coincidence

you know how you try to avoid some people because you really don't know what to say to them or just have nothing in common to talk about. so the other day i got a call from this one person that falls into that category and i pressed no on my cell phone. aiyoh. felt so terrible, but these things need to be done. then of course that person left a voicemail that i didn't listen to. and when i checked my email, i got two emails saying, hey are you still in AA? let's have lunch sometime. blah blah blah. but once again didn't reply. just pretend you aren't around anymore and maybe they'll forget you exist.

then, as (bad) luck would have it, the very next day i'm off to the gym and i see a familiar blue car parked in the street. a hand waves to me from the window. alamak. the window winds down and it's that person. hi jia en! did you get my email? yeah! (try to act enthusiastic and as if i'm running late) i have to catch an aerobics class now actually. i said in the email i can't make it on thursday, so how about wednesday? oh, i have to study for an exam (which i don't have). oh, then friday? (man, this person doesn't give up!!!) erm, ok i'll email you later? yeah don't forget! alright, see you! (pick up my pace because i'm late for aerobics class right?)

so there are some things in life that cannot be avoided. except three more phone calls from that person which i did not answer.

potpurri. poht-pooory

artichokes. st remy

ann arbor, mi. 2004

foodie

philip says "wah, jia en...you're really damn foodie man. foodie..." yup yup guys i think i have found my calling. food and lifestyle. everything about living. it's all about the good life, and i'm going to make a profession out of it. one day. hopefully not too long from now yeah. in the meantime, i'm trying hard not to become too auntie because i'm on the brink of it already.

all grown up

we've come a long way. from the hours we spent together dancing in the leaky old scgs hall, playing "mermaids" and "water nymphs" in your pool (and other unmentionable role-playing games), to meeting the boys of our lives and having our tai-tai-ish mp/bb lunches.
it's been 11 years and we're all grown up now (can you imagine i used to be able to wear your clothes?? oh, those were the days!). but little else has changed between us and that puts a smile on my face :) 

karang guni

i'm driving back from the gym today and i see this man jogging in the drizzle. he stops to pick something from the ground and starts running again. as i near him in the car, i realise that his hands are full of junk that he picks up along the way. either he has OCD, he forgot to bring his hand held weights out or he's just a really civic minded person who enjoys literally picking up after other people.

fair food

the diag that day was a religious confluence. mormons were having a debate with christians while this nun strummed and sang her praise. as philip and i watched, we were approached. oh yes, we are christians. oh--we christians must support each other yes? yes yes. then do you mind if we pray together? philip: erm, actually i'm not too comfortable with that. my sentiments exactly. am i allowed to feel this way?

philip doesn't care that elephant ears taste like squashed donuts

you know it looks like that trick shit stuff right?

and this is the real (short) vinod. but he's a cool guy.

before we head out to art fair

carpet of george bush so we can trample all over his lousy face

another one of those foot-worthy people

constellations

floral art

yep. them ones dancing around on the grass playing some instrument that resembles a sitar

original sin

so on my walk back home from class i have to walk through the art fair. and i have this urge to have some frozen yoghurt on a relatively cool afternoon. can i get the black raspberry in a cone please? oh, do you take credit card? no sorry. cash only. argh damn. well, there's a cash machine in the union. oh right. and before i'm barely 2 feet away, she shouts to the crowd, anyone wants a black raspberry cone? and i'm thinking, since she's giving it away for free now, why not just give it to me?!!! but life is never good like that. otherwise i could get free cones all the time eh?

living with mediocrity

how many of us seek just to blend in. we all are dying inside to be different, special, better, yet we are enveloped by a sort of apathy that makes us settle for the mainstream. or perhaps i am speaking for myself. i want to be different, do something bold with my life, something great and exciting so that when i'm 50 i can tell my children these wonderful adventures i've lived to experience. i've scaled the victoria falls, i've bummed off the streets of moscow, gone on a culinary escapade in southern europe, surfed the coasts of the world, swum with humpbacks, danced away in brazil. could i give up everything i've known and understood to live a life of a wanderer, earning my keep where my heart takes me, no savings for posterity, but living life passionately and intensely for the moment?

who ever said it's a nice house, a car, money in the bank and flying first class that's the life of contentment and happiness? would roaming the world in search of its treasures but having none of my own make me a happier person?

for a few minutes every day, i contemplate trying it out. but then the opportunity costs, the knowledge that i could possibly be left in the dust as everyone else starts accumulating assets, and the image of me at 60, on the streets because i had not planned for my retirement hit me. reality bites again and i cowardly move back into the mainstream.
graduate, get a job. work, work harder. marry, have children. grow old. stare at your shriveled self and wonder where the sex life disappeared to.

we keep talking about direction, drive, prospects, money, security. all the key words of a coming of age individual such as myself. can we be directionless but productive? driveless but inspiring? poor but rich in experience and secure in uncertainty? someone show me so i may dare to follow.

art fair

summer art fair this week. hundreds of booths set up selling artistic and not so artistic wares. another one of those things that makes aa lovely in the summer. all the major roads have been closed and it's just one big carnival out there. it's amazing where all these people suddenly come from. makes you feel like you're not so in the middle of butt-fu.. nowhere anymore.

 

ulcer

i have an ulcer on my lower lip. it's actually two or three smaller ones that have merged to form a large, slightly painful but damn bloody annoying thing that makes my lip protrude somewhat.
this is my theory about ulcers.

most of the time, it starts because you are heaty. in my case,  it was from eating a mango a day.  when you are heaty, your body expands. most noticeably and painfully, from the times you bite very hard, it's parts of your mouth. (you get it? your lips and the insides of your cheeks swell up such that it gets in the way of your teeth).

they say once bitten twice shy. i say once bitten, will bite many more times. so from the multiple tooth-stabbings, the lip begins to develop multiple, ugly, festering sores.  :(

so as a potential old wife, here's my tale. eat mangoes but balance the heatiness with some cool. like watermelon. and drink a lot of water.

 

my week-old houka.

we do it with rice and noodles, why not cous cous? fried cous cous-another one of my alternative foods.

bangs when wet.

small talk

so i missed that economics of crime class on friday and i need the notes for my exam coming up on wednesday. i go into class today and ask the guy next to me if he has them but he wasn't there either so i ask the guy at the back. he has them so i ask to copy them after class. and as life will have it, this guy needs my notes from previous lectures too.
 
after class, the guy next to me asks if he can get a copy of the other guy's notes too. so hey, we're a threesome of people just making use of each other. on our way to copy notes, we of course have to make small talk to try and cover up the awkwardness of the exploitative nature of our relationship. yeah, i read the coursepack. oh i hear she gives hard exams. man, time to hit the books. ok, good luck studying. see you.
 
ahh. the beauty of non-commitance.

oh a terrible void

i feel an emptiness within me. perhaps it's because terri bauer has died and right now my life has no meaning because i can't start season 2 without my roommates. 24 has taught us all about betrayal and to trust no one. so tc started it two nights ago by starting on disc 3 without vinod and me. i called him a traitor. but then philip had to leave before dark tonight so we watched the remaining of disc 5 and all of disc 6 without vinod. man, when he came in and realized what we had done... we sold out. just like nina and jamey.
 
okok, i'll stop the obsessing.
 
oh and philip just called to tell me he's arrived safely in GR.  i mean, he could have been kidnapped and tortured and betrayed by his closest friends during this time so one can never be too cautious anymore.
 
and funny enough we both just found out that we are fellow bloggers. too embarrassed to admit because somehow blogging is not about the coolest thing. i mean, it's almost at the friendster level.

life of a junkie

yes. i am officially addicted to 24. blame it on the system which sucks in the average american consumer. i have that unlimited membership at blockbuster, and of course, true to the well-oiled machine of american consumerism, they have every single disc i need to keep me glued to the tv for a whole 24 hrs.
 
imagine. in less than a week, i spent 24-1, 2, 3, 4, 5...24!-freaking hours on my butt watching episode after episode. never in my life have i devoted so much time to any one activity. i think 24 deserves an emmy for simply that. but really, it's quite a damn good show. i hardly rave about movies, and even less about series, but this is one worth every damn hour you have.
 
but i am definitely suffering from senioritis guys. i have no motivation to do work of any kind. i have touched none of my readings since school started and i missed a class on friday for which i have an exam on monday (and why??? because i was up the whole night watching 24!!!). so of course i panicked because i didn't have any notes and had no idea what the exam was to cover. but thank god. i checked online and she postponed the exam til wednesday. hoorah. this means i can start on season two tomorrow!
 

botched job

there's a gaping hole above my eyebrows in what the hairdresser made my bangs. yes. i watched as she lopped off a chunk by accident (although she didn't say, i know it definitely was!) and then proceeded to say, how about we go shorter--that would be so cute! i winced but couldn't say no coz i couldn't very well walk out of aveda with half a revealed forehead. so she cut them shorter than the agreed "just below the eyebrows so it can be swept to the side." and she acted like the hole she just made in my hair was due to my old parting and her blowing it dry that way. woman, i am not an idiot.
whatever. cute it was, because i did get two comments today asking where i got my "cute" haircut. wtf.
so now i am once again that overgrown pixie with long hair this time.

the thing about me

is that i never am early for anything. or maybe it's that i never want to. i hate the waiting for something to start when i cuold have been doing something else more productive feeling. so class is supposed to start at 11am but in mich we are always given ten after the hour. so i am in the comp lab writing this blog, trying to maximize my time before i have to go in and sit on my butt for the next two hours.

it's like that with all things. i just won't stop until it is absolutely necessary. like today i was ready for my 9am class at 8.30 but i decided to do stuff (not anything particularly consequential) until 9.05. then by the time i actually got to my seat in class, it was 9.20. i know many people like that or much worse. my roommate for one, never fails to make me wait. NEVER. she says five minutes when she really means 20. my mum too. i guess i should not let this develop into a sick habit. it already is to some extent as my friends can attest to, but what can i do if i'm such a time-maximising person?

someone therapize me please.

swimming pool

the weather being as gorgeous as it has been the last two days, i just could not not jump into a refreshing body of water. the only regret i have is keeping my eyes open underwater. i used to be able to do it while swimming for hours as a kid, but like i said, age does weird things to you. so yesterday, after my lovely swim, i finally felt what my myopic friends out there have to live with everyday of their lives. everything more than a metre away was a blur. tc asked, "should we turn on the subtitles?" "ah, i can't see them even if you did"

but the public pool is a cool place. being by myself has forced me to really look around and observe all the wonderful things going on.

there's the prepubescent couple in the deep end. i bet the boy has an erection and she can feel it brushing against her through his thin swim shorts.

then there's the half naked kids (girls too!) rolling around in what is a "beach"--ann arbor's makeshift beach volley ball pit next to the pool. it really feels like i'm in bali. really!

the two college boys who come to see a friend who is a lifeguard. baywatch-fit in her red two-piece, long tan legs and dirty blond hair.

then the mothers who let it all hang out and the all-too-skinny fathers who have never stooped to waxing.

of course there are those who are there to really swim. those who try to perfect the butterfly stroke with that figure eight looking flotation device between their legs and arms flailing hopelessly as they desperately gasp for air above the surface. you know, their awkward attempts wouldn't bother me as much (because i suffer from such failures myself) except that they block the lane and cause waves that push up into my nose leaving a horrible chlorine aftertaste in my respiratory system.

despite the fact that i am most probably swimming in sanitized urine and mucus, the two days of paddling in a lane have been fun. i think as long as weather permits, i will go to the outdoor pool. makes me feel like i'm at home. kind of. the sun, the noise and the water.

now she has mastered the supersoaker water fountain move

ooh! no more!

ahh...

oh look, water sprays out of this funny looking contraption

looks like a hotdog van. it was for sale too

wonder if my townbee'll qualify. it will without a doubt be the cutest

so this is for carrying dead people. mine is only big enough for pets

most of them were vintage cars polished and shining--their owners shining as brightly as the chrome finish

evidence that men love to match colours too.

and i saw elvis too. see him in the background?

so i drove past liberty st and saw a huge car show going on. main st and some others were closed so i took an afternoon excursion and made my way down to see the metal monsters.

you know you're getting old...

1. when your baby sister is shocked and horrified that "YOU HAVE A BLOG???"

2. you start paying attention to the anti-wrinkle ads in those magazines

3. david gray and lisa ono are on your play list. (lifestyle music is our generation's "evergreen classics")

4. you think about NOT having kids. (because it is now becoming very evident that your once youthful body will never bounce back into shape)

yes i am OLD. so i am trying to keep martha stewart at bay and boycotting estee lauder and shiseido. but i still watch home and garden tv and the food network and think, oh i will make that for my kids next time!

nono, but i must not! i will think about nothing but partying and getting drunk because that's what i'm supposed to think about. not all this old people shit.

the price of love

have you ever tried to put a number to it?

how much are you worth to a friend? $10 for a x'mas present? maybe $20 for your birthday. also maybe no presents but just them who remember your birthday when you're halfway across the world.

how much are you loved by your parents? my dad's email to me today brought tears to my eyes. he is by no means an email-writer.
"hi, hvnt heard fm u since u left london.
still feeling sleepy after two days.
let me know whether u need storage in frisco"
a simple three lines which spelled out i love you. i love you too pops.

and for a lover? countless faulty phonecards, flying across oceans like we're migratory birds confused by the change in seasons. in all i think 2 years and 10 grand well spent.

they say love is priceless. as an almost-not economics major, i venture to say that one can put a price tag on love (as many economists have done with other seemingly intangibles). but as an almost-not economics major, i also say love is immeasurable. it is wonderful and beautiful and to experience it is worth paying any price.

palloverhero

dim sum for the soul

i am possessive about ordering my food at a restaurant. i know what i like to eat and i will eat it. so really, giving up that responsibility to someone else is quite a feat for me. but that's precisely what i did the other day while i excused myself to answer nature's call.
and that someone ordered the exact 7 dishes of chinese tapas that i would have ordered for myself. i know i have found my soulmate. ;p

swindled

i have been swindled. victim of fraud and identity theft. watched matchstick men? i'm like those old people nicholas cage takes advantage of. and really, there's nothing much that i can do about it or anything that will protect me. according to the police, what has happened to me is not yet a crime because i gave out my information over the phone to those fuckers. this is my coming of age. this is how i know i have reached "grown up". i don't know what scares me more, the fact that i have been victimized and am really quite hapless in this society, or that from now on, i will have to deal with all these "grown up" problems life throws at me. help!

what about education?

speaking of liberal education, i think you have it right sa. forget what the parochial believe about money and careers. for them, it's a narrow tunnel with only one way about it. but i am in full support of what you believe in. we need more open minds and open hearts and people who will do good for its own sake--not just to get regular features in the tatler.

speaking more of liberal education, i met up briefly with my friend kelly who is doing an internship in nimes. to paraphrase him, he hates the "fucking" place because there are pesky, thuggish arabs everywhere. they are france's poverty problem and need to get themselves sorted out. what happened to the liberal education and liberalizing experience?

liberal education. i guess it just gives us that room to decide.

houka, shisa, hubbly bubbly. i'm buying one soon to while away the summer months. what's your flava, tell me what's your flava?

so while the continental europeans despise bush, apparently some american exchange student is a ardent supporter. i am just wearing the hat.

here he is, doing his rendition of mr jones apparently the strumming of the guitar brings out the deep south in him because he does ALL the songs in that horrid hick of an accent.

we are now in london. in drew's room as he tries to rhyme with the words i throw out. "book!" "will!" "mine!" i have to admit, he is quite damn good at it.

mothers being mothers and mine being mine had to tell EVERYONE that it was my birthday. so i got a free cicada alarm from a shopkeeper, "un cadeau!". the provencal people have a thing for those huge scary bugs (that will soon appear in droves in michigan too). they replicate it in everything, from pottery to fabrics, and my gift was a little gadget that chirps when moved. i can't imagine how any place can want to make the cicada a regional emblem. anyway, yes back to the point...thanks to my loving mom, these men were singing "joyeux anniversaire...

for all prospective suitors: here's what i'll look like in 30 years.

at some ancient roman bridge overlooking crystal clear blue waters. this shot looks so mediterranean i had to post it.

at this time, the anthem-singing crowd does not know yet that they will win the Eurocup by week's end, but they sing anyway. for their lives, for their country.

and we happened to be in the middle of greek town--having a greek dinner no less--when they win the semi finals against the czechs. the national flag is paraded from cars, worn as robes, and waved high displaying their pride

of course i have to put this up--the one photo of me that is decent. my father took it--and when he saw it, he said, "wah, so sui!" not sure if he was referring to the blooms behind, or me. of course i choose to believe the latter.

european cars are small for a reason. they also almost never come with cup holders or trays for food unlike their american counterparts. cultural differences are down the road and everywhere you choose to look.

now we are in paris for my last night. we go to the latin quarter for dinner because we enjoyed the greek food (but more so the dancing and plate smashing) so much the last time we were there (years ago. were you there sarah?) this time, because i'm a LADY now, the host at one restaurant pulls me in and makes me dance, swirling me around and shaking his greek booty. he then picks me up--miraculously--and sets me on a table in the middle of the restaurant and makes me jiggle along to live folk music! oh but years of training under mrs chan did not prepare me for such spontaneous gyration. but it's ok--just SMILE!

market in st remy. spices, cheeses, roasted rabbit (a provencal favourite)

olives, more olives, cured meats. btw, we did buy a roasted rabbit and had it for lunch. ate it out of the bag like a rotiserrie chicken. haha.

provencal melons. small and look more like squash than anything else, but i tell you, they are the sweetest melons i have ever tasted.

i love cheese, but the idea of goat's milk has never been appealing. but what they say about ignorance is true. i fell in love with brebi, a fromage de chevre. crumbly and fantastic with fig jam. so i made it my mission du jour today to procure some brebi from wholefoods but couldn't find it. ended up getting another type which is too soft and doesn't taste much different from cream cheese. now i have to finish the darn block and it cost me $3!

rooftop view

i have to caption these pictures to post them unless someone can give me a better way to do these. i'm getting bored of talking for these pictures.

where have you been?

how much do they hate america?

quite damn a lot as i found out for myself. at the lovely bed and breakfast at that. we talked about several things and of course the topic of where i was going to school came up. told them the US and immediately they asked if i thought the US system was truly good. careful not to tread on wrong toes, i said "good education, but i don't always agree with their politics." of course they agreed.
i would be embarassed to be an american in these times.

like out of a "house beautiful" magazine feature. mas de luna (villa of the moon??) just outside another idyllic village called uzes.

the b&b we stayed at just outside avignon. the couple on the left own the place. rich ex-hotelier who decided he wanted out of the city-life and into the leisurely one of the french coutryside. when you have the money, you CAN choose life.