My Life: the Chick Flick

From the producers of "He's Just Not That Into You" and the "Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants" comes a heartwarming tale of love, friendship, and self-discovery as two friends escape to Hawaii to mend their broken hearts.  Through hilarious twists and turns, the girls discover that sometimes love is closer than you think.   

Starring: Aishwarya Rai, Maggie Cheung, and other hot young Hollywood men

Five BAD Reasons to Serve Somewhere Overseas Long Term

1.  You drool over the clothing.
2.  You also drool over the food.
3.  And the actors...
4.  And the music and the dancing.
5.  You want to knock off some tourist sites off your bucket list.
 

My New Comebacks and Excuses

Comebacks
1) "You're so lucky I found Jesus."
Note:  I will be ignoring the theological implications.

2) "Thanks for nothing you useless reptile."

Excuses
1) "It's the heroin."

The Privilege of Packing

It's one thing when you're packing for a 6 week mission trip to a developing country, but it's another when you're packing for an extensive trip to a developed country. The former I could care less how I look, the latter I want to bring my entire closet and shoe collection.

It pains me that I cannot bring that sweet pair of teal kitten heels that will match that one top because....it only matches that one and only that one top. Woe is me.

What a privilege it is to have such a silly dilemma when there are millions around the world languishing for the want of food and water, the basic necessities of life when I can fret about how many pairs of shoes to bring along to a trip.

Then there's the fact that I am even going somewhere on a jet plane. And also the fact that I even have things to pack.

Privileged and blessed by God indeed for I did not do anything to deserve living in this country. I could have easily been one of the underprivileged.

It's Happened

Remember how when you were a kid and you hated those "aunties" and even some "uncles" who would attack you the minute they saw you? How they would gush about how adorable you were, and how they wanted to eat your cheeks, and pester you incessantly for hugs and kisses? How you vowed never to become one of them because you know from first hand experience how annoying that was? And how you don't want to be constantly kissing the rough surfaces of some random adult's cheek? Yeah, me too.

Monotonous Droning

“Shelly forgot how utterly boring lectures were. How did she ever survive four years of monotonous droning?”

For the three hours that I sat in my Basic Photography class I was thinking about various Facebook statuses bemoaning the tedium that I sat through in my head. That’ll tell you how much fun it was and how much I learned.

Honestly, I don’t think the man planned for a lecture. I would’ve have learned more if I surfed the net for three hours than the three hours that I sat in that fluorescent room.

Funnily enough I didn’t feel as much guilt dinking around my mac as I would have if I was in undergrad. If you’re so boring as to not capture my attention then you don’t deserve my attention. It’s not MY fault that you like to listen to yourself talk.

Oh yeah, and this blog post? Written IN class.

Do I sound annoyed and slightly angry? That’s because I am. Because I spent good money and time for this class. I’m already anticipating the course evaluation......

22 Going on 13

I tried REALLY hard. Really I did; to NOT jump on the Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus bandwagon. But I did. Yeah I did. "See You Again" has been played 13 times in the last hour. Once a teeny bopper. ALWAYS a teeny bopper.

Me VS. Heels

Me [0]
Heels [3]

My short one week stint in Paris learned me good. I must wear heels. Just a personal conviction.

They just make everything look better. But in the three times that I have worn them, they have pwned me good, leaving me bloodied and battered and all too willing a masochist for the pains of fashion.

One day I will prevail.

The Bronchial Ab Workout

The first step is the tricky part.

FIRST, contract bronchitis. Whether it be viral or bacterial is of no significance. You can loiter in hospital corridors hopefully or sleep with the windows open with an industrial size fan blasting your face or anything else that you can concoct. Whatever. You just need to get bronchitis.

SECOND, wait for the innocent tickle in your sternum that is a precursor to the loud hacking, dry gagging, body rocking, convulsive bouts of coughing coming your way.

THIRD, do not take any cough syrup or antibiotics to maximize workout duration.

When you dread the next bout of coughing because of the accompanying pain that ripples through your abdomen you have successfully completed the bronchial ab workout.

*Side effects may include limited speech abilities, weird looks from strangers in public, ostracism in Toronto because people think you have SARS.

And THEN the Car Stopped Working...

and stopped dead on, in the middle of the exit ramp of the underground parking garage. Go figure. The rear wheel had been squealing the whole time in the garage, but hey it worked...until we hit the incline.

LUCKILY! I, in my profound wisdom and foresight bought a premium CAA membership back in December in preparation for such damsel in distress moments as these, so patting myself on the back I quickly called CAA- only to find out that they could not and would not tow a car whose license plates have expired, which presented quite the conundrum because guess where I was going?

To Canadian Tire.
To have my car checked and re-certified so that my plates would be a-ok again.

At this point, panic was starting to rise a little bit, but BEHOLD! there is another company who would be very willing to tow me for a small fee, which just happened to be slightly over my debit card's limit. DOH! And seeing how I was just mugged oh...16 hours ago, that was not enough time for my brand new spanking credit card to arrive in the mail.

Cue emotional and nervous breakdown. Joking. Sort of.

Me + Car Trouble = Agony

I needed help. Badly.

I mentally scrolled through my list of trusty Torontonian friends only to realize that those who can actually help in a practical manner are all out of town...except for a saint named J who called around to look for other towing companies with no success who then called upon another saint, Ethan.

While all this was happening an angel in the form of a helpful man drove through the garage and actually stopped to help. GASP. Whereas four or five cars before just drove on past. A modern day Samaritan that man was.

He not only got my car out of the precarious position it was in, but got the rear wheel to start working again. The axle apparently was stuck.

Providentially a parking spot opened up nearby and I was able to park permanently and most importantly SAFELY, laying to rest my imminent plans to stake out my car tonight.

Ethan helped me figure out a plan of action for tomorrow, and I returned to my apartment relieved.

A Salad of Thoughts

1. I use to think that my cooking skills were decent. Now I know better. It's not that they're decent, it's just that my palette got worse. I had the best chinese food these days. It's ruined me for the ordinary (my cooking).
2. All the chinese food and all the ads for the Beijing Olympics make me want to move back to China long-term. Not the best reasons to move. I know.
3. I need to work on my chinese.
4. While watching an ad on TV...
"She's so pretty. I want to be like her. I want to be chinese. Wait, I am."
What the heck? Oooh the power of advertisement.

O-R-G-A-N-I-Z-A-T-I-O-N

Shelly will learn to organize her time better. Shelly MUST learn to organize her time better.

4 Hours + 3 Fingers

4 hours + 3 fingers =
Jesus All For Jesus,
Leaving on a Jet Plane,
Brown Eyed Girl,
and any other song that only uses a combo of the guitar chords G, D, C, A.

Not that you'd really know which song I'm playing though. That's just how good I am. So good that you can't tell the difference.

Right now switching chords requires full mental concentration. I don't know if it can actually be called "switching". Maybe if you're switching tires because that's how long it takes for me to switch to another chord. Strumming is...well let's just say that I didn't think there was much talent involved with strumming, but apparently there is, and I don't have it...yet.

One day...I WILL wail on a guitar. And I don't mean the guitar from guitar hero.

Humility Classes

Every Tuesday night I go to a class to learn humility. It's also known as a dance class. Whatever pride that I have in my fab self is in shreds by the end of the night.

Cookie, Muffin, and Other Desserts As Terms of Endearment

So terms of endearment came up twice in conversation the past few days, and it got me thinking. Why is it that for the most part words that are used as terms of endearment are food products? I.e. Pumpkin, Honey, Sugar. And why are a lot of them desserts like muffin, cookie, and cupcake? What is it about those words? Who wrote the unwritten rule that the best words to be used for terms of endearment are to be desserts?

What? Some guy wakes up one day and thinks, 'You know it'd be pretty cool to call my wife by a dessert today,' and boom everyone just starts doing it? Why not inanimate objects? Like spatulas or forks or tools?

"Oh spatula, can you pass me the peas please?"

Ok, so it sounds awkward right now, but I suggest to you that's only because desserts are socialized into us. But even within the category of desserts some are left out. Like Nanaimo bars. Or even apple strudel or eclairs. They're pretty good desserts. Just as good as cupcakes and muffins. I like them. Why aren't they used as a term of endearment? Don't you think they'd feel left out when 'muffin' or 'cookie' gets all the special usage?

"Nanaimo, can you rub my feet please?" That works just as well don't you think? We ought to start a petition or try coining it. Which I'd totally do except I'm not really into using terms of endearments or being called a dessert by anyone. It makes my skin crawl.

That is...unless you're white, related to my dad, female, have a warm southern drawl and I just happen to call you "auntie". Then it's totally 150% cool, and I love it. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Awww....

Stress Response

Lydia Elder was in town this week for a conference so tonight I had a chance to get together with her to go over my Birkmann. It was a really enlightening experience and it definitely helped me understand my behavioral patterns lately. In a nutshell most of my behaviors right now are all stress behaviors.

Some of the patterns I already knew were stress responses, but others I didn't. Yet I still continue to operate in stress mode. What I really need right now is, at the very least, one solid day away in a lonely place to just sit, read, draw, listen to music, stare off into space, or whatever. What's happening is a few days of driving around to support appointments and then Summit. Hello stress.

Next week I will go hide out at Rockwood or some other conservation area for a day.

On a similar note in good fun, we confirmed the fact that I absolutely cannot marry a pansy with me having an authority score of 91. This is the chick who is most likely to be the dictator of a small island. I will run over the guy...twice and then once more just for good measure. But I already knew that.

Please note: I know that submission is a choice, etc...but let's not get into that. It's not one of those posts.

It's ALWAYS Thanksgiving!

Please Note: This one is PURELY self-centered.

You know how the saying goes "Always a bridesmaid, NEVER a bride"?
No, this is not a rant about never getting married, it's about my birthday.
It's about how it's NEVER my birthday. It's ALWAYS Thanksgiving. October 7 is always inevitably THANKSGIVING weekend. No ifs, no ands, and no buts. ALWAYS Thanksgiving. I'm always second fiddle to Thanksgiving.

I never had an issue with this until university. You see in high school the majority was the minority. We were all Asian. Thanksgiving to us was a foreign holiday. It'd just be one meal with the parents and that's it. The rest of the weekend was ours. It also helped that none of us were living AWAY from home. So at that time all of us were trying to get OUT of the house, which meant I got my fete.

At university my friendships "diversified". Most of my friends were Caucasian and Thanksgiving was a BIG thing. Even the Asians left because once you leave home, you miss home. EVERYONE went home at Thanksgiving to celebrate....you know it, Thanksgiving. Which left me pretty much alone with no real celebration on the day of. {insert "All By Myself" by Celine Dion here}

I know we'd celebrate a week later. Or some friends would do things with me to make up for the day either before or after October 7th or some friends would call or would call AND serenade on the day of, and I appreciated all of that, but I longed for a party with all my closest friends on the day OF. Which at this point is pretty much impossible anyways since two members of my SWAT team are now out of the beautiful country of Ontario. It just doesn't feel like my birthday anymore a week later or a week before.

This is all to say I wish Thanksgiving was in November like the USA so the poor souls who are born the weekend of November 24-26 would have to deal with this, not me. Because I actually do enjoy Thanksgiving. I love stuffing, but it's ALWAYS on my birthday! But since this won't change unless I move out of the country (i.e. STINT...kidding) I will suck it up...now.

Another Disclaimer: I know I'm not the only one whose birthday lands on another major event. I feel the pain of my friends whose birthdays are ALWAYS Summit, Day of Evangelism, Christmas, project, and etc...

What prompted this? Trying to figure out when to host a shindig for said birthday and realizing that good dates are few and far between. 22 may have to pass quietly.

And puh-lease don't pity me. This is not me wanting attention or extra special stuff or sympathy or whatever. This is me wanting to get it out of my system once and for all.

Cooking Conundrum

This entire summer I cooked an astounding TWO times excluding the times I boiled water for cup noodles, dumplings, and wontons. What a feat. Once was scrambled eggs. The other was your typical tomatoes and egg, red-roasted chicken, and stir fry. Thus far it doesn't look like my goal to become a great cook is off to a good start. Sadly enough I think my cooking skills have actually regressed.

To break out of the poor eating habits of a bachelorette I hit up T and T again today. (INSERT HALLELUJAH CHORUS FROM HANDEL'S MESSIAH) I needed inspiration to start cooking. The items on on the shelves were just screaming, "Cook me!" I bought some much needed ingredients that were hard to find in Guelph, but there are others that are still missing. I was so tempted to buy those prepackaged jars of sauces to cook with, but I am resolved not to cop out. Seriously how much authentic Szechuanese food can you get in Toronto? All those signs and labels claiming to be from Szechuan? LIES!

Aye, there's the rub. I long for the delicious food from my childhood, and long to make them, but I lack ingredients and an authentic teacher. Even the best cook in our family can't make REAL food from our province because of the lack of ingredients. No matter how much those labels claim to be from Szechuan, they're not. There are some ingredients that just can't be imported. Like Panda liver. Just kidding. So until the day China really takes over the world I'll have to make due with pseudo Chinese food whilst outside the Motherland.

Read: If my cooking sucks it's because I lack ingredients.