Summer Vacation Day 54-60: A Week in a Day and Goodbye (For Now)

Hello, Tim!

This letter might be a bit more special than the others;

This is the last letter for the summer.

Wait, what?

I know, I know, and I’m saying this with a wave of my hand.

The previous letter was dated the 22^nd of August, Wednesday, but in fact, today is already on the twenty-ninth, and tomorrow would be our first day of school, and the very words spell ‘the beginning of all chaos’. If I had done the vowed ‘a letter every day’, I would be keeping up with the schedule very closely. However, there were days in which I had just let the ‘lazy me’ kick in and skip a letter or two on this day or that.

With the school on the second day in view, I figured that giving a ‘condensed’ recount of the last several days was necessary. After school starts, I would only be able to write a blog post occasionally, which, for now, I am thinking about once a week. However, I would still have to see if a weekly post would fit into the crazy routine in the future.

Without further ado, let’s start!

ON the 24th Friday, my mom got a job! Again, she got a job at 7-11, although there is a little distance between the workplace and our house, she was relieved and happy that she finally would come out of the unemployed state. My dad returned in the middle of the night. He was hungry and in need of some midnight snack (as usual), so I cooked some tiny dumplings for him. I kept on writing my blog posts after that, and as I remember, my eyes closed at about three in the morning. I didn’t know that my dad had something on my mind right then.

The next day, the 25^th Saturday, with enough sleep until ten o’clock, I spent a day that happened to be the Taiwanese Ghost festival. Mom stayed at her brother’s place to help prepare meals, and I went to my grandma’s with my dad, who hadn’t been back since New Year because of the busy job.

Mom and Dad

My dad would be unemployed soon. It was a big shock to me, for I thought my dad’s job was a stable job. Being a ship mechanic is what my dad is good at, and there was not once I thought he would be taken off the job. But this is just how it is, my dad said. He said that there are also others waiting to work on the ship, and he would be soon looking for another ship to work on soon. I hope he does.

My aunt is sick. Her high fever happened in the midnight, and she was given antibiotics when addressed to in the emergency room. When we got to my grandma’s place, she was asleep. We kept telling her to take sick leaves on Monday to have a more thorough check in the hospital, but she was quite stubborn and insisted that she had to be at work on Monday.

On the 26^th of August, Sunday, Dad set off for his last trip on the boat he had been on for over six months. There was a blood-donate bus around the corner of the intersection next to my house.

In Taiwan, the age restriction for blood donating is seventeen years old, meaning that I was eligible of becoming a blood donor!

Get your ID cards, for we are going to spill some blood! :D

I practically bounced up and down all the way to the bus. I was informed that the computers inside were facing a temporary meltdown, so we sat there and waited for a rough twenty minutes. I was then handed a sheet of form that I had to fill in. A part of it was my basic information, while the other part was about some of the medical experiences. I was told to be as honest as possible, and I said that I had some medical treatments for the stomach in May, some braces adjustments on the previous Thursday. The next part of the sheet was a checklist of all the things that would make you a high risk for AIDS.

An A4 sheet of questions you have to answer.

Now it was this part that really got me into thinking. On the checklist, there was one thing you mustn’t do if you want to become a blood donor if you’re a male: having sexual intercourse with another man, or MSM, according to Red Cross.

I know the initial intent when this regulation was established, but I still find it unjust. Being gay doesn’t always mean that you have a high risk of getting A.I.D.S. It would be totally unfair if you want to donate blood, but you can’t because of your sexual orientation. Take me for example. I am going to be completely honest, but I intend to be a consistent and frequent blood donor, but that is never going to stop me from being on a date with a guy. That is what I believe in. I would really like to ramble on for another paragraph or two or even three, but I have to get back to my story.

I was then sent onto the bus, had my blood pressure tested, and then I was asked about my braces.

‘So you had that altered less than a week ago, hadn’t you?’ The doctor asked me. (translation: Don’t go to the dentist a week before your blood donation.)

Skip the little disgruntled but not-ready-to-give-up arguments and the act of the doctor’s please-stop-arguing-here-is-a-list-of-what-you-cannot-do-before-you-donate-blood. As a result, I got off the bus after been in there for only a brief ten minutes. I was so excited about this, from the possibility of helping people and the notion of having a thick need stuck in me while feasting on my blood like an over-sized mosquito. I was so bummed, and as a consolation, Mom treated me to some ice cream.

Next week, I would be well off the dentist thing, and I would go to the nearest blood donating center and have my blood taken. It is a must-do.

Consolation ice cream

On the 27^th, I tried making some earl grey tea jelly after going to a nearby supermarket with a new brand of earl grey (which was still not the one). I would like to talk more about my thing with earl grey and I, but I’m afraid this tale would have to wait a little longer.

The making of tea jelly was not that difficult. You boil a pot of water and add agar powder and stir until it is completely dissolved. I then dropped four packets of Twining’s earl grey inside the 1.5-liter water. You cool it down, and you have some supposedly nice tea jelly.

There was only one thing- it was not tea-flavored enough. It still had a cool texture, though. In fact, I’m eating it right now!

I'm happy; I have jelly.

Fast forward to the 28^th, Tuesday. We had to go back to school for some before-school school cleanup. It was a class thing, and we were assigned FOURTEEN teacher’s office when only ELEVEN of us showed up! Candy and I took two of the offices and here are some pictures.

I promise that Candy wasn't at all upset or whatsoever; it was just an accidental capture of her face.

William, one of those who didn’t show up at the right time finished his job later than we did, but we later met up at a nearby café to study for the whole afternoon:

The guy who woke up five minutes before the photot was taken.

It was the longest duration of study in the afternoon for the whole week!

For today, the last day of summer vacation, I was sitting at the desk, typing furiously on the computer, trying to tell seven-days-worth of story into one little post.

This concludes the amazing adventure of this summer vacation.

Maybe that this was not comparable to the awesome escapade to England last year, but the truth be told, this is one of the highlights of the year!

Starting from tomorrow, I would no longer be constantly updating my blog, but I would try to be as active as possible.

How was your vacation?

Sincerely,

Hugo

Summer Vacation Day 53: A Quite-nothing-Happened Day and a Kid at Home

Hello, Tim!

These days have been hot like it is summer in Taiwan.

Wait. It IS summer.

Summers in Taiwan had already programmed me into having winter as my favorite season.

At least I won’t sweat as much.

8/22, Wednesday

Today, we only had to take care of Aiden, who still needed a day of ‘resting’ before he could go to school again.

As it turned out, Sophie didn’t catch the stomach flu at all! Her parents were still skeptical about the whole flu thing from the kids’ doctor, so they asked my mom to bring her to a dermatologist to check whether it was just some skin problems instead.

Hands dermatitis, it was.

So, with Sophie at school, Aiden was relatively easier to control, making our lives easier.

I was chatting with Allison online in the evening, and we nagged at ourselves of not having used enough time for studying, so we agreed on having the same Chinese studying process so we could just prod the other into doing more studying.

This is all for today.

Summer Vacation Day 52: Day and Fréro Delavega

Hello, Tim!

The kids are still sick, with the diagnosis of scarlet fever for Aiden and the 70% of occurrence of stomach flu for Sophie, meaning that no matter how expensive their school tuition fee is, they had to stay at home for at least another day.

8/21, Tuesday

Remember the whole ‘Sophie and Aiden were like two little devils’ part that came as the main topic for yesterday’s post? Well, now all you have to do is copy the whole thing and paste it back on today’s list, starting from eight-thirty in the morning and all the way to the evening. It was too exhausting to even talk about.

In the evening, I was in my study, writing blogs (I really do hope I was studying) while listening to French songs.

I have started listening to French songs since I had started taking French classes, and almost every other day, I would be on YouTube, hounding for new songs that really connect to me. There are two types of singers in my world. One kind of singer has several singles that really get to you, but for most of his/her other songs would mean nothing to me; The other kind are the singers that really have styles for their songs which just matches to my appetite for music, and like a buffet, I would normally sweep and devour all the songs they had in the past, careful not to lose grasp of any of them. Sometimes it’s the unique voice the singers hold, sometimes the poetically fluid lyrics, sometimes even the melodies of the songs alone- Every song you have grown to fanatically love and believe in are something you can call a part of your personality. My all-time favorite one-man band Owl City falls into the latter category.

For several months now, I have grown to be fond of a French group called Fréro Delavega, a two-person group, consisting of Jérémy Frérot and Florian Delavega (now you know where the group name came from). They have all elements of a song that just ring all the way up to my brains. Melodies with ever-changing style, but managed to be of a hollow, haunting characteristic. The voice of the two vocals intertwining and coming atop each other, the lyrics sweet and vague that leave you wondering.

Jérémy Frérot et Florian Delavega

There was a song of theirs, called Le chant des Sirènes, or the Song of the Sirens. There was not really a story fitted into the song, but some description of the sea, the sand, and how it all correlates to the memories and the past that blended together. Here is the chorus of the song:

Quand les souvenirs s’emmêlent,

Les larmes me viennent,

Et le chant des sirènes me replonge en hiver

Oh, mélancolie crulle,

Harmonie fluette

Euphorie solitaire…

which (in my own attempted translation) basically meant:

When the memories mingled together

The tears come to me

And the song of the siren sends me plunging back into winter

Oh, the cruel melancholy,

The high-pitched harmony,

And the euphoria of the solitude…

I just am still horrible at translating, I know, but the picture of the lyrics was there, and it was a beautiful sight of the waves crashing into the coastal rocks, bringing and taking away the sand at the beach as they come and go. Someone with a white shirt that flowing at the rhythm of the sea wind was standing atop one of the rocks, staring into the horizon with such misty eyes. This is what I see when listening to the song. I love songs that would bring pictures to me, and almost every song of this Fréro Delavega have this magic bestowed upon them.

I then surfed on the Internet, hoping to find some news of their latest announcements, hoping to have some wind of a possible new single or even a new album in the future, but all I found was that the duo had split up at the end of 2017.

It struck me hard, and I went on the Internet once more for some explanations. I typed in English, but no article in English showed up. I then typed in ‘Pourquoi Fréro Delavega se sépare’ and tried to read a report of their interview.

From the way I read the interview, it seemed as if one of the duos, Florian was not adapting well to the life ‘in the media’, and it turned out unfit for his lifestyle, while Jérémy Frérot said that he had no intent to leave the music career and that we would continue solo.

I love the music group so much, so it was so sad seeing them separating. But that’s life, isn’t it?

As much as they are singers, celebrities, they still are people, and people leave the others’ sides very often, often so soon.

Listening to many of the other Fréro Delavega songs, and Jérémy’s first single as a solo artist, I did the dishes from dinner, immersing myself in the entrancing tunes.

This is all for today.

Summer Vacation Day 51: Sick Aiden and (Spoiler Alert) 'Sick' Sophie

Hello, Tim!

Today was another Monday, a second last Monday that comes from the dying summer break.

Good grief.

I am so not ready.

8/20, Monday

Aiden was sick. Again.

Every time the kids face a brand-new place, they would easily become sick. For example, when Aiden started his kindergarten for the first day, he caught the flu so bad he had to take a sick leave. Now, he just moved, and he caught scarlet fever? I mean, we all know that kids are sensitive to environmental changes, but wasn’t this a bit too much? Kids are so poor, needing to go through all these while their surroundings kept changing like this.

Look at the cute and asleep boy.

Scarlet fever was not scarce among children and adolescents. It is a germ-caused syndrome that gives you the rash on every inch of your skin, little red dots riddled across your back. You might have a fever and would possibly feel nauseous and so on. According to some brief introduction on the Net, if not treated properly, it could lead to permanent impairment of vital organs like the heart and the livers.

We took care of him- all lively and bouncing, without a sign of feeling sick- while he was behaving well until Mom got a call from the kids’ mom, saying that the school asked her to pick Sophie up from school at noon, even though she was supposed to have four more hours of class. Why was that?

‘A suspected case of stomach flu,’ was the answer I got from Sophie’s school nurse when I arrived at Daoming International School hurriedly in a taxi twenty minutes later. The nurse showed me that Sophie said that her hands felt itchy, and there were some weird red dots forming on her palms. To avoid carrying the (supposedly) highly contagious flu around the school was not what the school wanted, so that was why Sophie was sent home like this.

Sophie and the barely functioning mask.

I had to state that when Aiden was the only person to take of, he was both understanding, loving, energetic (seriously, the only thing that proved that he was indeed sick were the little rash dots on his arms and calves.) but well-behaved. It was a turnaround description with his big sister present.

There were rude comebacks -some utterly disrespectful- coming from Sophie, and the obstinate non-cooperation from the sister-present-Aiden. They wouldn’t even behave when waiting for just a trifle FIVE minutes at the waiting seats at the hospital.

My mom and I tried everything- ranging from stern shouting, very serious scolding, punishing time-out, serious scolding WITH punishing time-out, all the way to no-snack/IPad threats and nice talks, putting-a-carrot-in-front-of-a-donkey-style tactics, talking sense (pfft) … But none of them worked, and it ‘amused’ us every time. I know that one of the definitions of the word ‘kid’ was ‘acting upon the exact… opposite words you say in an imperial sentence,’ but for real…

Where do we find a Nanny McPhee?

I love kids, and I love almost everything about them, but I certainly do hope not ending up with the devious side of Sophie and Aiden (their angel side are very sweet, mind you) as kids.

This is all for today.

Summer Vacation Day 50: Finnick and Billy

Hello, Tim!

According to the chat history, my math tutor texted me at four in the morning, saying that he had just finished his work. He asked if we could make a rain check on the class that ought to be had today. Despite the postponed class, it was still far from an eventless day.

8/19, Sunday

Having no class in the morning, I had a rather free morning to myself. I was doing out when executing the art of doing basically nothing when the doorbell buzzed at about two in the afternoon.

Good, That meant only one thing.

I poked my head out to the balcony, finding myself looking at a certain yellow truck parked on our side of the road.

It was the yellow from the IKEA icon.

Look who's here, albeit of the rain? (repsect)

One cool thing about IKEA’s delivery system is that the charge for the delivery is determined by the money you spent on furniture in total instead of the actual weight of each object.

Billy (the Bookshelf) and the desk are not like the chair my mom and I successfully put together last week; we had had enough trouble doing that job already. Fear not, for IKEA would be there to help!

At a proportion of 6.5 percent, IKEA would charge you the cost of the price of furniture to help set it up. It was a very generous and considerate offer, given that maybe half of the people (like me) don’t know how to put some needed tools to good use.

Welcome to the live show: Billy in the Making!

Look at that speed! The person was assembling the bookshelf with such efficiency that he could not be captured on camera! (hyperbole, but quite literally)

In one swift heft, Billy was set in an upright position, as sturdy as ever.

About five minutes later, the two panels of the glass doors were installed as well. All thanks to the gentleman in the picture.

I stood at the door of my study, watching as the person tore up the boxes and efficiently lay everything on the floor. Seemingly, he had the instructions imprinted in his head; without the help of the manual that came with Billy, the main part of Billy was standing right next to my other bookshelf (which, later the day, I named it Finnick. DO NOT judge.)

This is the view you get upon entering my study. I know. It would feel better if you can see the front of my shelves upon entering, but sometimes, compromises have to be made.

The man left after the desk was also prepared, and then came my part.

Finnick the bookshelf was inherently deeper than Billy, making it capable of accommodating two rows of books each layer. When all layers were filled with two rows of books, I knew that it was time to get a second.

Billy, on the other hand, was not as deep as Finnick, but had the height in every layer to put even my biggest length of the book. I spent a total of three hours moving books from Billy to Finnick, and rearranging the positioning of them, hoping to get them more pleasing to the eye. My back hurt when I was finally done, and there are still some placements of the books I was not entirely agreeing with, but it would have to wait for another day.

(Hours later) The view you see when sitting at the desk; Magnificent, isn't it?

This is Billy.

And I am sure you all have met Finnick.

Welcome to the family, Billy.

This is all for today.

Summer Vacation Day 49: Anime Convention and IKEA

Hello, Tim!

I’ve always thought that the expression T.G.I.F. is a celebration to rejoice in the notion of a relaxing and carefree weekend.

Workless Saturday?

My apologies, Sir. It just doesn’t ring a bell.

8/18, Saturday

I bounced up from my bed the second the alarm set off, flounced my hands frantically trying to locate the ringing phone to switch the alarm off.

What kind of events did I sign myself up to have to wake up at 7:30 in the early morning?

On about Tuesday or Wednesday, Cathy told me that there would be a Japanese animation convention starting this Friday and asked me if I wanted to go along with her and her brother.

Sure thing, I thought. Everything deserves a first time, right?

I don’t talk about this a lot, but I do watch a lot of anime. The ones I came across on accident, the ones that were shared by either Cathy or Allison and the ones that I used to enjoy with Mom while munching on some popcorn. Anime has become a part of my lifestyle, just like how deeply my precious books have taken root.

We met at the metro station at nine o’clock, and in the metro, Cathy warned me that it would be a total chaos in the convention center; ‘It has always been like this,’ Cathy had said.

Barely out of the metro station, there were people so eager to get to the convention center faster by taking two flights upstairs at a time when they could've taken the escalator.

That was no exaggeration. The exhibit opened at exactly ten o’clock, and we got there at 9:30 but it took us about twenty minutes to get into the approximately football-court-sized indoor square when there are eight entrances!

Where do we even start lining up?

It was a crazy sight, inside and out of the exhibit. If inside an ant hole leads to a lot of ants lined up and scattered around, going into this area and another, carrying things that looked heavier than themselves, yes. I would say the whole exhibit was like a live show on ant society.

Due to the large flow of people traversing the convention, the exhibition organizers came up with systems to control the people in different sections. I assumed they had a system; Maybe they really did, but I just couldn’t see it. The place was so crowded that it would need a solid five minutes to find the end of the waiting line and another ten minutes and above to actually gain entrance. Sometimes you would walk into a section after a long wait, but to your disappointment, you didn’t find anything that strikes your fancy, so all you could do was walking out of the area in resignation.

Cathy and her younger brother browsing the goods from Pokemon.

I ended up getting a file that has Conan characters printed on it (it is a detective manga in which a high school kid was turned into a seven-year-old for getting the wrong effects when was fed an experimental poison in an attempted murder) and two metal-material bookmarks of Yuri! on Ice, a sport manga featuring figure ice skating, one which Allison and I both love, and apparently, one of the bookmarks was for her.

Full-sized plastic figures of characters from a girls' game; there are some of the things they selled I wanted to get, but there was just no time lining up.

I indeed had other things in mind I wanted to buy, but it was either too out of my league in terms of the price or I just didn’t have the time to wait in line, for I had just another thing to attend to.

At around twelve-thirty, I left the convention early to meet with my aunt and uncle.

Remember about the IKEA story in which we had trouble getting the two glass doors for Billy? Today was the day to fix the problem.

The IKEA we went to was much smaller than the one we went to last week because they have a separated storage unit for all the bulkier furniture that are larger in volume that is in Taoyuan. It worked for us because we were going to have Billy and my desk delivered either way.

Still, having the need-to-buy in our minds didn’t explain why we got home with two extra cutting boards, a wooden spatula, a writing board for desk protection, and an average-sized floor mat.

Wait. We do know why we bought the mat! It was so fluffy that you would hate to find out they do not sell blankets in this material. It was so fluffy that if felt like it was sucking you in. Do not take just my words; take a look at this:

 

Mom. I need in to get my T-shirt!

My mother, first to spot the mats for sale, had been standing on it for more than two minutes, wriggling her toes to feel the softness.

The order of Billy, as well as my new desk, would arrive tomorrow. I couldn’t wait!

This is all for today.

Summer Vacation Day 48: Kids and Their Legos

Hello, Tim!

Today was the last day of our summer course!

However…

Our school starts right on the thirtieth of August, which would be just around the corner.

8/17, Friday

Today was also take care of your ‘nephew and niece for the whole afternoon’ day.

Their school bus came at the scheduled 16:10, and from the opened door of the big, bulky carriage, we could see that Sophie and Aiden were sitting side by side, and Sophie at the window seat, who very obviously just woke up from sleep, went right past Aiden, struggling with all the things he had with him and also unbuckling the seatbelt, and she didn’t even offer to help!

That was unacceptable for me. I chastised her for doing so (which was a reasonable thing to do, wasn’t it?). Sophie, still heavy with sleep, responded in a very rude tone (unacceptable, for the second time) that ‘I just didn’t want to, what can you do about it?’

Until we got into the valley, I scorned her for being so rude, groggy from sleep or not. She wasn’t listening, instead stayed quiet as a form of protest and her petite disdain, sulking her way back home. What should I do to get this disobedient young lady?

She eventually cooled down, and I coaxed her into talking something about her new school environment. Back in her house, Sophie went into her room and grabbed her metal box that was initially used to hold some Starbucks eggrolls. Inside the box was her Lego Treehouse Resort Set. She was halfway done with it, independently putting miniature plastic bricks into place, face forming scowls and muttering grunts when her hands swept off several brown blocks that were supposed to be the branches of the treehouse by accident. Aiden, meanwhile, was completely focused on his Lego F1 racecar he put together himself.

One of the little bits fell off, and he was trying to find out how to get it back in place.

I was watching them two the whole time, occasionally picking up several bricks that had yet joined to the model of the treehouse. Maybe it was just I had never asked, or it was just out of my league then, but I never had a piece of Lego in my hand throughout my childhood. I do remember seeing children trying to build Lego cars and so on, but it just occurred to me today that I had never had this in my childhood and seeing them playing so attentively with a gaze so keen, I felt like I had missed out on a fun phase in my life.

Treehouse: Under construction.

There is a claw machine store near our school (stores like that is just everywhere), and there is just one machine in particular that William really fancies. It is always filled with little figurines of the Lego people and a type of sticker you can collect. Once you collect all the stickers required, you would get a set of Legos that can be built into lands like some surface of a planet and so on, and William, as mentioned, it all crazy about that stuff. Every single time he walks by he would be lured inside and spend some shiny and round ten NT dollars, trying to collect and build up his own Lego empire.

Maybe I can go buy some Legos to make up for the lost childhood. :D

Extra: A while after the Legos, just ten minutes prior to the dinner, Aiden just decided to go 'Elsa' on himself and took all the plastic accessories of his sister.

'Have to... rock.. the Elsa look', one imaginary line that was not really spoken by Aiden.

This is all for today.

Summer Vacation Day 47: Water and Wood-patterned Plastic Floorboard

Hello, Tim!

It was another school-less day!

8/16, Thursday

At noon, Mom was doing the dishes. There were just a few plates, for there were only two people. Then, something off happened.

Mom noticed water coming up from the floorboards by the sink, and it was not good news. Before we moved here, the floors were the basic white ceramic tiles that were apparently old. That was why we decided to lay another layer of wood-patterned plastic floorboard above it- It was the most economical option to get to the objective. One ‘minor’ drawback of this kind of floor was that it is not water-resistant. Once the water finds its way under the planks, it would make the glue lose its force, and eventually destabilize the plank.

I went over to the sink by my mother’s side, and I knelt down to check the floor. The rows of planks closer to the sink were soaked with water! We didn’t know where the leak was from, and Mom almost panicked.

We check the pipes that were linked to the kitchen sink, which could be found just inside the cupboard beneath the sink. It was dark in the cupboard, so Mom reached her hand into the cupboard, and her hand came back wet.

We found the cause of the problem and now was the time to solve it. Mom called a plumber, and when we came and examined the drains, he said that it was clogged.

He fixed the clogging with a machine he took with him, and I guess it was the end of our drainpipe episode.

What about eh dislocated planks?

Mom later asked the people who help us with the planks in the first place, and he said he could fix it, but it would have to wait until next Saturday.

This is all for today.

Summer Vacation Day 46: La pendaison de crémaillère and a Good Time

Hello, Tim!

Random fact: house-warming party, in French, pendaison de crémaillère, basically means ‘hanging of the chimney hook’. The Net told me that it was an expression from the Medieval times.

8/15, Wednesday

Today, our math classes took up only the first two hours since eight in the morning, so we were free starting at ten o’clock. A pack of my classmates started packing right away, and the group included Cathy, Candy, Melody, Selena, Sherry, and Angela. We were we headed for?

My house! It was my house-warming party with friends!

Pre-Party group photo!

We took the bus to a nearby station, made a detour to an arcade in a cinema. Meanwhile, Melody ordered pizza online.

I have always dreamed about this, not particularly a house-warming party, but at least for once, I want to invite my friends over to my place, and just have fun and treat them all like a good host would be. I know that sounds like I was hosting to impress, but I really like the feeling of tending to other’s needs, and holding a small party gave me the perfect reason to do so.

I led all the girls into our humble place, and they just kept saying that this wasn’t what they expected to see. Well, maybe except for Angela and Melody, who had been here already. Twice. In fact, as soon as Melody got into my house, she laid all her things on the couch, and dialed a friend, slouched on our couch, and started talking about a senior we saw on the way home. When it comes to making some place her own house, Melody nailed the job impeccably. On the other hand, Angela called herself a tour guide while leading the others into my bedroom.

Candy, who was impressed by my just-moved-in clean bedroom, said that she never expected my house to be so neat (‘What happened to you at school? Your desk at school is like a dumpster,’ she added.) She even asked if I would mind her taking pictures! Cathy said that she thought that I have fewer books than she'd imagined, which slightly ‘offended’ me, and I quickly explained that there

About ten minutes into the ‘tour’ and the ‘sightseeing’, the buzzer to the door, well, buzzed, meaning the pizza was here. We got two large and two smalls, all in exotic flavors like kimchi and cream sauce with seafood. Someone turned on the television and turned to a volleyball replay. Half of the girls groaned in disdain but watched on anyway.

I should explain. Today was also the championship and the competition between the third place of the Asian Men’s Volleyball Cup. Yesterday, Team Taiwan, or Chinese Taipei competed against Iran and lost, and the replay on the TV was the very game. Today, our national team would be fighting for the third place against Japan, and some girls present would be watching the game at the arena, which was conveniently located in a ten-minute walking distance.

Somewhere in the middle of the game, the lock of the door clicked, and Mom was back from her sister’s quality time at Eliza’s because someone was here to make measurements for our to-be-made curtains. After everything was done, she said at the doorway that she would be back soon to grab something, and she would be out of our hair for the rest of our afternoon.

After the heartbreaking replay of the volleyball game, we turned off the TV and started studying for a while. Melody took a nap, lying on the couch while Sherry was next to her, just chilling out. Melody woke up and switched place with Candy, who was just sitting at the desk, studying.

About another hour had passed, and I got a text from William, asking if the others were still at my place. I did invite William to the party, but he said that he wanted to stay at school and finish his homework first. I told him to call me if he finished his stuff and still wanted to come. I was almost absolutely sure that he wouldn’t be coming then, so it really surprised me that I was even getting a text from him.

William entered the house, and the first thing he said was, ‘Your house is quite small.’ I yelled at him for being so rude, but we all knew it wasn’t serious; he's always saying the first several things that came to his mind, albeit sometimes exasperatingly blunt and thoughtless, and I always chastise him for it.

There were only seven of us at first, so we have plenty of pizza left. William then sprawled on the couch and just started watching telly and munching on pizzas.

And the prize for the runnerup of the 'Make Yourself at Home Award' goes to...

Cathy then launched a very simple but unexpectedly laugh-provoking party game in which you put on your earphones and blast some music with such high a volume that you can't even hear the others shouting. (Kids, it does sound fun, but it impairs your hearing, so, be careful.)

Caution: Hearing damage; do not play on a regular basis.

The others without earphones come up with a sentence, and by mouthing the words to the contestants, they have to figure out what the sentence was.

In this game, things just kept happening, things that set us into a cacophony of cackles. For starters, Sherry spoke in the loudest voice we ever heard her. Maybe she didn't know that she was talking so loudly because her hearing was blocked; then Sherry and Selena, both with ears plugged, had an exchange of conversation that is managed through loud-shouting and lips reading- It was hilarious.

This went on for another thirty minutes or so, and the girls were off for the volleyball game. Soon, it was just William and me left in my house. We just sat on the couch, him watching a movie on TV and me typing another entry for my blog. Then we started chatting, (smaller voice) mostly about his love life (cue the smirks). I think he is my best male friend in high school at this point. He has been around for the longest, and at times, he can be considerate and goofily cute. There was actually one time we took the metro back home (same direction) when we were talking heatedly about English accents and somewhere in between, we just started talking entirely in English. Later that evening, I got a message from Cathy asking if William and I were chatting in English on the metro. She said that she had her informant (which, I later found out, was her mother). 

A while after that, even William left. He needed to go to his cram school, and that meant I would be home alone for a couple of hours. I started to clean up the little sesame that was missed when we all helped clean up before the girls left, and I thought to myself:

I did the job as a host quite successfully, didn’t I?

This is all for today.

(p.s. Unfortunately, Taiwan lost to Japan, but they were very close to winning. Good game! Fourth place was the best yet, from what I heard from the other classmates.)

Summer Vacation Day 45: Too Sleepy to Think and Math

Hello, Tim!

Today was basically a whole day involving math.

Boom goes my head.

8/14, Tuesday

Our classes at school was ten to twelve today, and that granted me a very well-rested sleep.

However, the energy charged was not enough to fuel me for two whole hours of brain working and number cracking.

I went back home on the bus with Allison as soon as school ended, and I had to immediately start with the homework my math tutor assigned me. I could feel the brain cells dying  in my head (exaggeration).

Guess what? It was Tuesday, tutor Tuesday. I had to leave home once again at five to catch the metro back to Xindian, to have a quick meal, and to take another one and a half hour of math class.

I need a break.

This is all for today.

Summer Vacation Day 44: Kids and School

Hello, Tim!

This is the second last week of our precious summer break, yet we still have classes to attend to…

8/13, Monday

Today was a free day, though. This week, we only have classes on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, each with only a two-hour math class.

I woke up with a yawn, knowing that it was already well past nine o’clock.

I tidied up my room a bit, for there was a scheduled house-warming party planned among some of my classmates, which will be held on Wednesday, and I certainly wanted to wow the people, didn’t I?

In the afternoon, after the usual pouring rain had stopped, Mom and I set off for Sophie and Aiden, who would be ‘discharged’ from the English cram school they both go to after school after five.

When we got to cram school, the children’s mother (who is basically my cousin) was also there waiting. I apologized to her for hitting her son a few days ago (let the bygones be bygones, please. I felt bad enough), and she seemed pretty cool about it.

Sophie and Aiden were both wearing the P.E uniforms of their new school, Daoming. The uniforms of their current looked way cuter than those from their previous school.

Sophie is now a third grader (who is still very disobedient and disrespectful) while Aiden is still a kid in kindergarten (with a strength of a third-grade and up), and on the (five-minute walk) back to their house, they kept finishing the other’s sentence as they blabbered about the small store they have at school and the little cheap snacks they sell. Kids just get this gleam in their eyes when they are talking about snacks.

It was just so cute.

This is all for today.

Summer Vacation Day 43: Rain and Chair

Hello, Tim!

It’s Sunday. The most thrilling thing of the day was…

A chair.

8/12, Sunday

This morning, like any regular Sundays, is math tutor time.

Since my new home is just too far out of reach for my teacher, who lives near to my previous place, we now had to arrange meetings at McDonald’s every time for classes.

To be honest, I like the studying environment in McDonald’s more than that in my house because when in a solitude of the house, you don’t have a lot of things to pay mind to during classes. That normally means that you get to be more focused, but in my case, I would be even more distracted. I don’t like it when my surroundings are too simple. When people are talking around me, with the clings of bottles and the crumpling of papers, I won’t feel the need to doze off. If the change of venue of courses means anything, I think I would be able to concentrate more.

An hour after leaving Xindian, I was back in Shilin (where my current house is located in.) These days, the rains were just relentless, especially in the afternoons. The rain, as I walked out of the metro station, was just a little drizzle, like small needles piercing through the air occasionally. I reached into my bag and grabbed my umbrella, just barely in time to meet… the downpour. THAT really escalated quickly, as the velocity of the drop-shaped rain was able to rebound from the ground and hit the fabric of my pants. It was such a decision of foresight that I bring my umbrella with me whenever I go out these days.

It was pouring,

After I got home, my mom and I started setting up the chair we got from IKEA yesterday. We spent twenty minutes, not to figure out the manual of the chair, but just to figure out how exactly we were supposed to use the tools in our toolbox. We knew how to put up the chair like it was supposed to but without a proper tool. We do have a wrench, but the toolbox didn’t come with a user’s manual, and the one we had does not look like a regular wrench, so we had no idea how to screw the nuts and bolts together.

This is a shopping that ended us up with two packages of cookies and a chair.

Mom then took out another tool from our drawer, a small oval-shaped object with a variety of folded tools. Mom gave up on figuring that out. There apparently was a part that is designed for different sized of nuts and bolts, but it wasn’t until another ten minutes had passed had I finally understood the correct use of the simplified wrench. As it turned out, the one small object proved itself far more useful than the whole box of tools.

It had been fun, though

Is the more always the merrier?

Sometimes one can make a party just fine.

Extra: Mom mopping the floor.

This is all for today.

Summer Vacation Day 42: IKEA and Awestruck

Hello, Tim!

It’s IKEA shopping day!

8/11, Saturday

This evening, my uncle took me and my mother to IKEA for furniture shopping, specifically for a desk to put in my study, and a shelf to fit more books in.

The IKEA we went to was visibly large! I would say the exterior of the building has the size of a regular department store, but the whole building, in this case, is for IKEA alone!

The parking was on the underground floor, but when we took the ascending escalator, expecting to start from the first floor, only to find that there was only one path you can take after you got off the escalator: Another escalator towards the second floor. This kept happening until we got to the supposed top floor. That was the moment we walked into the realm of fancy and gorgeous household objects and all the furniture that is designed to make you drool.

The top floor was the best. Upon entrance, you are greeted with a wide path with rooms on both sides. Every room was a unique style of housing design, all featuring the pieces of goods you can find and purchase in IKEA. I think it is a very clever trick played on the customers (including us), for this placement of the items they offer, particularly the large furniture is very different from the traditional furniture stores where they put different furniture in different sections. By putting it the way IKEA did, you could see that it was a clear presentation of how their own brand of stuff, how the furniture of theirs interact with each other. You won’t have to imagine how well this couch would go with that end table, and whether the white shelves with glass door look nice for the light brown wooden floor; you can just see for yourselves. They also have those affordable designs of daily objects or indoors decorations like hooks that can be hanged on walls and those plasma TV-sized photographies of the Eiffel Tower. We all know that the place was designed with a one-way road for the purpose of making you have a look at all the things they offer, but we willingly trekked down the aisle, stopped time after time to marvel at something we would want for our house.

Clean and modern. A whole set of IKEA items.

This is it. This is the place I want to live in. No kidding.

Sleek black design. (And a tired kid whom I don't know at the right bottom)

We soon found a table I want to serve as my desk, a dark one with a sturdy metal structure. Picking out the shelves was a tougher task. There were just too many kinds to choose from! The colors, the material, etc. And given that I already have a bookshelf at home, I also have to think what kind of the second bookshelf I should choose so that it would not look weird when put together with the first shelf. I ended up choosing a dark-colored wooden bookshelf that is under the design name Billy. Now, Billy has the similar color to my current bookshelf, so that it wouldn’t seem weird if you put the two together. Secondly, it has enough space for plenty of books. It has the height, the sturdiness, and the best of all, there are optional doors you can add to it. This is the first among the most important criteria I was looking for in a bookshelf. Doors mean that there is a lower chance for dust gaining on books, reducing the frequency of needing to tend to the books. Having a glass layer on the top half of the door ensures the magnificent view even without opening them, and the wooden part at the bottom makes it look more balanced. This is the one, I said to Billy. See? You don’t even have to think of a name for it; It already has one!

(I can't believe I forgot to take a picture of Billy; Don't worry. We'll have plenty of chance to introduce him in the future.)

This is the innovative transforming lampshade! I loved it!!!

It took us seconds to understand how purchases are made here in IKEA. First, you remember all the IDs of the items you want to buy. Then you go to the first or second floor of the building and collect the items according to their systematic placements. Wagons are provided so you won’t have to worry about not being able to drag your TV stand around. You bring all your boxed goods to the checkout counter, and cha-ching! Your purchase is made. You don’t have a truck of your own to take your things home? Glad to be of service! Take your items downstairs and you will see a counter that handles your delivery needs. See? Nice service!

Every item has its unique ID. 

We started looking for Billy and the table and a chair (for my desk), but we were missing Billy’s doors. I checked with one of the clerks over there, only to find that the doors were out of stock. They don’t have a thing called pre-order, meaning that we either come back when the stocks are refilled, or we pay two times of delivery fee. I brought cookies and the chair to the check-out counter eventually, leaving the other much bulkier things behind (I’ll be back for you, Billy and Table)

We stacked up all these, only to find out we would have to do the same again next time.

This is the story of how we spent almost two hours in IKEA but ended up with only two packs of cookies and a chair. I remember the first time I went to an IKEA restaurant where everything is self-served. It got my eyes opened gapingly wide, and this experience with IKEA, too, showed me a different color of living here, on Earth. (Okay. That was a bit dramatic.)

This is all for today.