Just today I was given a fright because the guy my parents are hiring to remodel our bathroom came to my house. My parents had been out shopping, at Home Depot I think, but they came home after the remodeling guy did. (I don't know his name yet, actually, haha. You'll see why soon.) Well, he came into the house, so I ran off to my bedroom, since I hadn't even brushed my hair yet, and now here was a total stranger invading my turf.

I heard footsteps in the hallway and the guy's voice calling, "Xiao pengyou? Xiao pengyou?" Literally translated, that means "little friend", and I guess it's something adults use when they're talking to children. It's one of my biggest pet peeves and one of the various other reasons I dislike the Chinese language. Okay, I know that you don't know my name, but please don't call me that. Just say, "Hey, you", that would do the trick. But don't call me little friend. Yes, I am short, but I'm certainly not your friend. (Well, maybe whoever's reading this is my friend, but you know what I mean, right? Regardless, I still find "xiao pengyou" to be a very irritating expression.)

So I was forced to walk out, and he asked me, in Chinese (Mandarin, not the Shanghai dialect), how to open the back door, since he and his fellow remodeling man needed to move stuff back and forth or something. I unlocked the door and then escaped before I could feel any more creeped out. I'd been against the idea of remodeling from the beginning, but I didn't count on having two complete strangers in my house for the next couple weeks. I tried to stay out of their way, but even when I was sitting in the living room with headphones on, I could still here the horrible sounds of my poor bathroom being smashed to smithereens.

The morning is probably the worst time of day. The remodeling workers come at about 8 am in the morning. I'm usually already awake before then; usually I'd just try to go back to sleep, but since I haven't got soundproof walls or a decent pair of earplugs (believe me, I've tried; I used my noise-canceling headphones but it was too uncomfortable to sleep), I had to wave bye-bye to get enough sleep. Sure, I could go to bed earlier, but I always forget or get distracted by something or other...I should really just set my clocks further ahead (some of my clocks are already about ten minutes ahead of the "actual" time).

The other really bad part about it is sharing the bathroom. Since one of the bathrooms is occupied, all three of us have to use the other one (at least it's good that I'm an only child). It's not pleasant when the bathroom stinks and you know who just used it. Of course, I am not free from guilt, either, in that regard at least...

I am sure this is going to be a horrible few weeks and I really hope it turns out to be worth all the grey hairs it's probably giving me. I don't mean to put all the remodeling folks out of business, but honestly, I think people should just buy a house that's already in good shape. Or a nice apartment. Just not all the chaos that goes along with remodeling.

Labels: apartment, change, chinese, choice, house, housing, little friend, mandarin, remodel, remodeling, scary, strangers, work, xiao pengyou, 小朋友

Well, kind of in the literal sense, and kind of not. On Christmas Day, I was spacing out and I noticed something unusual on the ceiling. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a crack...In fact, a pretty long one. I am not sure how long the crack has been there. It could be new, it might've been forming over the course of several years. But what I do know is that it's a bad sign.

Our house is not new, that is for sure. My mother says it was built in 1945. It was remodeled once, but that wasn't recent, and it wasn't us who remodeled it anyway. My dad says the insides of the house are getting ruined and sometime we're going to have to either move out or redo our house from scratch. I hope that won't happen, but you can't prevent the inevitable; fate works in strange ways. When I mentioned the crack to my parents, my dad said it would probably be okay (at least for now) while my mother said, "Okay, let's remodel the house now." I don't want to move away (unless it would be to some far, exotic place like Australia, or France, or Italy, or the Hawaiian islands) and I don't want to tear down my house...But now that I think of it, that would give me a good opportunity to try apartment living. I've been wanting to live in apartment because I figure it would be interesting, and it would be good to have neighbors close by and a swimming pool that can easily be accessed. I really don't understand why people always want to buy a house so badly. Is it wanting to call something your own? Or do you just want some privacy?

Recently, my dad told me about the difference between the way houses are built. There are slab houses and houses with crawl space. If your house is a slab house, then it is built directly on top of a concrete foundation. The pipes and other things are in the concrete. If your house has crawl space, then there is some space between a foundation and the house. The space is called "crawl space" because if your pipes break or something, you can crawl under the house to fix them. If you have a slab house, then there is no crawl space, so you're in big trouble if your pipes break - you'll have to blow up the concrete. But if you do have crawl space, then you run the risk of termites. My house, in fact, probably has termites.

My mom and dad both watched a Chinese drama. In the drama, a couple wanted to buy a house. They don't have much money, so the wife asked her husband to borrow money from his parents. But the husband didn't want to do that since his parents are poor and he would feel guilty. His wife grew angry, saying she was tired of him making excuses about his family. They already had to take out a loan for a large amount of money that had a high interest rate, and the down payments took the help of neighbors and friends. My mom complained, "Why do they want to buy a house when they really can't afford it?" Why indeed.

On Christmas Day, I visited my parents' friends' house. My parents' friends' son is visiting (he lives in Seattle) and he brought his dog along with him. His dog is a Shetland sheepdog, I believe (at least partially, maybe he is mixed with some other breeds). The dog looks quite different from the last time I saw him. He seems to be bigger and has a lot of hair, even though my parents' friends insist he was already like that. This time the dog was a lot friendlier to me than last time. (Or maybe I'm better at dealing with dogs now. When I was in Australia, I got to interact with my mom's friend's dog...) He watched me whenever I tried to eat something (of course, animals find human food to be MUCH tastier) and let me pet him and even tried to lick me. (I really don't understand why a dog would want to lick you, not that I really mind or anything, but it's not like I taste good....DO I?!)

My mom was reading the newspaper (in Chinese) and there were some pictures of some objects. I guess it was some recommendations of things to buy. There was lipstick that has seven colors you can use...Isn't that like one of those pens with many colors? Wow. The most interesting thing, though, was the key hider. It was supposed to look like a sprinkler on your lawn or one of those outdoor lights. Actually, you can put your keys in them, so if you forgot your keys, you could have a spare key outside. But I think that's dangerous. Any ill-minded person who reads that newspaper article will know where to look for someone's keys and would be able to break into your house...

Labels: apartment, chinese, crack, crawl space, disguise, dog, drama, food, house, key hider, lick, lipstick, money, moving, newspaper, old, risk, shetland sheepdog, slab house, termites

Recently I went to my dad's friend's apartment to go swimming. When I arrived, there were young boys running around and voices of people. The apartment had a miniature play structure. It seems to me that an apartment complex is like a little community. Since I don't talk to my neighbors much, it makes me wonder all the time what it's like to live in an apartment. But my mom says you don't want to live on the bottom floor since you can hear the people who live directly above you when they walk around in their apartment.

The apartment pool is not as big as my piano teacher's apartment's pool, nor does it have a shower and a little bathroom next to the pool (besides the bathroom in the gym, which is different) but at least it had a spa and I finally had the chance to go swimming. However, I had a bad feeling about it and kept complaining. It turns out I was right, because it was a windy, slightly cold evening compared to the rest of the nights recently, and also the spa jets weren't working. My dad kept hitting the button but it just wouldn't turn on.

That's when I stepped in. Even if the water was certainly warm enough, my mom wanted the bubbles. So I tried to twist the weird white things in the spa. (I wasn't successful, maybe those things aren't for turning) Then I got up and hit the button. A few minutes later, the spa turned on! The skeptics insist that the spa jets just had a very, very late reaction time, but I would much rather believe that I am a "special chosen one".

Speaking of pools...I've been thinking, and I've decided that if I could have a pool, it'd be like this... The pool would be a huge, huge circle, and in the middle there'd be a metal bar running along a small kind of round platform. (If you wanted to, you could hang on to the bar to rest or climb up over it and stand "in the center of the world") The ceiling would be made of glass so you can see the sky. It would be beautiful with the sun shining through and reflecting on the water. Perhaps the ceiling looks like this...


Too bad there is certainly no room to have a pool like that in my house. And maybe my backyard could contain a small swimming pool, but it would be no where near as big as I want it, and besides bugs would drown in the pool. It brings back some not-so-pleasant memories of the time I went to Saratoga Springs. There were dead bees and flies in the water. *shudders*

So, you may have heard that I am currently part of the Summer Reading Celebration for both San Jose Library and Santa Clara County Library. I saw something unexpected when checking my account for the San Jose Library's summer reading. They'd denied one of the reviews I'd sent in! How rude! I couldn't even edit it to send it in again (Santa Clara lets you edit already sent reviews, I think, but I'm not sure about San Jose). But at least it still counts as a book read.

Last week, I was working on doing some test prep problems that came from a book from the library. I came across some rather...interesting answers to questions. (These were multiple choice questions, so these answers are all incorrect ones)

Q: Why did the Aztecs sacrifice so many people?
A: They loved to watch people die.

Q: According to the code of chivalry, what did knights need to do?
A: Knights chased the servants around the castle.

Q: What happened when King Henry VIII demanded a divorce but the pope refused to let him?
A: The king published a pamphlet called "Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants".

Q: Which of these are Italian city-states?
A: Paris and Genoa. (Paris is in France, of course)

Q: What is the Counter Reformation?
A: People attempted to remodel a counter.

Q: Why were heretics discriminated against?
A: They had long hair.

Labels: anger, answer, apartment, button, ceiling, circle, funny, glass, indoor, jets, outdoor, questions, review, round, spa, summer reading celebration, swimming pool, test prep

Well, that would sure be useful. For one thing, it would extend my summer vacation (I think the summer vacation is 10 weeks, something like that) and it would give me more time to get things done. But probably having more hours in a day - but not needing more sleep - would be more helpful. Even if it's the summer I don't really feel laid-back. True, I am watching a lot more TV lately but the main purpose of that is to have sound in the house. It's way too quiet if you're here by yourself.

Just the other day I went to my piano teacher's apartment for a recording session. It was my bad luck that I woke up around 9 pm only on Thursday (usually I wake up around 8 pm. I guess I'm either too used to school or the sun wakes me up). My piano teacher's apartment is a pretty nice place. I like the way the apartments look, the top ones being painted a lighter color than the bottom ones (they're only two stories high) even if the wood siding usually bothers me. But in this case it looks just find. (Mostly I prefer stucco on the walls) There's a pretty good pool and one jacuzzi/spa, and there's flowers planted around the sign with the name of the apartments. Also, there's a lot of grass and big trees.

It may or may not surprise you that I want to live in an apartment someday. My parents thought I was crazy - I mean, a lot of people wish they could own a house but they don't have enough savings or the bank won't let them have a mortgage, and such. But I think it would be kind of cool. I mean, you have neighbors so close to you - I barely talk to mine except for that one time I got locked out of my house (let's not get into that, at least not right now). And if you have a nice apartment you'll have access to a pool and you can easily get help if you set your apartment on fire or something. I know this since one time my dad accidentally set his home on fire, back in Shanghai, his hometown, but a neighbor dumped a bucket of water on it and put it out.

I especially have my eye on property near the local library. There are townhouses and condos there, some are pink and the others are kind of yellowish creamish. I would like to have one of those, especially if it has a nice, glass door. I just love doors with glass in them. It's a convenient location, too. You have access to restaurants like Curry House (a Japanese restaurant with curry and spaghetti and weird things like tofu cheesecake), Amici's Pizzeria (nice pizza, and nice restaurant too), and Red Mango (a great frozen yogurt shop). Not only that, but the library is very near by, which is very useful for people who go to the library a lot.

I've recently had inspiration to write a story, and I had better write it down before I lose the idea and never remember it ever again. Should I type it up, by using something like Microsoft Word (or even this blog could be a place to write), or should I use a notebook? I have plenty of notebooks and it is easy to get more of them, so that won't be a problem. And it's a lot easier to carry around a notebook than having to lug around a laptop. But my hand always hurts if I write too much. I wonder which would be better.

Labels: apartment, condo, convenient, laptop, library, notebook, piano, record, restaurant, story, swimming pool, television, time, townhouse, vacation

I know, that may sound like an imitation of Dr. Seuss. But it was catchy, so I thought I'd use it for my post title today. I've been going to my mom's office during the spring break. When we were driving to a restaurant for lunch (Romano's Macaroni Grill), we passed by a rather ugly-looking field of grass. In the field were many sheep! They didn't have so much hair so that they looked fluffy but you could still tell they were sheep. I was pretty surprised, but my mom says that companies use sheep to eat up the grass so the ground will be more even and easier to traverse.

So, I was walking to the staircase with my mom at her office, since we leaving, and there some of my mom's fellow workers were chatting. (I don't know whether they were talking about work or just having fun.) They thought I looked like my mom's sister! This is odd because I don't have that much resemblance to my mom and also because I don't want to look like I'm someone old enough to be working. (Though we have a similar height and all, we aren't that much alike besides that.) So I was a bit offended by that. -_-;;

I look more like my dad anyhow, so a lot of people say that. I wonder what I would like if I were a boy instead? I think I would look like basically a younger version of my father. But my mom thinks if I were male, I would look like a male version of her. So who knows? I can't just change my gender, or I'd be like Michael Jackson. *shudder*

Right now my dad has become my art slave. (No, I don't mean the kind of art slave on the Internet where you pay someone to do any graphics/drawing/coding requests you have) Since I am very busy with my children's story, I draw the pictures and color small things, and he colors the big things. That way he doesn't get lazy and I have time to relax once in a while. (I am very tired from stress, lack of sleep, and carsickness. I still get carsick on long rides. Too bad we can't move to those nice apartments next to the orange grove which is close to my parents' offices. They want me to go to a good school, so I can't move there.)

Recently I finished reading Chicks with Sticks: KnitWit. It's the third book in a trilogy about some girls who become friends because of their knitting. It's too high-school centered, what with all that gushy stuff, so it doesn't count as one of my favorite books, but it wasn't too bad either. It does teach you about different colleges (at least the third book does). I hadn't known that they have a fair for you to see what kind of community service you can do, or that there was even a college called Bryn Mawr.

I was reading a manga called Dream Saga just recently. I used to go to Borders and just read the manga while I was there, but I don't visit Borders that often, so it was hard. I saw it in the library and so snatched it up quickly. Right now I am starting on the fifth and final volume. I hardly remember the characters anymore since I haven't read it for so long, but I'm starting to get it again.

Apparently the author likes to talk about what music she's listening to. In a lot of manga books, there are side columns or bottom sections here and there with things such as character profiles, splash page info (splash pages are those pages at the beginning of a "chapter" which are big and detailed), and answers to readers' questions. So I started investigating the music the author was listening to, just to buff up my huge playlist even more.

Labels: apartment, art slave, books, college, comparison, dream saga, family, macaroni grill, manga, music, office, picture book, playlist, questions, sheep

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