my lousy high school day

I wasn't going to write about this, because it's pretty humiliating and some people will not want to hear about the very slim chance there was a teeny tiny scratch on the car...but anyways...

so today is the day before thanksgiving, what was supposed to be an awesome day. Just get through the work day and four day weekend. Yesterday was a lovely catered Thanksgiving lunch by the company, of which I took home the most food.

So then here's how my day starts...

I forget to put on deodorant, well it still could be ok because hopefully I won't sweat that much.

And then it just gets better.

So what could be more high school than high school than getting a zit and forgetting to put on deodorant?

How about backing up into a curb in the parking lot on my way home?

And then when the car hits the curb, I put it into drive which was actually Neutral  which of course means that the car is not going anywhere, so then I think I've put it straight up on the curb and it's not moving and how the hell do you get a car off a curb if its not moving?

well luckily I finally figure out what an idiot I was being and put it into drive, and drove home without much incident and poured myself a nice tall glass of wine and then a margarita to top it off.
Because I'm certainly not in freaking high school anymore (despite having all kinds of dreams about that constantly) and I'm an adult dammit. Bad days will happen I guess. I'm sure tomorrow will be better.

Unless my face totally breaks out, I run out of deodorant, I crash the car into my own mailbox all before leaving to have dinner with my fiancee's family.

:(

Happy Freaking Thanksgiving.

gets on my nerves

An ode to all the places here with terrible service. At the moment I can only think of two. But those two will forever stand out in my mind and be the standard on which I judge all places that suck at service.

The Diner: wonderful bacon and decent burgers, if you're hungry for breakfast...like real American style eggs, toast, sausage, the little thing of jelly that's never enough...then the Diner is a perfect place to go. But only go if you're feeling hungry two hours from now. The wait isn't that long, Taiwanese people usually just sit around their finished food talking (and by talking I mean tweeting with the person across the table) for about two hours. So I guess the staff is used to just ignoring tables for hours on end. 

I guess it's a cultural thing but when I go to to a diner I would rather eat then play on my phone and have my food still hot when it's served to me. The staff there is adept at looking the other way when you try your best to look ready to order. I have found that they will respond to the taxi hail about half the time. That requires one of them to look in your direction as you're frantically waving. What you really need to do is snap your fingers, then at least they have no excuse because you're obviously trying to get attention by both sight and sound. Of course there is the dropping my empty water glass on the floor method which is the surest way to get someone to come over. At least they don't run out of food.

OnTap: A lovely British pub with towers of draft beer and football games on tv, this place has xbox kinect and a giant connect four to play with along with darts and jenga and alright food. I did get food poisoning after eating a Ceaser salad and drinking a lot of beer there one time but other than that...good burgers and nice music. But again, don't expect a drink anytime soon, best to arrive already double-fisting two beers from 7-11 while you wait for their staff to notice you (they even have a foreigner working there so you KNOW she's not afraid to practice her English). In fact it was that same employee who chased us outside and asked if we paid our bill. We totally cancelled our order before the drinks were poured, it was wasn't until we asked to cancel it did the bartender actually start to pour them and the waitress rushed to put the order in and print our tab. And then we got a reluctant ok to go from our waitress while miss too busy talking to her friends to take our order in the first place runs out after us. Of course I won't be going back there anytime soon, at least until I dye my hair another color and lose 30 lbs and reconstruct my nose. 

I understand why they don't tip here. 

oops. oh well, Thanks Brianne!

so for the first time in my life I've had my eyebrows done! They've been plucked (by a friend) and shaved  (by the makeup lady who works for the photo studio). There was less pain than I thought there would be and hopefully they won't grow back like armpit stubble.


And speaking of annoying don't you hate it when you (ever so thoughtfully and painstakingly and over coming shyness-ly) comment on a blog and then it says it will be published after being reviewed...and then you go back later and forgot if you actually commented or not because it hasn't shown up yet (if it ever does, but that's a whole other kind of shame and madness). 

So either I quit commenting or just multi comment  the same thing again and again until it shows up. I'm like good spam! Back to my eyebrows though...not too much, nothing crazy, just cleaner around the edges.


and for that I'd like to thank Bri

children in zombie movies= superfluous

I believe a fellow friend of mine and a supreme movie buff agree on this. Children have no place in post zombie epidemic world especially when it comes to surviving those first few months. They not only have no defensive skills (shooting things on xbox doesn't count as training) and they take up resources that could otherwise be used to protecting more valuable members of your newly formed survival tribe of ass-kickers, breeders, and assorted professionals.

The Leader

The Dr.

The Teacher

 Don't get me wrong, the world needs kids more than ever after wiping out most of the population. They just need to come along after zombie proof fortresses have been fortified and everyone has had a few months of zombie eradication training.




Spoiler Alert (but who didn't see it coming anyways)


Annoying child #1 Sophia from Walking Dead 

Sophia (the kid that wandered away after being told to stay put, who got lost after being found and again wandered away after being told to stay put, and then got zombified after people wasted time and energy on looking for her) is an excellent example of a kid that just had it coming. Superfluous to both the plot and zombieland in general I was happy she was taken out of the story, why did it have to take so freaking long though? We all knew she was long gone, it was just a matter of finding mutilated remains or infected walking corpse. No teddy bear-toting rainbow shirt-wearing pre-teen who is in charge of washing clothes is really worth a week's worth of searching for. I am glad there is closure, and she finally got the bullet in the head she was destined for.

Annoying Child #2 ? from Walking dead

The Cop's son ( I even forget his name, that's how much I find him useless) not only wanders off, but never responds to his name. His mom calls, his dad calls, everyone freaking calls his name and he's never within earshot of someone with a gun. That right there is in direct opposition to survival of the fittest; you know how much time is spent wasted on looking for this useless kid?

No one bothers to teach him how to shoot, his mom does everything to keep him 'safe' and not 'jaded to violence' while people are ripped to shreds and rotting in front of him.

He opens cars doors with bodies inside, he loses himself in the woods and pokes zombies with sticks, he steals guns and doesn't use them directly resulting in the death of a valuable member of the team...I mean kid who goes looking for trouble vs. mechanic...the choice is obvious.

Solution: children who annoy you = zombie bait

Simply tell little Carl (that's that crappy kid's name!) to "Stay where you are..." hide yourself behind a tree/car/anything and wait and watch while little Carl get's distracted by something shiny or has to pee or just decides that you've been gone long enough and will go look for you armed with a stick or a piece of glass and let him lead away any hidden zombies that seem to pop up out of no where even in areas that have been cleared before.

I'd imagine child zombies are easier to kill; less force needed to sever spinal cord, shorter reach and less penetrating bite.

Awesome Children 


child #1 little rock from Zombieland

Not only was she capable of defending herself, she has mastered the art of manipulation and has no qualms about leaving other people for dead, she isn't burdened by any mother whose efforts to keep her safe include getting her shot (like Carl) or getting someone else eaten (like Carl).

child #2 Hannah from 28 Days Later

While not useful in a defensive sense, she makes an effective pack mule and has nothing to lose. She even magically learns to drive a car and provide means of escape from mansion of not safety. I suppose being tall enough to reach gas pedals can make you somewhat of an asset in a drive-like-the-wind kind of situation.

 This has been brought to you by gerber anti-zombie weapons and an extreme annoyance with Walking Dead. Specifically the end of season 1 and the beginning of season 2.

I know I missed some more useless kids and even a few useful ones. Can you think of any? I'd love to illustrate more zombie attacks on the underage!

parents day? don't need no stinkin parents day

parents day for one of my classes consisted of me trying to teach, and some random moms saunter in late and proceed to chat it up in Chinese through the whole lesson.

I prep, I make some game that i can't stand playing, play nice and pretend to like the kids that I actually don't. And they can't stop talking.

typical.

sephora people....

I really don't have much else to say....other than I spent way way wayyy too much on makeup that I will never end up using because I use makeup maybe twice a month...those people at sephora just don't know when to stop...

but I did have an amazing time with my sister which hasn't happened in longer than I can remember...Daniel's Broiler for happy hour was the right way to end the day. Sadly we weren't the only lovely youngish things in there who thought so. Unfortuneatly for them we got to the piano table in the bar first and couldn't possibly be bothered to put our multiple shopping bags on the floor because, come on. It's the floor. So Miss redhead and Miss salt n' pepper were forced to squeeze in to the hump with their red wine and steak skewers.


Mwhahaha. (Dr Evil laugh)

she didn't actually spill her drink but we did take up most of the piano top where happy hour was happily taking place all around us. I guess we weren't the only ones who needed a 'ladies night Thursday outing'

i did it

I made it. no customs line too long, no aisle too cramped, nothing could stop me from coming home. I listed my place of residence as USA (mistakenly) but if you asked me where home is, without pause or thought to what customs declaration actually considers where I reside it would be right here. Pacific time zone, rainy, drizzly, lovely moss covered WA. Only my allergies have started up, I can't breath out of my left nostril and my throat is killing me with all this dry cold air.

but my offical place of residence  did cause some confusion and what must have looked like I'm hiding some massive bomb in my pocket because the nice popo at customs asked me how long I'd been in Taiwan and that being there for three years counts as living there, and asked me what i did for a living, and when i was getting married....and all kinds of other questions that I stumbled over and started sweating and switching stories and then ended up telling him all about how boyfriend's parents came to Seattle from Taiwan...


I'm not joking, that's was actually one of the first things he asked, after asking who I was traveling with, how long we'd been together, and do I have any plans of tying the knot soon...


So after that mortifying line of questioning, he got down to how long I'm planning on staying, do i have any food and how much cash I'm carrying. 

Coming from a country where cash is the local currency...and credit is almost non existent (I get paid in cash, most places only take cash, and there are just now starting to be things like debit cards) I had a whole $2000 on me. Only thats about $30 US. So when I told him I had two grand, he was doing the math in his head and coming out with insane sums of money. I corrected him and explained it was Taiwan money not US, almost had to take out the wallet and show him from the look he gave me. Do I really look like I travel around with thousands of dollars in cash on me? 

but now I'm home.

How you know you're grown up...almost

 1. When furniture shopping isn't boring anymore.

2. When you buy other 'adult' things, like light bulbs and toothpaste and shoelaces and air freshener. 

3. When your stuff is actually yours! (When mom and dad stop 'letting you use things' ) Like luggage and cable TV.

4. When 'young people' annoy you. Teenagers suck so bad! I don't understand skinny jeans on dudes, I really don't. 

5. Your cuteness and charm doesn't' work like it used to...

i'm awake

Now I'm just annoyed 

That's all. I'm awake. I'm not sleepy but I'm terribly tired. I don't want to read, my eyes are already dry and they hurt from the back. I don't want to watch tv, I'll get interested and have to finish whatever I start. 

I don't want to listen to a podcast about How Things Work, What I missed in History Class. Last time that happened I ended up dreaming about Jack the Ripper terrorizing White Chapel or Bluebeard torturing little boys or how Mary Queen of Scots never had a chance. 

asian tv annoys me. Everything has to be cute. Everything needs a fluffy animal or a model with way too fake eyelashes singing with a fluffy animal. how can you have a beer commercial with a bouncing cute tiger teddy bear thing that hands off cans of beer to 18 year olds whose hair turns green after one sip? 

what kind of marketing genius equated beer with cuteness? 

我累死了！　就要ｓｌｅｅｐ！　需要ｓｌｅｅｐ　每一天不要喝酒吃藥讓我睡覺　

Taking a break from Chinese class hasn't helped. I am currently taking a trimester off, justified by my trip back home. Didn't have the money to spare to waste on tuition and a plane ticket. 

I've probably forgotten more in a month than I learned all last trimester.

I should do something about that. But that would require getting up early and that would cut down on the few precious hours i do get. 

inspiration

i'll read my Chinese books. of course not now. later. later today. as it is 2 AM 

I'll even make some tea and use that ridiculous mug I got for being awarded Best Teacher for six months. I don't know, however long it takes them to scrape up enough names to make it worth having a ceremony for. 

honored; no way

proud of myself; kinda

wary that this is a way of getting me to do something i don't want to do later on: most definitly. 

I will get up on stage with dozens of other people, receive my plate or whatever it is this time around, and have to pretend that getting a 'golden hippo' award means something even though for me this teaching in Taiwan gig is just a speed bump in the rest of my life and has nothing to do with what I will be doing in the future (fingers crossed) 

What I won't be doing, is sleeping. 

Don't even have any milk to warm up and spike with brandy, mom's home remedy for sleepless nights. 

No nails to paint, no photos to upload. Nothing to print, no Sudoku games half finished. 

no paper to draw on, not even a single thought of a lame photoshop picture to draw. 

How do you fall asleep? Have a routine? Spike your dinner with a sleepytime cocktail of prescriptions? Hit your head on the wall?

i'm not drowsy and creative. I'm achy and irate. 

I've watched the sun come up twice this week and can find no fault in my pillows' fluffiness. My blankets fuzziness, the temperature, the volume of the ac blowing, the darkness of my room. 

my head just won't turn off. 

I've actually tried, and laugh all you want, counting sheep. 

like those claymation sheep from that one claymation movie. only I think, why a fence? why jump over? why not go around, its not  a long fence. Is it electric? then I'm counting electrocuted sheep, then its the same sheep, going round and round getting shocked. 

And why is claymation spelled wrong anyways?

Ps: I posted this, and then this was the relevant ad google came up with:

i'm too tired to worry about cropping and sizing. I can't believe that sizing is spelled right and claymation isn't even a word. 


I even stayed awake long enough to draw a picture, though not a very good one.