Today we drove past this building my mum said used to be named shu cheng (Book City) as it comprises largely of bookstores. Apparently this sounded too unlucky - shu meaning lose as well as book based solely on pronunciation - so they changed the name to something I can't remember but definitely has bai (hundred) and shen (win) in it. I told her English-speaking folks have puns too but don't make hoo-ha's about them to that extent.
Just got a congratulatory message from Zhixuan that's both rou ma and TRUE, because our guitar juniors have got their SYF gold! I went to see them show their stuff / do their thing (take your pick of ghetto phrase, please) yesterday with Hannah and Yu-Hsin, and they're ol' pros now, cue maternal moment. Not that I did a lot of the mothering - that hefty job went to Shulin - but I have been part of the legacy if you can call it that. I remember Zhixuan putting it in the Long-term Goals last year, and we probably pelted him with paper, but well, we DID IT. :)
It was my misfortune to have a glib driving instructor at my last lesson who spoke at length about how RJ people may be highly intelligent but suck at driving, comparing his RJ and PJ students (PJ girl learnt loads faster, and so on). "I'm from RJ," I said, wanting to get that out of the way. I hope I proved him somewhat wrong - he said I'm a relatively fast learner but often repeat mistakes. When I was absorbing the art of 'creeping' sideways, I nearly crashed into another car (or so he said), then realized the girl I almost killed was Michelia. We waved frantically at each other through the windshields while our instructors laughed silently.
And Mel is back - anyway, I know what she's doing now. Struggling with double degrees and studying in Harry Potter rooms with cute guys (don't deny it)! :) Yes, dear, I shall get you a UVA jumper.
I'm going to see Lord of the Dance tomorrow and meet 1c folks the next day, then, as Huixin would say, jet-set off to America and beyond for a while. For the time being, if you are fond of Harry Potter and Chicago, here's a delicious parody of the Cell Block Tango.

She's like a millionaire, walking on imported air

Maria being one of the MP3s I uploaded onto my new iPod that will become one of my permanent pocket items. All the music I ever owned has to go on it, hence the great responsibility it must bear.
Sleepover went off goldenly - as we strolled around Serene Centre, I realized what a history I have in this place. I walked there from my grandpa's when the Shelford Road house was still standing and when Mac milkshakes still existed, attempted studying there for all the various landmark exams and failed because cackling card-players and loud music proved non-conducive, sighted various People, and had several lovely, stretched-out chats while varying between stores. Squabbling in the VCD store and bantering with the cute and super-efficient staff over NC16 ratings and the validity of chick flicks, for years now. On Friday, I was glad to introduce to the girls the beauty of teh-tarik ice-cream, country-categorized wine and slapstick-titled children's books. I suddenly remembered the day I sat on the ByDeBook couch laughing and laughing over the Angel-on-a-Mission series, because they HAD stolen my thirteen-year old's idea.
We unintentionally grabbed the similar-themed School of Rock and Almost Famous, with chips to compliment. I want to rave about how nicely they matched, and how fantastic Almost Famous is - "I am the lead singer, and you are the guitarist with mystique - that's the dynamic we agreed on!", " If you ever get lonely you can just go to the record store and visit your friends ", "I am a GOLDEN GOD!" etc. etc. but I'll leave it for when you talk to me next. Which of course made us wish-we-were-good-enough-to-play-in-a-band-and-rock-the-world-mad, meaning I taught Gen to play the guitar till 4am, singing a fairly strange plethora of songs.
Some hours later, we hit Coffee Bean for breakfast, which turned out to be magnificantly delicious - I love my eggs in a cup - then headed for Shaw Towers Crazy Crazy CD sale, passing through cool shophouse alley on the way as led by Cherylene. I bought Jeff Buckley and Compay Segundo and went home happy.
I spent today washing dishes, studying the Manhattan bus map, revising for tomorrow's driving lesson, and discussing housing/transport at UVA with seniors via email. My dad returns from his golfing trip in the Malaysian mountains. I am thinking about banana crumble pie and the fact that I have forgotten.

"Ah laiked dat. Ya flava's hoat!"

I have a cold. It reminds me of primary school when I would get up in the morning, have a tickly nose and know I would be sneezing for the rest of the day.
Ooh, Movies by the Bay was fun. In between Subway sandwiches and popcorn, we were laughing at everything that happened in Honey to nonsensical effect e.g. boy gets into trouble with the cops and is when we get a shot of Jessica Alba visiting him, he's wearing a strange green uniform. Cherylene: "Huh? Is he in a Boys' Home?" and we guffawed callously. We were the only ones. Gen says Cherylene and I would be suffragettes if we lived back when it was relevant to be so. I hope I would be, but the devil on my left shoulder says if I turned out noble it would be by sheer coincidence, the way Victor Vargas' swaggering became something - because someone decided it would be.
I bought sunglasses today, finally finding a pair that didn't make me look a) blind, b) batty, c) Bono-ish.
I have to go do the laundry now.

The house is weirdly quiet without my parents at home, and I have discoverd a solution to the fan-fiction problem i.e. write your own story, and I just got waylaid by a bunch of guys selling Nonya Buffet coupons door-to-door for the Yellow Ribbon Project. I AM SUCH A SUCKER. No, actually, I'm all for it.
Guy: "What are you doing now? Studying?"
Me: "No."
Guy: "Waiting for your boyfriend to call you?"
Me: "No."
Guy: (as soon as I have passed him the $) "Bye!" (disappears in 0.5 seconds)
And he had to make a rich-people crack too. Wish I could have snatched my money back and hit him across the face with it.
Anyway, I'm all-fire free now, relatively, because I'm no longer full-time employed, and am spending time revelling in the fact that my editor-superior gave me a $40 Borders voucher that lasts FOREVER.

"He is no fool to lose what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

Fifty years ago, a team of five American missionaries, all young, married men, headed to the remote recesses of Ecuador to reach an isolated and ferocious tribe of Aoka Indians. They talked. They took them on plane rides and offered peanut-butter sandwiches.
A year later, all five of them were murdered by the tribe they risked their lives for. Four of the wives turned back. One stayed, with her sister and children, and continued to work with the Aoka people. One image I remember is that of her small daughter, a scrap of a girl with blonde hair, trying to crawl into a canoe - and an Indian boy about her age, looking on. Today, her son continues her legacy, successfully converting several from the tribe. This includes the man who killed his father.
I think about historical grudges, and dead-lock political situations, and Harry Potter's revenge ("He KILLED MY MUM AND DAD!"), and - wide, amazing, depthless forgiveness, that I would look for in the very corners of my heart and never be able to find. The cynics/atheists will say - I can already hear them saying it, rolling their eyes over sentimental stories - that getting them mixed up in religion is a good enough revenge. Say what you will.
And consider how big a man's heart can become.
____________________________________

I was given a whirlwind lift to church by my ex-Sunday School teacher, and we squeezed into the car along with his wife and three daughters. I fear I will throttle my hypothetical offspring in the future when they ask one too many questions. A conversation with their oldest girl went something like this -
Girl: "Who is who?"
Han: "I am Shuang Han. That (points) is Shuang Ning."
Girl: "Huh?"
Me: "You can call me Ning."
Girl: "What?"
Me: "Never mind. Forget it. Just call me jie-jie (big sister)."
Girl: "Huh?"
Girl: (Points at Han's file) "What's in there?"
Han: "Minutes."
Girl: "What are minutes?"
My ex-SS teacher: "They're like notes."
Girl: "What are notes?"
My ex-SS teacher (calmly, patiently, cheerfully): "Like when you go to the Botanic Gardens, and you see a bird you like, you want to write about it, right? So you take some paper and write down what you think, or make a sketch or something..."
Girl: "What's a sketch?" etc. etc.
But I am sure I will grow patient if I do have kids; I shall go around with a calm, maternal expression that snaps out of sight when they make me mad -
But why am I considering starting a family? I haven't even gone to university yet. And if it were up to the inefficiency, dripping with red-tape, of US admission offices, I won't go anywhere. End bash. I am most probably going to Virginia, and am reading up on Civil War site preservation so the soil will mean something to me when I reach there.
Some time back, I shared a gal-pal moment with my mum and sister, when we were all in bad moods and felt like bashing men, going on about what they look for in women - i.e., everything. A few I remember are
a) She should not wear too much makeup - "Why do girls wear so much makeup anyway? I like her just the way she is." Because all that makeup would cover up the natural beauty that she inherently possesses.
b) No dream girl should be clingy. "She became my third arm! I couldn't get rid of her! Why do girls have to be so... dependent? Doesn't she have girlfriends she can bitch to?" BUT "I need to have a unique place in her life. It'd hurt to feel... replaceable, especially within her large pool of confidants."
But what of the bitter American girls who say "This is what men want in a woman: Dumb as a post, big knockers, the younger the better. That is all"? Perhaps we should feel lucky in our local men. Or not. Whenever you start a list, you are guilty of generalization, then learn from your mistakes when opposers struggle to prove they are extraordinary.

Was our view too narrow, too biased, too hasty?
Were our conclusions too rigid?
Maybe.
- From the end of The Motorcycle Diaries

The Mermaid Mystery

A girl on a message-board says she's never heard of The Little Mermaid. I am greatly disturbed. HOW CAN THAT BE POSSIBLE?
Then I do a little research on IMDB, only to find that the movie came out in 1989. I was three. How did I see it? And she's probably about thirteen years old, meaning that she would not be born for another three years. We are old, you know? In case you forgot.