i think sometimes i take life too seriously. well, maybe i'm taking senior year too seriously. i mean really, we're just here to have fun right? so why do we have to care about all that commitment crap and is this true is that true and all this stupid junior high-like drama?! sometimes i think i'll just let myself suffer less if i think less about some things. just gloss over it. zhen yi zhi yan bi yi zhi yan. maybe it's all the more peaceful this way.

ahhhh i'm being musically conformed!!! darn charlton and kafung who downloaded a buncha weird songs onto my computer and rudely left it in MY playlist!!!! >_< i really do not care for "front back, slip 'n slide" ok? hahaha.. i still shudder now that i think about it. but anyway i just absolutely LOVE this song and it's repeating over and over again on my winamp right now. :D there's something irresistable about the unique-ness of the lead vocalist guy singing with the girl in the background an octave higher.. and the music video is pretty too. ^_^

zwan
honestly

I believe the love you talk about with me
is it true, do I care
honestly, you can try to wipe the memories aside
but it's you that you erase

'cause there's no place that I could be without you
it's too far to discard the life I once knew
honestly, all the weather storms are bringing
are just a picture of my dreams
'cause when I think of you as mine
and allow myself with time
to lead into the life we want
I feel loved, honestly
I feel loved, this honestly

I believe you mean the best that life can bring
I believe in it all
honestly, you can try
your heart is just as long as mine
is it ours to let go

'cause there's not place that I could be without you
it's too dark to discard the life I once knew
honestly, a single wrong is not enough
to cover up the pain in us
'cause when I think of you as mine
and allow myself with time
to lead into the life we want
I feel loved, honestly
I'll make a joke so you must laugh
I'll break your heart so you must ask
is this the way to get us back
I don't know, honestly
I don't know, this honestly

ever feel like... you just made the biggest, irreversible mistake of your life?

ok my sleep schedule is officially SCREWED UP. i took a "nap" at 7 PM, hoping to wake up to catch the last half of gilmore girls, which ends at 9 PM. guess what time it was when i all of a sudden jumped up from the couch i was lying on? 1:30 AM!!!!!! i was like ahhhhhh i have to do all this homework!!! >_<

*shelley takes deep breaths*

i'm ok.. i'm ok.. the strange thing is taht i'm actually energetic right now, which poses a problem. do i TRY to go to sleep and go back to my HAPPY sleep schedule, or should utilize this sudden burst of energy and do homework till the morning? OR i can be totally irresponsible and not do either, and just sit here and blog! hahaha.. kinda funny how in our case, you can think of a good grade as the opportunity cost of leisure. heehee~

i was gonna say something but i forgot.

OH yeah! i had my upenn interview today..! it wasn't great on the aspect of did-i-make-myself-look-like-the-perfect-candidate, but it was really cool the way she told me about the three cities - Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.. and i'm now glad that i never had my harvard interview, becuz i would have totally made myself look like a fool, seeing as how i kinda applied to harvard "just for the heck of it" and wouldn't have been able to talk about the unique qualities of the school, unlike upenn, where i could talk about huntsman and wharton and all that nice pizazz (sp?). wow that was a long sentence.

i think i'm just gonna sleep, like all my responsible, rational, non-procastinator friends are doing at this hour! hehehe (j/k)

you know what i love?

i love browsing blogs of people i never get to talk to; people whose lives are completely different from mine simply becuz they are in a different environment. and i love finding similarities between my life and theirs, even though they will probably never know that i read their blog. it's these "different yet similar" blogs that inspire me to get out of my comfort zone at times..

still contemplating the college thing. but i should stop. it's not healthy. and it's unnecessary. but i think i finished the applications..

jet lag update: my sleep schedule is now out of the jet lag cycle and into a period of CHAOS and DARKNESS!! muahahahha :D that is why i am up at this strange hour, when farmers wake up. yes i am still procrastinating.. and i feel exactly like my blog title, discombobulated. yup. i am discombobulated.

and you know what else i love?

people who are incredibly busy and have soooo much responsibility on their shoulders, and yet at the same time they don't explode under stress, they simply go out and do it. i admire them. they focus on what makes them happy, what's truly important to them, and no matter how busy they get or how much they have accomplished, they never get arrogant by looking back on "how far they have come." it's not like they have fun becuz they slack off, but they have fun with whatever it is they are responsible for doing. they're ambitious, but somehow it never gets out of hand and their life is in complete balance. now HOW do i apply this to MY life? o.O

*shelley sits and thinks*

interesting lil quiz i saw on peter's xanga..

1. You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free.

2. In the process of courtship, the approach that would make you feel irresistable is straight-forward, just tell you he/she loves you.

3. The impression you would like to give to your lover is stylish.

4. You don't like it when your partner is emotional and/or too moody; and you don't know how to please him/her.

5. The kind of relationship you would like to build with your partner is one that you care not only about the present but also the future with your partner, a long-lasting relationship that you can grow with.

6. You care about the society and morality, you won't do anything wrong after marriage.

7. You always want to get married, but in fact, you don't even know what it really is.

8. At this moment, you don't have the thirst for love, you can't do anything for it, you won't fall for it easily.

from http://naucon.net/misc/tests/love_test01.htm

too much to say.. i don't think i can "translate" this feeling.. but maybe it will pass. it might just be one of those "just off the plane" kinda weird adjustment periods or something.. strange sometimes how everything just FITS and falls into their own places, becuz of one little thing you did. sorry for the vagueness. jet lag sucks btw.

WEEE~! i'm back! :D

the trip to NTU was a successful one! :) the guy took me around the school in the morning, pointing out important places and such. i noticed how strikingly similar the front of the school looked compared to stanford! the whole long boulevard lined with palm trees and a big lawn and huge building at the end of the road.. the guy also told me about du juan hua ji, which is rhododendron season (translation?), and it's where around this time of the year, rhododendrons all around the school are blooming, so students will pick the flowers and spell out words with them on the grass. we had lunch with a girl who's a sophomore at NTU, and she answered SO MANY of my endless questions.. hehe. and she told me that if i wanted to listen in on classes tomorrow, she can ask her friend (xue di). now, to show you how complicated the chain of connections, the xue di would basically be my father's older brother's son's friend's girlfriend's sister's friend. :D shows you how helpful taiwanese people can be at times..

speaking of helpful people, after lunch i went to listen in on the under-division econ classes, which is where i told the guy i can get home by myself afterwards. so as i was sitting there by myself before class started, the guy who happened to sit next to me patted me on the shoulder and asked if i was in this class. i told him about the "listening in" situation, half amused by the possibility that i didn't quite look like i fit in the class. it turns out that even though he's a junior, he's taking a freshman class becuz he wants to switch majors (which as i discovered today, is surprisingly easy at NTU now). so he's studying hard for the transition and so he knows all these "insider info" on the intl. business major. i showed him my list of classes and he told me that so-and-so class will divide up into groups so i might feel weird or left out there, and so-and-so class is very dry, and that so-and-so teacher gives very good lectures. so he showed me a buncha classes that he thinks are interesting, and also answered more of my endless questions, like ones about tests and reports and class discussions and such.. i'm so surprised that you can actually find friendly strangers IN TAIWAN!!! oh and the lecture was interesting too, becuz it was about John Nash's game theory. the professor went over strategies and some very scary graphs that went completely over my head, like kinked demand curves and stuff.. oh oh and it was cool that he wrote in both english AND chinese on the board! (in case you don't know, the textbooks are all in english and a majority of tests are also in english)

and i didn't get lost! teeheehee! i went to campus bookstore and bought a whole buncha "cute fobby stuff" (*wink* taeree), which is right across the street from NTU. then i took the bus back home and ALSO didn't get lost, which was surprising. AND i found the brand of milk green tea that i missed soooo much! AND i saw love hina on tv when i got back! AND i saw chibi maruko an hour later! AND i went to see shanghai knights! AND i ate crepes! so it was a very very good day. :D shelley is happy and satisfied.

ladeeda. but this brings us back to an important point - my internal conflict level (to borrow angela's words) has been sky-rocketing..! how do i describe my "limbo"situation.. of feeling like i finally blend in and yet feeling like i don't fit in at the same time? the qualities that used to make me different are now what lets me connect with the people here.. and the qualities that i developed in order to fit in when i moved to u.s. are now hindering me from becoming completely assimilated into this culture..

tomorrow will probably be hair day. :D

and one more thing: it feels nice to be at a place where i don't have to lotion EVERY SINGLE DAY. :D

so i got to taiwan at about 7 am on saturday.. this means i spent all of valentine's day on the airplane by myself. *woohoo* right? ;-) haha actually it may be better that way. thanks for the chocolat!

so once i got to taiwan, i learned something very unusual, and that is that you now have to buy your own plastic bags when you go shopping! hehe nowadays you have to pay for everything.. mr. eldridge was right when he said "nothing is free." before i even put down my luggage of course, as tradition, i went to the nearby sandwich place that i missed so much! ahh i felt all warm and fuzzy when i ate it. so saturday morning and afternoon was spent at dan shuei with my sister and her bf. we ate a buncha stuff by the river. and then we went to mu zha to um.. i dunno quite how to say this in english but we lit up tian deng, which literally translates to "sky lantern." it was yuan xiao jie, there were about 20000 ppl all squished up on that mountain, playing with flying lanterns.. hehe. it's made from a big piece of paper and some wires, and works like a hot air balloon. so you can write your wishes on the outside of the lantern and then light the bottom up, and when it fills up with enough hot air, it will float or fly (depending on how big the fire is). there were at least 500 lamps all floating around and they filled up the sky like orange, glowing stars. it was very pretty to watch so many glowing lamps slow rise up.. of course, some people's lamps didn't work and burned up before it even flew very high. ours shot straight up and disappeared, it was almost as if it just stayed up there and became a star.. so i know my wish will come true? ^_^

sunday morning = church. new pastor means new sermon. but for some reason, going to church seems like another "tour spot" rather than a practice of my religion. hmm.. in the afternoon we went to yingko to look at ceramics, which are huge there. and i got to do something i've never done before! POTTERY!! hehehhee it was so fun..! it looks easy but it's actually quite difficult. the clay was very hard and i couldn't even get it to have a hole in the middle at first. and then i was gonna make a bowl, but it got uneven, and the sides got flung outwards (wheel turning, centripetal effect, outer rim gets flung out faster, you get the idea). it was disastrous but still, getting mud everywhere on myself is much more fun than i imagined. and then i went to a big dinner party thing with my muddy pants and saw a buncha relatives who advised me about my taiwanese college search. and woohoo now i'm blogging.

so far, i feel like a tourist, which is weird. taiwan keeps changing; i used to come back here and see a lot of familiar things that i missed.. now i feel like many things have disappeared.. our house has been remodeled, my sister has a new bf, plastic bags now cost money, entrance exams disappeared.. i guess i'm just afraid of change... people change, and things change. you can't just leave a place, ignore it for several years, come back and expect everything to stay the way it was when you left. well at least that sandwich place is still the same.. and my elementary school (the elem. school i attended for the longest period of time, 2.5 years) is still there. but i know that if i want to come back here and settle permanently, i have to create my own life, almost from scratch. i can't expect to "pick up" my taiwanese life from where i left off.. that would be naive.

another funny thing is that people see me and often assume that i speak the language they speak, which is reasonable. when i'm in u.s., obviously asians and caucasians speak english to me. but here, people treat me as a fluent mandarin speaker. i find that to be quite flattering! hehe :D as long as people don't look at me as if i've completely been americanized, i'm happy. it's kinda like if ppl thought you were make-up and you're actually not. something to be happy about. it's interesting to think that some people have no idea how you live and what you're like when you're not with them. it works the other way around too. hehe..

tomorrow i'm gonna go visit NTU with this guy who's attending grad school there. let's see where this ends up.. as of now, i will just have to keep updated on what you guys are doing thru blogs! so blog thoroughly and often guys! ^_^

no, my plane didn't crash and yes, i am safely here. ^_^

*shelley huffs and puffs* whew! i got so much work done in the past two days!

but i really don't wanna take the math test!!! >_< wah.

WEEK OF HELL!!!!

to do before i have to leave for tw on Thursday:

Bio
lab 8
essay test lab 8
Genetics lab
make-up ch. 29 test
Exam 31-35 (read while @ tw?)

english
Antigone quiz
1-page essay
make-up quiz

leadership
minutes
35 valentines
Senior citizen ball make-up

calc
like.. 10 nights of hw!
make up Ch. 10 test

econ
Ch. 6 worksheet
Ch. 6 exam

misc.
34 corny valentines w/ joanne
taiwanese applications (translate everything into chinese!!)
Upenn interview

notice how many "make-ups" i have to do? ahhhhh i do not handle stress very well. why do i have to miss school!! man.. valentine's day is like... STRESS DAY!

why can't we just all get along?!

HAHA i never get "nerd" anymore.


which stereotype are you?

and *poof!* he's gone.

yes. let's just take it easy and have fun. ;)

i got bored so i started looking at my first blog entries, when i just started blogging. and then i realized how cool it was that my blog has "evolved" so much! from the beginning when i didn't understand about the templates, to slowly adding links, and then adding the lil jumping elves (remember those?).. haha at first it was named "i..." and then "i've got the blues." then there was the addition of a counter and yes, the infamous TAGBOARD. at first i divided the sections by "hr" but then i started messing around with the boxes on the left (there were originally only two boxes on the left and one on the right) and the percentages and spacers and borders and corners and i got so confused! and then i changed my title and made the font size smaller. and now, tada! i like the new blogger button. it's light blue ^_^

warning: if you're gonna take this quiz, the descriptions for all the results are not very nice. so be secure if you wanna know your real results!



Who are you?