red shoes, red skillet

Heya! I”m typing this post from my brother’s laptop in our room at the Westin in downtoan Toronto on some free, kickass wireless. Today is Day 2 of our food vacation and…I think we ate five times today. This morning, we had some crazy dim sum at Casa Imperial, a place that’s basically Linden Place (in Queens) but to the 16th power. Actually, Casa Imperial puts Linden Place to shame with its classyness and subtlety. But the food wasn’t at all great.

After that, we went to the largest Asian mall in North America, Pacific Mall, where we spent hours walking around the very socialist cubicles. There were basically five types of stores: opticals, clothing boutiques, apothecaries, tea/snack places, and cell phone stores. And there were easily 300 little glass cubicles. And everybody sold the same things!

After that, we headed to the T&T Supermarket, which was really awesome since it was so neat and huge and bustling. And it was instantly, absolutely Asian because it had a whole aisle dedicated to vermicelli and a whole aisle for soy sauce.

It’s 9:53 now, whoa.

We drove out to another strip mall (we were in Markham all that time, and Markham is basically a suburban place with beautiful huge houses and strip malls very much like Woodbury Outlets upstate) to meet…my dad’s ex-girlfriend. There’s a whole complicated story there, but we met here, walked around a little, then sat down for a half-lunch at a place called Keung’s. She’s a hairdresser and divorced with one son my brother’s age.

Actually, her son was born May 13th and my brother was born May 31st. And to make matters even more unique, this woman and I share the same birthday, May 18th. AIYA.

I want to stop typing, but I said that I ate about five times today so I better finish relaying all of it to you guys.

At Keung’s, we sat there talking and drinking and catching up. I think we drank through three pots of tea, we were talking for so long.

When we finally left, we left to meet up and go have dinner with a relative. I took a really nice nap while we drove to Chinatown. We arrived and then waited amidst harsh cold and electric trams for our relative. She got there in her orange-haired glory. We headed to the restaurant shortly after and parked in an underground lot.

At the restaurant (hotdamn I forgot to take pictures of the food!) we waited for her daughter Ada (Aida?) and her husband. The first time I met Aida was when she and her mom visited NYC about a year ago.

I really do not want to type this right now, my parents are watching the victory of Ma Ying-Jieu in Taiwan…

MY DAD COULD NOT SLEEP ALL LAST NIGHT ‘CAUSE HE WAS SO ANXIOUS ABOUT THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION…IN TAIWAN.

And we’re mainland Chinese. But hey, it’s important since there are politicians for reunification and politicians against it.

Okay my brother’s breathing down my neck asking me if I’m done yet.

So we had a good dinner and made some conversation about college (they don’t have financial aid over here!) and stuff. We’re going to meet up again tomorrow and yum cha.

OKAY OKAY OKAY I’M LEAVING NOW, GEEZ DAVID.

I have felt so blessed these two days. I’m really grateful for everything that’s happened. Sure, I think this good streak has ended already, but I’m still grateful. The biggest thing? I got into Syracuse University! It’s so wonderful to finally be accepted (it’s my first acceptance letter!) and feel wanted somewhere, and know that I am amazing and I have enough potential to matriculate at this great school. I’ve heard that Syracuse is a party school, but I don’t care, it has an amazing communications college that I’m going to apply to again if I decide to go. Plus, Syracuse’s colors are navy and orange. ORANGE, you guys. The orange was definitely a reason why I applied–I even told my interviewer, haha. Oh bless her, I thought she would say that I’m not fit for Syracuse–I guess I was wrong!

My nukes and are driving up to Toronto for the weekend and might stop by at Syracuse. I’m looking forward to walking across the quads of my maybe-university. Aghhhhhhhh I’m just so happy about all this! Initially, when I got the two emails yesterday, I was skeptical because I didn’t receive an official “Your Admissions Decision” email like Kitty did, but I called up today and Julie (coincidentally, she was the one who interviewed me) said that most likely I’ve been admitted but my emails were messed up. So yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! College really is in my future!

I’d been feeling down about college because people were getting acceptance letters left, right, and center and I had nothing. My cousin’s decided on a college for a while now (Posse Scholarship) so it’s depressing to know nothing while she’s been all set to go since December. But now I’m happy to be accepted somewhere–I can breathe more easily. I still have to work hard, though. I have this fear that I’ll be accepted but suddenly rejected if I don’t keep my grades up.

…Which should start with sleeping earlier and getting to first period on time. I have O’Shea again, so hopefully he’ll remember how badly late I was and maybe be a little lenient. Or not. We get report cards on Wednesday (!) so we’ll see.

Yes, this song is so good it deserves its own post. I’d heard it awhile ago on ONTD and loved it as soon as I heard it. Today it popped up in my train of thought and I went looking for it. I downloaded it, listened again, and I still love this song. When I was renaming the song though, I wasn’t sure if the “you” was “u” or not, so I googled it and the link for the music video is there. I watched it and…damn, yo. The plot’s pretty intense and really plays out the lyrics–I’d forgotten all the words except for “the way that I love you.” I love her hair in the video–huge curly hair with well-placed highlights. Ooh, and her sequined gown is really something, too. But back to the song–what an amazing song! No lie, I love catchy music and soulful vocals, so this one takes the cake. I’ve been addicted to Leona Lewis’ “Bleeding Love” lately, and I think with this new song, I’ll be set for the train rides to and from school.

I just might cry.

I read my dirty celebrity gossip every day (at least I admit it!) and today someone finally posted the movie posters for movies coming out later this year. One poster in particular caught my eye:

That is despicable, Hollywood. “It‘s?” I’m not a true stickler for grammar, but I an really annoyed when little things like the its and it’s get confused and used improperly. Aiya, did the movie cost so much to make that they had to have fifth-graders proofread the taglines?

    I just started my homework. And by start, I mean that I opened up a new Word document and opened up cnbc.com. Then I went to facebook because that’s how I roll.

I forgot what I set out to write about, actually. So I have to keep writing about nonsense until the thought comes back to me.

Oh, right. (No, I’m not lying, the thought really just came back to me as I finished up that sentence.) Usually when I dream, they’re incredibly vivid and the things I experience feel so real. When I wake up from those dreams, I’m amazed by how powerful my mind is in replicating emotions and things like the sunlight on my face. My mind is its own ILM!

Last night’s dream was about a visit to my cousin Kathy’s apartment. I’d arrived late because no one told me about the meeting of the Big Six (my corny nickname for the oldest six cousins). I got there, and then various things happened and people appeared and conversations ensued. As we were leaving, I really had to go to the bathroom, but I got distracted by the incredible view from the back of the apartment. There was a white-tiled back porch that let you see the immense sprawl of other, shorter buildings and the man-made river was directly below. My cousins joined me, and I tried taking pictures of us and of the sunset over the city, but the camera wouldn’t work. I would push the button and the flash wouldn’t go off or the camera wouldn’t click. I scowled at Annie, who I’d lent the camera to (in real life). We ended up just looking at the sunset and observing a city slowing down. I remember the orange light on my cousins’ faces, and the foam I saw in the greenish river.

All the objects and places I saw in the dream are taken from memories I have. The apartment porch is from my third uncle’s first married-life apartment in Guangzhou. The outside of the apartment and stairs up are from my second uncle’s apartment in Guangzhou. The front interior is from Kathy’s SoHo apartment. The camera not working is from my fear that my brand spankin’ new camera’s been damaged by Annie in the days she had it. Basically, I can identify every thing’s roots and significance in my dreams–can you? I’d like to know that I’m not alone.

We were in a hurry for some reason, so we were rushing out of the house. I remember being angry in the dream about someone borrowing my Converses and only having my Toms to wear… And I never did get to go to the bathroom, so I was whining the whole way downstairs. We get out onto the pavement and start hailing taxicabs, at which point the dream stops and I wake up with an insane need to pee.

We changed the clocks last night/this morning. As I’m typing, it’s 6:46 and the sky isn’t fully dark yet. I love all the days after this, because the afternoons are longer and (truthfully) I’m not so afraid to be alone in the house after 5:30.

It’s pretty cold right now…and David and Annie baked brownie bites that should be done soon. Ah, my mom’s just said that they might be done.

Yeah, they’re almost done. I shut off the oven and now they’re just going to warm down. David and Annie are playing Cooking Mama, haha. I’m not great at that game at all, but at least I’m decent at real cooking. I really believe that I make some killer Swedish meatballs (bought from Ikea, of course) with eggs and cumin.

I smell yams, oh man. And brownies. I definitely want some later, all I had today was meatballs and eggs, white rice, and Stacy’s pita chips, which are fantastic.

So, dreams. I haven’t had any really amazing dreams lately, but when I have them, they’re powerful things. One not-too-recent dream sent me on a day-long bender. All I could think about was the dream and the people in the dream. Other dreams (I rarely have nightmares) just make me ridiculously happy or give me a rush. It’s like watching a really good action/adventure movie, dreams give you this this this rush that I can’t even begin to describe to you.

But sometimes they blur with reality and I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not real. I think a few days ago, I had a dream about finding these Manchurian shoes in some store in Manhattan. I was so elated during the dream that when I woke up, I swore that the dream was real, that my friends had really stumbled upon these shoes in Pearl River Mart. But they weren’t real or within my grasp. I’d have to travel to a Chinese opera prop and costume shop to buy them.

Okay, brownies and homework. Peace out and have a good week!