The title is translated from Vietnamese as Happy lunar new year to all of you out there! We now move from the year of the Rooster to the year of the Dog.
Had a big do at my place last night, celebrating Lunar New Year. Everyone on my dad's side came - and one who wasn't, my cousin Michelle's boyfriend, Alan. I've seen and met him before, he's a nice guy. And when it came time to hand out the lisi (lucky money, comes in red bags. Asian readers will know what I mean), he even got some from everyone in my family. Seems like he's been accepted by the whole family. Afterwards, we gambled with a large collection of Michelle's coins, at a game we normally play on Lunar New Year.
It involves betting on which symbol one of the three dice that are rolled will turn up as, from six: a crab, a fish, a prawn, a rooster, a gourd, or money. Needless to say, my luck was about average. However, my younger cousin Albert decided to try betting all his money on one. He did that last year and won - much to our amusement. However, he wasn't so lucky this time. Alan joined in later, using all sorts of weird reasoning to bet on things. In the end it was just me and my other cousin Anh, while my brother and cousin Khoi went off to play DoTA. Lot of fun had by all.
I noticed there how "love-love" Michelle and Alan were. She'd been nicknamed "sticky-rice" and rightly so. She was so clingy! She kept hugging him and staying near him. I watch this and wonder about the remark a friend of mine had made about Asian girls being high-maintenance girlfriends.
We went out for ice-cream after dinner at the Dairy Bell, on Melbourne street near my place. Afterwards, I accompanied cousin Anh (Albert's older sister) on a trip to the Empire Pool Lounge because she wanted to see her white boyfriend, David I think his name was. Watching them, they were really love-love too ... bahh seeing too much of that.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Bahh ... bored
The first two or three weeks of the new year have been relatively uneventful. I haven't been doing much, mainly sitting at home either role playing on forums or playing Dragon Quest VIII. In between is some study for the MCBT supplementary that I'm supposed to be taking in mid-February, and sporadically I've been airbrushing my latest model.
I haven't been able to download much lately because now I'm about 1.5gb away from getting slapped back to 64k speeds - ugh, the horror of near dial-up speeds. And so they choose now to release all the good stuff - more Stargate SG-1 and Battlestar Galactica goodness, Fate Stay Night anime, an extra two episodes for the Ah! My Goddess anime, the end of SHUFFLE! ... the list goes on. Blegh. I can't wait until Saturday, which I will spend downloading as much as I possibly can in 24 hours before I either get throttled back or it rolls over at the stroke of midnight. I can't seem to do much nowadays. My parents screamed at me for "wasting paper" when I printed off a guide to something for DQVIII. I paid for the paper, I can do what I like with it.
Now, for some reason, I have this hankering to play the Prince of Persia games. The new ones, mind, not the old, old-school ones I remember playing back when I was in year 2-3. Hopefully, it can fill the void that my life has been for the past few weeks. It'll be good once I hit March or April - by then I should have enough money to buy a real kick-ass laptop that I can hide easily. Of course, debt pay-offs and uni fees come first. This year, since I'm paying for myself, I have to apply for what passes for HECS these days, and then amass enough to pay the HECS. I can see where my Lunar New Year money's going >_<
Work can vary from great to horrible. I don't like my superior. She's an asshole. An absolute, power-hungry asshole. And I suspect she picks on me because I'm the boss's son, although that seems to have no difference at work. It's not like I threaten her position. I'm told that I'm the flavour of the month for her, but I doubt it. There are other new girls there. Honestly, no-one else seems to complain but her that I sit down while in between customers, and get off to greet and serve them when they come around. It still irks me when customers ask me for the winning numbers/ask if the tickets or numbers I gave them are winners. One thing I've been adopting the last couple of times at work are when they ask to make them rich. I scan their ticket, give them the "Your Ticket Is A Dud" slips and then tell them "You are rich ... in spirit." Honestly, when you have to try to hit up the lottery ticket seller for winning numbers, you have hit a new low.
I feel that I will be so much better off once I get out of the house and the restrictive rules imposed by the parents. I can do whatever I want (within reason) whenever I want. Because of them, I have this strange psychological conditioning that compels me to paint only at night, because that's when I know they won't come and bitch at me about the smell or destroying their house.
Man, already half the summer vacation gone ...
I haven't been able to download much lately because now I'm about 1.5gb away from getting slapped back to 64k speeds - ugh, the horror of near dial-up speeds. And so they choose now to release all the good stuff - more Stargate SG-1 and Battlestar Galactica goodness, Fate Stay Night anime, an extra two episodes for the Ah! My Goddess anime, the end of SHUFFLE! ... the list goes on. Blegh. I can't wait until Saturday, which I will spend downloading as much as I possibly can in 24 hours before I either get throttled back or it rolls over at the stroke of midnight. I can't seem to do much nowadays. My parents screamed at me for "wasting paper" when I printed off a guide to something for DQVIII. I paid for the paper, I can do what I like with it.
Now, for some reason, I have this hankering to play the Prince of Persia games. The new ones, mind, not the old, old-school ones I remember playing back when I was in year 2-3. Hopefully, it can fill the void that my life has been for the past few weeks. It'll be good once I hit March or April - by then I should have enough money to buy a real kick-ass laptop that I can hide easily. Of course, debt pay-offs and uni fees come first. This year, since I'm paying for myself, I have to apply for what passes for HECS these days, and then amass enough to pay the HECS. I can see where my Lunar New Year money's going >_<
Work can vary from great to horrible. I don't like my superior. She's an asshole. An absolute, power-hungry asshole. And I suspect she picks on me because I'm the boss's son, although that seems to have no difference at work. It's not like I threaten her position. I'm told that I'm the flavour of the month for her, but I doubt it. There are other new girls there. Honestly, no-one else seems to complain but her that I sit down while in between customers, and get off to greet and serve them when they come around. It still irks me when customers ask me for the winning numbers/ask if the tickets or numbers I gave them are winners. One thing I've been adopting the last couple of times at work are when they ask to make them rich. I scan their ticket, give them the "Your Ticket Is A Dud" slips and then tell them "You are rich ... in spirit." Honestly, when you have to try to hit up the lottery ticket seller for winning numbers, you have hit a new low.
I feel that I will be so much better off once I get out of the house and the restrictive rules imposed by the parents. I can do whatever I want (within reason) whenever I want. Because of them, I have this strange psychological conditioning that compels me to paint only at night, because that's when I know they won't come and bitch at me about the smell or destroying their house.
Man, already half the summer vacation gone ...
Sunday, January 01, 2006
To 2006 - whatever it may bring
Well, now that 2006 has hit, and I've recovered somewhat from the night's antics, I feel like putting down some goals I want to work towards this year.
Last year, I resolved to do four things:
1) Gain better grades
2) Get into shape
3) Achieve financial independence
4) Get a girlfriend
Well, I managed to fulfil none of those, but I'm on the way towards them, particularly the last two. Although seemingly unrealistic, at least I'm now closer to them than I was a year ago.
This year, what do I intend to aim towards?
1) Moving out
2) Getting into shape
3) Learn Japanese
Although getting into shape and getting a girlfriend are a bit linked, I suppose. Even if they aren'y, I will look better, feel better, and then can congratulate myself on the fact that I have shed the overweight, nearly obese (for Asians, anyway) look that I have carried for the past twenty years, and step into a more fit me.
Moving out sort of entails financial independence, so the first port of call will definitely to get a job. Then, I can work casual during the first half of the year, and then switch into full time in the second half where (hopefully) I will have no uni obligations to honour. Then, hopefully my potential roommate will have also built up enough money to be able to move out as well and contribute to the cost of moving out, and then we can set off with less of a hitch.
Learning Japanese is something I have always wanted to do, especially over the past year. There are reasons for it though - I love the flowing sound of the language, and I want to learn how to read Japanese so I can read raw manga (which are often at least two to three weeks ahead of translated scans), and I can play quality Jap RPGs before they hit the US.
Case in point: Kingdom Hearts II. If I knew Japanese, it would have been on my preorder list as soon as I could put my name down for it. The same goes for Final Fantasy XII when it does come out. In addition to that, I plan to travel to Japan within the next three years, if nothing else than for a holiday, and learning japanese would be a good help in picking up nihonjin girls.
I have nothing against girls of other race, in fact, if asked to, I wouldn't mind dating a western girl, but my preference still rests firmly with Asian girls. And if that trip comes out great, then well, maybe I'll apply to JET and spend up to three years working in Japan as an assistant english teacher. Now that would be nice, and something I've always wanted to do, live in another city.
Well, now that I've set the goals, let's see how 2006 treats me.
Last year, I resolved to do four things:
1) Gain better grades
2) Get into shape
3) Achieve financial independence
4) Get a girlfriend
Well, I managed to fulfil none of those, but I'm on the way towards them, particularly the last two. Although seemingly unrealistic, at least I'm now closer to them than I was a year ago.
This year, what do I intend to aim towards?
1) Moving out
2) Getting into shape
3) Learn Japanese
Although getting into shape and getting a girlfriend are a bit linked, I suppose. Even if they aren'y, I will look better, feel better, and then can congratulate myself on the fact that I have shed the overweight, nearly obese (for Asians, anyway) look that I have carried for the past twenty years, and step into a more fit me.
Moving out sort of entails financial independence, so the first port of call will definitely to get a job. Then, I can work casual during the first half of the year, and then switch into full time in the second half where (hopefully) I will have no uni obligations to honour. Then, hopefully my potential roommate will have also built up enough money to be able to move out as well and contribute to the cost of moving out, and then we can set off with less of a hitch.
Learning Japanese is something I have always wanted to do, especially over the past year. There are reasons for it though - I love the flowing sound of the language, and I want to learn how to read Japanese so I can read raw manga (which are often at least two to three weeks ahead of translated scans), and I can play quality Jap RPGs before they hit the US.
Case in point: Kingdom Hearts II. If I knew Japanese, it would have been on my preorder list as soon as I could put my name down for it. The same goes for Final Fantasy XII when it does come out. In addition to that, I plan to travel to Japan within the next three years, if nothing else than for a holiday, and learning japanese would be a good help in picking up nihonjin girls.
I have nothing against girls of other race, in fact, if asked to, I wouldn't mind dating a western girl, but my preference still rests firmly with Asian girls. And if that trip comes out great, then well, maybe I'll apply to JET and spend up to three years working in Japan as an assistant english teacher. Now that would be nice, and something I've always wanted to do, live in another city.
Well, now that I've set the goals, let's see how 2006 treats me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
