan is always interested in those decisions that seem to against our common knowledge when we skip the reasoning and only skim over the conclusion. Somehow the bloody media in Taiwan tries to mislead the public and convince them that our judiciary can be controlled by a certain political party or a certain person. But, is it all the media that should be blamed? Well, despite having a bloody media here, I always believe people should still have their own will to make their own decision. They can turn off the TV at least!

Should judges try to defend their own decisions outside of the court? I am not so sure if we can expect judges remain neutral after having some interviews with the media? Maybe the judges in the U.K. can, but can we? If everything can’t be explained or understood in a court decision then what kind of decision is that? But how can we do nothing but let the media in Taiwan keep disguise the correct information to the public? So, is it time for a makeover? I’ll definitely say yes. But maybe not just only for our judiciary and our media, most important for our people!!

My first post, again!

2008-07-14T01:37:00.002+08:00

I used to have a blog and I thought that it was a brilliant idea to share what happened to us in our own blog. After all, we are in the 21th century now and we should evolve ourselves to show our respects to Darwinism by using modern technology. For that reason, without any hesitation, I just said whatever I wanted to say in my blog until I comprehended that there were no ways to know who actually read my articles. My boyfriend's ex-girlfriend read it! The tarty girl that I gossiped about read it! Of course, I completely understood that open to the public was one of the main ideas of using a blog. But without any invitations, how come they still find a blog from an understated and unknown person like me?

After facing this incredible discovery, I couldn't get rid of the idea that there was someone peeking at my life! Since then, I surrendered my constitutional right and stopped feeding my blog. Some people used to told me that I should not care about what other people think because it was MY blog that they were reading! Now I start to write again and this time I think I will be more like a law school student and try to defend my infrangible right!