11 20 06

So it is no longer a sercre that Aaron and I are expecting our first child next May! It has been an extremely interestly process for me being pregnant. First, I am fortunate that I didn't have bad morning sickness. After 2-3 weeks of low energy and not able to cook, I am back to my normal self in no time. At some point I was still doubting whether this whole "pregnancy" thing is actually true?! Well, it is definitely true enough when I go in for out first ultrasound. Aaron and I both see the little one flipping and flopping, lively as one can be. That more of less confirms that I am pregnant, right? Sort of. It probely has more of an impact on Aaron than on me.

It is not until one day last week that I feel that, yes, I have been carrying my child for the last 15 weeks. How did I finally come to terms with this realization? All of the sudden, within two days, none of my clothes fit! My shirts are all too short, my jeans way to tight, and so my belly can feel the breeze going through it constantly.

So, new purchases were made. Now I have a couple pairs of new pants. It's a little sad. I am now a size 8 from my original size 2. It is a little depressing ;(. For the love of my child, I guess that is the sacrifice I can make! ^^

05 18 06

試試看是不是真的能寫中文。哈，還真的可以吔。一年多沒上blog寫東西了。想想，還是三不五時update一下好了。

04 26 05 Monday in Taipei

It has been really raniy here in Taipei for the past few days. Nice to see some real rain. Aaron is out to Kuang Hua computer/electronic bazzar. I have a really bad headache, and I am finally catching a little free time at home by myself. Well, with my mom's crazy cat, A-hui. Hui is really like Stich. She acts all crazy before she takes her nap, biting her back legs, rolling around left and right, staring at me like she was ready to attack.

The trip so far has been wonderful, but really busy. Tomorrow we are going on a trip with Joy and Milton to southern Taiwan. I hope the weather will be better.

04 11 05

MMm..mmm..mmm. Homemade granola is awesome!!

02 25 05

Random thoughts on food -

Huge urge to shop in a traditional Taiwanese market, with all the seasonal vegetable and fruits, all the different dried/pickled veggies and meat, all the different cuts of meats and poultry for me to choose from. Moving to SF is a good thing with respect that ingredients will be more readily available, well, for some items. But man, either people (Asian/Asian Americans/Americans) here are really just content with Napa cabbage, bak-choy, bean sprouts, string beans, eggplants and that they never want changes, or maybe they were never introduced to the varieties of produce that we have in Taiwan. At home these days, we probably eat more Westernized food than Taiwanese meals because I am so sick and tired of cooking with the same few ingredients. A while ago I went to check out the SF Asian market with my best friend. Well, the market was pretty full, filled with stalls and venders, but we were both disappointed on how little variety of veggies/fruit there was. Basically, if vender 1 has bak-choy, so does vender 2 and so does vender 3 and so on...um..really, then, I really need bak-choy from one vender. So every vender ended up having very similar produce to their neighboring venders. I wonder why that is. Maybe they think the consumers cannot differentiate the types of vegetables, or maybe that a lot of consumers are just not interested in buying vegetables that is not bak-choy, and so the farmers only grow what would sell?

I have this feeling that the farmers here are not proud of what they do. In Taiwan, a island dissected into different regions by mountains, these regions have different weather so they produce different crops. Using the weather to grow crops that will have the optimal taste and yield. Just take I-lan for example, situated in northeastern Taiwan, if you go there at the right season, you'd see people selling yin-tsai and green onions on the side of the road. You think....green onions? Yes, big, white, fat, sweet and juicy green onions that you can just stir-fry them with a little oil and salt, and have some steaming white rice..mmmm. No kidding...it's that good. Same with yin-tsai (vegetable that has a hallow stalk), juicy and it has an irresistible good crunch to them. But if you go any where else in Taiwan, yin-tsai and green onions are just the ordinary yin-tsai and green onions, they are still good, but not I-lan's. However, they will have different specialties that they grow well depending on where they live. And all the farmers will tell you why their produce is the best, how they grow it, what's the best way to eat it...well, sometimes with some exaggeration, but it feels good to buy produce from someone who's proud of their products.

I seldom get that 'proud' feeling from the farmers here.

02 03 05

To those of you who are math savvy, this is not news to you. I just want to say,

PROVE BY CONTRICDICTION IS AWESOME.

okay, now that's said, gotta get back to actually prove something by contradiction.

01 25 2005

3 a.m. Finally decided to just get out of bed. It was a full night of dreams and reality that I was doing Euclidian proofs with Epsilon chewing the string ends off my pajamas pants.

And, RARELY do I get the urge to turn on the computer in the middle of the night after those intense dreams of proofs to write to you all, now with a huge cup (I mean, huge as the size of my face huge) of yummy steam milk at my side, to announce that after 2 years of my seemingly dormant orchid, it now has a new shoot! YES, it is NOT A ROOT like so many of them in the last 2 years, but it's a green/purple-ish shoot that will potentially have orchid buds, and then eventually, flower! This is some encouragement after my mother told me that hers never bloomed over the years.. Well, when mine does, I will take a picture and post it for all of you to enjoy!

Now, that is some incentive to get up in the wee hours to do some proofs!

11 30 2004

More on traffic. Here is a little quiz, given that with no other abnormal traffic situation, what do you think?

When you have the GREEN traffic light, do you 1) Stop or, 2)Go?

When you have the RED traffic light, do you 1) Stop or, 2)Go?

Simple huh? Somehow not so simple for a certain percentage of drivers in SLO. Now,

When you see a stopped school bus with its light flashing and it's stop sign popped in effect (and HINT: kids crossing the street), do you 1) Stop or, 2)Go?

When the cross traffic has no stop sign, but a moving vehicle in the cross traffic proceeds to stop, do you think they are 1) sane or, 2) insane?

When the car in front of you STOPS AT THE GREEN TRAFFIC LIGHT, seems to not have noticed that green means go, or maybe ponders on whether to turn and go against a 3 lane one-way street, proceeds into doing the latter, then notices it's about the hit another car head-on, SHIT, makes a U turn on the one way street to correct its mistake, then, runs the red light, while I held down the horn in fear of innocent lives lost, do you think that he is 1)sane, 2)insane, 3)blinded by the sun, 4)blinded by his own stupidity, or 5) a combination of the above.

Okay, last one:

When you, the pedestrian, are crossing a street on a flashing crosswalk, the car which is supposed to stop manages to go 2mph right when you are in front of it, without the intention to stop for you whatsoever, do you 1) Curse, 2) Kick the shit out of the car, 3) all of the above and Other: ___________. (Please state and explain).

11 03 2004

Once Florida was gone, I knew Ohio would soon fall, followed by the same logic that Americans are just stupid and ignorant. The 2000 election, GOP played the system, Bush won. This second elections YOU AMERICANS reelected him, so Bush won again. That tells me, I should really be afraid of my neighbors and not just the lobbyists. And so should you, the few conscientious Americans whom are left.

Anger cannot even begin to say how I feel about this election. Eyes are so strained from the tremendous effort not to constantly burst into tears. My parents comforted me, even though they know the world is more dangerous now. I still cannot shed the feeling that someone dear has just died.

Fools.

09 29 2004

Wow, 7 months and 20 days later, another car incident. This time, it was actually an accident. A few days ago, we were driving on Broad and stopped at the stop light at Broad and Tank Farm, the Suburban driving in the right lane to us didn't stop for the red light, ran it, hit a new Tundra...it was all very dramatic, I was shocked and probably sucked out all the air in the car and left Aaron choking for air. I don't even want to speculate the reasons on why people drive so poorly around here anymore.

02 09 2004

Driving in San Luis Obispo has been the worst experience in my entire life; and I currently live here, so I have to deal with it every freaking day. And I'd think that if I can drive in the Taipei traffic with the scooters and the stress, then I can definitely drive with ease in SLO. But no, driving in SLO is like some kind of mental torture, some freak show, everyday. I just almost got hit by a car that ran its red light. Okay, that car didn't just ran the yellow and then the red light. That car actually NEVER STOPPED to its red light, which was probably red for a while, as I was driving and minding my own business. So fine. People get spaced out, do something stupid trying to get themselves killed, and worse, get others killed. Evolution at work. But the worst part of the deal was that the car didn't even try to correct its mistake by going the speed limit, as if going slow is to compensate for the mistake. NO. That is NOT okay with me. Almost got ran over last week too...in the rain. Sunny Californians cannot drive in the rain...any kind of rain, pouring rain, a drizzle, some moisture content in the air...anything. Youd either see accidents for other people, or you'd almost get in one yourself. It was a steel gray Mustang, trying to turn right on red, somehow didn't see my silver car, kept rolling out of its lane. I still gave it the benefit of the doubt for a fraction of second, then I just held down the horn for a good 15 seconds, 1/2 block.

Driving insanity...SLO town and the surrounding area are the worst.

01 24 2004

Hiked Bishop yesterday. Fast hike, I didn't stop at all. The hike felt all so easy. The only reason I can think of is that the trip back home to Taiwan had trained me a little bit. Going home was a very good thing. First, it is always soooo wonderful to see my family; it's hard to not live close to them (still trying to remedy that...maybe we'll get a chance to move home to Taiwan sometime in the future). Second, the food was just endless. I managed to eat until my stomach was protesting, but my brain still wanted to have more, and still lost a few pounds. It's the diet I tell ya. Third, the hiking trips we took easily took us into the high mountains of Taiwan. Hiking in higher elevation ( at least >3500 feet) than SLO, and easily having a larger elevation gain than SLO did have me work harder than hiking in SLO county.

So with all factors added, I am simply in better shape now than before I went home. HAPPY.

10 28 2003

E has figured out how to open the screen door without breaking the screen. Caught her doing that a couple of times today. She just turned, stared at me with her smart ass face, at the same time, the guilty-caught-doing-bad-thing face.
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