lazyhazydream

It snapped. I don't know. It did, something did.

Ever wake up just hating everything?
Ever feel like part of you is at peace but another part it constantly fighting with yourself?
Ever want to change for the sake of change and not for the sake of something new?

Ever. Ever.

What is it? Why?
No. No.

Does it make sense?
Ever have pieces of paper sitting in front of you, with scribbling on it that you won't ever understand unless you base it on a system of belief that has been established in you?

Why do we strive if we know there's an end?
Why do we feel invincible even if we know people die everyday?

Is it? It is and it isn't. What is? The day we know, a buzzer will go off inside our brains and we will implode and become insideoutmans. But we won't live to become insideoutmans because the world is slow slow slow. Or we're too fast and we rush to our deaths.

Ben, c'est donc ben donc ben bonc.
Yeah. No.

Crying, why does no one cry anymore. Tears are pretty. But we can't feel. Nope nope, feeling is for the gods, because only they have time. They have all the time in the world and the only thing in the world that I have left is time. Ding.

We are all sick. Yes, yes, no. Maybe. No. Not maybe. No, yes. Hee. You're all sick. We will all die from this plague called humanity. There is no cure, we are the worse sickness any thing or world has ever contracted. Nothing gets rid of us and soon we will infest the entire universe.

We talk just to talk. It makes us feel good because we make sounds and that stops us from thinking. Do we feel? Is it like masturbating? Who knows, who cares. Exchange. Run run run. There it goes. You think she's insane but she's not. The rest of you are insane. You make no sense. And the sense can't make you, did it make you? We all study forces we can't touch. If a tree falls in a forest with no one hearing it, will it make a sound? What is the answer? The answer is

This afternoon, a man in trenchcoat dressed completely in black walked into Dawson College and began shooting at students. There was a lot of panic and injuries, distributed through 3 major hospital ERs of Montreal. A lot of students who simply didn't have anywhere to go were sent to Concordia University for temporary shelter and treatment for shock.

This has been the THIRD shooting here in Montreal, so close to home, since the 1990s. The first one was at the Polytechnique College, and the second one at Concordia University. A major section of the roads in downtown were blocked off, the metro (subway) service was interrupted. I wasn't even able to get home through there.

The shooter has been reported dead, killed by police. Of the gunshot victims, 2 have already passed away and at least 8 are still in critical condition at the hospitals, waiting to be operated on asap.

It makes me really sad how some people can be so angry at the world that they would just randomly walk into a public area and start randomly killing people. Either they're very angry, or they're very disconnected from reality and all this makes me sad and think about whether our society has made them this way.

My heart goes out to all whom have been affected by this. I personally know a lot of people from that college and I'm desperately hoping they're okay. Everyone I know currently living in Montreal are either shocked or traumatised.

*Warning: The following content is meant to offend. Take it with moderation or get the hell away from my journal*

Commercials are stupid. (You're probably thinking "big freggin' duh.") They are! What the hell is wrong with people these days? Why on EARTH would you WANT a mascara that will make your eyelashes TWELVE times their original length??? WHY?! It's like wearing a freggin' baseball cap! You're only going to fucking see HALF of your normal field of vision. Seriously! What are you, trying to swat flies with it??? *imagines someone chasing after a bug while bobbing their head and blinking maniacally* It's like, finally! My dream of being able to kill mosquitoes with my eyelashes have come true! The worse is that they actually show it in a commercial, the l'Oreal one, where the girl with the mega lashes blinks and suddenly there's a huge gust of wind rushing through the room blowing everyone stuff around. Ok, now, unless l'Oreal's planning on selling only ONE stick of mascara, I imagine the streets will be populated with chicks (and sometimes dudes) wearing that shit. I can totally see a man-made hurricane coming right there. I wonder what they'll name it. That reminds me of some funny weatherman on TV who started a rant about how only some meteorological station in Florida gets to name hurricanes and it's always FRENCH or SPANISH or FRENCH or SPANISH cuz it's always like that and we don't get to have any say in it. NEVER.

Speaking of stupid commercials, did you see the one with the new GLAD bags? The one where they made a digital animation of of an elephant stomping through town and a ball just hauling it off? Like, yes, we, being the SOCIETY of morons that we are will just absorb everything, because since it's digitally animated, it must definitely be TRUE. They made a bag SO durable, that you can stuff a child and suffocate it in it because it will have NO chance in hell of getting out. Why do they keep up coming up with bags that are more and more durable anyway??? Do you have ANY idea what this is doing to the environment to be constantly creating more waste??? BUY A FUCKING GARBAGE CAN IF YOU DON'T WANT YOUR TRASH TO GET MAULED AND EATEN! For crying out loud, maybe if people took a BIT more care of not just chucking their waste all over the place and not drag it for 50 meters straight or just CHUCKING IT ON THE FUCKING BED LIKE THAT WOMAN IN THAT OTHER GLAD COMMERCIAL, then maybe we wouldn't have to waste SO MUCH MONEY on stupid plastic garbage bags! Are you too STUPID to wrap a used piece of tissue around your toothpick before throwing it into the garbage?

AND OMG, do not, and I mean do NOT get me started on the chips commercials! *pause* Well, you didn't stop me. So yeah, what's with all these STUPID new types of chips??? Are they trying to really make us enjoy ourselves and not get fat? FUCK NO! What they're REALLY doing, is to try and get us to EAT more of their shit so that when we ACTUALLY get fat, we won't understand why and we won't suspect them because they told us we wouldn't gain weight and we're STUPID. "This has 0% fat!" "This is baked!" "It tastes JUST like the original!" BULL. FUCKING. SHIT. It's CHIPS. If you're going to eat them, eat the real fucking ones, not the ones that taste like crap and make you get fat anyway. Be RESPONSIBLE, KNOW what you're getting yourself into! If you're going to enjoy yourself, just enjoy yourself, without the guilt, and don't torture yourself with half-asses tasteless crap that won't give you the satisfaction even if you ate 5 bags (oops, sorry, i meant 2.5, cuz that's how they really pack it).

I mean, what's wrong with the developped country these days? I'm having serious doubts as to whether it's run by morons or just people who want to turn us into morons as an ulterior motive to rule the world. WHY are we inventing ways to gives ourselves excuses to LIE to ourselves? WHY??? Do we feel better? NO! We have 230982572457298 more mental disorders nowadays and 2394823579 new diseases and 843589715 new types of cancers and there's just no END to it! Are we really advancing technologically if so many of us are DYING? Are we as naive enough to create something deadly and destructive just because we were told it wasn't going to be USED that way? Maybe we're just naive enough to get bribed and think it wouldn't turn around to blow ourselves up one day. You wanna make something useful of yourself? Make people stop HATING each other, KILLING each other or just plain fucking JUDGING one another. Like it or not, we are all connected in a sense that we DO care what another person thinks. It's why we make human contacts, why we speak, why we touch and all those other things. I can't honestly believe that ANY normal person would not be traumatised after having taken a life or being told they must take their own.

I personally think it's more humane to throw someone in a white padded room when they're having a huge madcow fucking fit and just let them have it at the walls and stuff until they calm down, than to inject them with some kinda addicting cocktail shit and throw them back into society where they can do more damage. And why are there so many people around here making other people go crazy??? Too many people way too little spaces, because why? Poor people have no chance to educate themselves and what do they do to make money? MAKE BABIES! YES! THEY CAN FEED AN ENTIRE FUCKING FAMILY ON WELFARE. We pay the government, and the government pays them. Gee, I can't possibly THINK of any other ways to spend my USELESS tax dollar just to see FUCKING FLOWER PLANT POTS INSTALLED IN THE FUCKING MIDDLE OF THE STREETS CAUSING FUCKING DRIVING HAZARDS. OR HAVING NEW FUCKING SIGNS IN FRENCH! YES, now that the street name has a "rue" in front of it, I will have 1000000x more of a chance of finding! Go create a program reinstating poor people into society or something, if you wanna stop making the city less green, STOP CUTTING DOWN ALL THE FORESTS AND BULIDING HOUSES INSTEAD TO HAVE MORE POOR PEOPLE MOVE IN! It's a vicious cycle! I have nothing against poor people, seriously, I could be one of them one day. I just think the government needs to rethink about how they're totally and completely screwing themselves over and getting deficits larger and larger every year just to make us run into cement flower pots and see more French words.

It's sad that we're in a world where money rolls money and people are selfish. I wish it could stop but I know by now that it's a force beyond any individual's and not enough people realizes it. A lot of us are just standing idly by as the human race leads itself to its destruction. *sigh* I think I've ranted myself out of it, later folks.

1. There are asses and there are asses (No, not the physical buttox, but people). What's the difference? None really, except that some just won't stop coming back into your life no matter what. I'm referring to someone in particular at this moment but I could be speaking to all or any or none of you. I think in general, they're just too STUPID to realize who they are or who/what they're dealing with. The worse kind is the kind that thinks they're smart and all that but they're clearly not. (If you were that great, you wouldn't be here.) When you mention it to them, they either make it sound not true in their all-so-smart-but-not way or they just flat out deny it. Asses are everywhere (no, not that kind that lives on farms with big long ears, but I personally think that the people I'm talking about should have their faces rubbed in mud). Insults seem to just FLY over their heads (clearly it's not as big as it was going to get yet); they either fail to acknowledge the fact that it IS a fucking insult, or they're just too used to them to care. Oh! And people who will NOT admit that they're wrong! Or their mistakes. Because, obviously, they're perfect, with their absolutely asinine personality and all. I would LOVE to punch one in the face. So next major jackass I know and meet, I hope you know how to fix a broken nose.

2. Another thing you people should be aware of is people who wave their car on the street in a fashion that all occupants within the vehicle would be swerving back and forth at the music in sync. The worse part? I have more than one example and none of them are/were drunk, they're just crazy. I find it kinda funny personally, (in a all-the-while-being-scared-half-to-death way). It's quite a skill actually, I mean, I couldn't even do that on the dance floor. But then again, I can't dance.

3. To spend the best vedgiest afternoon, I believe the combination would be chips + coffee + Angel the Series DVDs + Sims on a laptop. Top the end of the day off with a few rounds of pool and you're in business. Being a bum rocks, Especially if you don't need to spend a lot of money doing it... which would of course defeat the entire idea of being a bum in the first place so being a bum just rocks in general.

I happened to be here because... I'm so bored that this was my last option.

One thing to say though:

Tams + World Cup + Chinatown + Jazz Fest = One of the best days you'll ever have in your life.

Sorry, I had to brag. Couldn't help myself, I like rambling and feeling ultimately superior somehow just because I rambled and no one knows what I'm talking about and in some weird psychotic disturbing way that makes me feel better about myself.

You're all crazy! *runs off*

Annie

Thank god for small favors in hot summer days... I don't think that expression applies very well but who cares. Taiwan must be THE bubble tea heaven because you find a shop selling those deliciously chewy drinks at every corner. We just bought some while out shopping (which is a lot more tasking than it actually sounds) and bubble tea totally saved our lives. I *heart* Taiwan's bubble tea.

I get the impression that my dermatologist might not like me. He specifically told me to stay out of the sun, especially the one 10x more powerful than what we have in Canada - such as in Taiwan. Going into the sun probably wasn't a huge problem, because I was encouraged to use sunscreen and wear sleeves (as in long sleeves) as well as wear a hat (I reckon he'd rather I die of heat stroke than die from sunburn). I guess my point is that the doc might be a bit more than upset to find me with a nice brown tan.

Y'know, it just occured to me that my grandpa's eyes might be blue, which is INCREDIBLY weird. I said 'might' mainly because I don't really get to look at him straight in the eye a lot and when I do get a glance, I can't really see them because they're kind small and semi closed. But I thought I saw something pale when I look at them (he has perfectly good eyes, so I can rule out any medical problem) and in all the pictures of him that I could find in the house (which wasn't many) they were blue (the reason I can't trust the pictures cuz they've all been graphically enhanced like you would find in wedding pics, or anniversary pics, so the blue might've just been added in). When I asked my grandma, she didn't really answer either and only smiled at me. I guess I feel embarrassed for bringing up the subject again because I'll look like an idiot either way. It'd either be "duh, there's no such thing as blue eyes when you're completely chinese" or "duh, of course, his eyes were always blue, you never noticed?". On top of that, what made it even more creepy is that I'm reading Memoirs of a Geisha, and the main character is Japanese but also has blue eyes. What a coinky danky.

Oy, yesterday, we were packing like we were leaving today - aka crazy. We stayed up til 2-3 am but it made me so happy. Three more days!

Love ya'all.
Annie

Lemme tell you something about the gifting ritual: You give the most expensive or the most meaningless gift if you really like the person, you get a second-rated most expensive gift if you really hate the person and you get anything else for whatever's in between. The ritual goes like this. You will go into the gathering (i.e. supper, dinner, etc.), suspecting already that you will be given a gift and what kind due to weeks of rumours so if that doesn't take place, you'd be very upset. Secondly, the giver would somehow present the gift when you're the most off-guard and they always have some really stupid/insulting reason for it ( e.g. "this is so much prettier than that ugly old thing you're wearing right now!" or "I already bought it, so I thought you might want it."). Third, there's a round of refusal and pushing-back-and-forth-ness. The receiver MUST absolutely decline the gift at the start, giving some stupid/insulting reason back. The giver will continue pushing the gift on, either reinforcing the original stupid reason or use a new stupid reason. This is the most annoying part and it goes back and forth a few times and sometimes you need to take a break and do other things before getting back into it. This is also the longest process. Finally, depending on which side is the 'cheapest' person, the gift will finally be taken/refused. If you are the receiver and you are younger, then it doesn't matter. Finally, the object/gift in question must be put away or out of sight in order for this whole gifting process to end. Beware, should you refuse to participate in this activity that wastes a great deal of your time, you will be considered as tactless, rude and almost insulting.

Taiwanese small street markets are fun. From what I know, they only open on the weekend and they take place in some constrict but extremely elongated alley. It's mostly filled with... you guessed it: people. Occasionally there are a few scooters going around, so if you happen to see one driving up to you face to face, do not panic; it will swirve at the very last moment to avoid hitting you and then proceed to pass you by so closely that it would clip your toenail for you. A variety of things are being sold but what you find there mostly are half-rotten vegetables, fly-covered meat as well as an assortment of extremely outdated clothes, purses and shoes. To really get the goods, you need to make a trip to the 'Night Markets' which are a lot more exciting and full of young people.

On another note, I would like to make it public that our washing machine is a cow. Y'know how usually washing machines sometimes eat your socks and your underwear? You would put it in and never see it ever again. Well, not ours. Ours seems to have taken a liking of chewing on my clothes for a while before spitting it back out all deformed and mangled. Yes, I have been forced to buy new underwear and if they weren't cute and multicolored, I would've been quite upset.

Yeah... not much else new. Some random facts are that I was scared half to death by my uncle's driving today. And I'm drinking a lot more coffee than I really need during the day. I might still be jet-laggy, as strange as it sounds, even after 3 weeks or so, which is highly abnormal. Either that or I just miss my own bed.

Night peeps
Annie

Annie's guide to taking the municipal bus:

1. You need to watch for it, because the visible parts are covered in purple orpink colors while the rest are covered with extravagants posters of Asian celebrities you will have never seen or heard of.
2. There's a general multi-bus stop area with signs and bus numbers, but they kinda stop anywhere along the bloc, as in not anywhere near the sign with their number, so you kinda have to wave it down like you would a taxi.
3. While the metros are gentler than Montreal metros, the bus drivers here are ten times the lunatic they are in Montreal. So if you're standing, grab hold to something steady. The drivers are very nice and polite though, they just can't drive, but then again, who can in Taipei?
4. They have A/C. Don't cheer just yet, it's actually one of the places you can freezes in, especially if it's raining.
5. The fact that they make the seats and hold-bars with comfy soft materials only makes it grosser when you sit down or grab hold at first, as you are coming in all sweating from the hot and humid weather outside. The other fact that they're all brown from other people's previous contact only makes it worse.

So, I got back from Beijin at 1:30 am and found out that my mailboxes didn't explode, yay.

I must say that I had an awesome 8 days there and it was worth more than... whatever my Mom paid. I totally adored the group leader and the tour guide, they are the coolest people on earth and I love them to death and they actually made me wish I was a guide, which is saying a lot (no offense to you tourism-industry-oriented people if any was unintentionally taken). So yes, it was wonderful but I have to admit that after a week, I was extremely glad to be able to see a toilet bowl/seat again, and to have it not smell AND have toilet paper handy. Hong Kong is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen from the airplane and unfortunately, we only stopped at the airport to transfer flights. I got to board a plane by driving to it and then climbing stairs! Just like in the MOVIES! *dies of being stupid*

Beijin has the number equivalency of bicycles on the streets as we have of scooters here in Taiwan. The city has the urban plan of a dart board, where the main roads circle the city's Center (Tiamen Square aka the Forbidden City), I think there are 6 circles in total. Just for an entirely useless point of reference, the 2nd road counted from the center has a circumference of 24 km. Another interesting fact about Beijin is that the buildings only get bigger and taller the further you are from the center of the city, because that's where the old temples/palaces/habitats were originally built and a lot of these as well as other ancient structures were preserved through time. Therefore, the larger apartments and skyscrapers were puts more on the outskirts of the city. We were very lucky to have gone at the time we did because apparently we had just missed the sandstorms and the weather has been overall pleasant throughout the 8 days.

The first day we visited the Tiamen's square. The crowd felt a lot like that which we find on an X'mas Eve and that was only the down season. My mother dearest liked showing off her English, so when we met a bunch of people from Seattle, they were very happy to be having a nice long conversation with us. It seems that western people can smell other westerner's from afar, because as you will read the rest of this journal, I keep on bumping and end up talking to people from the States. Oh, apparently tank tops exists only in movies and North America/Europe because while I was the only person wearing it in a crowd of god knows how many thousands, everyone seemed slightly taken aback by what I was wearing. Gasp! Flesh! Nooooo! I did wonder if the young waiters in the restaurants were staring for the same reasons though. We also saw the Hong Kong entertainment house, which, if I remember correctly was built exclusively for people visiting from Hong Kong at the time when it was still loaned the UK.

Within the tour group, almost everyone treats me like I'm 15 there because they're all 50+, minus the guide who was 31 (and made me promise to learn to read and write Chinese next time I see him which is probably be never) and the leader who was... 20 something I guess (so big-sister-ish and so glompable because she's so big-sister-ish and yesh, i adopt many surrogate big sisters, sue me... At the start she was fascinated by me the way a scientist would be by an alien but then it kinda got better). Even though I was stuck with a bunch of old people, they were all pretty chatty and somewhat hyper, which is weird but extremely cute at the same time and they're all very talkative and LOVE anything involved with the western culture so they each took turns interrogating me when we walked to places. Also, instead of learning my name they decided to just call me Mei Mei - which means but doesn't directly translate to: Little Girl (in the olden days, this word as well as a variation of this [Mei Ze] were both used to address servants, but nowadays it's a very familial way of addressing a girl who's little, or in my case, young). Also, I realized that whenever I was with my mom, I would be referred to as Mei Mei, but if I was alone, people would call me Miss or Lady. Weird, huh? Oh, another funny thing is that men, no matter of what age group, all like younger women - which is why the leader and I were hardly ever left alone anywhere, we were always either chatting with the 'Uncles' of our group or ended up talking to other people at restaurants and theaters. It was actually fun to be getting lotsa attention.

China has a shitload of temples, and they tend to all look the same. The fascinating thing about them though is that they all have different stories behind them (I might save that for another day). I also saw a lot of tombs and palaces and such, those were fun but we mostly saw the outsides of them and not the inside. A very memorable temple was the one where I first saw the statues of the Lama religion (as in Dali Lama). There are a LOT of statues, most served as wise men and guardians (generally 4 - one for each season) as well as servant-gods/buddhas. All of them were at least life size or bigger which kinda mades for a scary scene especially when visited in the dark (nothing is ever lit in the temples, not even ensence (sp?), candles or lightbulbs for fear of something catching fire, supposedly). It was even freakier because, from my point of view, the bigger they got the angrier their facial expression got. Of course, with that remark made you must think that the main Buddha was this angry mass of wild fury embodied or something similar. Well, it wasn't. It looked serene as far as I could tell. I say that because while I was staring at its toes on the ground level, its face/head was actually 7 floors away, directly up. My first impression as I walked into the temple containing the great Guan Yin was the fact that I couldn't exactly make out what I was staring at, so therefore, confusion. Then, as my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, it slowly followed up the most massive and extrinsincally carved hunk of wood I've ever seen and it felt like looking at the top of a sky scraper from the sidewalks. At that very instant that I figured out what I was staring at, I instantly decided that if ever there was a God and I came face to face (or rather, face to toe) with one, God would be that immense. This Guan Yin Buddha was actually made of 5 different trees, while another one I saw at a different temple was made of one tree only and had to be built first and then the temple was built around it.

I was on the Great Wall! It was a helluva climb up the Simatai Great Wall but it was SO worth it because the view is just simply gorgeous and the air was incredibly fresh (well, freshER anyway). We visited from the 7th to the 11th tower and there was actually a lot of climbing and walking. Oh, and I met a young couple from LA, chatted with them and took a pic for them, they were extremely pleased with my photography skills. Everyone has taken to my mom's whinning however, and it has become more or an entertainment than an annoyance, which was pleasant in a deranged sense. They love practicing nitpicking and complaining, especially in restaurants and at bathroom stops. Once our tour bus spent 5 hours on extremeley abrupt and curvy roads in the mountains and by the end, I think both the tour guides and the leader along with myself were going crazier than the older people who were going crazy about sitting for 5 hours straight... I think that made sense. The ride in itself was extremely interesting though, we saw a lot of huge mountains and cliffs, passed by and through many small towns and villages (to which I didn't take any pics of due to lack of good view/angle - poo). That same day, we saw Tsee Shee's Tomb (officially spelled Ci Xi but I wrote in the correct pronounciation's favor for your sake) and it was very cold because it was made of large stones and was underground.

We saw the Chinese Doctor at this famous place where they have a dozen kinda just sitting there all day doing nothing and sell you very expensive medication after measuring your pulse. We were also taken to all sorts of jewelery shops like jade shops, pearls shops, enamel, silk, etc. in which everything were also overly priced and were eager to sell.

We visited the Beijin Uni and the campus grounds are absolutely gorgeous, it's got lotsa green space, a lake, very pretty buildings built in both modern style as well as ancient style. There was a student there who acted as an unofficial guide and took us around and stuff after having snuck us through the strict gate guards. The most important part was that he was very nice, and very ho- um... handsome... (he was courageous enough to wear short shorts and managed to look good in them) and left me his email address. He did boast about knowing English and Spanish which he both spoke to test me. I didn't really understand either of it; he had a very harsh accent when speaking English and I suspect he only mumbled his way through Spanish even though I wouldn't have understood it anyway despite my four years in high school. The only thing I didn't like about him was that Mom liked him. I think I have an innate instinct to eventually find someone my mom will loathe. It was slightly funny when I asked for his name, because he told me just to translate directly from his Chinese name... which was 'Spring'. Yeah... Somehow it just doesn't feel right to call him that.

That same day, we went to an opera house where we watched various performances such as standup comedy (Chinese style, woot!), singing, Chinese orchestra, face-changing thingy (not sure what to call it) and some form of kungfu and a magic show. It was pretty exciting although I did end up talking with a couple of boys from the Uni of Pennsylvania and not paying much attention to the show. The entire house was very lively though, even the guy who poured tea has this very special long tea pot with an uber long spout and did little performances while pouring as in pouring tea in many different positions.

Eek, that was long, but it's all in all what I was able to recall. When I got back, we did a lot of shopping with some relatives and found many different things that I didn't need but wanted to buy. Remind me to take you guys shopping in Taiwan one day, you'll love it.

As a last closing and useless remark, there's a mosquito stuck in the room and I think it's hungry. I have no doubt it will eat me alive while I'll be sleeping.

Later folks
Annie

I seem to be some kind of very important figure here, almost a legend. No, no, I kid you not. A lot of people seem to have developped a great interest in meeting me, especially since according to my Taiwan Citizenship records, I might not even exist in this country despite the fact that I was born here. So I guess meeting me would be a really big deal, I know I definitely would like to meet me if I were someone else. Well, even with everyone eagerness to meet the ultimate me-ness, for some odd reason, the first thing everyone tells to me is how fat I am. Yes, I am fat, apparently I am borderline obsese from the tone they exclaimed it with. I feel very insecure in public now. I want to stand up and scream "I'm healthy! I can run faster than any of you suckers out there!" in public but I think that would just get me arrested because not many people understand English that well and would even less tolerate someone screaming to no one in public (screaming at someone in public is generally accepted, it is a ritual performed on a daily basis by millions of people). Although I wouldn't see the point in running really since I'd be hitting something at a few steps.

While crossing the streets here, you have to know about the Driver's First Policy. This means that you cross at your own risk, and should you ever get hit, it'll probably be at a very high speed and they'll never catch the driver. They sometimes even drive through red lights too, it's really fun watching it with all the screaming and honking and pedestrians acting all flustered like chickens. Yay for overpopulated areas. There's not a single place where you can be alone, or have space really. I guess now I understand why people get so aggressive. One good thing about it though is that since there are so many people, everything comes in mass demand, and therefore cheap (cheap = happy). I just bought myself a pretty good set of earphones for maybe 4$ CN whereas it would've cost me at least 20$ in Quebec. Another thing that's funny about people here is that there's no sense of propriety, since I guess there's no such thing as personal space since there are too many people. Old people tend to fart in public in places where they will be the most noticed very loudly, it's actually really funny because nobody cares.

I like my socks. They're very comfy and not dirty, well, on the inside anyway. For some odd reason, my grandparents put this weird grid thingy on the floor of the bathroom and it feels like walking on barbed wire but without the bleeding part. We bear it because we have no choice. Well... I bear it cuz I refuse to wear slippers really. I've somewhat learned how to not fight with the moveable shower head within an enclosed space while standing on barbed wire now so I feel very proud that I don't spend five hours in the bathroom or something. I think this skill will come in quite handy if I decided to join the army. For some odd reason, one of my greatest obsessions is not being able to fix my eyebrows. There seems to be no good mirror with which I can actually see myself clearly in within the confinements of this house as well as good lighting, so I'm half tempted to go tweeze my eyesbrows in a public bathroom.

Jet lags are fun. I start to get dead tired by usually 8 pm, after an entire day of running around and carrying bags which increase in numbers throughout the day. And I'm not talking about any tired, I'm talking about nearly narcoleptic tired, like I could fall asleep where I stand if I didn't have an ounce of will ( i.e. I don't want to get robbed while I'm out or I don't want to wake up at 3 am because I passed out in the early evening) left in me. Can't even stay awake after a cup of coffee and espresso, pfft. Also, for some odd reason, I've been getting this constant headache for the last few days, it's kind of on and off and almost migraine-ish but I don't get migraines and I refuse absolutely to them at any period in my life. Besides, it could be a lot of different factors, such as inhaling very bad smells all day or pollution or hearing so much noise all the time. Speaking of noise, I find it slightly irritating how everything makes noise here. It's as if technology is built for morons activated by sounds. *pauses* Ok... maybe it is. But seriously, everything makes at least 7 noises or something. Like the bus, it beeps when it backs up (normal I guess), it beeps in a different way when it starts going forward, it buzzes when it slows down, it goes 'doo' when the doors open, it beeps THEN follows by buzzing when you ring the bell, etc. etc. I mean, come ON! Are you trying to render people insensitive to warning noises?! The metro makes this awful semi-automatic gunshot sound when the doors are about to close - maybe it's trying to scare people into rushing into the carts at the last minute or something.

Yesterday, the highlight was going to the zoo. Yes, you read right. The Muzha Zoo (I think that's how you spell it). Unfortunately, the zoo was just as disappointing as when I was small, if anything, the animals seemed to have gotten older but they still hide when there's people around, and on top of that, it was raining. The trees, however, planted when I was still little, have now grown into overtowering proportions, providing much appreciated shading. Anyway, so the animals look bored and listless and always stand at the furthest end possible of their territory and don't even bother to eat for our entertainment purposes but I still love them anyway because they're animals. They also have museums with animals who were stuffed and one of them displayed was the elephant Li Wang. Li Wang was actually pretty huge and had died of old age at the age of 84 or 86, in year 2003. I didn't really know Li Wang that well, but I was sad nonetheless because mom said that I always loved to go see him when I used to go the zoo as a kid, while he was still alive of course. There were also other not as impressive animals such as... fish... and squirrels and racoons. Oh yeah, for some odd reason, there were surprisingly a lot of owls. Must be a Taiwan zoo thing or something.

As for today, I went to the XingTianGong Temple and the Taiwan Art and Handicraft Center. The Handicraft place has a lot of amazing gorgeous handmade things and there's literally EVERYTHING. Ranging from pencil cases to hats to tea pots to paintings and rulers and stuff i can't even recognize. I fell in love instantly with this new type of gorgeous stone which is apparently some variation of crystal but it's multicolored and very hard to make and costs 47 arms and 35 legs and I would be killed by my mother should I ever want to get one. They can be sculpted into many different shapes the way it is done for crystal and jade. In the long run, I was so fascinated and half-ashamed that I actually love shopping so much. Damn you North American culture! Apparently I look like an ABC (American Born Chinese) right on the spot, which... I'm not sure whether is due to my face, the way I act, the fact that I can't speak Chinese well or read it at all, or the fact that I'm fat. My mom says that people stare at me on the metro and buses too, now I don't feel at ALL insecure. Or... maybe I could get used to the attention? Oh, I bought a T-shirt. I was debating between one with ancient Chinese characters on them or one that said "I survived Taiwan" but I decided to go with fascination rather than humour.

ANYWAY, as for the Temple part... it was pretty amazing. The architecture is absolutely beautiful and I will have pictures to prove it. I spent a 45 mins desecrating the place by stepping around nuns and priest (well, the catholics' homologous of nuns and priests but they're not monks or anything) and taking pictures of them as well as of people praying and lining up to be 'cleansed' and chanting. Mom made me ask the Gods for my future, and apparently there ARE different gods in the world otherwise they wouldn't have spoken different languages. I had to identify myself and ask a question and pick a wooden stick from a bucket with a certain number on it, and then I had to chuck two halves of crescent shaped thingies to see if my number was accepted. They have to land on different faces to be accepted. So right, after asking in English for about 10 times, I finally got desperate and decided to ask in Chinese, surprise surprise, my number finally got accepted. Then I had to go to this box where I had to pick a slip of paper corresponding to the number I picked to get my fortune. Apparently it really works if I believe in it... but I didn't, so it told me something bad and apparently of no relevance. It might be pure coincidence, but apparently when my mom was little once, she got spooked because she did that for fun at some point, and the slip of paper told her that "since her heart wasn't true, the fortune wouldn't work". And just today, her paper started with "Now that you're starting on your fifties..." - which she was. Coincidence? Mayhaps.

Hmm... the last thing I have to say about my experience in Taiwan so far is... well, remember how I used to whine about how there aren't enough hot asian guys in Montreal? Well, in Taiwan, there are PLENTY. It is so delightful, and they don't actually look like nerds. I would've taken pictures but they would've found me creepy, and y'know, stupid slow cameras that need to auto-focus. There's no way I could've flashed it fast enough to make it look like an accident.

Well, I suppose that's all for now. Oh, I'm leaving this Saturday for Beijing for a week, so I won't have internet access at ALL. I'll try and take a ridiculously redondant amount of pictures and then write from memory. But we all know how good MY memory is...

Aight, I'm out.
Annie

So, second day in Taiwan, it's crazy how much I've seen already.

I've spent over 24 hours at airports and on planes, so to say the least, I don't think I'll need to see any for a very long time. At some point, I thought I was going insane because of it, because spending 13 hours straight on a plane is just not healthy, not physically, not mentally. Even after 3 movies. My butt was aching and so was my back and my neck and I couldn't get up to stretch as often as I would've liked because there were very worrying turbulances and when my mom woke me up for a meal at some point, I had instantly this killer headache and it was so bad I wanted to kill myself. Oh, and the food tastes like crap, go figure.

I transferred twice at two different airports, which was special. The man sitting in front of me during the twelve hour flight was so annoying because he sat very upward in the chair and hid most of the screen with his ugly graying balding head, and plus he wouldn't stop lolling it around. I wanted to shoot him with a shotgun. I think that's my new solution to all my problems, shoot them with a shotgun. The airport at Detroit was pretty average, very north american, full of restaurants and expensive buildings and people rushing about and very expensive shops and magazine stores. Oh, there was this very cool water fountain to which I will not explain but have omitted taking a picture of, therefore I will try when I go back.

The airport in Osaka was slightly more entertaining, however I only stayed for about an hour and half of it was spent checking my ticket and boarding the plane. The very first thing that I found funny was the emergency phone. You know how the Japanese language uses some Chinese characters? Well, if you don't, you do now. The thing is though, that they're pronounced completely different and mean very different things. So on the phone, in Chinese, it was written, if directly translated to English: 'Very Telephone'. This mildly amused me, and made me giggle as I told my mom, but apparently I was the only one who found it funny so I seemed like a bit of an idiot. The airport was big, and all the different sections were separated with glass walls. It's my first slight cultural shock seeing as how people are different as well as the way things are organized, blablabla, etc. etc. And it's kind of the first time that I'm in a completely new environment where I couldn't understand the official spoken or written language and felt horribly like a tourist. The men all seem generally short and very angry, wherever they go, they kinda stalk here and there with very severe faces. The women are very insanely happy to be speaking to you or serving you. One of them, while taking my passport, began shouting in Japanese to some other dude flipping documents where all I understood was 'Yao-chan' but she did it in such a manner that I felt like she was announcing my boarding of the plane as if I was some royalty. By the way, is there such as thing as a 'beforetaste'? Kinda like the aftertaste principle but it happens before you actually getting the food's taste? Yes, it's a strange story involving cornchips.

The way I feel about Taiwan right now is sticky. Yes, I feel very sticky. It's humid and rainy and on top of the layer of sunscreen that is constantly reapplied and the bug spray, there is a layer of smog-muck, and it just makes me feel very sticky. At least the good news is that I don't get dry skin anymore (for those who have heard me complain, you will understand). One of the icky things though is that you don't actually feel cleaner or dryer after a... wash. The bathroom is literally a bathroom, where you can just sorta wash yourself in the middle of the room and get water everywhere because it'll eventually drain out in a hole at the corner. It gets a bit cramped and claustrophobic though, because it's a lot smaller compared to what we're used to and there's just kinda stuff piling up everywhere.
There are cockroaches crawling around on the floor and I spot them a lot, along with other non-identifiable insects, which is not very happy since I sleep on the floor at night. The floor is hard tile which makes me miss my bed, but it wasn't much better than the actual bed they have, which was wood with a light blanket on top. The food is actually interesting, or so I've heard, since I can't try most of it yet due to feast of Traveler's Sickness. However, I did get to try some of my favorite stuff... which is... uh... well, you wouldn't really understand and I wouldn't really know how to explain it, but I really enjoyed it and that's what counts.

There's a helluva lotta airconditionning, which I love because you feel like you're constantly in a sauna when you walk outside. It also rains everyday and apparently it's acidic or something so if you walk too much in it without covering yourself, you'd go bald. According to on of my aunts, she was itching all over once when her skin was exposed to it. That kinda creeps me out, and it's a shame because it's the kind of torrential rain in warm weather I'd LOVE to run around in.

What was funny about meeting my grandparents, was that, my grandma gave me money upon seeing me, and the first thing my grandpa said to me was that I shouldn't get any fatter. I'm sure he meant it in a good way... Talking to my grandma is a lot of fun, my Canadian humour makes her laugh so I enjoy talking with her. Talking to my grandpa is slightly awkward, but I still try. It's just that, he's kinda deaf so everyone has to shout and I dunno at what level of shouting I'm supposed to use to actually make him hear but not make him deafer, and my vocabulary isn't that great plus both my grandparents speak a dialect so I'm not perfectly sure if my grandpa understands my Mandarin. So I just kinda stand there, screaming my head off in very lousy Mandarin and what I'm saying doesn't really get across, it gets kinda awkward so I kinda smile and nod a lot now.

Today, we met one of my mom's best friends as well as her daughter, who is 5 years older than me but was kind of a big sister to me back then. The fact that she's been living in Los Angeles since she was 11 or 12 years old made everything SO much easier because she also spoke english and understands most of what I say and would explain what I didn't get. She's a complete perky prep, which is, y'know, very O.C.-ish which was near where she lives in the States, I can't remember the town right now. But she was really nice to me so I guess I can forgive her for going on and on about makeup and purses and clothing. She actually wanted to bring me clubbing and stuff, which is bad because I didn't bring ANY of my nice clothes, but also good because it'll be fun?

I think in Taiwan, the general rule on the street is to be rude. EVERYONE's rude, there's a lot of shouting, pushing, interrupting, cutting, beh, you name it. Anything you hate about downtown Montreal, multiply that by 10. When you go to a counter at any store, instead of saying something like 'hi, how may i help you?' they kinda formed a habit of saying 'what do you want???" Even the sampling ladies at the groceries stores are practically jumping me to make me try their brand new tea of slice of meat. It's as if they're going: "HERE! TAKE IT! TAKE IT NOW!!!" Oh, did I mention that it was extremely crowded? There's all these different scents too. You can smell the sewers, the food, the trash, the pollution, everything. It's a very distinct smell but it's strangely not that off-putting and kind of easy to adapt to. My guess is that your neural olfactory sensory simply just gives up trying to process everything after while. The streets are very dirty, but inside large buildings as well as the public transport, it's surprisingly clean, and yes! Contrary to popular belief, there IS toilet paper in public bathrooms!

Ok, Ok, so that's a lot of whinning. But y'know what? I had a lotta fun , I got to visit my old primary school and take pictures, as well as the park I used to go to when I was small. Also, with my mom's friend and her daughter, we went to see the Taipei 101 (don't ask me, they named it), which is the tallest building in the world right now, and they have the HUGEST mall ever. I think five floors of clothing and jewelery and cosmetics stores is somewhat of a crime. The place is absolutely gorgeous though and we vedged and had coffee there. Oh, lunch was eaten there too. Oh, and the MRT is also cool, it's kinda like the train in terms of location and distance traveled, but it's very subway-ish in the way people use it and how it's organized. One good thing I appreciated is the fact that there are glass walls and doors separating the ledges from the trains. I think we should adopt that; they'll be less morons jumping onto the tracks during rushhour or less people pushing other people onto the railing.

Beh, anyway, I'm tired and I think I've written enough since it's like 1 am now.

Laters all! I am in miss-mode already!

Annie

p.s. unfortunately, there will be no photos until i get back because... well, i'm stupid and i forgot my usb port... i might run to the market and buy one though...

Ok, so I haven't put up anything interesting in a while - here's a nibblet.

Y'know, after I started cleaning out my Inbox, I came across this. It was sent to me during the time I was doing finals, so I wasn't exactly in my right mind, nor the right mood. Needless to say, I did this on a whim, and perhaps outta anger and frustration (yes, I get angry and frustrated a lot, sue me). So here we go, here is the original spam letter I had received:

Hey it is Andy and john the directors of MSN, sorry for the interruption butmsn is closing down. this is because too many inconsiderate people aretaking up all the name (eg making up lots of different accounts for just
oneperson), we only have 578 names left. If you would like to close youraccount, DO NOT SEND THIS MESSAGE ON. If you would like to keep youraccount, then SEND THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE ON YOUR CONTACT LIST. This is nojoke, we will be shutting down the servers. Send it on, thanks. WHO EVER DOES NOT SEND THIS MESSEAGE, YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE CLOSED AND YOUWILL COST 10.00 A MONTH TO USE. SEND THIS TO EVERYONE ON YOUR CONTACT LIST. NOW YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO. PLEASE DO NOT FORWARD THIS or REPLAY. COPY THEWHOLE EMAIL. GO BACK TO YOUR INBOX AND CLICK ON NEW. AND PASTE THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION

My reply:

dear whatever,

i am using the reply option on purpose just because you told me not to.
thanks for writing this unspell-checked email, full of non-official and non-business-appropriate words and many capital lettered words (as well as the lack of such as 'john' with no J' at all the wrong places.

since when do you care about interrupting our measely lives with your advertisements anyway? i mean, how exactly are you interrupting it? most of the time, i just see where it's from and it goes straight towards the trash. i'm disappointed you're making a friend send this because you obviously don't care enough about every individual that uses your services. *snif*

so in the long rong, please stop making up lies, or msn will shut down because they ran outta freggin' server bandwidth to deal with all the freggin' junkmails and spams and hoaxes you send.
i'm sure msn has way better methods to detect whether someone is active or not or has more than one account than to make everyone spam everyone else.

thank you and have a nice day,
actually, no. i wish you a horrible day, i'm sick of your freggin' spam.

goodbye.

Needless to say, the only way I knew to get this out was... well, through spamming. I had hoped that it had provided at least a bit of entertainment for a few, maybe most would've discarded this without even looking. However, I did get some responses from a few paranoid freaks along the lines of "OMG! WHO ARE YOU?! LEAVE ME AND MY SISTER ALONE AND STOP EMAILING OR I WILL CALL THE POLICE!" - which mildly provided me with some entertainment in return. And yes, I did refrain from replying with a smartass comment. I do know my limits.

Then some other random people decided to add me to their MSN, which was somewhat unnerving because those who know me well, know about my paranoia as well as aversion towards creepy stalkers who also randomly add me to their MSN and ask for too much personal information (Yes, guys, for all you prankers, there's an idea to freak Annie out).

All in all, I think we all collectively agree that we hate spam. Unless you're a spammer, in which case it would be fun for you, because I'm sure getting a reply such as mine would just encourage you to spam more unless you're a shitface that actually take other people's misery to heart.

Well, that's all I have for now, I don't really have much else interesting thing to say, except that maybe, I've come to hate the world. Yes, I first hated humans, now the world. I might end up being a hermit afterall. I recently watched a lot of TV and movies and I just realized all over again how incredibly stupid and senseless and selfish we are. But we can't help it, we're not being stupid and selfish as a collective, we didn't go: "hey guys, let's all pitch in one for the team and start towards our own destruction." No, we do it individually - it just ends up that everyone's doing the same god damn thing. We go through life thinking that someone's gotta do something good once in a while, but we just give ourselves the excuse that we ain't that person. There's not enough people taking chances out there and I don't blame them. We like things the way it is and we do everything to afford to keep it the way it is. Y'know, I betcha if we cut half our body fat and somehow stick it on to somebody starving out there (try to think of this in terms of principle and not in the graphically gory kinda way), we could probably end global famine. Or if we stopped making money roll over money, we could end world poverty (but we don't want that because economy would crash and that's bad for us selfish folks).

Ever noticed that those soaps always take place in some richass town? No one EVER has money problems yet that is more than half the problem we face in reality everyday. Hurray, all problems are solved with all these random services and equipments and shits popping outta the thin air. If only the world would work like that. Hey, know those situations were people just gave other people favors without ever wanting anything in return? Yeah, if only that would happen too.

Ok, I wasn't gonna rant (again) originally, but it just happened. I'm sorry. I'll just cut myself short here. Hey, I think I'll go post this on all the other ten bazillion blogs/journals I've been suckered into signing up just for the heck of it.

Toodles.

**how do you guys keep on changing the pictures???**

i love saying that i'm gaining weight because of school... well, not because i'm gaining weight, but because i can legitimately blame school for it. and then i can go around the house saying school is bad for me and can't be called a liar.

first lj entry, yay! i have no clue how anything works yet, but thanks for your encouragement, alli... son. i just always hated brad, btw, so you have my vote for... well, banning him from his existence or whatever.

i can't wait til finals are over... i can't i can't! i feel like i'm gonna run out screaming 'I'M FREE I'M FREEEEEEEE!' even before i managed to sit through my last exam. (i was advised against this btw, go figure).

well, when i started, i felt like i had so much more to say. i'm never the journal writing type, but maybe i should be because i never remember anything and this way i can keep track of what i've been doing with my time that seems to evaporate into a swirl of puffiness.

btw X3 coming out soon! *points to pic* Angel is LE drool.