Finally! An Update!

{In which I catch up on on five-and-a-half months of not blogging}

April Fools! There's actually no update.

Just kidding. (Though I'm sure you wouldn't have been surprised if that were the case.)

So... I have kind of been failing at this blogging thing. I'm always super conflicted when it comes to my blog because I have TONS of gorgeous photos to share, but then because there are so many I get overwhelmed and I fall behind and the guilt is too much and then I go LA LA LA I'M IGNORING MY BLOG.

But here I am attempting to give you a peek of what I've been doing when I haven't been blogging. It almost killed me to choose just ONE photo per month, but I knew I'd never get anything posted otherwise. In the future, I'd like to share more photos if possible, but considering my record... yeah. Don't hold your breath.

How I Survived My Weekend

{In which I lock myself out of the apartment for 20+ hours but managed to get back, with minimal hysterics and plenty of good luck}

(Oops, I didn't expect typing this out to take so long. Sorry about the lateness on email and blog comments and general MIA-ness.  This post explains why on two fronts: 1) I got locked out and 2) I was writing this beast of a post. So yes, this account is kind of wordy. If you want, feel free to skip to the TL;DR version.)

I was planning to have a nice, quiet, relaxing weekend. Work had been more burdensome than usual lately — I stayed past 9pm several nights last week — so I was very much looking forward to recuperating with some alone time during the weekend.

I wouldn't be entirely anti-social for the weekend, though, since Mom's friend had planned a get-together dinner on Sunday night. I checked with Grandpa on Thursday to make sure he was free, since he'd mentioned that he'd be gone on a business trip from Friday to Sunday. Grandpa decided to return to Taipei earlier than planned on Sunday night so he could talk business with Auntie Wenny's husband, and I told him we were meeting at the department store across from Taipei Main Station, sixth floor, the restaurant named Shin Yeh. 5:30pm.

Links! Photos! Stuff!

{In which there is much randomness}

Ugh, I suck at updating now. Sorry. :( I can't believe I once posted every weekday! *is full of nostalgia for those long-ago happy days*

Anyway, I still have thousands of photos to sort through and process and upload, and you'd think that given how much time I've been holing up in my room lately I'd have more to show. But no, I've been taking advantage of my recent bout of anti-socialness to work on other projects. Like Camp NaNoWriMo, except I got stalled because I have this terrible habit of needing to have everything planned and outlined before I can write (left over from my days of writing one-draft English papers the night before they're due). Soooo I've been plotting (and reading about plotting) instead of writing, which is good for my sanity but not so great for my word count.

Since I'm here, I thought I'd share some random photos as well as awesome links I've come across lately and would love to discuss with someone. So go read these articles and tell me what you think!

August 8th

{In which I celebrate a special day}

Lots of things going on these few days! August 6th was the Asian equivalent of Valentine's Day (July 7th on the lunar calendar). And today is Father's Day in Taiwan since 8/8 sounds like "dad" in Mandarin. My coworkers were surprised to hear that Father's Day happens in June in the States!

But neither of those is the reason for today's post. My dad already got his Father's Day post for the year, and as for Valentine's Day... well, if I ever get a boyfriend, that's when I'd feature photos of him as a kid or something. Because what are special occasion posts for, if not sharing old photos?

Look at this one and see if you can guess what's so special about today:

Yup! Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad! Here are more photos of my gorgeous Mom and handsome Dad looking young and in love:

Happy Father's Day!

My daddy as a boy:

All these years later, he still retains that boyish charm:

Thanks for being a wonderful dad — I know you will always be young at heart. :)

Love you and miss you!

with love,

linda

Baby Sis

Posting a photo of my sister since I posted ones of both my Mom and Dad - might as well complete the series, right? :)

Also, putting up one photo takes a lot less time than the posts I'm supposed to be working on. This week's Monday Musing will be bumped to next week, and as for this week's Photo Diary post... uhhh we'll see if that happens. Feeling so lazy lately.

Meanwhile, you can admire the photos of my beautiful family. I took this one of Diane on our 2008 family vacation to Death Valley.

Thanks for modeling for me and for being such a great sister, friend, confidante, and inspiration. Miss you and love you, baby sis! (And email me more often! :P)

with love,

linda

Happy Mother's Day!

Hi Mommy,

Happy Mother's Day! Hope you're treating yourself to a facial this month. :)

Thank you for being such a great mom. You not only gave birth to Diane and me (I can't even imagine how hard that must have been) but also nurtured us, taught us, and loved us all these years (but maybe that's even harder). I know you always have our best interests at heart, even when it's difficult for us to see things from your perspective. You made so many sacrifices for our family, even when we weren't always grateful. Thank you for supporting us when we want to go on adventures far from home, then reminding us of important things we'd otherwise forget. I don't know what we'd do without you!

I'm learning to appreciate everything you've done for us more and more as the years pass. Thank you so much, and I love you Mommy!

with love,
linda

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Dear Daddy,

Happy birthday! Wish I could be there to celebrate with you, but I'm sending lots of love from Taiwan.

Thanks for being so encouraging and for always believing in me. Your passion for violins inspires me to find my dream and make it a reality too. I know my dream might not match up with what you've envisioned for me, but I'm grateful that you support my pursuits nevertheless. Thank you for working so hard to provide for our family. Here's to many more years of health and happiness.

Hope you have a wonderful day today. You're a great dad and I love you!

(My dad and me June 2010)

(My dad as a stylish twenty-something :D)

with love,

linda

Three Generations

Grandpa, Mommy, and Diane (aka my baby sister). As you can see, they all have these huge, gorgeous eyes. For reasons unknown to me, I failed to inherit that particular bit of genetic material. Ah well. I guess I'll just have to be content with being tall. :P

with love,

linda

Death Valley

{In which I process a photo from 2008 instead of the thousands I should be working on now}

Photo taken on family vacation to Death Valley in 2008, with the Canon SD800 from Uncle Eric.

Tangled Dreams

{In which Disney's Tangled inspires me to dream — one of my favorite posts}
No work today because it's 2/28, so I got to hang out with Dawson and the newlyweds. Brandon and Phoebe wore matching shirts that said "I love my husband" and "I love my wife" in Chinese — so cute!

But yeah, craziest weekend ever!! So exhausted. But I'm sure you're all eager for the photos. Let's see... I took more than 2.7k photos over the past three days. That's not even including the 350+ I took at the company dinner on Friday. Needless to say, it will be quite a while before I finish sorting all the photos so you guys don't have to wade through thousands of terrible shots. Blog posts may be less regular (and more rushed) while I'm working on photos, so thanks in advance for your patience! 

Diane, Summer 2008

I took this photo of Diane in the summer of 2008 in Taiwan at 野柳 (Yehliu) with my Canon SD800 (thanks Uncle Eric!). 

Since my mom loves national parks and scenic landscapes, our family vacations tend to involve a lot of roadtrips to the middle of nowhere (because those types of places have the best scenery). My sister and I were not big fans of those vacations, but we learned to enjoy those trips more once we decided to treat them as photoshoot opportunities. Whenever we stopped at a scenic location, I'd point at a spot and my sister would obligingly begin modeling for me. It helps that she's pretty and doesn't need too much direction from me, although she says I should tell her what to do more often.

So yes, I have a lot of photos of Diane with beautiful landscapes as backdrop. I'll be sharing more of them on my blog. Can't wait until I can hang out with my sister again and take more photos!

with love,

linda

7 Things I Learned About Photography and Writing by Creating Last Week's Blog Posts

{In which I actually write a scannable, informative post with a number in the title}


Happy Presidents' day to all of you in the States! Unfortunately for me, I had to go to work today, but I hope you enjoy your day off.

Processing and posting all those photos last week was great, but so exhausting! I didn't even finish and I already have another mountain of photographs to go through. I was pretty sleep-deprived last week on account of those posts (though I admit that laundry and cleaning were the culprits for one of those nights).

Why You Should Write Poetry When You're Bored

{In which you get to read poetry I wrote in high school}

One day as a junior in high school, I got incredibly bored at school. This, unsurprisingly, happened quite often; but that day I decided to write a poem about how bored I was (yes, really).

That might have been the end of the story had my mother not found out about some sort of contest at the local library. It was two related contests, actually — one for poetry and one for art. The library was seeking submissions for their annual teenage poetry book. There were cash prizes — $75 if you won first place in either contest, and $50 and $25 if you placed second or third, respectively, in the poetry contest.

Cousin

This is my cousin! Isn't she pretty? (Yes, her skin really is that good.) She's a year older than me and also lives at my grandpa's for school and studying when she's not in Taoyuan with her parents. She's currently preparing for her CPA licensing test. I took this shot on the MRT on Chinese New Year's Day en route to Danshui with her and her parents (my aunt and uncle) and Grandpa. It was super crowded when we got there, so we walked around a bit, decided the crowd was just too much, bought some food, and then went elsewhere for dinner. I was a bit disappointed that I didn't take tons of cool photos at Danshui, but I really like this one of my cousin. :)

Happy Chinese New Year!

{In which I talk a lot about money}

It's the year of the rabbit! Chinese New Year is basically the Asian equivalent of the Christmas/New Year holiday season. It's the hugest holiday of the year and a time for family to get together and eat a ton of food. Instead of Christmas music, there's traditional New Year's music (er, I'm not a fan of the music). Instead of seeing Santa Clause around, there are posters and balloons of the god of prosperity. Instead of Christmas lights, there are lanterns and red banners. Instead of presents for family and friends, there are red envelopes.

Lanterns at SOGO

Chinese New Year (CNY) is  just around the corner, so to celebrate, the Zhongxiao SOGO decorated with lots and lots of red lanterns.

As for me, I got to go home after lunch. On break until next Tuesday! Yay! :D I'll be having dinner with my relatives from my dad's side of the family for New Year's Eve tomorrow, as it's tradition to enter the new year with family to foster togetherness. Celebrating CNY is kind of new to me — it was never a big deal to me in the States — so I'm excited that I get to learn more about it and immerse myself in Taiwanese culture. Plus who would say no to a week-long vacation? :)

January Food Post

{In which I post pictures of what I eat because I love my sister}

Confession: I am not a foodie.

Obviously I prefer my food to taste delicious rather than awful, but most of the time I consider eating a rather inconvenient chore that should be as quick, easy, and cheap as possible. (The only exception is eating socially — I'm more than happy to spend quality time/effort/money on a special meal with good friends, but not if it's just me.) In fact, I found eating so burdensome my freshman year of college that I took to sleeping to conserve my energy rather than walking less than a block to the dining hall and swipe in with my pre-paid meal points (wow, that sounds kind of crazy even to me).

Diane is sorely disappointed in this flaw of mine, as she and her friends love fancy food. She requested pictures of the food I eat in Taiwan, and being an obliging older sister, I took my camera to work with me every day and photographed all my meals, although I am not all that interested in food photography myself (I realized that I am rarely interested in the pictures afterwards).

But for Diane and for those of you who genuinely like food, I'm going to share a few of the best food pictures I took this month. Hopefully I'll continue doing it in future months as well, if you like this one.

妹妹 (Mei Mei)

Doesn't she look so effortlessly cool in this photo? I'm lucky I have such a pretty sister as a model. I generally prefer portraits to pictures of scenery, so I'm glad Diane's (mostly) willing to pose for me and let me take a ton of pictures of her. Even though she can be kinda picky about those pictures. But I let her delete the ones she hates (because I'm just a great sister like that). I really like this one though. Too bad she's so far away. Who am I going to take pictures of now??

How to Get Grandma to Buy You a Car

{In which my grandma reveals she has our best interests at heart}

Many of you may have heard this story before. But since I've been reading lots of fun blogs by doctors/nurses/med students lately that made me laugh as well as think omg I don't want to be a doctor!!, this story came to mind again. So I felt compelled to share it. (And yes, I may have copied it from my final paper for one of my English classes senior year of college. But I promise I changed a few words here and there. Ok fine, I actually changed it quite a lot. That paper kind of sucked.)

Enjoy!