A Trip Down Memory Lane

I took photos at my childhood home last year and never blogged about it!

After seeing Fay Hokulani’s photo collage (a collection of post-op photos taken within a short span of time… yeah, she’s not the sharpest tool in the shed), I wondered about my own transformation.

On my last expedition to my childhood home, I dug out all the old photos I had had hidden away in shoeboxes for years and years.

Wow. It’s kinda scary to think that within the span of six years my face can change that much. You can feel when your teeth move, but why couldn’t I feel that my chin was no longer sharp like when I was 10??

Childhood was good times.

Stay warm and dry!

And just like that, it’s dreary, cold, and wet again here in the Bay Area.

For the first time in years, I stayed up to greet the new year.  We watched the fireworks go off from what may have been South San Francisco.  Not long after that we hit the sack for a long winter’s nap.

A late lunch was had at Fat Apple’s, a charming little place down and one of our back-up restaurants (when we’re too lazy to cook) at MLK Way and Rose in Berkeley.  I hope the huge cheeseburger with bacon will help put on the layers of meat my body so needs!

Oh, do you think I looked boss in my Christmas boots?  I do. 

Sweater, vest, jeans, scarf: Victoria’s Secret
Boots: Joe’s Jeans

The outfit did not feel complete without my new wool bear hat, which was purchased on impulse from a little cart at the Westfield Shopping Mall in SF.

I’ve had a coupla compliments on it already. 

What a great impulse buy!

Afternoon out with bro

Lest you think otherwise, I have two brothers.  This one is my second one (I’m the baby of the family).

After I recovered from a night out, my brother and I went out to enjoy the day.

I can’t believe how much taller than me he is!

Shirt and shorts: Victoria’s Secret
Sunglasses and bag: Cotton On
Shoes: Target (Converse One Star)

I’m a sucker for chicken rice.  It just isn’t any ordinary roast chicken.  I haven’t found chicken anywhere else that’s like it.  The flesh is so soft.

On turning 26

Quarter-life crisis (almost) over, here are a few things I would like for my birthday (in three weeks’ time):

1. The lottery grand prize
   Of course, this would be entirely possible if I even played the lottery in the first place!  I am still a Lotto virgin, believe it or not.  And if I had a shitload of money, after I took care of all the important stuff (loans, large purchases and house remodel), I would go out and buy myself…
2. alice+olivia clothing
   …because the entire line is freakin’ awesome.  All the clothes are feminine and funky and bad-ass and I WANTS DEM AWL.
3. The removal of my stupid scars
   There are so many weird scars and spots on my lower back.  I’ve been using a body scrub for a month, but no visible difference yet.  I wonder if Obagi products would help.
4. Hair job
   I want my hair trimmed and dyed and highlighted, and then get some hair extensions.
5. Slimmer jawline
   My face used to be so much smaller!!  I’m not sure if braces had anything to do with it.  I really can’t afford plastic surgery though, and the thought of flying to South Korea to get my jaw broken and put back together gives me the creeps.
6. Christian Louboutin Rolando pumps
   In cobalt blue (from many seasons ago), tan, and black.

My list used to be much longer, so this ain’t bad at all.

Click on for photos taken on my 18th birthday!

An Ode to 4E3

Hindsight is 20/20.

So it is with great fondness that I recollect on my years in secondary school in Singapore, those relatively carefree years.

My Upper Secondary class was fifty-fifty boys and girls.  In Secondary 4, in order to keep the noise level down, our form teacher had each boy sit next to a girl, at paired desks around the classroom.  I sat at the furthest corner of the front.  Next to me was Nelson, who turned out to be a really nice guy when he was separated from his buddies.

The boys would be happy for the girls’ return from Food & Nutrition because we’d all have food.  Some were good, some were not, and those that were good were quickly gobbled up by hungry boys.

Why teen fiction isn’t just for teens

It’s teen fiction is very easy to get through, the plot development isn’t too development, and mature themes are dealt with on a superficial level.

What I really like about it is all the romantic drama!  HOLY MOLY how fun!

Part of it is my living vicariously through the characters.

If you knew me in junior high, I was scrawny, my Singaporean accent was strong (it’s not really my accent, but my enunciation), and, as the photos below prove, kinda stupid-looking:

I wish I had said ‘thank you’

I thought of Nelson yesterday morning.  Sweet Nelson – really quiet and shy, and such a nice guy.  There was once I saw a drawing of some creature in his notebook and I asked him to draw me one.  He did.   Sometimes I let him look at my history notes.  We sat next to each other for a year, but I don’t think I really got to know him.

Now I wonder, what would’ve happened had I ran after him instead of stand there at my desk?

He was pressured to give me this rolled-up piece of paper by his buddies.  He dropped it on my desk and, embarrassed, walked out of the room as quickly as he could without running. I unrolled it and there was a perfect pencil drawing of me.  I still have that drawing.

So this morning, I imagined running after him and thanking him.  It wouldn’t have changed anything (I haven’t heard from him since), but still.

So earlier I was chatting with Sarah and she said something like, “Those guys would have come around” (in reference to my having said that guys in junior high didn’t like me).  Why is it that in Singapore I had to beat guys off with a stick, but back in Texas, few guys gave me the time of day?

Stings and stings like rain

I jogged on the trail yesterday and I thought about Vlasta.

If you put the face of a 22-year-old on the body of a 14-year-old and gave her a voice like Fran Drescher’s, that would be Vlasta Silhavy in junior high.  She used the term “cockamamie” a lot.

Together with big-boned Monica Hand (people say there’s no such thing as being big-boned, but THERE IS because her cranium was literally twice the size of mine), they taunted and belittled me whenever they could.

Funny I never took offense.  Up until college I was pretty happy-go-lucky… which, ironically, was what Vlasta often said I was.

Anyway, here was once during gym class we had to run on the track a few rounds.  Afterward they both came up to me and said something like, “You were smiling because you were first,” when actually I was squinting from the sun.  Excuse me if my grimace seemed to you like a smile.

I saw them everyday because we were all in Band (Monica played the bass clarinet, Vlasta the bassoon).  I don’t why I was so damn nice to them.

If they thought I was so lame, why did they even talk to me?  I mean, the in-crowd never did, so I don’t know why Vlasta and Monica didn’t.