My mother seems to think all the gifts that I pick out are pretty much useless. I missed some of my friends' birthdays, so I figured I should just go get Christmas gifts for them. I went shopping today and picked out a few things. I think the items were somewhat useful but my mom thinks they are impractical, especially because of the cost (though we had coupons, so it wasn't so bad). When we got home, my mother started digging through our old stuff...The main reason for that was my dad's work - they were having a "White Elephant" event. That's where the workers bring in a gift and the gifts are mixed up and handed out to people. Last year my dad brought in a singing bird (not a real bird!). It was a nice thing that we got from my dad's friend's daughters, but we never really used it, so it was better off in someone else's hands.

Anyhow, while my mom was looking through our old stuff she discovered various things we never even touched again, like goodie bags from parties. She deemed it all useless things that money is spent on. I think it's necessary, though, because for one thing, it's good for the economy (especially in these not-so-stable times), and for another thing, it would be really sad if no one got gifts, right? Even if the gifts weren't particularly helpful, or cost too much to be "worth" it, it's still good that people can give gifts to each other. I mean, a gift isn't only something material, it can also make you feel like people do care about you (unless it's a gift that was insulting or showed no thought).

I really am a packrat, though. Sometimes my family tries to clean things - especially the dining table, which gets heaped with newspapers, random scratch paper with math diagrams, food dishes, and the objects that are always there, like the napkin holder. My dad complained about how he wants to throw things out, but I always insist on keeping them, so he ends up having to stash it all elsewhere. Then when we're actually trying to find something we have trouble finding it. But throwing it away seems like a waste to me. It's better we keep our trash out of the Pacific Gyre. (That's a trash heap in the Pacific Ocean, I believe. I heard it was the size of Texas...Talk about scary.) And did you know what I heard once? The two things on Earth that are visible from Outer Space are the Great Wall of China and a garbage dump in New Jersey. Wow.

On to some other news. Today, since I was at a local mall, I stopped by at Coldstone Creamery. It is still, and will remain, my favorite ice cream store. I heard some noise, so I found the source of it...A band from an elementary school was playing Christmas music on a lower level of the mall. I realized that it could even be my elementary school because my band teacher in elementary school was there. I could recognize the music because I had played it myself, several years back. It's so weird not to be playing band anymore. I know I wouldn't be good at a wind instrument because I can't breathe that well (though I don't have asthma), but still. Sure does bring back memories of the old times.

Lately, the weather has been funny. It's quite cold - in fact, my mother said it was ten degrees colder than it usually is (well, at this time of year, in this area, I would assume). It even snowed on the nearby mountains, which was really pretty. It's been either foggy or cloudy these days and so it rains often. The fog makes me confused about the time of day since it covers up the sun. I end up getting up late some mornings because of it (not schooldays, I have to get up as normal then). I also get shocked at how dark it is early in the evening. I suppose I have to get used to it. The winter hasn't even "officially" started yet, I think. So there are still a few more months to go. I figure the summer will also be extreme to balance out the unusually cold winter. Probably it'll be roasting and no one except for those cyclists in matching suits will even try to go outside.

Maybe I should go travel somewhere in the summer, to get away from the extreme weather. What kind of place would have mild weather? I would like to go to Europe - like Barcelona, Spain, or Venice, Italy - and a cruise ship would be preferred, but we still haven't made up our minds. You always need to book these kinds of things way ahead of time so I suppose I have to make a decision so we can go somewhere in the summer. I decided to stay home this winter break, which is rare for me. But I don't want to spend money on traveling anymore because I end up getting airsick, carsick, or seasick from it. XD

Labels: band, christmas, coldstone creamery, elementary school, europe, gift, junk, mall, music, outer space, snow, summer, time, trash, travel, vacation, weather, white elephant, winter

Well, the common phrase is "Thank God it's Friday", which even inspired the restaurant called TGI Friday. In fact, I saw a poll one time and it seems the majority of people pick Friday as their favorite day. (Personally, it's not my favorite day, because I still do my homework on Friday so I have the weekend free...) But it seems to me that Black Friday, which was just three days ago, is not necessarily the best day of the week to go shopping.

I didn't go shopping on Black Friday because of a few things... For one, my parents said there probably wouldn't be good deals at the stores, because this year, because of the suffering economy, stores didn't stock up a lot, so they aren't desperate to sell off their merchandise right now. There might be better deals around Christmas or some other later time. Also, the stores were probably going to be really crowded, and my family didn't want to have to deal with that. (Thus, we escaped to the museum, as mentioned in the post "A building full of life and death")

On Saturday, since my family was going to be visiting the house of their friends (the friends had a new house, which the previous owners had lost through foreclosure! Scary), we took a detour to Great Mall, figuring we could buy a few things. There were already warning signs when we were driving there. At the turn-off that eventually leads to a different mall, Valley Fair, a lot of cars were stuck waiting. We went to the mall, and were having trouble finding a parking space, but luckily my dad snagged one later on when someone else was leaving. I had expected that everyone had gone shopping yesterday, but it was a wrong assumption, just like when I assumed that no one would go to the California Academy of Sciences on Friday because they'd be busy shopping. D:

We only ended up buying one thing (I did see a few items of clothing I liked, but it wasn't worthwhile because either the price wasn't really, really cheap or the clothes were not unique) which was, surprisingly, some earthenware. We got it from the store called Daiso Japan. There are a lot of Daiso Japans popping up in my area. I've seen three of them. I like Daiso, but I can't really read the labels because it's in Japanese, and my ability to read it is practically zilch.

The good thing about going to the mall was that Hershey's was giving out free chocolate at several locations that day. They had several flavors of Hershey's Bliss, such as Raspberry, Milk Chocolate, and Dark Chocolate. I think all the flavors are yummy but my favorite is Milk Chocolate, as is typical for me. No one really cares if you come back later to take a second chocolate from a place you've already taken chocolate from. My parents think Hershey's must've lost a LOT of money that day, giving away chocolate.

Then, after a few hours squandered in the mall, we went to my parents' friend's house. It's not a bad house, even if it is one-story (I've always wanted to live in either a multiple-story house or an apartment...My house has two stories, but there is only one room upstairs which we use mostly for storage). I was surprised to see that the family keeps a chicken. The chicken is almost 8 years old now. They raised her basically since she was a just a chick. She actually lays eggs. I heard there used to be another chicken except it was eating by wild animals...Raccoons or something...Yikes. My parents' friends set up some Christmas lights around the chicken coop and stuff like that to scare off the animals.

It seems to me that middle-aged Asian people really like to watch soap operas and other TV shows. My parents and their friends were having an exciting discussion about places to watch dramas, like PP Live and PP Stream and things like that. (I am familiar with them since I have seen my mother using them. Even my dad watches dramas sometimes, though he's more of a movie person) In fact, when my mom and another friend (there were two other guests) recommended a website, the host dashed off to his computer to check out the site. I didn't see him for quite a while after that, except for when I passed his office when heading to the bathroom...Wow. He was watching dramas, I think.

Labels: asian, black friday, chicken, chocolate, christmas lights, daiso japan, drama, friends, hershey's, house, mall, shopping, soap opera, wild animals

When I was young, back in elementary school, the teachers taught me that March could arrive with two kinds of weather...A lion (bad weather) or a lamb (nice weather). I suddenly thought of how some Twilight fans keep spouting the phrase "And the lion fell in love with the lamb" what with Edward being the lion, Bella being the lamb, or whatever. I was told that Stephenie Meyer got the inspiration for her Twilight books from a dream she had. I thought maybe she had a dream about springtime, and then thought of the lion/lamb idea.

My grandmother is sick too despite practically being across the world. I guess it's because the weather is suddenly so much warmer and it is springtime. I can hardly remember how cold it was just a month ago. The tulips in my backyard are blooming now, so it is very nice to look out on them while sitting at the dining table. Most of them are red, but one of them is pink. I wanted to take a picture of them but in the afternoon they started closing their petals. I panicked and thought they would be dead tomorrow, but my mom assured me that they just close up for the night and open once more in the morning. I hope she's right, since I want to take a picture before they're gone. (People in California don't seem to grow tulips much, maybe the climate or soil here isn't right for it. In Washington D.C., you'll see tons of tulips, in front of hotels, business buildings, and even planted around statues of Civil War generals. That's all well and good, but seeing tulips everywhere makes you get bored of them. It's better over here since not everyone grows tulips.)

Today I went to the library. I had to return a lot of books, so I couldn't resist checking out some new ones. I tried to go to the second floor of the library to tell my parents I was done, but I had trouble getting up the stairs and even dropped my books twice. Luckily they did not fall all the way down, so I could pick them up and keep going. Either my sickness is putting a damper on my health or I really need to see a doctor.

Then my family went to a mall near their offices. My mom bought a shirt from a place called Charlotte Russe (some of the stuff looks alright but some of the stuff is scary. The music is a bit loud. They have shoes you can try on, though). Maybe I won't go shopping for a long time since nowadays I don't even buy anything. Besides, I'm trying to save money. It's not going so well since I can't get hired by Jamba Juice or Target yet, and I only have $12 allowance each month, and most of my teeth have fallen out by now. Oh well, it's better than nothing. I let my money sit and collect dust in real life AND in computer games/web sites.

I would've posted my blog a lot earlier but then something really, really stupid happened. So I started typing this post a pretty long time ago, but I took a break from the computer and went off to do something else. Then I came back and typed the rest of the post. I tried to publish it, but it turned out during the time I was gone Blogger had logged me out. So I had to log back in. And then all my text was gone. I had to spend a long time typing it again. I'm still seething, since this isn't the first time a similar thing happened to me.

Labels: blah, blog, books, income, library, mall, march, money, season, sick, spring, stairway, tulips, twilight, washington D.C., weather

Since today the teachers have meetings and such (Mr. Blair, my history teacher, said the meetings are so long and boring, he just pretends to be paying attention, but he is really watching Youtube videos on his laptop!), I got the day off. My mom decided that since I need a thicker jacket, we would go shopping to look for one. This is all well and good, since I like to spend money. The only problem is that it takes time, and the malls were practically ghost towns because today is a working day for most people.

First we went to Sears. There wasn't much there that interested me. However, there was a jacket with Peanuts comics on it, and my mom thought that was cool, so we ended up buying it. Then we visited Macys and JC Penney. Neither had much, and we left to go to Kohl's. There was a shirt there I like that actually looked decent but my mom said it wasn't something I could wear to school (it was black and doesn't look like what kids wear nowadays) so I ended up sulking because I couldn't have it. I actually like black...I hope no one thinks that's weird, since I'm supposed to be a kid who likes blue and pink and purple, and all.

We then went to Ross, which is my mom's "favorite store", as she declared indignantly when I insulted the said store. (I don't like it much because most of the clothes they have is stuff my mom likes, not me.) So I was quite surprised to see they have some pretty jackets there, such as a purple one with some colorful stuff on it, a creamish one with leaves, another creamish one which I said had "modern art" on it, and various other jackets. Seeing as my mom is rather stingy, I just bought the modern art cream-colored one.

Now I'm just at home, feeling kind of tired, but happy just because I managed to spend money, and not use my allowance. Last night, I lost an envelope with my Chinese yen in it. The 1000 yen is actually worth at least $100, my mom says. For some reason, she kept insisting I find it, and give it to her. I did find it, so I ended up having to fork it over. I think it's suspicious, because I know my mom probably wants to add money to her retirement funds. But oh well.

Labels: clothes, mall, money, shopping

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