Year Three, Almost Free 8: Hundred Days and a Birthday (that was not Mine)

Hello Tim!

This week, we were touched by the number of days left before our GSAT takes place.

There are less than a hundred days left.

In Retrospect......

Current days of intense studying brought up memories about three years ago. I was still a middle schooler, supposedly preparing my high school entrance exams. Let me say that again, with an obvious emphasis on the word “supposedly,”  for I really wasn’t. Even up until the impending and possibly dreadful thirty-day countdown, I was sitting at the desk, playing computer games, singing along with the music I was playing (I could still remember which songs I had played the most often right then) and staying up until at least three in the morning watching American TV shows. Those were some atrociously corroding and decadent days stuck in the swamp of the Internet and the devices that came with it. With the neglecting attitude I held, I would say that I deserved worse scores. I didn’t get into my first and second most wanted school, only to become a student in ZZSH (which later proves to be one of the best decisions I have made in my life) I recalled the 70% distant and upset, 30% true concern tone of my mother when I called her at school to inform her about the score I ended up with.

Come to think of it, entering EHP could easily be interpreted as a second chance. Although I haven’t really fit into the descriptions of a diligent student in the past two years, with slight improvements made day by day, I’m determined to move toward it.

Matriochka: A Word That Now Means More To me than just a Russian Doll

I’m not sure if any of you remembered my entry about the French duo Fréro Delavega and their woeful separation that broke hearts of countless fans (add me into the crowd), but while one of them left the media for personal issues, the other half of the Fréros stayed active. Just recently, on October 12th, Jérémy Frérot released his solo album, Matriochka. The word (which can also be spelled as 'Matryoshka') originally meant a specific sort of Russian dolls, predominantly carved out of wood, and when you open it, you will find a smaller version of the doll (often with the exact same design), snugged girly with the previous and bigger, hollower one. You open the one found inside and would not be surprised to find a similar pattern. You might end up with six or five of the said wooden dolls.

Russian dolls

The prelude of this album of Jérémy was entitled, “Ouvre cette poupée ”, which is easily translated into “open this doll”.

The music sounded, and when the voice of the chanteur chimes in, the silky voice that we have all been waiting for, sang:

« Ouvre cette poupée

Qui est le messager

D’une autre poupée... »

(Open this doll

The herald of

Another doll)

I finished listening to the whole album, deliberately spent two days on it. Some of the songs included inside were in resonance with some of my heartstrings and when his voice plucked them, I couldn’t help but writhing in my bed, mentally doing happy dances while relishing in the fact that I have the CD with me, forever.

From the time I had spent on finding a way to buy the album online, I would say the only way to get an album of a French singer not really well-known in Taiwan is to resort to Amazon.com. It took me a great deal of time pondering, whether to buy the album even if the shipping fee was more expensive than the album itself, but now I knew that I won’t regret the choice.

J'aime.

Braces Off!

From the straightforward title, you can tell what this entry is about.

After four inexplicably long years, I finally had my braces taken off! I have to state that it wasn’t my idea to go through this treatment in the first place, despite my full acknowledgment on how crooked and unruly my teeth were. I didn’t know the procedure was so long as it reaches back four years; I thought it was just two and a half years or so. The first week wearing the braces, though, is something that was ingrained deep to my long-term memory. I was throwing a tantrum for I constantly felt the iron-grip metal clasps clung to my teeth as if there was instant glue attached (wait, it WAS some sort of instant glue, I think) and it was the last thing I would describe comfortable, with it pushing and urging my teeth to stand upright and stay in line. There was a meal, with the hotdog bread and clam chowder we bought from Costco. I cut the bread into morsels able to fit in my mouth, which, by the way, was plagued with dull, throbbing pain that was apparently not caused by cavities. The bread was dipped into the chowder soup, all softer than tofu at the point, but my teeth still gave in, reiterating their protests when they surrendered to the meal that was mostly fluids at the point. It was frustrating. Dinner that day took place at my Grandma’s, with plates that are filled with some of my favorite Grandma’s signature dishes. It was the day I learned what an actual tantalization meant: It’s right in front of you, the things you wanted most at the moment, but no, sorry, sir, you just can’t have them.

I am glad that they are now off, as now I can lick at my teeth as much as I want to, and it wouldn’t be met with any scraping or pointy metal pieces that could easily cut into my tongue. Still, it was still a bit disconcerting and made me unaccustomed to my teeth now, because now I can lick at my teeth as much as I want to, and it wouldn’t be met with any scraping or metal pieces that could easily cut into my tongue. As liberating as it is, I still need some time to get used to this “new set” of teeth I was bestowed upon.

This toothy adventure is not yet over, though!

Next Monday, I have another appointment with a dentist for two things: I have several minor cavities to fix, and I have to go fetch my retainers. The latter said item spells another year of awkward encounters with people. I will have to keep the retainers on for 24/7 for a whole year (except meal time) until I can reduce the time needed to bedtimes. I’ll decide if it’s also a torture after I have them on.

Mom’s Birthday

This Thursday was my mother’s birthday, though a dinner celebrating the day was the day before that. As the whole universe should be well-informed, we students are less than a hundred days before our GSAT, so I really didn’t have much time to plan for Mom’s day of birth. I wound up calling the power of my friends for help. Being an absolute idiot on any sort of handicraft, I asked Allison for help with the card itself. I printed some pictures of my mom, eating melted chocolate off a sheet of a baking sheet (DON’T TELL HER I WROTE THIS DOWN IN MY BLOG. SHE MOST DEFINITELY WILL KILL ME,) and there was also a picture of her knitting, another one featured her trying on the shawl she just finished knitting.

 I cut them out, now without the usual background, and I pasted the pictures onto the card Allison promptly made and then wrote some silly texts next to them. It was a three-paged card, and I asked Angela, Selena, and Melody to write something on it. They all have seen my mom for a time or two, and they were willing to offer some greetings and congratulations.

Mom.

I asked William to draw something for my mom, and he decided to draw one of her. The outcome was… Well, he wasn’t trying to ruin it or anything, but it was just… not like her, and whether to give it to her or not made me numb of anything else for at least an hour.

My mother could easily rise up to the top hundred mothers in the world, while she is and will always be my #1 mom in the world because she is my mom and she loves me and I her.

She had quite a severe cold these days, and I really wished she would have to go through all that. The tears I saw streaking down her face when she also read the words from Melody and Angela, accompanied by Selena’s ‘Happy Birthday’ and a sketch was priceless. She then looked at the portrait of her by William, choked and went into a peal of laughter which was followed by several coughs and even more laughter. The worried scowl on my face melted into relief and joined in the laughter. I was just worried that she might react badly when she saw it.

I was just being paranoid, as it turned out.

End

This is it for this week. I need to go now, go back into the sessions of studies, however reluctantly.

Extra: CPR lessons at school. Modeling: Candy and Cathy

Cracking the hard nut of geography today.

Had a luscious and beautiful sesame cake to compensate for the loss of brain cells.

Sincerely,

Hugo