The Things I’m Keeping
June 22, 2011 § Leave a comment
Although I threw away or donated a great many possessions while cleaning out my room, I also came across many more things that I wanted to keep. I might get rid of them someday, but for now, the memories are worth the closet space.
To start, this is a keychain that I found hanging from one of my old purses. I think I bought it at a Christian bookstore, though I’m not sure about my motive. Was I trying to passively aggressively judge all the heathens at my school who wore cross jewelry as fashion? Who knows? Or maybe it was a gift from someone. LOL I can’t remember.
Somehow I had a bunch of unused party invitations. I thought about using them because my birthday is coming up, but I had already sent out email invitations…technology ftw!
I have a shoebox full of birthday/Christmas/greeting cards from the past few years. I hate throwing them away, but what else can you do with these things but keep them in a box to look at again later [or never]?
I also found a shoebox full of school supplies, like notepads and reinforcers. HA HA HA. I surreptitiously stuck them on my brother’s bookshelf because I’m pretty sure I’ll never use them.
This is the coolest pencil ever. Except nobody uses pencils anymore. Though reporters are advised to do so in case of rain. I think the biggest issue is that in this Inter-webbed world saturated with immediate gratification and instant results, we simply do not have the time to sharpen a pencil. It’s so time-consuming.
I discovered an old-school film camera that I guess my parents gave me for no reason. Maybe someday somebody will teach me how to use it…
During the course of our psuedo-relationship, AS gave me two bears. The smaller one, wearing a cute pink kimono, was from New York. The Build-A-Bear was ostentatiously delivered to my house in one of those huge house-boxes. One might ask why I bother keeping sentiments from past relationships — it might seem pathetic? — but it’s not like I’m still in love with these people. However, the feeling of having known good times lives on :)
Say what you will; Sleeping Beauty is still my favorite Disney princess >_>
Some old-school photos of me. Nowadays people say I look like my mom, but that’s because makeup and stuff makes me look different. Au naturel, there’s no denying that I still look like my dad.
My super old heart-shaped jewelry box full of little trinkets! Let’s see what’s inside.
MINIATURE FOOD OMG I LOVE MINIATURE FOOD
The developing glutton in my younger self loved to play with the toy food that came with the grocery store Barbie set I used to have. There was even a shopping cart and a cash register. But I think I liked playing with the food more than my actual Barbie.
Would you like some orange soda?
Or perhaps a meal of corn & bananas with a side of My-Little-Pony milk?
Did anybody else play with Crazy Bones? Gawd I loved these things. In the past year I couldn’t remember the name of them for the longest time and almost drove myself crazy trying to Google it…
The best playing cards ever: made in China of course.
I also dug up a class photo of my second grade classmates from when I lived in Downer’s Grove. I’ve always meant to go back to that school and … play on the playground or something. I had good memories from those days. Good thing Facebook lets me creep on my old classmates so I can see what they look like now muahaha! I wonder if any of them would remember me.
I have two tubes of breast cream. My aunt gave them to me when I went to China in 2008…because I guess I wasn’t the only one concerned with my chest size. I have no idea. I think I tried it for a while but then stopped because I had no idea what the ingredients would do to me, and I didn’t want to give myself breast cancer. I honestly have no idea what to do with these but I’ve stashed them in the bathroom cabinet for now.
Lastly, I discovered some old photos of myself that I didn’t even know I had. I reeeeeally look like my dad in the bottom right one.
Cleaning my room has been relieving and inspiring! I highly recommend it to everyone :)
The Things I’m Throwing Away
June 13, 2011 § 1 Comment
After more than three weeks of being at home, I decided it was a good time to stop living out of my suitcase. The problem was that everything I owned from college [except my TV] was crammed into my room, which was an amazing feat that also created a fire safety hazard.
The situation was complicated. As I am currently looking for a job, I can’t unpack everything because I don’t know where I’ll be in a few months. At the same time, my room was a disaster zone and I knew it. I also tend to clean my room very thoroughly, meaning that I empty out all my drawers and my closet, throw away half my things and redistribute everything else. This time-consuming process doesn’t happen too frequently, especially while I was away at college, which explained why I still had files from 2008 piling up on my desk.
Most of my time was spent on my closet, and I found some interesting things I didn’t even know I still had. This post will be a compilation of things that I threw away. Although I no longer have the physical room for these things, each of them contains a story that I don’t want to forget.
First were all these purses. My gosh, I didn’t know that I still had so many … I’ve never really been into designer handbags, and some of these date back to middle school [which was TEN YEARS AGO o_o], which explains why they might seem to be such poor quality, ha ha.
Specimen A is the messenger bag I used in high school after I realized I hated wearing backpacks — so bad for your posture! It was still in good shape but pretty dirty on the outside.
I acquired Bags B & C around the same time, probably before I was even in middle school. I felt so grown up wearing the black one because it was all sleek and ~European-looking LOL…but then one of the straps broke. So I resorted to the brown one for a while.
Object D is a visor. I remember bringing it on an eighth grade field trip to Cantigny, during which our teacher expressly forbade us to wear any headgear. We protested — it was a hot day! — but I can’t recall whether we were successful [probably not].
E is a cylindrical purse I got in China when people were crazy over Burberry [and bootlegging the Burberry design]. My mom tried to make me haggle for it myself, but at the age of 14, my haggling skills were even worse than what they are now. We ended up buying it for around 35RMB.
I really liked F for its sailor motif. I think I bought it at that Steve & Barry’s place that used to be at Fox Valley Mall and sold really cheap clothing…
My dad bought bag G for me the first time we went to visit Mizzou. We stopped somewhere in Missouri for dinner at a Chinese buffet and then headed across the street to a nearby Target to walk off all the MSG, and that’s where I found this purse.
The little blue handbag in the middle is a cheap thing from China. I don’t really recall using it but there was a mirror inside so I guess I did at some point, ha ha.
In one of the pockets of bag A, I unexpected came across a wrinkly old photograph of a guy I still know. I guess I had a creepy crush on him back then or something LOL which is funny because I remember being scared of him when I was younger…
On bag G, I also discovered these little pins, two of which were from being the co-captain of the badminton team my senior year. Although they’re in this post, I decided to keep the pins while throwing away the purse.
Later, I also found these two shoulder bags:
I really liked the fuzzy one but I’m pretty sure I rarely — if ever — used it in public LOL.
This is a hat that AS gave me [or maybe I “borrowed” it?]. I remember wearing it in front of the mirror while listening to Usher’s “Yeah” and feeling cool because it was one of those ~trucker hats. I guess my idol at the time was Ashton Kutcher, idk.
I think my third grade teacher made this for me when I moved from Downer’s Grove to Naperville. I used it to carry my library books until the books I read were too fat to fit into the tote…
I came across some photos of me & the ex, which I promptly tore up and threw out.
I never realized we had so many Gameboy games [not pictured: 6-7 other cartridges]! I still have my old Gameboy Color & my brother’s Gameboy Advance in addition to my Gameboy Micro, which my friends bought for me as a 17th birthday present.
In Honors Physics my junior year of high school, we had a bridge-building contest. Most bridges snapped, but mine remained whole because my dad built the whole thing for me LOL. I still didn’t win, though, because my bridge bent enough for the dangling weight to touch the ground. I still remember the guy who won…Chris Walter…that nerd…who is probably out making bank at some cushy job right now…
Oh look! AP test packet things…
Ha ha I was so miserably bad at AP Euro…
I feel like I should’ve taken more AP classes in high school. My brother just told me he wanted to drop out of Honors English for next year BUT HE MUSTN’T! Otherwise he won’t be eligible for AP English his junior year and won’t be able to take the AP Lang/Lit tests and will therefore be subject to whatever absolutely abysmal English 1000 class that is required of college freshmen everywhere! AHH!
I also unearthed a big leaf printed on a piece of paper [presumably from church/Sunday school] that had a bunch of French written on it in my best friend’s handwriting.
I uncovered a whole package of American Eagle All-Access pass card things, which I signed up for once and never used again.
Lastly, I found a ribbon for 5th place. What?! What is the purpose of celebrating or even compensating someone who came in FIFTH place?? This should not even exist! And why did I bother keeping it?!? …………. [I believe it was from something badminton-related. How embarrassing.]
My 13-Year-Old Self, pt. III
June 9, 2011 § 3 Comments
For the uninitiated, this is part III of a trilogy in which I share parts of a journal I kept seven years ago. If you haven’t already, please read parts I and II first!
As usual, grammatical mistakes are unchanged and comments are made in brackets!
Mardi 11.18.2003 [I suddenly started formatting the dates differently]
Bernard likes Julia ewewew asked Julia 4 hug ewewew Julia better wash herself squeaky clean ewewew I wonder how she really feels ’bout him ewewEW!
Mercredi 11.19.2003
Larry’s stomach having “problems again tonight. I would say he does it from lack of attention, but I don’t think it’s that complicated. It could be indigestion…stupid thing RUNS in our family. Not much else happened today. One thing that DIDNT happen was me doing hw. There’s not enough time in a day to be a good student, a good Christian, AND addicted to GBA. [LOL.]
Samedi 11.22.2003
Eric Wang sleeping over wit Larry 2nite. Eric: 6th grd. Larry: 2 grd. Wow that’s weird. [Frankly, I never understood their friendship, and I’m not sure if even they did. I don’t think they talk anymore.]
Mercredi 11.26.2003
PARTAI! No Julia, No Lingyu. Owell the party must go on. We watched Matrix 2. Here’s list of characters [LOL THIS…]:
Neo: Jerry Lin
Trinity: Bailey Cao
Morpheus: Lucy Chen
Oracle: Chen Zhu
Seraph: Henry Ho
Agent Smith: Leo Hua
Twins: Me!
Other Agent (Agent Brown?): Yawen
Persophone: Bernard Hsu
Niobe: Wendy Yu
Capt. Butt-chin: Elijah Chung
Keymaker: Becca Shih
Persephone’s Hubby: Andy Chung
Azn w/ Per.’s Hubby: Ray
The ending was actually pretty good.
Dimanche 11.30.2003
Tried hard to not gain weight over break. It worked. So SORE from Turkey bowl yesterday, and I didn’t even do anything for my team. Chen tackled me once. I was totally afraid of getting tackled by Xixi, cuz she grabs ppl’s necks. She also clotheslined Yawen in the face when Yawen was trying to get up…Sherry was also a beast.
We got a Gamecube. When did my parents decide to do that??
Mardi 12.2.2003 (Vania Wang’s 17th bday!) [Why did I care??]
J’aime manger! <- I like to eat! heehee. 7 more days till Alan Liu’s bday. 9 more til Julie Kim’s. 2 more days til Crystal concert. Math test tomorrow, Part TWO! Took part 1 today. so hard.
I like Windwaker for GCN. Nice graphics, music plot. Mite borrow from Amanda — oh wait I have no memory card. Darnit. [Three years later, I finally bought a used copy of the game for myself. Four years later, I still haven’t beaten it. Oh well.]
Vendredi 12.5.2003 11:36PM
Today was a long day. Had to belay in gym again. Not fun. Arms were sore. Chen whacked Jon Chung in the…uh…groin… I wasn’t there to see it but she told us about it. Jee, I have great friends. Chen planned to go to the movies tomorrow … sometime this week she called Yawen. They called Jerry. Yawen thought Chen was gonna call me; and vice versa. […] So Chen told me tonite. I knew immediately that my mom wouldn’t let me go. But I hoped. But I was write. And she says that over Christmas I can go see movies if I want. But that’s not the point. I just wanna be w/ my buddies. And yeah rite I’ll go once she gets back my semester grades.
On the way back we were talking about love language. There’s service, gift, verbal, touch, and something else Chen couldn’t remember [quality time.] Chen and lucy are TOUCH. Yawen is…more service than anything else. I had no clue what I was but I definitely didn’t think I was TOUCH. Chen said I’m verbal. Guess she’s rite. I deliberately asked Alex. He said guys are more physical. Chen says they’re more verbal. It doesn’t matter. I’m not interested in guys.
Dimanche 12.7.2003 10:00PM
Eric slept over again last night. My mom should know Alan Shen by sight now. Forgot to talk to Alex. I miss daddy. Yawen’s waterbed gave me nightmares. Chen ate Jon Chung’s thing. And she likes French stick w/ syrup.
Bonus dream journal entry!
Dream Title [yes the journal really did ask for this]: Monster in the Pool (This dream was because of Yawen telling me about draining her waterbed and her gullible little brother asking her about sharks and fish in the bed.)
Scene 1: I watched from above. The adults were draining a hotel pool in a hotel. The little boy kept pleading and yelling to the hotel manager, who was ignoring him. The little boy kept saying that there was a monster in the pool. Then after the pool was “drained”, there was another level below it filled w/ water, and a saw a huge dark shape swimming around in it.
Suddenly I was in me again, and me n my family were driving to this new waterpark thing/resort. There was a pool there (this is Scene 2 btw) and as soon as we came out of the hotel w/ our swimming stuff on, I gasped and was horrified. It was THE POOL, from Scene 1. The hotel had been remodeled, and for some sick reason, they used the same pool I knew that the monster was still in it.
Thankfully, nobody was in it, because it was the grand opening, and there was a water ballet show B4 it would actually be open. So ppl were gathered around to watch. I made Larry hold my hand because I was deathly afraid that he would run near the pool and accidentally slip and fall in.
I expressed my fears to my mom, but she kinda brushed me off. Then the ballerinas came. They were dressed in real ballerinas Tutus and shoes, for some reason, and they twirled around the pool Then the first one jumped in. There was a little commotion in the pool, and then I saw blood floating up to the surface. The ballerinas didn’t STOP, as if their lives depended on jumping in. Sick. And their expressions were hard, as if they were prepared to die.
So one by one they jumped in and got killed and eaten. The other people cheered and clapped, as if they didn’t notice at all. So nobody seemed to noticed except my mom, who left for a little while and came back with a pair of plastic handcuff things for Larry. She put one on him and told me to chain him to something solid. Why we didn’t leave, I don’t know.
So I went over to the bench on the side (of the pool), chained Larry to a rail, and put him on my lap. Then a little while later, the hotel manager announced that they would select ppl by raffle to pick ppl to jump into the pool, something of an honor/challenge. The Hotel manager mentioned/implied something about “getting out of the pool fast enough,” and I knew he knew about the monster.
However, the other people didn’t get it, so the raffle went on. Angelica Pickles got picked first. (NO CLUE…) She, being the sneaky one, sneaked off to the central control tower. I sorta “went out of my body” and watched her. Then she came on over the PA w/ a man’s voice, but I knew it was her. She said there had been a mistake, and “Laura and Larry had gotten picked instead.”
Then everyone was pressuring and forcing us to do it, and I had a flash of thought that maybe I’d had this dream before, and somehow it transferred to my dream self of this happening the year before, a memory. So I started yelling at my parents and the manager and the authorities that this was what happened a year ago, and I was all pissed… then I woke up.
Juedi 12.11.03 Julie Kim’s Bday [This is the last entry before a brief attempt to use the journal as a food diary lol]
Math quiz tomorrow + bio brochure due + English essay. no time. study!
OH. Amanda has never been abused.
The first and most critical component of raising successful kids is having good parents. Not necessarily Christian, cuz in some parents it makes no difference, such as in Amanda’s case & mine. And my mom has the nerve to go tell her firends she missed out on having “smart and talented” kids. It’s true, but not all my fault, especially not Larry’s.
And B4 I took a shower today, I was thinking ’bout how I should do my hair usually. Lotsa ppl say I should put it up more: Julie, Ally, Mom, etc. But I like it down. So I decided to ask Lucy, since I see her the most w/ the exception of my family. But then I thought, no wait, Not my family. Only my mom and Larry. If there was a list of ppl I see more than my dad, it’d probably be about 100 ppl long. How sad.
My 13-Year-Old Self, pt. II
June 6, 2011 § 5 Comments
Find Part I here!
This segment picks up in November of 2003, at which point I was a freshman in high school, struggling with Honors Algebra II Trig and having lots of crushes on lots of boys. I’m not including a lot of the stuff about boys because it is just too embarrassing LOL [& irrelevant].
As usual, grammatical mistakes are unchanged and comments are made in brackets!
Mardi 11/4/03
I got a 24/30 on my math quiz. I thought for sure I woulda gotten 6/30 … But Amanda got 21, Julia: 11, Lucy: 22, Bing: 19. I was proud of myself 4 doing better but not enuf to tell my parents. After all, a B- is still a B-.
Jeudi 11/6/03
I put sum (actually a lot) of that cherry perfume stuff in my hair this morning, for lack of something new to do. Then I looked at the ingredients. The first thing listed was ALCOHOL. I was like, wow. Went around smelling like booze all day. Ick. Good thing nobody else noticed. I feel so…blah…nobody talks to me. Bobby Wei, Carson, ppl online, the person whose sn is Hareluya74 that I suspect (but not hope) is Marco…
I think Alan Shen needs to get over me now…I mean, if he only looked like his beautiful bro …ah…
Kevin Yamashita found a picture of Mr. McCoskey online [he was our World History teacher as well as a track coach], taken probably 6 years ago when he was 20. He said he found it by typing “Tim McCoskey” on Google. I gotta try it. The pic was FUNNEE. [You can see it here.]
Vendredi 11/7/03
NO SCHOOL TODAY. Parent/teacher confs not good, cuz my parents only talked to Dwyer. Cleaned my room, so proud of miself. Daddy’s leaving Sunday. I can’t believe it. [I didn’t know that I actually missed my dad when he left on business trips.] Dentist tomorrow. Alex was @ Friday nite tonite, went wit us. Yay. Altho I wish he’d talk more … can’t think of enuff things to talk to him bout. Sat next to him during worship, he wasn’t even singing. Ah well… Richard was…implying things? At least not to me.
Alan Shen was being…obsessed over me??? Trying to memorize my phone #. If he calls me I’mma beat him up. He needs to stand up straight like his bro, or else he looks fat. But I know Alex is thin…sigh…and I know I’m not! [LOLOL.]
Samedi 11/8/03
Daddy’s leaving tomorrow morning. He might not be back for thanksgiving, and we’re having a party. (hope Alex is invited??) He might not be back for xmas. He might not be back for my baptism. SILENCE …
I didn’t see Alex today. I know it’s wrong, but my life is starting to revolve round guys again. What to wear. How I feel. Things like that.
Random quotation I wrote on the side of a page [probably from a book]:
“Nobody eats more than Midwesterners; it’s why they’re so fat.”
Lundi 11/10/03
AHHH I’M GONNA SEVERELY HURT JERRY LIN!! It was all my fault…I shouldn’t have given Alen Shen Jerry’s sn but I didn’t know they were, like, GOOD friends! ARRR!!!
So I went online. Alan immediately IM’d me, asked 4 Jerry Lin’s sn. I gave it to him. Then he was telling me to go to turkey bowl, and I was telling him how me n Yawen were hiding in the Kohmobile being cold and hungry. Then he said I could hide in HIS car, and I asked him when that would be. He said “in 4 years” and I told him I’d be in college.
He then said I should go to Tokyo University, making me all confused. Turns out he was talking about Love Hina!! err….rr.. As if we would ever fall in love. GR. Then he went on about us getting married and naming our first kid Kyle (why did I be so stupid last year?!) And I was talking to Jerry at the same time, and then Jerry said something about Tokyo. And I froze. I’m stupid, but not SLOW.
WHY was Alan talking to Jerry?? ARRR!! So Jerry kept making comments about me and Alan getting married EW EW EWW!!! Then priority #2 [my brother] said he was hungry, cuz mom had conferences. Eheh. So I had to go.
Vendredi 11/14/03 (HALF-DAY)
Agh so tired. I actually finished ALL my hw today. Wow. Talked to Martin, he did Marijuana over summer I was like, eww.
Nobody @ church 2day. Alex @ partai. Alan…eh, hu cares. Mr. Dwyer brought his guitar 2 math class 2day. Sang stupid songs for us, but then sang a kinda worship song for us that I loved. He said he wrote it. Ah… [I think he quit teaching math after that year, became a Spanish teacher, then went off to do missionary work.]
Anyways Mom drove us to church today so she stayed 4 adult bible study AHH embarrassing … and I hate it when I’m talking to my friends on the car and she just interrupts. I HATE IT. I’m never touching another potato chip again! I gotta promise myself. Totally binged tonite during small group. Quiet time. Tired.
Dimanche 11/16/03
Britney said she’s getting baptized this Christmas, 2. Yay. Xixi’s not, cuz she’s suddenly goin on vacation to NY. Aw…
Alan Shen bein a dork 2day. Feel repulsed around him…dont really understand. Mebbe cuz he’s not a prettyboy…but, well. [Perhaps I should mention here that he and I ended up going to Homecoming together and pseudo-dating for a while a year later >_>]
Becca says she got btized in 6th grade, @ another church. for someone hu is, she sure don’t act like it. Not that I should talk. Sometimes I remind myself of that horrible lady in “Fighting Temptations,” and I don’t like it. Today my mom reminded me more of it tho. She wuz talkin on the phone wit some other sunday school teacher lady and was saying how somebody was changed by God, but could still use some more changing, and I was like NO FUCK, MOM! Every1 needs to be refined, and she’s not perfect either. And then she talks about how much she can volunteer as a SS teacher, which reminds me of what I heard once about how you can do good deeds all your life but still be a bad Christian inside. And my mom was TRYING to sound modest but failing horribly. GRR.
Lundi 11/17/03
Ahh I love my mommy ok? Every1 has faults and she…well…see I woke up late this morning, actually she woke me up, then had to drive me there, and I got there wit 5 minutes to spare, and she wasn’t mad. ♥
auradis 