Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Postcard.....

Got a postcard from Joelle in the mail yesterday. Even though I knew she was mailing me one, it was still a pleasant experience to get postcard in the mail. Nowadays nobody writes anything by hand. I think postcards are the last type of all hand written mails that we still occasionally get nowadays. The last one I got was from Annie after she moved back to TW, and the one before was from Edward when he was in New Orleans. I guess the frequency of me getting postcards is about once a year? lol

Back to the one Joelle sent.....It was more special cuz she actually put this small Polaroid photo on top of the stuff she wrote. I 1st got to see her happy face and then got to read her writing after I peal of the photo. I guess I don't just like artistic/creative people for nothing....lol. She was traveling in France, and was right the feel of that poastcard she picked is not my thing....hahaha....I guess my taste is obvious to her now? or maybe she just picked one that she likes cuz we tend to have diff. taste anyway? lol...

Joelle said maybe someday we can go travel together. I certainly think if I do she will get much better photos taken for her compared to the ones she uploaded on her website...It's sad to travel with people who don't know how to take photos since we really don't get to go to every place so often in our lives. Anyway....nowadays (when we are all grown up and perhaps in diff. countries with our friends...) how often do we get to hang out with our good friends? on top of that travel with them? I guess it takes a lot of determination to plan something with friends and the plans need everyone to try hard to participate....

So I guess when people grow older, it gets harder to just do whatever spontanously. It gets harder to just get togteher and do whatever. It gets harder to just sit around and dream stupid dreams. It gets harder to just be whatever we feel like being at the given moment...for example....a traveler who does not have to think about reality and work for a while....just because we have so much time to use when we are young....Ok....I know I am sounding all too old right now...but I guess eventually people have to face this kinda situation....You will either have to think about work, money, kids, or whatever that holds you back from what you want to do in life....and then the Nike ad "Just do it" becomes impossible even though you wish you can...

I wish there are determined people who can push plans through....and yet I don't feel like being the determined person any more...ah....life is just full of delima at times...I think I am just expanding too much from a little postcard....no wonder I am having weird dreams every single day recently....sighs....

Friday, September 26, 2008

Irresponsible parents should not raise kids

Yeah....that is my statement after I have seen so many messed up parents and families. What happened yesterday kinda reinforced my thinking once again. I was teaching this worst student of mine for 30 min yesterday, and parked my car right in front of their garage on the driveway. After the lesson I walked to my car and saw my car scratched on the side close to the gas tank. My student's mom apparently teaches piano (in all the years I have known her I had no idea she plays anything....which makes me wonder what her credentials are....but again....there are plenty of so called music teachers with no credentials floating around...anyway) and her student's mom parked their van next to my car.

When I was walking out I saw the mom staring violently at her son (which was my student's mom's student's little brother). I knew the scratches was made by the kid who apparently was never told marking on other people's car is stupid and wrong. I asked the mom what happened and she said she didn't see anything happen. I was like....well....I am here only for 30 min and before I went in to teach I did not see any scratch on my car. If you didn't see anyone near my car, then maybe your kid scratched it?

The mom again pretended to know nothing about it and said she would ask the kid what happened. Knowing that she was lying, I said "go ahead....ask him...I will wait". I then told my student's mom what happened and told her in Chinese that "I think the mom does not want to admit it" knowing the mom can understands Chinese. When I walked into the house the mom was dragging the kid and the kid was crying like crazy. The mom went "You have to tell her what you did....and be responsible with what you did. Tell her you are sorry.....blah blah blah..."

The kid kept on crying and I was running late for my next lesson. I was also not thrilled for the whole show the mom put up cuz I knew she knew it while the kid was scratching the car and she wanted to see if they would got lucky so I would not notice it when I walked out. If a mom is so lame to try to lie about it, then why does she think her kid would be responsible for the wrong he did? I just blankly told her "look...you guys are getting me late. Since the damage is done and you know what happened....I will give you the bill next time I see you."

Well....for parents who just want to leave their kids running around and do stupid things they should not do....they better take up the so called "responsibilities" when damage is done. When people want to have kids, I wonder why they don't want to watch over the kids....If watching the kids is such a dreadful task, then why the heck are they having kids in the 1st place? I understand how little kids can do all types of terrible things, but if the parents are not there to clean up the mess and take care of the situations, then who is it to blame?

Anyway....I called Leo up and went to check if I can fix the scratch this morning. Leo once again was not there when he told me he would be at work from 8-6. Mexicans are just terrible with time....but then his co-worker was nice enough to help me out. I ended up getting the scratches fixed quickly...but then of course it's not completely perfect since we didn't really put any paint on it but just "buff it out" (not sure if this is the right way of writing it). I can still see some deeper scratches if I look really closely, but I guess it's good enough.

I will make that irresponsible mom pay. If she is not gonna pay the full amount on the estimate, then I will make a scene out of it so she knows how to watch her kid next time. Dang I hate parents who pretend to be dead and let their kids run around as street dogs that has no masters to take care of them. Ok...I think I made my point clear....and thank God I have the Mexican bodyshop friend who got my back covered for incidents like this....The End of my complaints....

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Dreamy night?

Had whole bunch of weird dreams throughout the night....I don't remember everyone of them, but here are some that I remembered....

1. Dreamed about whole bunch of big ants with wings crawling on our bed. I was feeling super itchy cuz of those ants. I saw holes on the blanks cuz the ants were trying to get in and out of it. I think I got this dream cuz some of those big wing ants are appearing in our bathroom cuz of the weather change again....

2. Dreamed about going to this "Indiana Jones" type of aunted house with Clement and Ivan. It was actually kinda fun till I started to take photos for this weird family with one mom and two kids that we bumped in the middle of the journey. There turned out to be way more people than what we see with eyes on the photo. That was kinda spooky....I remembered asking Clement if he plans to come and visit me in the summer. I told him he should try to find some time and bring Ivan with him since Ivan will be done with his college entrance exam....I think I dreamed it cuz I am missing my family or something....

3. Dreamed about checking out this house that an old couple live in right now. The house looked like a nice cabin house that you see at vacation spots. The old wife asked us to go in a time when her husband is not around cuz the husband has this disease called MDD. (Which I have no idea what it stands for...but that was something related to a mental condition which would cause the husband to want to kill whoever comes close to the house, at unpredictable times...) So while we were checking out the house I was all anxious about the husband's return. I think I only looked at the house for 5 min the most and wanted to get out of there ASAP. I may be tired of house hunting or something cuz it just seems like getting a place nowadays is difficult with such an unstable economy and housing market, etc. Or maybe I am just not too into those houses that old couples used to live in....don't know....

There were at least two other dreams I knew I had but couldn't remember...It's just quite abnormal I remembered so many dreams from one night. I wonder what kinda sign this is showing me?

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Death?

Two friends' mom just passed away today. At 1st it was a shock to hear that she was having cancer few months back.....cuz she is still not that old yet. On top of that I have visited their family in Colorado and had fun with the parents years ago. It just seemed like yesterday when Clement and I visited them. I guess time did pass way faster than I thought....at the end the mom didn't die because of the cancer, nor the strokes she has been having for the past week, but heart attack.

I heard she went in peace. I guess it's good the end was brief and painless. Isn't it amazing how some people just disappears from this world like that? Makes you wonder how much time we really have left to do everything we want...or to suffer whatever we don't want to deal with...kinda two diff. sides of the same coin....

Hopefully everything after the death will go smoothly. I think people who are left behind need the most support after a dear one passed away....always easier to die 1st...

Monday, September 22, 2008

Short Santa Barbara trip....

We went to Santa Barbara on Sat. The trip was kinda random too, and quite short...We got stuck in the traffic probably 5 hours total for the trip, and stayed there a little more than 2 hours. I have to say, Santa Barbara was kinda disappointing perhaps because we had a good time in SD few weeks ago. Downtown SB was very kinda cool...many stores....but WAY too many people when we were there. Didn't really take that many photos there cuz there was not too much to take photos with. I think SD stays as the top beach city for CA... for now...Anyway...photos below :)

The only special thing about Santa Barbara was that I saw 白鸞絲 on the beach...kinda weird..and then the seagulls weren't afraid of people...They stood there...and stood there...

The boats were kinda scattered...not that many either...Both Catalina and SD looked better on photos...

Saw this ancient looking boat...kinda weird with that contrast...

Saw this old dude doing sand sculpture, but we had to give some "donation" to take a photo of the sculpture....I like this one photo I took cuz somehow it looked depressing....lol

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Random dinner on Wed

Yesterday Billy called in the morning and told me that he just found Lawry's coupon of 75 dollars from the pile of uncle Edward's mails. Since the expiration date was right on yesterday, we went for a random dinner last night. Instead of going to Lawry's, we went to one of the chain restaurant near Griffith park so we could try a new place. The name of the place is called Tam O'Shanter Inn, which is this Scottish themed little place right on Los Feliz Boulevard.

Basically the prime rib steaks were the same as Lawry's, but at this place they had more selection of food. We just ordered one portion of everything that you will see on the photos and shared. For some reason I don't think our usual scheme of eating steak to lose weight has been working lately..I woke up this morning as heavy as yesterday morning...oh well....Here are the photos...

While we were waiting to be seated...


The menu...and the flags in the other section where we weren't sitting...I suppose they are all the family flags of Scottish royalties?

Our appetizer was the calamari with onion on top....and then we had spinach salad with walnut and cranberry together with the super salty french onion soup...

We tried taking a photo of ourselves with the flags in the back. Even though the angle is weird, at least the camera wasn't shaking. The next two photos our waitress took for us were just super blurry....


We ordered Prime rib (Prince "someone" cut...can't remember the name...) with two lobster tails...The lobster tail is very small when put into the plate....and the knife looked huge..lol

Outside of the restaurant looked like a little house in Europe. Since I have not been able to visit Europe ever since my 1st trip as a kid I wanted to take some shots and pretend we were in Europe...and yes....I am determined to visit Europe again...hopefully sometime soon....

Monday, September 15, 2008

Useless?

I was reading 蔡康永's blog today, and he was writing how his parents never really asked "這有什麼用?" while he was growing up.....and what he wrote at the end of the blog was inspiring...Here is the last part of the blog....

我的成長,讓我相信 : 人生最重要的東西,其實大都沒有什麼用:
  
愛情,正義,自由,尊嚴,知識,文明,

這些一再在灰黯時刻拯救我,安慰我的力量,對很多人來講〞沒有用〞,

我卻堅持相信,這些才都是人生的珍寶,才經得起反覆的追求。

人生,並不是拿來用的。


I wonder if we are trying to pursue some "useless" things which really would make some difference in our lives and lives around us?

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Hades' day out....

We basically didn't get to do anything successfully today.....We wanted to get some tickets for Jason Mraz's concert in Nov, and then when we went to the box office they only had scattered single tickets left. We tried to drive to the zoo but then decided not to go since Billy's feet were kinda hurting and he wasn't in the mood for walking. The weather was kinda gloomy so even though I brought our camera we didn't take any photos anywhere.

We ended up having lunch at Rowland Heights...I know....all those driving...kinda crazy....Went to Fry's to get blank DVDs, but DVDs weren't on sale at all. I guess the only thing that went as planned was we got Billy's car washed. The line was short, and we were able to get the car cleaned within 15 min I think.

Since there was not much to do and no where to go, Billy decided we should take Hades out for a filed trip. We took Hades to this small park close to our place, and Hades was freaking out for majority of the time. I think the road was just too loud for him and there were also kids playing around which kinda scared him even more. We ended up taking photos there on the grass...and here are the good ones...I guess we can call these "family pictures?" lol....

Hades being scared....

Hades and me.....


Hades and dad....


and two nice photos of Hades that Billy took...


Of course we took more than what is here in this blog...but then let's just end this with the shadow of me taking photos...

Friday, September 12, 2008

Talking about sensitivity...

I think it is somehow of a curse to be sensitive...You just pick up too much info with the surroundings and people around you. You can always pick up the negative vibes and somehow weird people would like to talk to you....and the worst of all is it gets very hard for a sensitive person to fall into sleep cuz any kinda change would matter....

I used to have problems sleeping whenever I have too much on my mind, when I hear tiny little sound that nobody can hear, or whenever I just change the location of my bed....but now one thing added to my collection of "cause of insomnia"....and that thing is Billy. Yeah that kinda sounds funny....but then whenever Billy is acting diff. when he sleeps I get annoyed and that would cause my sleep.

I get insomnia when he is not sleeping right sometimes because of the lack of his snoring. I know that is entertaining but then I guess a routine snore is now an imp part of my sleep. He stayed up and pulled an all nighter last night to do his work, and that just killed my sleep. I probably turned my body more than a hundred times cuz I kept on thinking when he was gonna sleep. I 1st woke up with a nightmare which made no sense at all, and then went back to sleep only with bad quality of naps. The worst is that he didn't really go to sleep so I guess that was my night then...

Isn't it just amazing how people affect each other? and building habits is such a bad thing cuz then sometimes you get stuck in situations before you know it. I think this is how people get co-dependent with each other after living together for so long...not really sure if it's a healthy thing. Anyway....hopefully Billy won't just clapse tonight cuz of no sleep at all from last night...Hades is now making up his sleep on the bed....even a cat gets affacted....sighs...

Thursday, September 11, 2008

You lose it, and then you miss it...

Joelle is at Germany right now. Even though she has to work there...she is still in Germany. Ming just got back from Amsterdam, and even though he was also there for work...he was in Holland. Jack was showing us all the Egypt pictures which got me super tired two nights ago...Even though they took whole bunch of useless photos, they were there. Louie just got back from Greece. Even though their photos were the worst I have ever seen from any international travel, they were at Greece.

I am sitting here in LA, completely no idea when will be the next time I will finally get to a place where I have never been. I guess traveling was just inevitable when I was still touring with my previous jobs. Even though we went to mostly south eastern Asia, those were countries I have never been before....Even with the ones I went already, there were friends waiting for us to visit...Tours were fun for me cuz I don't mind working and traveling at the same time. I liked stealing time out of all the work, and I liked seeing new things...and of course I didn't mind the complete relaxation if I did stay few days after work.

I think one thing I hate about my current work is how it ties me down and I cannot go anywhere for long unless I want to just give up all the money I can make. I don't even have vacations unless I want to just not get paid when I am away. Even when I want to just forget about the money, it's not like I can go on a trip without thinking about anything and just go. Back when we were touring, everything was scheduled. I just had to get on the plane and then just followed the flow. It could be physically tiring but then completely brain free. I guess all of this just proves one thing....You have to lose something to finally remember how good it was....

I woke up this morning all tired and stressed cuz Thurs and Fri are the two worst days of every week. Not only that.... I know this Sun I cannot relax either cuz I will have to make up a lesson and then go to this moon festival dinner at night. I just absolutely hate it when I am working 6 days and not having any good quality weekend. Doing that two weeks in a row just makes my day for sure...right....Weekends were the only thing that kept me going during the weekdays, now I am not even sure if I have weekends to look fwd to. I wonder when I will be able to stop struggling with the life I hate.

I also felt the colder weather this morning so I guess fall is coming. It used to be beautiful around this time at Interlochen. All the leaves would turn colors and I would be happily in school trying to get all the As I deserved. We would take walks in the campus cuz with the lake right next to the cafeteria you just can't stop wanting to look at it. At the school you work hard, and then you enjoy what you worked for. I guess in the adult world it's not always true. You work hard, and then you get burnt out for those boring works....

Water that I washed my face with was kinda chilly. It reminded me of those mornings at Interlochen when I had to wake up 7 in the morning with the freezing water coming out in the bathroom. I LOVED the freezing water. I would always wake up instantly with the water and felt refreshed. Yeah I am thinking about the best times of my life...does that mean I am getting old? At 30 this is really kinda early huh? I guess Jacob was right....I grew up too fast...and that SUCKS...Anyway....point of this blog is....People really don't appreciate things until they lose it...Human beings...what can I say?

Monday, September 8, 2008

Being Forgetful...

My student wrote me on MSN and asked me when I was going to his house. I was like...3:15-3:20ish? and he was like...."I thought you are coming 2:15? that is why I rushed home?" Yeah....turned out I COMPLETELY forgot when I had to see him cuz I was like dreaded to teach for Mon. I guess it's the 1st time I just absolutely forget the correct time of my teaching apt. I wonder if that is a sign of my old age? or just a sign of me trying to ignore things I hate doing?

Incidentally my high school Eng teacher was writing me messages on facebook. She told me how her memory is failing due to lack of sleep for the past 4 years since her daughter was born. She said everything just accumulates over time. That kinda reminded me what Milan told me few months ago about that memory lost & lack of sleep connection....Billy was saying maybe he is getting old so when he tries to do programming he feels that he is getting slower...maybe it's not age but the amont and quality of sleep we get nowadays? since he had been working over time a lot and not sleeping enough for the past few weeks? hum I wonder...

I guess I was ok skipping one student today. That made my Mon went by much faster even though it's kinda dumb. I think I can afford losing 50 bucks just to get myself into a better mood...lol...Nancy's friend was telling me about her new relationship on line, and I guess I quite enjoyed the whole thing since she seems happy. Nowadays it gets harder to hear people being happy in their relationships....even though it's still new and fresh. I just hope eventually all the friends around me can find a mate that makes them happy and enjoy their lives...

Matt was again speaking about the possibilities of touring in Asia. He said something about next X-mas....but then I was like....yeah...you let me know since it's only tok tok now...I guess I am not all into getting hopes up for nothing at the end. Sticking to the reality just seems easier for me. Visiting Asia will sure be nice but we will see if the tour ever happens....plus I am not sure how Hades would deal with me not home since he is getting older each day....being tired and grouchy a lot too...I guess we ALL age somehow...

I started drinking red wine last night since it's supposed to be good for health. The wine tools we got long time ago when Macy's was having this huge sale turned out to be very useful. Maybe I should learn more about wines in the future...maybe that would be fun? We will see about that then....k...time to finish all the cooking...

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Weekend by weekend...

Weekend went by just like that...and now I guess I have to wait for the next one. This past weekend just felt like a fairly boring weekend with a lot of time wasted. I was 1st supposed to make up a lesson for a student, which did not happen cuz they completely forgot about it. I woke up early for it and screwed up my Sat morning sleep just for nothing I guess. In the afternoon we went to check up our eyes, and with that crazy packed store we ended up wasting about 2 hours just to get eyes checked and Billy's glasses picked. I guess it was not like a complete waste but 3/4 of the time was.

At night we went to the Griffith Observatory cuz we wanted to see if we could take night photos with our camera. The place was packed even after 8 pm. We ended up driving home after seeing how far away the parking spaces were from the observatory. I guess people nowadays are really bored they want to watch stars since that does not cost money? So that was how we spent our Sat....

Sunday we went to church. Pastor Jim is finally back and Bebe was also there. I guess the message was quite interesting but I am still waiting to see what this is leading to. Pastor Jim can always give interesting insights, and I guess his insights can make us think. We went to get my car washed in the afternoon after our stuffing tofu soup lunch. Checked out one or two open houses we could find driving on the streets. I guess nothing was that impressive. I was amused by this agent who was practicing golf while he was trying to sell the house. I guess I do like Taiwanese people better after all....yes I am still racist....it runs in the family I think....

Yeah...not much done today either....and weekend is gone....5 more days till the next one...I hope time flies at least for 5 days....

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Recovering from nightmare

I had another nightmare this morning, and again it was "teaching" involved. Out of the three nightmares I had recently, two was about teaching. I would call that a pretty high proportion....I was teaching this horrible kid who would start screaming in the middle of the lesson for no reason at all. He would just be yelling and crying and I would have this urge just to slap him on the face. Sounds familiar huh? yeah...sounds like that little girl that I am seriously considering firing if the next lesson does not go well....I think ever since school started I have this urge to just hide from my unwanted students. I pretend they are not back in the states yet, and if they don't contact me I will probably let it be that way....

I was gonna write about some things that happened yesterday, but then I don't feel like writing them today. I guess this occurs often when you just look at history and think "whatever happened happened". On top of that...I think my memory just fails me after that horrible nightmare which left me with a headache still....

My high school conductor wrote me a long e-mail after I added him on facebook. It's amusing to see how people remember me from high school. He confirmed that after 15 years of teaching there he is now heading to another post. (In Columbia....I know....crazy dude....he came from Columbia before he started conducting at our school....maybe I will visit him there and see how fun that can be....lol) He really looks basically the same except the hair turned white. I can't believe he was telling me his son is now in high school. I think the kid was only a baby when I was eating one Thanksgiving dinner with them at his house.....man...time flies...

I have yet to think about how to reply to the e-mail....writing someone who I have not seen for such a long time is really not my forte...but I have always liked my conductor back then (who even let me play on the piano with the orchestra several times both for piano concerto rehearsals and various concerts...) so maybe I should cook up something to get back in touch...lol...

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Not my thing to live such life

Only the 2nd day after long weekend and I am dying for the next weekend. It almost feels like I live for the weekends in my life. I wonder how most teachers stand being a teacher for their life time. I would probably kill myself if I do....Just found out my high school conductor stayed at Interlochen for all these years, but it looks like he had to stop teaching and go on to another place too since he just left recently. Well....at least he was teaching more talented kids....

Practiced a little yesterday on a Bach Fugue. It's amazing how those fugues can get...especially when you really hear whatever is really going on in those lines. The interweaving subjects and the complicated structure of everything. I guess Bach must be some extend a smart guy to make everything work in such a organized way with all that symmetry. I am sure a lot of people who can play his music with perfect technical may not be able to understand everything he planed in the music....

Anyway...playing did help to take out some frustrations in life....wish there is a grand piano at home...that would make it even easier if I can bang on those keys...