updates which aren't really

*whew* only one word can describe the last couple of weeks: BUSY.

i'd like to explain "with what?" but that requires going into a lot of other details and things that you just won't understand unless you were taiwanese. so in order not to bore you, i have simply decided to group them all under the huge, indefinite, vague, somewhat abstract category of: interactions.

yup.

so i came online JUST now to read all of your wonderful posts about/around the time of thanksgiving!! yikes i can't believe i completely forgot about that holiday while i'm here! well i admit, i'm a just a tad bit jealous that everyone gets to see everyone while i get to see only a little bit of people when i go back (see dates below). and i will be able to see all the corners of the hexagon EXCEPT CHARLTON YOU BIG DORK!!!!!!! we will just have to form our own little pentagon without you! hmph! (well actually, you all formed all kinds of polygons without me this thanksgiving so.. *sniff*)

i really do miss you all very much though. and i thank god for whoever invented blogger (or the first form of online diary) because your posts are one of the only things which keep me relatively "american." i miss tapX and the hexagon and chilling at starbucks and buying six mcchickens all at once and lounging around on tangy's soft couch and weird green russian beverages and squealing and being skanky but not slutty and chubbi (!) and louduck and buying pudding at yoshinoya and make-overs and lollicup's good chicken + cranky lady and christimas lights in the trees and blasting the radio in the car and being the third wife and and and and so much more..

the closer friends i have here have seen some pictures of me with you guys. they said that when they look at the pictures and hear my explanations of the hexagon and others, it seems as if i have taken them into another world that i used to live in.

i miss that world a lot.

eagerly awaiting January 28. oh btw, i have achieved to do 90% of my thinking in chinese now. and i can understand about 20% of simple japanese shows (i.e. totoro). ^_^V

dates

Jan. 28 to Feb. 9

*dun dun dun*

still my question

things change.

... but why?

links updated.

one boot two boot red boot blue boot

i like boots.

i love my boots.

i love wearing my boots.

i like other boots as well.

i want to buy boots.

i would like to wear other boots.

i love boots.

:D

p.s. knowing the metaphorical style in which i write many "vague" *ahem* entries, this is a note to the reader that this entry should be taken completely literally. I LOVE BOOTS, ok? :)

anniversary, etc.

i seem to always be around people. not that being around people is bad, but i want one of those "alone" days again. where i go through the entire day without interacting with a single person, and by the end i can actually hear myself again. but that's not possible here. i'm annoyed. i'm not allowed to be antisocial!

last midterm tomorrow.. headache problem is getting better. busy week coming up. oh yes last weekend was NTU's 75th anniversary. after the big speech/ceremony there was something like tino's clubs day, but extended and expanded. anyway, i got to dress up in a kimono-like costume for the anniversary because we were "showgirls" trying to sell the mochi and paper dolls we made. here's the link to the pictures site, but again, it's not mine. please excuse my strange expression in the first picture - i had something in my shoe and i couldn't get rid of it with gloves on. the day was a huge success, we sold out before it ended!

mm.. tired.. must study..

hollow

after that chinese test (the ancient chinese literature one), i think i proved to myself that i haven't been doing what i came all the way here to do. i wish i wasn't so concerned with "it" and i would just give it a rest but i can't. is this really the direction i should be searching in?

i feel lost all over again. what am i doing here?

ego

it's really hard not to become egotistic in NTU. people here think "oh my gosh you go to the best school in taiwan you must know EVERYTHING." but that's not true at all. and comparisons within the school STILL exist, even though NTU is the one school every taiwanese high schooler wants to get into. it's not even like, "oh i like this school's blahblah program." it's just, "NTU has the best everything." but still, this creates many misconceptions and makes some students of NTU think that they have already "conquered" knowledge in their lives.

and yet even NTU students are still comparing with other majors that have better or worse scores. like if you say you're a law major, students of NTU would go "ooh" as opposed to if you were, say, a libarary management majors (translation?) student. and even WITHIN the major there is still comparisons, because the roster is ordered by scores, the best being at the top. so that guy (my big "sister") who would have gotten into law is #1, and everyone worships him. it's this icky obsession with the numbers game.

and yet even with all this "NTU is #1" kind of attitude that everyone holds here, when people find out that i would have gone to berkeley if i didn't come here, they still go "oooh." so i don't really understand - the BEST school in taiwan is much much better than a pretty good school in america? how are they evaluating this? and yet it seems to be the unanimous decision. i just don't get it. everyone wants to go outside.

anyway, back to my topic of egotism. even tutoring jobs. the hourly rate of hiring an NTU student as a tutor is about three times as much than the average college student. people here are already making more money than other people of the same age group from the moment they step onto the campus! all of this add to the big egos some NTU students ALREADY have when they found out they got in. it's just a big shining road of arrogance ahead of us. and it's not even valid. there is so much for us to explore we can't begin to say we're the best, so it's worse than arrogance - it's ignorance.

past, present, future

i was browsing some old blog posts of mine.. came across the link to the webpage which told me i had gotten into NTU japanese. i looked at it again just now, but somehow, although all the coding itself never changed, the page looked different to me. it seemed more.. artifact-like? familiar. an "i told you so." it was proof of my first moment of betrayal.

yes, the page is still up after all this time. it seemed as if after the big hype of who got into what, they just left the page there to rot by itself. looking at my own name, written in both chinese and english, and seeing "National Taiwan University" next to it, i remembered the first thought that came to mind when i saw it all.. i remember it distinctly, it struck me like lightening at that crucial moment. from the very first second my mind was made aware of the fact that i had gotten in, i immediately thought,

i'm going to taiwan.

it wasn't an enthusiastic "ooh yay i'm going to taiwan!" or a dreaded "oh my gosh.. i'm going to taiwan?" or a surprised, "what? i'm going to taiwan?" it was just plainly, "i'm going to taiwan." knowing in the back of my head that it wasn't going to be business but neither was it going to be berkeley. it was always something i didn't expect. no, something i didn't want to expect. and yet i knew i wanted to come back here. despite.. all the things i had come to love about america.

so why am i thinking about this all over again? why do i keep thinking about it? i think it's because i'm always going to wonder, what if i had stayed at berkeley? but you know, i'm happy here. and perhaps i would have been even happier had i gone to cal. but i guess if you can't predict the future, you also can't predict an alternate past.

and now the difficult task lies ahead of me. without forgetting, no i'm not going to forget, but without forgetting, i'm going to let go. because i've been holding on too tight. you can't grab something else when you've got your hands full.

you're always going to be my sweet tap water.

rneycdtep

images unseen
voices unheard
don't let the line unravel
tied up is better.

you can swim in the air
walk on water
and fly to the end of the earth
on the day that
tap water becomes sweet.

find a place
for nestling

fall backwards
expect to hit it hard
and crack your skull open
trampoline
arms
sticks and leaves

empty space.
keep falling
nothing spilled out yet.

...and how long does it take for a flower to wilt?

incorrect

hanging above it all was a curse. cursed since the very beginning.