mario party!

if you dress like mario at a party, you cannot:


dance sexy
shoot drinks without concern for your mustach
jump on sketchy men to kill them

but you do have a license to:

dance SILLY (EVEN SILLIER!)
pepper your conversation with the word "meat-ah-ballles" (as in, "i'mah swea-ting like ah spicy meat-ah-ballles")
jump around like a cartoon

it was a fun night of outrageous italian accents, boogying like a robot with a toilet plunger, and of course, chowing down on bar food. the music was all over the place. everytime a strange song came on, i would envision a celebrity from that period and dance like them. a lot of my celebrities ended up being john travolta (as in, disco--what would JT do? country--what would JT do? 50s--what would JT do?), except in that footloose song, where i was obviously kevin bacon.

mmm...pizza!
die koopa troopa!
this dude won the costume contest
wantonly, wontons.
we found a cool crepe place
but jon's wasn't very good
yo luigi, word to your mother.
holla.

i'm only happy when it rains

i'm leading sunday's man D practice. finally finally, these people will learn the backpedal drill. i'm slightly nervous but mostly just excited. hopefully, i won't ramble. they're all mine to smite-ify. MOOHAHA.

the sun's blacked out again, which means i'm given to evil laughter. MOOHAHA.

does anyone else have the problem where their nalgene cap comes off all the time? it's annoying when you carry it with a caribeaner.

one thing i really enjoy about hk: the stray cats.

a weekend with shuang

we picked shuang up at the macau ferry terminal early saturday morning and made her row in our boat. she was a good sport about it, pulling with the rest of us galley slaves. the guy sitting next to me threw up. the people behind us kept yelling "TIMING!", but they didn't realize he was dying. i patted him on the back to show that its not his fault he can't keep up with me. i think shuangy did ok. she sat in the back and yelled "TIMING!" with the other tyrants.

then we dragged her to frisbee practice. everyone was super excited that here was this girl who could throw. she crushed twenty people's collective dream when she said she was leaving monday (you could see the light dying in their eyeballs). otherwise, she was very useful in my campaign to be a mid. see people? here's what a real handler looks like. i'm a MID! a MID i say! i got chastised for arriving late. apparently, if i'm to continue in my ass-captaincy, i have to actually warm up with the team and show up on time and do all of these other serious frisbee things. i wasn't pleased. i hate warming up. boo! i bargained for introducing more smite plays if i actually hafta put effort into this program, but the stupid diplomat captain shot down every single one in a diplomatic way. i didn't even get the red call for the io throw to the front.

for food we had too much. shanghai for stone pot ma po tofu rice, a pot of stewed pork with chinese buns, half a chicken wanton soup, xiao long bao and sticky rice shao mai, salad, and soy milk. shuangy and i both out ate jon by two whole points (we didn't even normalize for weight).

technically, this is food with henri, but it's at a shanghainess restaurant, so i think it counts.

henri lost the rosh for the fried "fin".

and this is just a "pudding" i had at wildfire.

and this is just a lemon tart that "jon" had.

and finally, we come to the stewed pork we had with shuangy (i tried to take a picture of the stone pot ma po tofu rice, but the server had already stirred it up, and the picture resembles puke in a stone pot).

shuang, valiently downing the half-chicken.

and that night, after showers and lounging (in which our hero lily is soundly defeated by a kakuro puzzle), we went to chez kate for homemade green curry and gado gado. shuangy played with the two cats (attention whore cat and shy-half-tail), while jon and i avoided socializing by perusing kate's extensive book collection (she's a third generation journalist).

sunday morning, i was greeted by wistful harmonica music. what a good way to wake up, i thought, until i realized they were trying to play twinkle twinkle little star...the wistfulness came from the mournful pace they used. to show jon how it should be done, i joined shuang in a rousing rendition of said song in which i harmonized by squatting on the G note and blowing extra hard whenever shuangy came to it. yay me!

while jon and i dragonboated again, shuangy wandered the city streets in search of animals. she found the monkeys and the tai chi elderly. somehow, she had enough time to climb to the peak and back before joining us for noon dimsum, in which (guess what?) we ordered too much food.

a bouquet of fried chunks (they should let me write their menus).

then frisbee again, then food again, and THEN a night of zelda on wii (jon had a toys r us voucher begging to be used). we named our horse quiche. Yum!

and now, i am shuangless again. 4 weeks and counting!

digging for nuggets

mcdonalds is having a promotion, and i'm possibly 1 box of 9 mcnuggets away from 365 boxes of free mcnuggets! everytime you buy some mcnuggets, you get a card. you win if you can make the big picture (which is only divided into 4 cards).

at first i thought, no way, too easy, what's the catch? i mean, i expected to get a ton of 1 card and maybe 1 of the other three...but now i realize that their gimmick is not giving people cards unless they ask for them. they've even stopped branding the mcnuggets boxes with the promotional picture. but you can't make me forget mcD, i've got your number! you and your nuggets are mine! of course, i'll have to share the loot with jon once i win. he's such a crybaby otherwise.

come on lower left quadrant! come to mama.

jon the giant

china nationals

we lost to beijing 8-7 in the finals. we were up 7-2 at half. they bageled us in the second half, going on a 6 point run to take home the first ever championship title.

i'm a little bit pissed, but not as much as i normally would be...most of our turns were first pass turns by handlers...one stupid upwind hammer from handler to handler (a guy in the cup got to it first)...one dropped chest-level pass...silly mistakes that had nothing to do with me. maybe this is a bad attitude, but a kdob philosophy that i take to heart = you should change the things you can change and let the rest be.

i had an almost perfect game. i think i scored 2, assisted 2, threw 1 turn (an around backhand in the redzone that floated a bit too much--i had another backhand that got caught in the wind, but i think that was against shanghai)...no drops, no one scored on me, and the girl i was covering only touched the disc once or twice (both on dump passes). i'm pretty proud of the no-one-scoring-on-me clause, considering i was constantly playing transition d. you win some you lose some. it would've been nice to be the first ever china national champs though. and it would've been nice to actually hold a lead in the finals for once.

otherwise, the fields were much nicer than i expected. we played most of our games on a super nice turf. fields were narrow, allowing more poaching on our ho stack than we would've liked...one endzone was roughly 10 yards shorter than the other--very noticeable b/c the turf was striped lightgreen-darkgreen like a football field (one endzone had 3 stripes, the other 4). personally, i need to work on catching. i couldn't get my hands to close fast enough on saturday, prolly cuz of sleep dep, but i used to be able to catch without sleep (or it could be bad karma from commenting on yelena's blog about catching). i think i had 3-4 drops in the first two games on saturday, 0 on sunday (yay for sleep!). something else to work on: i'm much better at triangulating with a flick force than a backhand force.

food was pretty good, i ate lots and lots of baozi (a type of dumpling). saturday night, we snubbed the tourney buffet and found a restaurant built inside of a temple. there were buddhas everywhere (some headless), they even had a donation box. a donation box in front of an altar inside of a restaurant. we ordered too much food for the table (the plates wouldn't fit). i think we got 7 or 8 dishes for the 5 of us (if you count all the dumplings as 1 dish). it got to the point where waiters would bring us random food that other ppl ordered, cuz odds were, any food coming out of the kitchen should be coming to us.

anyways, there were 3 types of baozi, sweet and sour shrimp wrapped in crispy noodles, pot roast (chinese style), fish, soup noodles, and lots of veggies. when we tried to take pictures of the food (we remembered halfway thru the meal), a waiter came by to tell me pictures weren't allowed. luckily, i was the only one who understood mandarin, so jon continued snapping away (earning concerned glances from the waiter). i bargained for flashless pics, and then for pics only of the food, not of the relics (their actual concern), which i got, b/c it was pretty obvious that the foreigners were gonna do what they wanted, and this was a good face saving solution for all.

(you can even see the temple creatures in the background)

people still heckle white ppl in china, or at least in tianjin. something was even thrown out of a bus window at us (jon and i)--i'm assuming it wasn't incidental. BUT he was also the sole reason we caught our train from tianjin to beijing...the taxi wasn't licensed to drive within tianjin city limits. he took his taxi light off and made us pay before we entered tianjin. if we were asked, we should say that a friend was dropping us off. if it weren't for jon, the driver would've suspected me of "fishing", a practice wherein undercover inspectors try to trick drivers into taking them into the city, fining them for their trouble at the other end.

back to food. my favorite chinese foods are still jian bing (a crepe thing with a crunchy and an egg--still only RMB2.5!!), chinese yogurt (thick and sour), and chinese popsicles. my parents call me a peasant whenever we go back. seriously, the simple stuff's the best.


the end.

happy birthday, mr. buddha!

tomorrow is a hong kong public holiday, in honor of the venerable mr. buddha. i may have dropped my harvard buddhism class faster than a goose drops, well, droppings, but i kinda feel like instituting a public holiday may go against the tenets of buddhism. you know, the part about not having any idols and finding your own way. not that i'm complaining of course. here's to you, sid!

shuangy is coming this friday! i am veeeery (read: VEE-HEEE-EERY) excited. unfortunately (or fortunately), i'm heading to tianjin this weekend to play in the First Ever "china nationals" (can you have a nationals if you don't have a governing national body?). It's run by a bunch of college students so i'm not expecting too much, just a slice of history. and then shuangy is heading to china with her parents...so i'll probably only get to spend a weekend with her. nevertheless...better than being shuangless. AND henri is coming next monday to start her internship. soon, i will be very friendful.

and foodful:

fried milk
shrimp dumpling
lily on a rock (not for ingestion)

incidentally, i've joined the CS dragonboating team. i managed to get myself noticed last week (by sitting behind someone who sucked even worse than i do), so next week i get to move up in the boat. don't you see? it's like a mini-promotion in the one thing that i'm definitely good at: dabbling in sports.

competency

work is getting stressful. i'm hitting the 1Y barrier at which i'm required to be more than just pretty and enthusiastic. add to this that we're short staffed by 2 (leaving brian and me to do the pricing and philipp to do the managing), and well, my days are not happy. i keep reminding myself that banking is a windfall for me, and it isn't the rest of my life, not necessarily, so if i screw up and get fired, meh. i'll just go back and...what? get a masters? go to law school? go to MED SCHOOL?! ha, fat chance. i'm not freaking out, just taking a step back. gosh.

its funny the things that keep you sane. i'm only 22, i've still got options. i feel like i'll be saying that well into my 50s, but that's ok.

korea

last last weekend, i sojourned with a cast of nine to jeju, korea, the land of wind, rocks, and women (seriously, that's what it says on all the brochures). poor jon was so disappointed when he found out that women didn't necessarily refer to hot women, just female women (many of whom were as old and as wrinkly as the seaweed they sold). our team, love parade, gathered from all over asia, and we had sweet jerseys to match our sweet temperaments. our cheer was a group hug and a proclamation of LOOOOOOVVVVEEE. sometimes we would sing it at people in nine part cacophony.

korea is a 9's tournament--limited rosters, 6 guys, 3 girls. it caused lots of drama in cities that had to cut ppl. skill always trumped commitment. yeah politics.

i really enjoyed the enforced PT. it helps that we managed to keep our games short, forcing fast turns at the other teams endzones with our female cup. the fields were the best fields i'd ever played on...world cup practice fields. i even laid out in our last game for a one handed catch in the endzone. it was totally unexpected. the thrower zipped the disc right past me, and all i remember is annoyance that he couldn't throw it better. actually, i wasn't expecting the throw at all. my teammates were pretty surprised cuz i'd played in perth with some of them and they never saw me layout, even after lots of heckling. i think my catch was our last score...we lost to shanghai 15-13, which earned us $50 a piece for coming in second and all the soju (sp?) anyone could ever drink. this may be the best asian tournament of the year (jazzfest will be better, of course).


brian's squeezing jim out of his ass. jim got so drunk that he used his body to stop balls in the batting cage. both front and back. boy had red welts all over his torso...one ball came pretty close to his balls, but did he flinch? no sir, he did not. this is the type of person who can own a furniture store in beijing. go give him some business.

mmm...korean bbq...

jon and i stayed an extra day to explore. apparently, i'm pretty good at shooting clay discs (50% hit rate!--jon didn't get any, but he was much better at the pistol. we've decided that if we're attacked by terrorists, he'd shoot the stationary ones with a pistol and i'd shoot the moving ones with a rifle). spycard, chaching!





he didn't want to lie in the hay, but i made him, cuz i wear the pants.

deep fried hot dog! no, not a corn dog, the dough is gooey and ricier. yum!

the joke that jon's enjoying is...these are NAVELS...haha...ha. besides setting an extraordinary number of korean dramas, jeju is also famous for its tangerines, as displayed here in the tangerine museum (unfortunately, we didn't learn of jeju's sex museum until it was too late to go).

and this is sunrise peak, a volcano. we woke up at four to try to catch the sunrise, but it was cloudy. all we saw was a dumb rabbit and a bunch of chinese tourists.

ah, and of course, the pig rock.

jeju is pretty and nature-y. the end.

cowabunga

we had a pseudo-end of year bash for frisbee saturday night...if the year never ends, you still need to have an annual party, right? theme was night at the palace:

From toscars 2007

From toscars 2007

From toscars 2007

naturally, we went as the ninja turtles.

From toscars 2007

From toscars 2007

we even painted our own shells.

From toscars 2007

other notable costumes: king prawn (he made antennae and a huge head thingy) and a frog.
does this guy look like toadstool from mario bros to anyone else?

From toscars 2007

FDA changing definition of chocolate?!

Today's the last day to send the FDA a comment, but this site tells you how. Basically, Hersheys is petitioning the FDA to change the definition of chocolate so that it doesn't have to contain cocoa butter (the most expensive ingredient), using hydrogenated/trans fats instead. BOO! BOO, i say, BOO! do your part people, preserve the chocolate.

amber rainstorm warning

the time is now 10:46 am. the sky is purple/black, and i can barely see the docks two blocks away from my 21st floor window. an opaque black cloud obscures everything...very ominous and heady. it feels like any minute now, a swarm of something (hornets, bombers, men?) will burst out to smite us. the weather report calls for "squally rain". you're mom's squally rain. days like this make me feel important in a hobbity way. hang on mr frodo! also, villainous. come my minions rise for your master, make your evil shine (in the dark of the night in the dark of the night).

this confirms my nocturnalness. i feel so much more comfortable and happy in the dark, maybe just because i'm excited. MWAHAHAHAHAHA, BE PREPARED!

wow

sometimes hk is a 3rd world country

in all of the civilized world, today is ben and jerry's free cone day, a day that ranks only slightly behind thanksgiving and the superbowl, a day that heathens like me hold sacred. because the density of b&j's stores here is not less than in the US (3 within a five min walk is nothing to wink at), i had hoped that i wouldn't have to forego this holy day. alas:

me: hello? ben and jerry's?
them: hello. ben and jerry's.
me: hi, i was wondering if you guys participated in free cone day.
them: yes, but the date hasn't been confirmed yet.
me: oh, but on the website it says its tomorrow.
them: well, that's for the US and canada.
me: when's it for hk?
them: no one knows...
me: when will they know?
them: no one knows...
me: but you guys do do it.
them: yes, but the date hasn't been confirmed yet.
me: well, how will i know when the date has been confirmed?
them: i don't know...

so, ben and jerry's is having a free cone day...someday. and when they have it, i will probably be sitting here, oblivious. the horror!

i know i'm spoiled and hedonistic--are you really that surprised?

whine and cheese

reading all the posts/emails about smite sectionals. it feels like it matters so much more than anything i've done in a year. i can't believe its been a year.

maybe smite is a cult. i can't imagine feeling much more deeply about a religion. maybe religion is only people loving the same thing very much.

everyone is in limbo. i hope everything turns out alright. but even if it doesn't turn out alright, it will. i think that's one of the biggest things i learned last year. we are bigger than results.

and then mr. vonnegut died last week, and i didn't even know about it. i'm so out of the loop here.

the world is a dangerous place

today i hurt myself in the shower with the shampoo dispenser. yes, i was that desperate to apply apply apply rinse reapply. long haul flights always make me feel icky, and yes, i'm bathing about 12 hours after my flight...but hey, no one likes rewashing hair within 12 hours of washing hair...which is my way of saying i didn't want to shower and then shower again after spinning class. right, so i was at the gym, in the stall with the extra tall shower head (not that i'm extra tall, but it's a special stall and it makes me feel special and greedy when i have it, my precious, all mine, screw you actually-tall ppl...its kinda like how ppl like to use handicap stalls even tho they're not handicapped, unless, i guess, if you're a hoverer in which case the extra tall toilet must be a nuisance--personally, i only hover in chinese restaurants (and equally sketch situations) b/c chinese ppl are known to hover and the seat is usually already pissed on anyways--and yes, i did compare tall ppl to handicapped ppl, take that! and no, of course i'm not bitter that i'm...not as tall as either of my parents, sigh).


ahem. so i was pushing the button for my normal 10 counts of shampoo (shush, the stuff is awfully weak, so don't talk to me about ecological footprints and such truck), applied, decided not enough suds, went for another 10 counts, but i got cocky, oh yes, hubris invites the fall yet again. but no, i didn't fall...it's a figurative fall. instead of using my left hand to push and my right to collect, i used my right to do both, and BAM! around count 9 (or 19 cumulative), my thumb slips hard and bangs (BANG) into the...something...i'm actually not sure exactly what happened, but it led to a world of pain and whimpering and now my thumb is bruised under the nail. it doesn't actually hurt unless i press on it, which means its pretty out of the way, except when i grip a frisbee...which you know, i like to do every once in a while. so f'ing a, league is gonna be painful tomorrow. boo. i hate pain. which is why i do dangerous things like this:

snapshots

kohl's has a mannequin in a wheelchair. georgia makes me smile in small and surprising ways.

last night i had a cinnabon for dinner, washed it down with hot cocoa con real milk--lactaid. speaking of which, they built a trader joes 2.5 miles away from home. 4 real dumpsters. count em. next time i come home, i'm bringing one of those headlamps. dive in.

new fav show? hannah montana. that's right, i said it.

home on the range

ah the return to america. so far, i've eaten a lot, shopped a lot, and planted myself firmly in front of the tv. the joys of the homeland. i can't believe how much i've missed SVU, and all these random sitcom shows...when i look at tv guide, i feel like i've won the lottery (happy gilmore is on tuesday!).

speaking of which, i won the lottery! WOOHOO!! it happened just as i imagined...i needed change for the pay phone, so i bought a 1 dollar scratch lotto thingy...i needed to match one of the six numbers to the serial number. the serial number was seven...lucky lucky...at the first number, i was hopeful...5. the next one was 1, then 3, then 1 again...only two more...come on lucky 7! and then, on the last scratch...it wasn't 6, it wasn't 8...i won! i won! 7, you fearful beast, they told me you 89, but i didn't respect, yo. now, i believe! i was shitfaced grinning when i went to the register to claim my $3. baby steps. next time, i'm shooting for $5. after paying parking, i was still fi'ty cents in the blue. HOOHA!

i love this photo. thank you minwah, the disc seems to love your face. i think you should use it as your facebook photo. and some more of the kiddies that i just had to share...i love this team.

can someone give me some names to go with the new faces?

dor-dor loves her sauces. saucy wench.

phne-ne, not so much.

anyways, the spring in GA is really pretty. every tree in my neighborhood is in bloom. and its not that gag me blooming of botanical gardens...its dogwoods and oaks and light pink flowers. really relaxed.

roily

carleton does well at centex?! stanford loses in the quarters?! UCSB wins?!!! what the heck is going on? yelena, elucidate pls? is it because of subbing errors again? is emory tanking this year? how is wisconsin so strong? i'm so out of the loop...

does anyone have ultimax results? i only saw the men's on upa...

absolut junk

the first water made me yelp curses wide-eyed. i always forget about the salt.

we sat in the sand and picked pork with our fingers. passing joints and chocolate milk, all feeling terribly magnanimous, terribly worldly. we broke an oar on the canoe for rowdiness, but we kicked and pulled our way to shore. the waves came and went. we rinsed our sand-crunched hands and our shivering limbs, scurried back to our laughing circle, braves baptised in salt.

sampling

it's been a while since i've written a real post. i'm not sure what i'd define as a real post...i guess one that's not obligatory...i guess none of these are really obligatory. anyways.

i think we're gonna wimp out of the track workout tonight. it's really too much hassle to travel 30min there and back on a friday night. i'm really a little too full of (free) greasy chinese food. we're gonna jog on a treadmill at the gym instead...and then play at the arcade or in a pool hall. i'm not really dressed to go to the pool hall...it's in the fashionable part of town.

apparently, by real post, i meant a rambly post. i'm ok with that.

someone in the bathroom pees in spurts. i can hear her.

we have a junk trip tomorrow, which i think is more about alcohol than anything else. i've never been known to forego a junk trip. boats make me feel faraway and adventurous: the dread pirate roberts. still too cold for a dip tho. maybe i'll bring some hkupa discs to sell to the crowd.

next week is a huge conference for work and then the rugby 7's. a big deal. every client is bringing their little dog and their auntie em. every one will be sloshed all week. some guy decided to hold a town hall meeting at 7 in the morning at a remote location with the exec board. i wonder how many ppl will show up and how many of them will still be rockin the party last night.

the best sin=gluttony (why is it even a sin, really?)

someone just shouted lunch for the entire floor! that costs USD $1000! i just saw $1000 worth of food! my life is now a bit more complete.

and guess what? i'm still stuffed...

head, elbows knees and toes (knees and toes)

i did a headstand in yoga today. all by myself (sorta), for maybe all of 15 seconds. guruprit spotted me for lots of it, but for the most part, i was swaying on my own (mommy wow! i'm a big girl now). that shit is tiring. i think i'm disproportionately afraid of falling backwards. once in dance class when i was young* i tried to do a handstand , succeeded for a bit before flopping backwards and knocking out the breath (floor=marble)...painful. i was 6 then, the memory was bad enough to stop me from ever doing handstands sans wall/spotter again. until now...dum dum dum!

i can also touch my head to the ground in a triangle pose and touch my head to a spot a bit past my knees when i sit and reach. both feats of which i'm Particularly Proud.

a women in the class yelps like a little dog whenever guruprit tries to position her. i love it. i don't actually think she's in that much pain, her poses don't look very intense...maybe her tolerance for life is just plain low. wouldn't that be awfully boring? to yelp whenever you pang. what else is there? warm tea and broccoli. yes, i've discerned all this from watching her in yoga class. call me cassandra. actually, call me condescending.

yesterday we had a team dinner at lian, a thai/viet restaurant in ifc. hurrah for three course meals! boo for mornings after three course meals. the appetizers were meh...i had some eggplant thing that appealed more on paper than in form. dinner was pretty good. ox cheek curry with french bread and small potatoes. the slightly slippery parts of the meat tasted best...until i thought about it coming from inside the ox's mouth...for some reason, i'm more ok with eating gristle from the inside of an ox's crotch than from the inside of its mouth. for dessert, i had banana pudding with honeycomb ice cream. and then i was stuffed...and then it was morning...and then i'm still stuffed. so here i am, stuffed.

care package!

i just got a big box of goodies from lori + a lovely handwritten letter from laura, and now my desk looks like it swallowed a fun house and puked. i am so lucky to have such friends. care bear stare!

included in my sweet sweet package:

lori's wedding disc (YES! btw, why is jj holding a stick?)
some floppy pink tentacled "flying disc"
a wig!
a jar of PEANUT BUTTER! (EXTRA CRUNCHY!!!!)
ketchup from IN N OUT! (i told my coworker that in n out has better ketchup than hk, which sent her into a couple minutes of sputtering, "but but see? it's still from heinz, it's still from heinz!"...i did a good job of holding my ground on in n out supremacy).
pom poms--this sent my coworker into a spiral of jealousy. she's always wanted to be a cheerleader (upon which we learned that we both liked sweet valley high as kids, and we both preferred elizabeth to jessica). presents are always better when someone else wants them too.
squeezy toys (my favorite of which is the gas barrel...it reminds me of the tmnt's).
and did i mention, a lovely letter from laura with pink flamingo stickers.

now lori, i will finally send you that postcard i wrote while hungover. thank you thank you. you always knew how to make me feel like a kid (with a fairy godmother--the good kind, not the shrek kind).

happy holidays

today is PI DAY. eat some pie, yall. happy PI dAY.
today is also WHITE DAY. in japan and korea, it's the day on which boys give girls chocolates to reciprocate the girls' valentines day's chocolates. if you are a boy, you should give me chocolate, even if i didn't give you chocolate on valentines day (a likely scenario).
tomorrow is the IDES OF MARCH. the day on which caesar died. there is no food associated with this day, but i'm told the romans were famous bulemics.
ST PATRICKS DAY falls on this weekend. i think we all know what we need to do and the extent to which we should do it when that time comes.

so, 2 holidays associated with eating and 2 holidays associated with spewing. this is a special week indeed.

yesterday was our first league game, during which i learned something very important: i no longer know the lyrics to ice ice baby (GASP!). a little piece of my high school self has died. let us bow our heads in mourning (yo vanilla, word to your mother).

not an addict

baby, that's a lie.

i've been (psuedo) addicted to ibuprofen and caffeine. lemme tell ya, they're nothing. i'm in the clutches of something much more powerful, much more insipid now. if you're my friend, pls, intervene.

i stayed up till 4 am last night playing wii with jon. we beat the stupid game at midnight and spent three more hours driving around in stupid circles. wii on a school night? not a good idea...today, i can barely focus my eyes. this stuff is in my veins.

i realize my blog is becoming about my wii...i can't help it. this is what my life is about right now. this is what addiction does to me...i will never again poo poo a mommy blog. i promise.

how funky is your chicken?

i'm really excited about something, but i'm not sure what.

it may be due to the kung pao chicken i just ate. but in fact, i've been super excited for a while now (read: 4 hours). at first i thought it was due to the fun, cold wed night disc we played last night. then i thought it was the need 4 speed i played this morning (thus making me 15 min late leaving my apartment for the second day in a row. not my fault. i was involved in the longest police chase ever, and i had inflicted too much public damage to let them catch me--it would've cost a fortune--at one point, there were 20 cruisers after me), or perhaps the brisk (if anything in a country without a fall can be brisk) jog i took to work.

can you taste the frazzled i'm emanating? i can. if anyone's ADD right now, i am. look inside my head. you'll see a striped hot air balloon floating in an electrical storm with power enough to drive google (it may help if you've taken some shrooms lately...or some:

KUNG!PAO! CHICKEN!!!


)

priorities and judgments

i now have two controllers + two nunchucks + 4 games for my wii (dbz, need 4 speed, super monkeyballs, wii sports). in exchange, i have much less sleep.

my friend jon has a new flat with a new ps3. in exchange, i have much less sleep.

last friday, moms and i journeyed back to the motherland, good ole PRC. something about the mainland makes me happy. maybe its the public service announcements in mandarin then cantonese instead of cantonese then mandarin. maybe its the cheapness, the sketchiness, the look-out-or-you'll-lose-your-nose-ness...whatever it is, its home (or at least home in a way that hk is not).

despite the ceremony of 1997, hk is not china. how can i tell? there are no (one speed) bikes on its streets (ppl here only bike for sport). the cheapest meal still costs around 20hkd (as opposed to 8 rmb). taxis follow traffic regulations. i rest my case.

you know what's weird? i miss chinese food. like real chinese food...well, maybe northern chinese food. man oh man.

well, i thought maybe this post would go somewhere, but now i'm suddenly starving, so toodaloo, and i'm gonna go grab my subway from the fridge. yeah, told ya this isn't really china.

resurrection

remember when my uhlsport shorts died? meryl sent me hers as a replacement! she's such a sweetie, but she forgets that her waist is much smaller than mine, and i'm no elvio. i'm gonna make my teddy bear wear them instead. his name is Lovely. i love you, meryl.

if anyone needs really small uhlsport shorts, pls let me know, and i shall send them on. we'll be the sisterhood of the traveling uhlsport shorts.

other things thai

• we stayed in a cute backpackers hotel with guest-graffiti'd walls and bamboo hall walks.
• the mosquitos stayed with us
• an army base hosted the fields, pausing us daily for the flag raising.
• an armed man on a pedestal kept constant watch over the wc.
• gun drills punctuated sideline cheers and jeers.
• we munched tropical fruit and porkribs (southern style, juicy).
• the thai masseuse imprinted her fingers into my thigh--the fading bruise resembles a bite mark.
• i drowned my good sense in tequila+vodka and smeared my dinner throughout the bushes of the land.

ruminations from bangkok

i can't seem to get it up for tournaments, especially as a handler on a coed team (especially in a hat tourney). i've taken to caffeinating to stoke up, but is it worth it? the stakes aren't high enough...it doesn't feel like my play makes much of a difference (someone will fuck up eventually)...there's not enough running on d (its more of an attention span exercise than an athletic one against most girls). these are my excuses. why can't i stay motivated? ultimate is ultimate after all...shouldn't i rise to the challenge? be the big fish in a small pond (enough cliche's yet?)...what to do.

what should my priorities be whilst playing asian ultimate? to spread the sport? to enhance understanding of rules? (and how nitpicky should i be?) to improve myself? if i'm called as a handler, am i allowed to go deep? am i allowed to make the fast break? am i allowed to try 30% throws in the hopes of making them better? should i stay disciplined? how slippery is the slope to bad ultimate?

aside: there's also a tendency for handlers to make all the cuts. since there's very little d and the strongest ppl tend to play handler, its very easy to make continuous up the line cuts. i guess there are situations in which this could be useful, but i think it makes the mid cut really really hard to time (off of whom should you cut?). it's very frustrating for the mid to have to cut and clear and cut and clear because the handlers keep squirreling. also, communication isn't good enough amongst handlers to where the cuts are freebies...as in, misfires still happen..,and then you've just turned it on a 5 yard pass. this behavior forms a cycle: handlers squirrel, mids stop cutting (because what's the use?), handlers complain that mids aren't cutting and squirrel more. sometimes, stagnation is not a mid's fault, it's a handler's.

d is even trickier. if i shut my girl down, it usually doesn't make any difference. they wouldn't have thrown to her anyways. so bait? poach? will i know how to stop baiting, poaching when i need to? will i remember how to cut against real defense?

my attitude makes a difference to the team, but i'm not a happy player; i'm a ball-of-hate player. i'm not good at coddling newbies unless they're serious about the sport. i need to learn to challenge myself. it's all been said before. i need to acquire a long forehand.

three things to work on:
1. acquire long forehand (still!)
2. cutting deep (i've actually got height/read on most girls here)
3. timing the first cut better (i've slipped a lot on starting my cut early enough, but i blame some of it on not knowing my handlers very well). i also tend to carry my cut a little too far. clear faster.

so basically, i need to be a better handler, a better deep, and a better mid. easy.

in the name of love

instead of going to the charity event with the chocolate fountain, we went to the racetrack for vday. hey, jockeys are a good cause too. apparently that's all i've got to say about that.

mum's here, and with her came my new wii and my new crocs. as her first act of business, she broke one of my fridge magnets, and today she called me at work to tell me that maybe she's reprogrammed my tv so my cable doesn't work anymore. yay mumsy! but now she's at home cooking me din-din, and tonight we're getting matching haircuts.

cow eyes

i just walked by a pair...sitting on a counter...watching me. the shock was what got me. one second i was alone, minding my own, and the next they were there...watching me. you could see bits of blood where the optic nerve connected, but otherwise they were pristine, white, a bit deflated. you could imagine putting them in your mouth, bursting them with your gums--fish roe sashimi. the word Pair has never so aptly applied to the word Eyes. truly, were they a pair, crossed, one short of an ellipse but following me nonetheless..watching. I've called them Hedgar and Mae. Be good, HM watches.

more sloppiness

today is shaping up to be a crappy crappy day. i've made a million mistakes at work, just barely avoiding losing money. maybe they should put up hazardous signs around my desk. i haven't felt this worthless since 003. the only thing i've eaten today is an apple and a slice of greentea cheesecake from the mandarin (which elaine got for her birthday). well, that and a fruit rollup.

which brings us to the bright spot: alicia and jon got me two boxes of fruit rollups from olivers and delivered them to my lobby! i was smack in the middle of finding out about/standing up to/trying to clear up The Blunder when they arrived so i couldn't go down to meet them, but they left the fruit rollups with our receptionist. Brian, a team member, later delivers them to my desk, whereupon the WHOLE FLOOR erupts in OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH. they might as well have started to chant, "lily has a boyfriend". i swear, these ppl are worse than grade schoolers. my face turned bright red, and no amount of explanation would persuade them that my bag contained fruit rollups instead of love testaments. i was halfway to crawling under my desk.

V for vanity and vexation

i don't understand the love affair with rain shower heads. not only do they make me feel like a drowning turkey, they're inescapable. i literally had to stand to one corner of the stall and wrap my arms around the stream to reach for my elmo shampoo. i love my elmo shampoo. poo on the stupid wupid showerhead for standing between us. happy vday yall.

guruprit

he bent a girl over herself until she sucked air between her teeth. then he giggled at her behind his beard. such is guruprit, the yoga teach.

wildthang

i keep putting off this post until i feel more inspired, but i'm going to bangkok this weekend so then i'll hafta write about that instead...

alright, here goes. i went dirtbiking and now believe that i can ride a motorcycle. i changed gears, didn't stall (overly), and only fell off once. i'm proud of that fall because it shows that i was pushing myself. it helps that i didn't get hurt. i think i got all the way up to fourth gear (didn't ever hit fifth...what time is it?). my tires definitely left the road after some of the hills, but i wouldn't call them jumps...i did, however, manage to jump the atv (i know because the landing jarred my knees). i'm going back the first chance i get in pursuit of that elusive fifth gear. the site also has "war games", which is distinct from paintball in that you shoot bb's at each other but no paint is involved. i think i'll stick to biking for now...anywho, that's another obstacle eliminated on my way to spydom. for those of you keeping count (aka me), remaining items include tango, russian, knife throwing, gun shooting, acquisition of more wigs, the ability to keep my mouth shut, guts.

alicia was relegated to the beginner's track for most of our 2 hour run because she almost hit an attendant...poor girl was frazzled because the last time she was on a moped, she ran it into a brick wall roughly 20 m away. her passenger was not pleased. neither was the owner of the moped (the wall, i imagine, stoically endured her assault).

ALSO. i am no longer going to regionals. sorry for misleading those of you whom i misled. i am going to jazzfest (as should you).

ALSO ALSO. my mommy is coming in two weeks and she's bringing me a wiiiiiiiiiiiii. she is not bringing extra controllers or extra games (if you want to buy me an early birthday present, i udnerstand). in anycase, WIIIIIIIiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.

rgds,
lily.