vacation time

I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off all morning. Because of yesterday's events I got pretty much none of my pre-vacation errands done, so I had to fit them all in this morning. I'm leaving in 15 minutes for the airport and still need to finish packing, but I didn't want to leave without saying a quick goodbye to everyone in the blog world!

I'll be gone until February 13th and while I'm not going to be actively avoiding internet activity, I don't know how available it's going to be/how much time I'll have to actually get online. My rough itinerary is: January 16-21 Singapore, January 21-26 Cambodia, January 26-30 MAYBE Laos (this isn't for sure yet), January 30-February 10 Thailand, February 10-13 Hong Kong.

Have a Happy Chinese New Year everyone!!

life lessons usually suck

You know how people always say "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger"? Well, I think that's total bullshit, excuse my French. Sure, maybe it hardens you and makes you less susceptible to pain and suffering, like a callous that forms around your heart, but I don't think it makes you stronger. Wiser, perhaps, but not stronger, it just makes you realize what a cruel world we live in and how short life really is.

One of my students is in critical condition in the ICU at a hospital in Pudong. Her name is Saemi and she's in my 12th grade essay writing class. We talked a lot outside of class and she helped me plan my trip to South Korea with Romy. Her best friend Big Amy (she's very tall and there are two "Amy"s in the 12th grade, hence the appellation) is also in my essay writing class. The three of us have spent a lot of time together outside of school and they see me as more of a friend than a teacher (though they speak to me with respect and always refer to me as "Miss Strawberry"). Last week Saemi and Big Amy helped me pick out a cake for their home room teacher's birthday. On Tuesday the pair walked by my classroom and blew me kisses and made hearts with their hands. We've all gotten very close and I consider these girls my Chinese meimeis (little sisters).

Saemi and Big Amy went out last night to celebrate finals being over. I'm sure drinking was involved, but Saemi is a free spirit anyway and at some point in the evening she thought it would be a good idea to climb on the railing of the balcony of a three story club. Somehow she lost her footing, Big Amy tried to grab her but Saemi slipped through her hands and plummeted to the sidewalk below. Her skull was immediately crushed and she has been unconscious ever since. The club refused to call an ambulance and Big Amy was forced to take Saemi to the hospital in a taxi.

As soon as I found out the situation this morning I called Big Amy but her phone was off. She spent the evening alternating between the hospital and the police station. When she arrived back on campus I took care of her a bit: made her eat some granola bars and stayed with her while she took a short nap (she didn't want to be alone).

At around 3:00 we went to the police station where they wanted to question her some more. She was very upset and the police wouldn't let her leave, luckily they were distracted by another officer who came in with supplies so we left and took a taxi to the hospital so we could see Saemi before visiting hours ended at 4:00.

The hallway was filled with students and some administrators from our school. Visitors were allowed in one at a time and they had to put on a gown and cover their shoes with little bootie things. Tears were streaming down each person's face as they rounded the corner from the ICU to the waiting room. I knew things weren't good; the doctor had told us Saemi has a 1% chance of survival. I had to see her, though, so I suited up and went into the ICU.

Saemi is in a coma still and her skin wasn't the usual glowing pink it is in class due to the massive loss of blood she has endured both externally and internally. I held her hand for a minute and talked to her, telling her she needed to promise to get better since she told me she would draw me a picture for my room in California. I also told her how she did in class, since she was very worried about not knowing the answers on the final she took for essay writing yesterday morning.

When I left I told her "See you later, Saemi" and I really hope I do.

arrrr arrrr arrrr!

My totem animal is a walrus. I took an East Asian religions course for about 1 and 1/2 weeks before I dropped it, but in that time we learned about Shamanistic power animals and how to figure out what yours is (it involves some mediation and a lot of just making crap up).

For various reasons, I was able to determine that my power animal is a walrus. I even have a stuffed animal walrus (I got it as a gift last Christmas) named Wall*E who I sleep with every night. I also really enjoy screaming "arrr arrr arrr!" and clapping my hands together like fins.

So imagine my surprise and pure unadultered happiness when I stumbled upon these glorious creations from Blempgorf:


I've been sticking to my No-Dessert-09 rule, but if these cute little guys were in front of me I might just cave. Well, probably not, but I'd really really want to cave and then I would take a bunch of pictures with the cupcakes in all kinds of cute poses.

Check out Blempgorf's blog where she describes how to make these majestic culinary creatures!

interview: take five

Today is my last interview question from Andy! Thanks again for interviewing me, you chose some great questions!

The Rules

1. If you want to participate, leave me a comment saying, "Interview
me." (And your e-mail address, please.)
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone
else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them
five questions.


The Questions:

5. Looking at the list of the foods you've actually tried, I was surprised you've eaten pretty much everything! Where have you eaten so many... exotic things?

Andy is referring THE food list that has been making its rounds in the blog world, 100 things that apparently all omnivores should try at least once.

Well, considering one of my personal heroes (and biggest celebrity crush) is Anthony Bourdain, I have this "try anything once" attitude regarding food. Okay, not quite anything, but even good ol' Tony can't stomach all the stuff they throw at him on his show, so I can't be expected to either since I don't even get paid for my culinary adventures.

I tried a lot of the more exotic things on the list during my 9 month stint in Europe in 2006. I was mostly in Pau (south western France) and Paris, but I traveled extensively through Italy, Ireland, London, Greece, Spain, Poland, and Germany and tried a lot of things during my trip. I didn't have any food restrictions back then, so it was easier to cross things like "head cheese" off the list. To be truthful, I ordered that on accident and didn't find out what the heck I was eating until I was already half-way finished with it. I lost my appetite once my meal's identity was revealed, though.

Other exotic things I've eaten include: crocodile (in my hometown in California, it was very mild tasting), foie gras (I lived in France, this is a requirement. Plus, I went to college in the same town as the biggest foie gras company West of the Mississippi), eel (tried it my first week in China, it was slimy and extremely difficult to pick up using chopsticks but the texture was nice and the sauce was yummy), and hare and horse, both of which were considered delicacies in Pau and were featured on most restaurant menus. Oh, and frogs legs.

Now, the only things I won't try for the time being are meat-related products. I'm sort of interested in drinking snake blood in Thailand, though. I hear people do that there.

interview: take four

The Rules

1. If you want to participate, leave me a comment saying, "Interview
me." (And your e-mail address, please.)
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone
else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them
five questions.

The Questions:

4. We know you have a twin sister, how was it to grow up with her? Did you fight all the time or were you always great friends?

We fought. ALL. THE. TIME. You know how they say whatever hell you put your parents through you'll be put through 10 times worse when you have kids? Ya, the possibility of that being true has frightened me enough to never want children. Well, maybe not never, but definitely not until I can afford a full time nanny to take care of the brats.

The most memorable twin battle I can remember happened in high school, our junior year I think. Twin seems to have no recollection of this happening, isn't selective memory a wonderful thing?

I came home from school at around 2 or 3 in the afternoon and both of my parents were home, sitting on the couch. Automatically I knew something was up because both of my parents own businesses and worked during the day so both of them being at the house in the middle of the day was unusual.

The details of what exactly went down are fuzzy, but I walk in the door, shout a "Sup?" to my parents, and they tell me they need to talk to me. It was one of those situations where you know you're about to get in trouble but you don't really know what for, so your mind starts racing through all the potential things it could be. Did they find out I had been forging their signatures on notes I used to get me out of school? Oh shit, did I cheat on an exam recently? Wait, did I spend too much on my cell phone bill this month? My mind was racing with ideas of what I could have done that would require both of my parents to spend the afternoon away from work to talk to me about.

"We heard you were selling drugs."

Um, what? Me? Selling drugs? I started laughing because I thought it was a joke, except my parents didn't so much as crack a smile.

"This is very serious."

After I was composed enough to talk and managed to pick myself up off the floor where I had been rolling with laughter, I let my parents explain why they would ever think that I was a drug dealer. Me. Miss straight A golf playing pomeranian loving whitest white girl in the world. Twin had told them that she heard (from her best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend who heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with a girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night) that I was selling drugs. The whole idea was so ridiculous to me, I didn't even know any drug dealers, much less how a person would go about becoming a drug dealer.

I'm not sure how long the conversation went on, but from my memory it wasn't very long because I kept laughing so hard that it was difficult to even talk. Eventually, my parents realized that I was innocent of any crimes. Except for maybe that whole forging of signatures thing, but they never found out about that.

I called my mom today to verify that this did indeed happen and wasn't just a crazy dream I had in high school like Twin would want me to believe. She remembered it, alright, but then started complaining about stuff that she remembers me doing in high school that I have insisted never happened.

"Mom, this isn't about me being wrong, this is about Twin being wrong. Let's not lose focus of that."