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.

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 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

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

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! 

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.

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!

A Good Impression

{In which I discover the reason for my mom's suspicious behavior}

My mom is usually not a fan of makeup and contacts. She always told my sister and me that makeup is terrible for your skin, so you should use it as sparingly as possible — preferably only for special occasions. As for contacts, I first tried wearing contacts in middle school, but it made my eyes really red this one time. My mom was very concerned and declared that they weren't good for my eyes, so I didn't wear them much until college. Even now when I do wear makeup or contacts, she always reminds me to be very good about washing my face and tells me not to wear contacts for too long at a time.

So the day before I left for Taiwan, I was just chilling at home before we left for some errands when my mom came over and said, "Linda, aren't you going to put on your contacts?"

Graduation Present

My Canon SD800, a gift from my Uncle Eric, broke last April - for no apparent reason. It was pretty devastating not to have a camera for my last month of college. Thank goodness my dad had a Canon T1i so I have graduation pictures! And very nice ones, too. Unfortunately, I did not have a camera the entire summer, which really sucked. I traveled all over Taiwan and made lots of new friends, and wish I had more photographs to remember them by. Plus I just like taking pictures in general. I knew I wanted to get another camera, and after playing around with my dad's camera I hoped I'd be able to get a DSLR. But I wasn't really sure when to buy one, or if I could afford one yet.

Then my parents visited me around  Thanksgiving and my Dad asked me what I wanted for my graduation present. They'd mentioned that they wanted to get me something nice way back in May. My first instinct had been cash, of course. But my mom said that I'd just spend it on random things and wouldn't I rather have a Coach purse or Tiffany jewelry? She preferred gifting something that was more sophisticated and tangible than money. And then I left for Taiwan and we didn't talk about it again until they came to Taiwan. By that time I knew what I wanted. "I really want a camera," I said. "A DSLR, like the one Daddy has." So my dad gave me a budget to pick out a camera and accessories, which I did. I chose the Canon T2i and a few lenses. He bought those for me, so when I went home for Christmas and New Year's, I had a camera again. Yay! Thanks Mom and Dad, it's an awesome present!

Yup, I took that photo of the two of them with my awesome new camera. I'll be posting more photos soon.

Love you, Mom and Dad!