Memories

Guess what that is.

Yes, that’s me, holding a gun. I’m not sure exactly how it came to be in my hand, but I think it started by my parents buying a Wii + game pack with some shooting games in it. Then my dad got this brilliant idea to take us for a fun family day at the shooting range. Parents thought it might be good practice in case I ever got myself into one of those drastic situations in life. Hah!

(yes, that’s actually me)

I guess I’m not one of those people who get those adrenaline rushes/thrills or whatever from holding a gun. I was pretty scared at first, actually. I mean, it’s all fun and games when you’re pointing a Wiimote to your television screen. In a shooting range, its a bit more real. Who’s to say some sharpshooting psychopath won’t just randomly turn or around or something and knock everyone out? Maybe I’m just paranoid, haha. I turned out with not too bad of an aim though. Out of my parents and Kevin (we brought Kevin), my mom shot the highest score (99), I shot the 2nd highest (95), Dad shot 3rd (80 something) and I don’t remember Kevin’s score. I was kind of tired of it after a few rounds. I can’t say I’m particularly fond of the the loud, harsh sound of the gunshot or the smell of burnt rubber. Or the idea of what the real purpose of these guns are for.

On a brighter note, I got to see the “juniors” today! Came back home and saw them across the street frolicking in Courtney’s yard. It’s so weird to think of them as “seniors” now. Honestly, they don’t act like them. =P I mean, Timmy tried to put sparkley glue on my face…to which I responded, “stop harassing the ss…freshman!” I’m…the freshman. They are the seniors? sigh* Tomorrow is the first day of school for them and I feel curiously inclined to go visit just so I can savor the…taste? of sleeping in class again. Actually I miss the kids and the teachers. I put this idea out already, but what if I were to go and pretend to be a freshman? What If I packed on a huge bookbag and dorky glasses and asked some random freshman in the halls “where’s room 1.509?” (which, btw, doesn’t exist)…The idea is tempting, but those “juniors” would probably rat me out. And I’m too pansy. =)

Anyways, I’m pretty excited. Back to school season! Can’t wait to visit the old folk tomorrow!!

I spent a good deal of yesterday and today being frustrated. Pretty silly of me actually. Now that I think back, it seems that everything stemmed from the OCD-ness + stubborness I thought I lost five years ago.

You know how sometimes you’re typing and typing and all of a sudden, one key happens to get stuck. You know something is caught underneath and the simple solution would be to shake your keyboard around and dislodge the dead bug or whatever it is. But instead, you have the irresistible urge to uproot the entire key and remove it? Normally, on a normal desktop, this is no big deal. However, I must say that I think the design of the keyboard of the Dell M1330 laptop is terrible. It took me an hour to reattach the key, which I felt was by an incredible stroke of luck, and the result was an even more dysfunctional key. I am not noob, ok, I am fairly competent in dealing with very small parts, but the tiny plastic mechanisms underneath those keys were truly headache inducing. (If these keys were designed to never be removed though, I’d have to say they are pretty neat. There’s a tiny suction cup underneath which pushes air onto the sensor to activate the key. Cool.) Then, brilliant me popped out the key a second time because OCD me couldn’t stand that it wasn’t perfectly functioning like the rest of my keyboard…and I wasted another full hour reattaching the key. While I once viewed that key indifferently, my feelings toward it have changed into dislike. It works now, but I think I would have fought to death with it…until it worked or until the plastic broke, lol. Might I mention, that particular key was “D.” D is for David. =P

I’m not done yet. Sometime, during the process of fixing my key, I punched some random combination on my keyboard which disabled my brightness control. The hotkeys could now increase the brightness bar… without increasing the actual brightness of my screen. Gooood going Maylene. I could have left it because when hooked to the charger, the screen was still nice and bright. But having the screen nice and bright while on battery is vital to my happiness. Thus, I spent an hour restarting my computer, twiddling with my control panel power settings, display settings, battery settings…nothing worked. On the verge of shipping this sucker back to Dell manufacturers, I restarted my computer, and it worked again. sighh….

So I ran a lot of errands today. Got an eye exam (prescription didn’t change..), went walmart shopping, grocery shopping, yadayada. Came back, cooked (baked zucchini/squash is yum!), cleaned, and then realized that I forgot to buy rice. Rice shortage was the whole reason I was asked to go grocery shopping in the first place. Of all the things to forget to buy…rice! I am such a terrible Asian. =( On a brighter note, I bought something totally useless and on whim because I thought it was irresistibly cute. I tend to love miniature things. Miniature anything really.

(Oh yea, reminds me. I was watching youtube videos of standup comedians the other day. Those guys are amazing =D I quote Demetri Martin: “I heard this lady say, “I love kids.” That’s nice. Little weird though. It’s like saying, “I like people…for a little while. How old are you? 14? Fuck off. You can say I like kids as a general statement, that’s fine. It’s when you get specific that you get into trouble. I love 12 year olds…” Go youtube him. Funny guy.)

So back to the useless thing I bought. Mini glasses case! For contacts!

It was like $3, nothing extravagant…just an excruciating 1/2 hour working at Abercrombie.

After I finished all those chores, I decided to fill this photoframe I bought for $2 awhile back at walmart. It took me 4 hours, no lies. Mostly because I did a lot of cutting, adjusting, changing the paper background, being OCD in general. I need one of those straight-edge paper cutters. I cannot, for the life of me, cut straight! Finally, I decided every frame needs a different background color. This is the result:

It’s still not perfect. As you can see, the amount of color border for the bottom pictures is bigger than for the top pictures. Also, the shadow that the frame’s border makes on the color border gives the illusion that the top color borders are smaller than the bottom ones. Does it make me unhappy? Kind of. But apparently there is a limit to my OCD-ness: where it crosses with patience.

I wanted to show off my 4 hours hard work to you guys but found my camera only to realize the battery was dead. My battery charger has gone missing. It is black, square, and has a medium length plug. If you have any information regarding its whereabouts or that may be useful in its safe return to me, please call. There will be a reward. For now, I’ll have to make do with my low-res webcam.

Anyways, here is how I will be remembering you guys once I go to college:

As my memory has been significantly deteriorating (read above about rice) regardless of the plentiful summer sleep I have been getting, I figured these will come in handy in the coming year(s).

20 days till college! Can’t wait! =D

I had a fight with my mom a few days ago because I was sleeping in so late. It was pretty ugly (she was REALLY angry) and we barely talked to each other for the past few days. Today, though, things just seemed to mend themselves. Maybe because we went back-to-school shopping and we both realized my stay at home is quickly drawing to an end. We also bought a Wii console today with lots of games. I don’t think I’ve had so much fun with family bonding time in awhile.

Anyways, I felt hungry an hour or so ago and crept downstairs to look for a midnight snack. When I opened the fridge I realized that my mom had made like 12 different really tasty dishes earlier today. Even though she was mad at me and probably tired, she still wanted to cook good food for me these last few weeks. We never really apologized to each other after the fight. I think we both realized where we were at fault (I will spare you the details), but have tacitly forgiven each other. Maybe it hurt her and scared her just as much as it hurt and scared me when she realized she was so angry that she couldn’t control herself. Either way, I think she feels bad…and I almost wish she didn’t because I know I was wrong. I totally aggravated the situation. Morning is not the best time to yell at me, though, sigh. Somethings are so hard to say out loud though, especially when you aren’t really accustomed to say it. Mushy stuff, apologies, and such. My parents never really say “I love you” out loud to me so I don’t have the habit either. I just pray to God my mom knows that whatever she does and however mad she gets at me, I will always love her deeply and unconditionally.

Sometimes, in the spur of the moment, we let anger and annoyance block everything rational out. We can’t see that our parents are angry or nagging because they really care about us and they’re really worried. Sometimes REALLY worried. We usually take these acts of love for granted because they are so unpleasant in nature. But they are, regardless, acts of love. Sometimes, parents will say things that we know is an exaggeration and maybe even untrue, and it’s really frustrating…but wouldn’t it be nice if we could control our anger and realize all this in that nick of time? Before we lose control, before we talk back, before we say hurtful things–things we will later regret. My mom used to always say, “when you have kids of your own, you will understand.” It didn’t really register with me then what she was saying. I’d imagine something along the lines of, “You will get your share of bratty kids who don’t know better in the future too. Then you’ll feel sorry for how you are behaving.” Hahah! Unfortunately this means that the cycle of parent/child emotional/intellectual disjoint will continue on generation after generation. That is my conclusion for today. Hopefully though, this cycle will include an eventual realization that while the actions of parents are not necessarily always commendable or right, the love that instigates their every move is nearly flawless. And for that, we should all learn to be better sons and daughters. =)

I feel super sappy today, so I shall dedicate this post to one of my bestest friends that I will miss a lot in the next few years. (Kristy, don’t puke when you read this, just enjoy the memories, ok? =P) Anyways, my first memory of her is 8th grade gym class when this really dorky looking girl bounced up to us in line and said, “Can I butt in?” We all laughed because in GA, nobody uses the phrase “butt in.” Her first impression of me, as she revealed to me today was, “that girl would look a lot better with a nose job.” I also recall telling her she needed to do her eyebrows within those initial few weeks of friendship. I don’t know if she appreciated it, but it was for her own good! =D Thus began a wonderful 5 year long journey of trials, growth, friendship, and all that sappy good stuff.

I can’t say that we were one of those joined at the hip best buddies who shared every secret and every crush. I can’t even say that we completely trusted each other at times. But it always seemed like, in the end, she was the only person I could really see eye to eye with and talk to. We schemed (evilly) together. We ranted to each other. We gossiped. We obsessed together about silly girly stuff like who was fatter and whatnot. Kristy, do you remember that terrible sophomore year in yearbook we lived through together? They say best friends 有福同享， 有难同当…well we definitely 有难同当 that year. I remember the day of yearbook tryouts you looked really pissed off and lethargic. When we left I laughed and asked you why your face was so ugly while we were in there. You said you were cramping really hard or something. Do you remember? hahaha. Well you still got stuck in that awful class with me. Thank god. I don’t know what I would have done with you. Not even kidding. Too bad I don’t remember what exactly happened in that class. I think I blocked it out cause it’s too aggravating to remember.

I don’t really remember Junior year. Probably slept through most of it. To jog my memory I looked in my yearbook to see what you wrote. This is what I found: “Dear 谢美琳，I love you as much as I love this year, and you know how much I love this year =D.” I do believe you hated junior year, but I will chose to be ignorant of that. Then you proceeded to write about what kind of guy you wanted (mixture of shin, wu a ge, etc)…so that didn’t help me much.

Senior year though, 5 classes out of 6 together. Wow. If we weren’t nodding off in class together, we were QQing together about how our grades sucked. All in all, though, I think it was a good year. We 有难同当ed together again. =P I also think we got closer and learned to just accept each other the way we were. Like, we didn’t make fun of each other or get annoyed as much. Right? Or maybe you just got really good at hiding it when you were pissed at me……….tehe. Well if you did, you shouldn’t have! I edited all your dumb essays last minute, don’t forget! ;D

When I think back, I seriously think you’ve changed so much since 8th grade. I’m having a hard time deciding whether it for the better or worse =P. On one hand, you have been totally corrupted by qiong yao and various other Chinese novels. Bu innocent le and bu yong gong le. =( On the other hand, you’ve become a lot smarter socially, a lot more considerate, and lot funnier/cuter personality wise. =D Nowadays, 大家都喜欢 Kristy. All the girls at least, but you have college to figure out the other (guy) part. Remember, lowest you can go is Tony…(jp Tony). I really think that college will bring even more change though. I think you will find that nerdiness back some and create a good balance. We can’t be young and reckless forever, unfortunately.

So here’s to our young and reckless 童年：

Us in 8th grade when we were still skinny ;P

ugly pic from phone

This set of HC 06 pics crack me up. I remember you going, “wait, how do you guys do that??” but it appears that you eventually did learn how to turn your head =P

Do you remember beta convention? I don’t think you liked sleeping in the same bed with me very much…….oh, and the 3rd pic is you attempting to make the ullzang face hahaha

I think we looked like we were having more fun than we were…..=P

David took this pic so don’t get mad at me for it!

Hahah this one is funny too…..

I know, my hair looks like a jellyfish..

Was I trying to punch you here? I think so..

Us and our nasty colored contacts…..wow, I’m so over that stage. Don’t think you are though…

Goofing off in the car..

This is what happened when we webcammed……

Here is you teaching me how to wink properly =P

Here’s you and the cute date I found you for prom…..

mehh, we look mehh

no idea what you’re doing here…but this was def during NHS

Random early senior year pics =D

Your birthday =)

Prom 08, our infamous staged/fake kiss. I think my parents would have a heart attack if they saw this….rofl

After graduation practice when we sat on those steps and had a talk about how so and so had good posture………

I love your face in this one, haha!

假装的10th fav white boy…hahahahah

Graduation favorite pic. This always makes me laugh =D

I’ll never forget how you cannot live/move from the parking lot without your GPS lololll

So many pictures, huh? Don’t worry, I’m almost done…

Senior summer whitewater trip. “Whats that?” points to Tony’s armpit scar. *Kristy and Maylene crack up and noone else knows why…*

Last big get-together *tear tear*

Right before Kristy leaves for airport. With my pretty good-bye gift =D Wish we both 打扮 more but it’s ok. We’ll take hotter pics come winter ;P

I had to leave out a lot of pics because I’m getting tired…but it’s been a long road hasn’t it? I really wish you the best of luck at Berkeley. Keep me updated with your life like you promised you would, ok? Maybe one day we can actually 有福同享. =D Until then, 加油！

Muah <3333