Mochi Video

So, as some of you may know, I got a bunny about a month ago! His name is Mochi. I think of him as a red bean mochi, my favorite, since his eyes are white. And he is very, very adorable. (Though a lot bigger now than when I first got him. And look, there are even baby pictures! Yeah, I'm kinda disappointed his eyes turned redder, but ah well.)

Phoebe has been requesting a video, so here it is, finally! It's mainly just Mochi jumping around in a cardboard box. If you adore bunnies, you'll probably like it. Otherwise, you'll probably get bored after half a minute or so. In which case you totally have my permission to move on, haha.

Hope you've been doing well!

love,

linda

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.

What Do YOU Want to See?

{In which I poll the audience then never follow through because I am a sucky blogger}

Oops, haven't posted in quite a while. Don't worry, I'm still alive! I do want to get back to posting photos again — I've been doing a rather poor job of keeping you updated on my Taiwan adventures. Sorry! And thanks to everyone who's asked me about my blog. I'm touched you guys missed my posts! :)

Right now I have soooo many photos I'm not sure where to start. There are photos from May I still haven't gotten around to posting! So I thought I'd ask you guys what you'd be more interested in seeing, since you're the ones reading this blog, and then I'll go from there instead of trying to stay chronological like I've been doing before.

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!

Mid-July Update

Yay, I finally have all of June's food photos selected and processed! They'll be posted soon. Gah, I'm getting later and later with the food posts. And here I'd thought they were the one thing I did consistently on this blog. Maybe I should try posting a photo every weekday again? Diane seemed to like that, and one photo wouldn't be too hard, I think. Maybe. We'll see.

And I totally meant to do something special for the six-month anniversary of my blog (and one year in Taiwan!) in the beginning of July. Oh well, it can be late. But I'm not sure what to do. Q&A? Giveaway? I'm hoping for something that involves participation from YOU. :)

Oh and while I'm here, some updates:

• I went to see the Picasso exhibit with Brandon and Phoebe! I'm not a fan of the art but had a blast hanging out with them and catching up (we got shushed three times in the first five minutes, haha). And we totally made fun of the paintings when we weren't chatting about other stuff. And then Phoebe's uncle took us to the Youth Park and I took tons of photos of the two of them with my new lens! Definitely a happy weekend.
• I went to 師大夜市 (Shida Night Market) and bought so many new clothes. Being in Taiwan is making me like shopping a lot more, because things are actually affordable! Except there aren't many vendors that let you try on clothes before you buy, so there's a bit of a risk involved. But still, I'm excited about my haul as a whole, and I would totally be tempted to post my outfits or start a style blog or something if I thought I knew anything about fashion. (Which I clearly don't, as evidenced by that time I asked this salesgirl at Sogo about an item she informed me was so last season.)
• More hangouts planned for the weekend! People I met at last year's Ecamp are back in Taiwan so I'm excited about seeing them, as well as mentors from the camp. But I'm a bit wary about the weather since I heard a typhoon will hit this weekend. =\ (And I totally got caught in the rain without an umbrella today. AGAIN.) Still, the rain isn't so bad. Preferable to the heat, in my opinion.

That's it for now. I just felt like posting something, since I haven't posted much lately. (Need to fix that!) 

Here, a random photo for you:

More posts to come!

with love,

linda

Flying Fish

How can it be a week into July already?! Craziness! I've been terrible with blogging lately. Still in the process of collecting all the food photos from June for the monthly food post; hopefully I'll get that done over the weekend (but then I say that about every weekend). It's starting to get hotter and hotter here, but a lot of friends from the states are visiting, so I've been meeting up with people and planning get-togethers and basically enjoying summer despite not having an official summer vacation for the first time in my life. Plus I didn't even get July 4th off!

And of course I take tons of photos at each hangout, and since I haven't done much photo-processing lately, that means I'm super behind. But then what else is new?

Anyway, here are a couple shots from when I visited Keelung with relatives way back in April.

Hope you had a good Fourth of July!


with love,
linda

Still Alive!

{In which I share what I've been up to lately}

I'm back! Did you miss me? :D It's sort of funny how I get more comments about my blog when I neglect to update it as often. I didn't realize people actually notice when I don't post! But it's nice to know that you care and want to see more, and I'll do my best to get back into the swing of things. I've been (kind of ) busy and (very) distracted and (incredibly) lazy lately, and it's so hard to fight inertia. So I'm making it easier for myself by starting with a quick update.

Randomness

First of all, hello to new followers! Though I admit that I was at first confused about why writers who blog were getting directed here (my personal blog) instead of my other blog, but then I realized I'd neglected to add a link to my new blog in my Google connect profile. Oops! So if you're a writer and would be more interested in writing-related updates, it would be amazing if you could check out my writing blog. Thanks! :D 

In other news, I've been super busy lately. On Wednesday I decided to do laundry instead of post photos like I originally planned. Good thing too, as Christine decided to come to Taipei a day early. Thursday was my boss's birthday so my coworkers and I went out with him to celebrate. 

And then Christine was in Taipei! So we went to 7-11 and bought a ton of random snacks and had a lot of girl talk in my room. :D Then yesterday we hung out all day, shopping and having random photo shoots and generally having a blast. I'm so glad I got to see her! I miss her already.

Oh and Christine is WAY better at haggling than I am. She's more patient and determined, whereas I'm not good at being in it for the long haul. I tend to get antsy and want to just buy it and be done with the whole thing when tenacity is key to getting a good deal. But her mom is the real master -- she told us she haggled the price of a purse from NT$5000 down to NT$1600! Wow, I still have such a long way to go. Time to go practice more. :P

I'm having dinner with my mom's friend tonight. Auntie Audrey is a lot of fun so I'm sure I'll have a good time. But I'll try to process some photos before then so you have something to look at next week. 

Have a great weekend!

with love,

linda

Hello Again, Taiwan

I meant to blog yesterday, but I completely crashed before I managed to do so. I left from LAX on Wednesday night and arrived at TPE on Friday morning. The flight wasn't too bad. I got to sit next to a cute boy. He had great taste in beverages, too. He let me watch a movie off his screen and would smile at me during all the funny parts. So even though we didn't really talk all that much, between our sips of apple juice and the silent antics of Chicken Little (the Chinese subtitles helped), I had a good time. He was in sixth grade, maybe? I'm terrible at estimating ages.

We landed around 6am, and after going through customs, claiming baggage, and taking the bus back to Taipei, it was slightly after 8am by the time I got back to my room at my grandpa's apartment. Then I left for work and all my coworkers were shocked that 1) I actually bothered to go into work and that 2) I got there before 9:30am (by 6 minutes, to be exact). Pretty chill day, lab meeting, did some research on primers, and got to leave at 6:45pm! Amazing. Got home, took care of some stuff, and then went to sleep around 10pm. I know, right?!

And now it's Saturday and I have lots of cleaning and organizing to do. Hm. Well, I'm sure I'll get around to it eventually...